Ah, Alan thought, there it is. We’re finally getting to it. He gestured toward the sentries. “Are you sure you want to talk about something so serious in front of-?”
“They’re loyal,” the colonel said.
“Just like Buchanan.”
“No one’s questioning Buchanan’s loyalty. It wasn’t his fault that he was compromised. There was absolutely no way to predict that someone he knew in Kuwait and Iraq would walk into that restaurant in Cancun while he was making his pitch to those two drug dealers. The worst nightmare of a deep-cover specialist-one identity colliding with another. And there was no way to predict that Bailey would be so damned persistent, that he’d put together evidence showing Buchanan in three different identities. Jesus, the photographs. If only the son of a bitch hadn’t started taking photographs.”
Especially of you and Buchanan together, Alan thought.
What the colonel said next seemed in response to the accusing look in Alan’s eyes. “I admit the mistake. That’s why I sent you to interrogate him. I will never again allow myself to be in direct contact with him. But as it is, the damage is done, and your people made mistakes, too. If there’d been time in Fort Lauderdale, I’d have brought in one of my own surveillance teams. Instead, I had to rely on. . Your people assured me that they’d found Bailey’s hotel room and confiscated all the photographs.”
“That was my information, as well,” Alan said.
“The information was wrong. No photographs of Buchanan and myself were retrieved. And before Bailey could be interrogated, the bomb concealed in the picnic cooler was detonated.”
“Those were the orders,” Alan insisted. “The location transmitter in the wall of the cooler would lead the team to Bailey when Buchanan delivered the money. Then the C-four explosive that was also in the walls of the cooler would be detonated by remote control. Bailey wouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
“You’re simplifying to excuse failure. The specific orders were to wait in case Bailey rendezvoused with the woman photographer who was helping him. The C-four was chosen because it was a convenient means to take care of both of them.”
“In case they met,” Alan emphasized. “But what if Bailey had already paid her off and wouldn’t be seeing her again? Or what if Bailey took the money and abandoned the cooler?”
“Then you admit your people disobeyed orders by acting prematurely.”
Alan didn’t reply.
“Well?” the colonel asked.
“The truth is, no one disobeyed. The bomb went off on its own.”
“On its. .?”
“The expert who assembled the bomb thought he’d set the remote-controlled detonator to a radio frequency that wasn’t used in the area. In fact, it had to be triggered by two different, uncommon radio frequencies, one to arm it, one to set it off. All those boats at Fort Lauderdale. All those two-way radios. Apparently there aren’t any uncommon frequencies down there.”
“Jesus,” the colonel said. “The bomb could have gone off while Buchanan had it, before he gave the cooler to Bailey.”
“I don’t know why that should bother you. You were just talking about the possibility of having Buchanan terminated.”
The colonel looked puzzled. Then abruptly he understood. “Terminated without prejudice. What’s the matter with you? Do you think I’d actually order the death of one of my men, an officer who served me faithfully for many years?”
“Whether he’s faithful hasn’t been proven.” Alan pointed toward one of the many television screens, toward the black-and-white image of Buchanan slumped on the sofa, his eyes closed, troubled, the moisture-beaded glass of bourbon and water held to his wrinkled brow. “I’m not convinced he was truthful when I talked to him.”
“About the passport?”
“I wasn’t referring to the passport. The postcard. That’s what bothers me. I think he held back. I think he lied to me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I’m not sure. But by your own admission, he’d been working under cover, in multiple identities, for an unusual amount of time. He endured a great deal of physical trauma in Mexico. His head obviously still hurts. Maybe he’s about to fall apart. There are pictures of you and him that we can’t locate. As well, there’s a woman who saw Bailey with Buchanan and you with Buchanan. A lot of loose ends. If Buchanan is compromised, if he does fall apart, well, we obviously don’t need another Hasenfus on our hands.”
Alan was referring to an ex-Marine named Eugene Hasenfus who in 1986 was shot down while flying arms to U.S.-backed Contra rebels in Marxist Nicaragua. When questioned by Nicaraguan authorities, Hasenfus implicated the CIA and caused a political scandal that revealed a secret White House-directed war in Nicaragua. Because intermediaries had been used to hire Hasenfus, the CIA could plausibly deny any connection to him. Nonetheless, congressional and media attention directed toward the Agency had been potentially disastrous.
“Buchanan would never talk,” the colonel said. “He’d never violate our security.”
“That’s probably what someone said about Hasenfus when he was hired.”
“It’ll never come to that,” the colonel said. “I’ve made my decision. I’m putting Buchanan on inactive status. We’ll ease him out slowly so he doesn’t have culture shock. Or maybe he’ll agree to become a trainer. But his days of deep cover are over.”
“Tomorrow, when he’s taken for a new CAT scan. .”
“What are you getting at?” the colonel asked.
“I’d like to have sodium amytal administered to him and then have him questioned about that postcard,” Alan said.
“No.”
“But-”
“No,” the colonel repeated. “He’s my operative, and I know how he’d react if you used drug therapy to question him. He’d feel threatened, insulted, betrayed. Then we would have a problem. The fastest way to make a man disloyal is by treating him as if he’s disloyal.”
“Then I insist on at least keeping him under surveillance,” Alan said. “There’s something about him that bothers me. And I’m still bugged about that postcard.”
“Keeping him under surveillance?” The colonel shrugged and turned toward the television monitors, watching the black-and-white image of Buchanan slumped on the sofa, his eyes scrunched shut as if he had a headache, the glass of bourbon against his brow. “I don’t have a problem with that. After all, that’s what we’re already doing.”
8
Caught in limbo but not realizing it, Buchanan hadn’t been conscious of being called by his real name when the portly man in the brown-checkered sport coat had questioned him the previous night. But as soon as the man had drawn attention to what he’d been doing, as soon as Buchanan realized that he was suspended between identities, he became extremely self-conscious about his name. He was so thorough an impersonator that seldom in the past eight years had he thought of himself as Buchanan. To do so would have been incompatible with his various assumed identities. He didn’t just pretend to be those people. He was those people. He had to be. The slightest weakness in his characterization could get him killed. For the most part, he’d so thoroughly expunged the name Buchanan from his awareness that if someone had attempted to test him by unexpectedly calling his name from behind him, he wouldn’t have turned. Habit would not have controlled him. The name would have belonged to a stranger.