'I knocked,' Alan said. 'I guess you didn't hear me. Since you're not supposed to leave the apartment, I wondered if something had happened to you.' Alan seemed less nervous now that he'd come up with a believable cover story. He gestured with growing confidence. 'That injury to your head. Maybe you'd hurt it again. Maybe you'd slipped in the shower or something. So I decided to let myself in and check. I debrief operatives here a lot, so I always have a key.'

'I guess I ought to be flattered that you care.'

'Hey, you're not the easiest guy to get along with.' Alan rubbed his right elbow. 'But I do my job and look after the people assigned to me.'

'Listen,' Buchanan said. 'About what happened in the car this morning. I'm sorry.'

Alan shrugged.

'A lot's been happening. I guess I'm having trouble getting used to not being under pressure.'

Again Alan shrugged. 'Understandable. Sometimes an operative still feels the pressure even when it's gone.'

'Speaking of which.'

'What?'

'Pressure.'

Buchanan felt it in his abdomen. He pointed toward the bathroom, went in, shut the door, and emptied his bladder.

He assumed that the bathroom, like the other rooms in the apartment, would have a needle-nosed camera concealed in a wall. But whether he was being observed while he urinated made no difference to him. Even if he had felt self-conscious, he would never have permitted himself to show it.

And even if his bladder hadn't insisted, he would still have gone into the bathroom.

As a diversion.

Because he needed time to be away from Alan. He needed time to think.

13.

Here's the postcard I never thought I'd send. I hope you meant your promise. The last time and place. Counting on you. PLEASE.

Buchanan stepped from the bathroom, its toilet flushing. 'Last night you mentioned something about R and R.'

Alan squinted, suspicious. 'That's right.'

'Well, you call this being on R and R? Being caged in here?'

'I told you Don Colton's supposed to be invisible. If you start wandering in and out, the neighbors will think you're him, and when the next Don Colton shows up, they'll get suspicious.'

'But what if I'm out of here? Me. Buchanan. A furlough. I haven't had one in eight years. Who'd notice? Who'd care?'

'Furlough?'

'Under my own name. Might do me some good to be myself for a change.'

Alan cocked his head, squinting, nonetheless betraying his interest.

'Next week, I'm supposed to go back to that doctor,' Buchanan said. 'By then, maybe your people and the colonel will have decided what to do with me.'

'I don't have the authority to make that decision alone.'

'Talk with the colonel,' Buchanan said.

Alan continued to look interested. 'Where would you go? Since you don't have a passport, it can't be out of the country.'

'I wouldn't want to leave the country anyhow. Not that far. South. New Orleans. Two days from now is Halloween. A person can have a damned good time in New Orleans on Halloween.'

'I heard that,' Alan said. 'In fact, I heard that a person can have a damned good time in New Orleans anytime.'

Buchanan nodded. His request would be granted.

But he wouldn't be going as himself.

No way, he thought.

He'd be stepping back six years.

He'd be reinventing himself to be the person he was then. A hundred lifetimes ago.

A once-happy man who liked jazz, mint juleps, and red beans with rice.

A charter pilot named Peter Lang who'd had the tragic love affair of his life.

14.

Here's the postcard I never thought I'd send.

SEVEN.

1.

Pilots - especially when being a pilot is not their true occupation and they need to establish an assumed identity - ought to fly. Instead Buchanan-Lang took the train to New Orleans.

That method of travel had several advantages. One was that he found it relaxing. Another was that it was private inasmuch as he'd been able to get a sleeper compartment. Still another was that it took a while, filling the time. After all, he didn't have anything to do until Halloween the next evening. Certainly he could have spent the day sight-seeing in New Orleans. But the fact was, he was quite familiar with New Orleans, its docks, the French Quarter, the Garden District, Lake Pontchartrain, Antoine's restaurant, Preservation Hall, and most of all, the exotic cemeteries. Peter Lang had a fascination with exotic cemeteries. He visited them whenever he could. Buchanan didn't allow himself to analyze the implications.

However, the major reason for taking the train instead of flying was that there wasn't any metal detector and X-ray security at train stations. Thus he could bring the Beretta 9-millimeter pistol that Jack Doyle had given him in Fort Lauderdale. It was wedged between two shirts and two changes of underwear, along with Victor Grant's passport, next to the toilet kit in the small, canvas, travel bag that Buchanan had been carrying with him since Florida. As his confusion about his employers and about himself continued to aggravate him, he was grateful that he'd lied about the passport and that he hadn't told anyone about the handgun. The passport and the gun gave him options. They allowed him potential freedom. That he'd never before lied to a debriefer should perhaps have troubled him. It should perhaps have warned him that he was more disturbed than he realized, that the blow to his head had been more serious than he knew. But as he sat next to the window of his locked compartment, listening to the clack-clack-clack of the wheels on the rails, watching the brilliant autumn colors of the Virginia countryside, he persistently rubbed his aching head and was grateful that he hadn't tried to conceal the handgun somewhere in Don Colton's apartment. If he had, the cameras would have exposed him. As it was, his story had evidently been convincing. Otherwise his controllers wouldn't have given him money as well as ID in his real name and then have allowed him to take this brief trip.

He'd bought a paperback novel before boarding the train at Washington's Union Station, but he barely glanced at it while the train continued south. He just kept massaging his forehead, partially because of pain and partially because of concentration, while he stared out the window at intermittent towns and cities, hills and farmland.

Peter Lang. He had to remember everything about him. He had to become Peter Lang. Pretending to be a pilot wasn't a problem, for Buchanan was a pilot. It was one of several skills that he'd acquired while he was being trained. Almost without exception, the occupations he pretended to have were occupations with which his employers had arranged to give him some familiarity. In a few cases, he had genuine expertise.