“He’s changed. You’ll see that yourself.”
Gilbert clicked on the red button to terminate the call and did a quick search on the Internet for flights to Istanbul. He didn’t want a direct flight. He suspected that McIntosh might be looking for their next move. With a new ID, it would make his job harder, but, if they were picked up on security cameras at Heathrow, he at least wanted to make them think he was traveling somewhere on the continent and not to Istanbul. He picked a flight through Zurich with a long layover that put them in Istanbul at six am the next morning. Then, he checked seat availability. There were still fifteen seats left. All he could do was hope that they didn’t sell out. It was impossible to reserve a seat without ID.
He grabbed his bag and left the Internet café, turning right as he left the door. He walked two blocks, took another right and crossed the street. The express parcel delivery office was smaller than he expected. The lady at the counter greeted him without looking up from her computer.
“How can I help you?”
“I need to send a letter to DC. Can you guarantee delivery of the letter on Monday?”
“That’s why we’re called ‘express’ delivery.”
CHAPTER
39
D
ALLAS
Gwyn stared at the passport Zeki had just thrown in front of her.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said incredulously. “You want me to travel on a man’s passport?”
“Unless you’ve got a better idea. I don’t have friends here like I do in London. We’re going to have to make do with what we’ve got. We’ll replace my picture with one of you in short hair, no make-up and some more masculine attire. It’s not difficult really.”
“And what about these?” she said, indicating her breasts. “Aren’t these sort of a dead giveaway?”
“Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that,” said Zeki. “I don’t suppose wearing a heavy jacket in August would work, would it.”
“Well, if you want to attract attention, it would work fine.” She thought for a moment. “I could wear a running bra to flatten my chest as much as possible and claim to be in the middle of a sex change if it causes a problem,” she suggested with the hint of a smile.
“Not a bad idea. ID engineering is not my specialty, and I don’t have the equipment to do something from scratch.”
Gwyn picked up the passport and looked at it more closely. It was Ukrainian with the typical royal blue cover.
“I don’t know a word of Russian. If you had a French passport, I could probably be convincing to a Turk.”
“I do have a French passport, and an Italian one, and…” Zeki stopped. “I suppose your strawberry blonde hair, white skin and pretty green eyes would raise some eyebrows on an Iranian passport.” His eyes were twinkling and a broad smile lit up his face. “But unless you want to be pulled aside by a customs officer for travelling on a fake passport, you had better use the Ukrainian one. The others are biometric, you see.”
“Oh right,” said Gwyn, looking slightly embarrassed. “I forgot that all of the EU countries have chips with your picture and fingerprints conveyed
electronically to the passport reader before you even get to passport control.”
“A Ukrainian passport is best. The security features are not quite as technologically advanced so it is easier for me to change the picture with simple equipment and the biometric feature is not yet mandatory.”
Gwyn turned to the mirror and looked down at the scissors Zeki held in his hand. With a sigh of resignation, she sat down in the chair he had brought into the bathroom.
“Snip away,” she said. “But leave it as long as you think we can get away with. It took me three years to grow it out like I wanted it.”
“I’ll do my best,” replied Zeki, “But, this isn’t going to be a work of art.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” she said dejectedly.
He continued, “If we want to catch the flight tomorrow, we have a lot to do. We still have to find a place to get your picture taken and then doctor your passport.”
><><><
L
ONDON
Gary stood in front of the mirror in the men’s room at Paddington station, watching his brother behind him pacing back and forth in front of the stalls, checking his watch every ninety seconds. Zeki’s friend had taken their pictures, set up his equipment in the middle stall and asked them to keep watch while he produced their ID. There had been no introductions. He knew who they were and they didn’t expect him to volunteer his identity. Gary had half-expected that the man would search them, but he didn’t. Apparently, the fact that Zeki had vouched for them was good enough.
For half an hour, they had pretended to be combing their hair or washing their hands every time someone walked in, and Gilbert was starting to get nervous. He was worried that the security cameras might be monitored and that someone would grow suspicious if they saw the two of them loitering in the bathrooms.
Gary knew that wasn’t what was really eating him though. He knew his brother was revisiting every event over the last week, blaming himself for not taking this or that precaution. Now that his wife and children had been turned into collateral in a cruel twist of fate, they were all swept up in a dark and mysterious game where the only rule was staying alive, and Gil was a poor loser. Gary finally broke the silence in an effort to take his brother’s mind off of it.
“So, were you able to get in touch with Matt?”
“Yeah, he said he would meet us there tomorrow.”
“You said he resigned from State. That’s a shocker, Especially with his connections and talent. You didn’t say what he’s doing now.”
“I didn’t want to upset Gwyn. After they split up, he went into a tailspin. Apparently, some of the things she said made him take a second look at where his life was headed. A year later, he told me that he had resigned and was going to start working with a charity organization, an NGO focused on stopping the sexual exploitation of women. I was surprised, of course, but tried to be supportive. The weird part was he asked me to help him get some training in security protocols and weapons handling with one of our clients. Basically, he has turned into a bounty hunter in a crusade against human trafficking.”
“Now that’s what I call a career-killing move,” exclaimed Gary. “Are you saying that he’s gone from candidate for exploiter-in-chief as a rising star in the State Department to a gun-toting Mother Theresa?”
“Something like that,” said Gilbert.
The stall door opened, and Zeki’s friend walked out with his metal equipment case in one hand and two US passports in the other. Gilbert looked skeptical as he flipped through the blue passport and tilted it back and forth, looking for the hologram security features, examining the quality of the paper and the glaze over the picture page.
“The Lewis brothers? Dan and Duane?”
“Given your physical similarities, I thought it would be appropriate to give you the same surname.”
“You didn’t take our fingerprints. I thought the electronic passports contained digital fingerprints in addition to the digital picture. The last thing I want to do is get stopped at passport control and thrown in jail for falsifying my ID.”
The man’s faced remained completely expressionless.
“The US biometric chips do not contain fingerprints,” he replied.
Gilbert flushed, slightly embarrassed for not knowing this.
“What about the authentication codes?” he asked.
The only thing required by the American passport is Passive Authentication. The contactless smart chip that I installed meets ICAO requirements.”
Gary interrupted to head off what he sensed was an interrogation coming from Gilbert.
“Listen, we really appreciate your help. What do we owe you?”
The man looked offended. “I wouldn’t do this for any amount of money, only for
hatir
.”
“For what?” ventured Gilbert quizzically.
“I’m not sure you westerners have the concept,” the man replied dryly.
And with that, he made for the door. Gilbert started to say something, but Gary stopped him with a firm squeeze on the arm. After the door shut, he turned to his brother and asked, “Have you no concept of honor?”
Gilbert did not like the reproachful tone in his brother’s voice.
“Excuse me?”
“This man has risked his cover and maybe much more to help two total strangers because of his
hatir
for Zeki.” Gary was clearly exasperated. “The man is a professional, and here you are second-guessing his work and expertise.”
“I was just trying to . . .”
“I know,” interrupted Gary. “You were just trying to put your own fears to rest with no regard for his honor or sacrifice. Get rid of your freaking attitude. Foreigners are not slightly inferior resources to be used; they are human beings. The Turks ruled southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle East and North Africa. They turned the Mediterranean and the Black Sea into Muslim lakes for three hundred years. The decline of their Empire lasted over two hundred and fifty years, longer than America has even existed as a nation, and at their absolute lowest and weakest point in the early twentieth century, they still had the strength to defeat Britain, the world’s only super-power, forcing the British to retreat with terrible losses at Gallipoli. They deserve your respect, and if Dad were here he would tell you the same thing.”
His final words stung and Gilbert recoiled visibly at the verbal lashing. Gary knew the rebuke would hurt, but he knew Gilbert needed to have something to think about. It worked. Without a word, Gilbert stuck his passport in the side pocket of his bag, slung it over his shoulder and headed for the door. Gary followed, hoping that this little exchange wouldn’t sour their flight.
><><><
D
ALLAS
Gwyn had a window seat two rows in front of and diagonal to Zeki, who was stuck between a massive basketball player and a young mother with a two-year-old infant. She could imagine Zeki’s frustration. The man hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in who knew when, but every time she looked back, he was entertaining the toddler whose mother had gone to sleep.
All the way to the airport, Zeki had drilled Gwyn on how to control her emotions in case there was trouble at security. He did not want her to get flustered or raise suspicion. He had explained to her the signs security personnel were trained to look for: avoiding eye contact, sweating in an air-conditioned room, enlarged pupils, being over-talkative, being defensive instead of asserting her rights if challenged, excessive touching of the face . . . The list was longer than she could remember. The more time she spent with him, the more exposed she felt. He had mastered the art of reading people.
She had been deathly afraid of blowing her cover going through passport control, but she also felt guilty for lying about her identity. Somehow, he had picked up on that too and said, ‘Remember the Hebrew midwives and it will be easier for you.’ He was right. It did make it easier.
How had he known it would?
She was beginning to understand her father’s appreciation for this complex man.
Gwyn was eager to start reading the material she had downloaded on the Moriscos. She needed the distraction. She didn’t see how anything they learned could help them in their dilemma, but she had to find out what it was that drove these people to be so ruthless.
No electronic devices were allowed until they reached cruising altitude or from their stationary position in a line of 747s waiting to get airborne, so it did not look like that would happen anytime soon. The pilot had been assuring them for the last hour that they would be taking off momentarily, but finally he conceded that they might have to wait another half an hour. Everyone on the plane groaned. The air-conditioning was not keeping up with the summer heat augmented by the calories being burned by two hundred irate passengers.