Assumed Identity

Immediately they placed more salt on their hands and waited for him to do the same.

As Buchanan complied, it occurred to him that his was one of the few occupations in which the consumption of alcohol was a mandatory requirement. His opponents wouldn't trust anyone who didn't drink with them, the implication being that an abstainer had something to hide. So it was necessary to consume quantities of alcohol, for the purpose of gaining trust from those opponents. By vigilant practice, Buchanan had learned the limit of his tolerance for alcohol, just as he'd learned how believably to pretend that he'd exceeded that tolerance and to convince his opponents that he was drunk and hence saying the truth.

The narrow-faced twins raised their second glass of tequila, clearly expecting Buchanan to do the same. Their dark eyes glowed with the anticipation that he would soon lose control and reveal a weakness.

'You were saying,' the first twin said,'that you suspect the loyalty of our associates because you used to belong to.'

5

'The Drug Enforcement Administration,' Buchanan's controller had told him three months earlier. They'd sat opposite each other in the living room of the safe-site apartment in the sprawling complex in Fairfax, Virginia. Between them, on the coffee table, the gray-haired controller had spread documents, the details of Buchanan's new identity, what was known in the trade as his legend. 'You have to convince your targets that you used to be a special agent for the DEA.'

Buchanan, who was already assuming the characteristics of Edward Potter, deciding how the man would dress and what foods he preferred, pressed the tips of his fingers together almost prayerlike and raised them meditatively to his chin. 'Keep talking.'

'You wanted to know your character's motivation? Well, basically he's sick of seeing the war against drug dealers turn into a joke. He thinks the government hasn't provided sufficient funds to prove that it's serious about fighting the war. He's disgusted with CIA interference whenever the DEA gets close to the really big dealers. According to your new character, those big dealers are on the CIA payroll, supplying information about the politics in the volatile Third World countries from which they get their product. So naturally the CIA clamps down on the DEA whenever one of the agency's informants steps in shit.'

'Well, that part won't be hard to fake. The CIA does have the biggest Third World dealers on its payroll,' Buchanan said.

'Absolutely. However, that's about to change. Those Third World dealers have become too smug. The information they've been supplying isn't worth squat. They think they can take the agency's money, do virtually nothing in return, and in effect give the agency the finger. Apparently they didn't learn from our invasion of Panama.'

'Of course not,' Buchanan said. 'After we grabbed Noriega, other dealers took his place. Nothing changed, except children starved to death because of the economic embargo.'

'Good. You're beginning to sound like your new personality,' Buchanan-Potter's controller said.

'Hey, I lost friends in the Panama invasion. At the start, I believed the invasion was necessary. But when I saw the pathetic follow-up -why doesn't the American government do things all the way?- I wanted to vomit.'

'Even better. You're convincing me, and I know you're acting, so obviously you've got a damned fine chance of convincing your targets.'

'But I'm not acting.'

'Buchanan, give it a rest, okay? We've got a lot of details to cover. So save your method-acting techniques until later.'

'Don't call me "Buchanan." My name is Edward Potter.'

'Sure, right, Edward. Maybe it'll give you further motivation to know that your assignment is intended to compensate for the half-hearted follow-up to what happened in Panama. Your ultimate objective is to scare the living be Jesus out of the agency's Third World drug-lord informants who still make jokes about the American lives lost in the useless invasion of Panama.'

'No. That's Buchanan's motivation. I don't want to hear that. I don't want my mind to be contaminated. Just tell me about Edward Potter. What's his motivation?'

The pallid controller lowered his head, shook it, and sighed. 'I have to tell you, Buchanan-'

'Potter.'

'-sometimes you worry me. Sometimes I think you absorb yourself too much in your assumed identities.'

'But you're not risking your ass if I forget who the hell I'm supposed to be. So don't fool with my life. From now on, talk to me with the assumption that I'm Edward Potter.'

Again the controller sighed. 'Whatever you want, Edward. Your wife divorced you because you were too devoted to your job and not enough to her and your two sons. She remarried. Because of the numerous threats you've received from drug dealers, she asked for and was granted a court order that forbids you to come anywhere near her and your children without prior approval from her and without guarantees of safety. Her new husband earns two hundred thousand a year as an owner of several health spas. You, by comparison, earn a paltry forty thousand, or rather used to earn that amount, a salary that's especially humiliating in contrast with the millions earned by the scum you arrested and saw released on bail and eventually plea-bargained to a short-term sentence in a minimum-security prison. You're convinced that if you'd accepted the bribes you were offered, your wife would have been satisfied with a new house, et cetera, and wouldn't have left you. When everything you believed in collapsed, you got pissed. You decided that by God, if you couldn't beat the drug lords, you'd join them. You'd show your fucking wife that you could earn a hundred times as much as her faggot new husband. Your dick was bigger than his.'

'Yes,' Buchanan-Potter said. 'My dick is bigger.'

The controller stared. 'Amazing.'

Buchanan-Potter's cheek muscles hardened. 'So how do I get even?'

6

'You used to be an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration? In the restaurant in Cancun's Club International, the first Hispanic twin spoke softly yet with paradoxical force. Shocked, he and his brother jerked back in their chairs.

'Take it easy,' Buchanan said. 'I'm on your side now.'

'Certainly,' the second twin said derisively. 'By all means. Of course.'

'And you truly expect us to believe this?' the first twin demanded. 'To accept that you're a defector and to trust you?'

'It's not as if I haven't made a gesture of good faith,' Buchanan said. 'That folded sheet of paper beneath your hand. If you put pressure on the Bahamian bank officials you hire to launder money, you'll find that the supposedly loyal associates I mentioned on that list all have secret, offshore bank accounts. Now I realize that graft is a way of life down here. But I think you'll agree that the amounts your supposedly loyal associates put away for a rainy day are considerably higher than payoffs and kickbacks alone would explain.'

The second twin squinted. 'Assuming for the moment that your information is correct.'

'Oh, it is. That goes without saying. After all, I'm guaranteeing it with the best collateral imaginable.'

'And what is that?' The first twin tapped his fingers on the table.