“Oh,” Mike replied.
“I spoke with Chief Adams as well,” Daria continued. “We’re at about sixty percent on small arms ammunition, one hundred percent on RPGs and have a sufficiency of grenades. He wanted me to remind you that we need more Semtek and that if we have to go into Lunari that we’re probably going to need more troops. We also need resupply on first aid equipment. And we only have sufficient rations for one day for the entire group.” She paused, looked at his expression and shrugged. “I’m trained as a secretary and manager. And my father was a colonel in the Ukrainian Army.”
Mike opened his mouth to reply, then shut it.
“Is there anything for me to do?” he asked, somewhat plaintively.
“Just sign the appropriate checks,” Daria said, smiling prettily. “Oh, and I need your passport.”
“Why?” Mike asked, pulling it out.
“We’re hoping you have all the right entry and exit stamps,” Daria replied, flipping through the passport. “And you do.”
“What’s that going to get us?” Mike asked curiously.
“Mr. Vanner thinks that he can create stamps for the rest of the passports from this,” Daria said, tucking the passport away and making a note. “We’re going to need Croatian entry and exit stamps, at the very least. And I think that’s it.”
“Are we paying you?” Mike asked incredulously.
“No, as a matter of fact. But I’m trying to help.”
“In that case, take a note to double your pay,” Mike said, smiling. “Seriously, Anastasia does some of this for me in Georgia but I could use a real assistant. And you seem to have things remarkably under control. Are you open to a job offer?”
“Does it involve shooting people?” Daria asked carefully.
“No,” Mike said, then shrugged. “I’d suggest that you take some training, purely for defense. But what I’m thinking of is what you’re doing, a personnel and logistics person for missions, assuming there are other missions, and being my personal assistant. I suspect that in Georgia you’re going to be bored, but when we’re doing things like this you sure won’t be.”
“What would something like that pay?” Daria asked carefully.
“Well, it would include room and board at the caravanserai,” Mike pointed out. “On the other hand, there’s not much to do there. As to the pay, we can work that out and find something equitable.”
“And what about… the other?” Daria asked, just as cautiously.
“What other… oh,” Mike said, then shrugged. “Up to you. If you consider it a duty, don’t worry about it. I’ve got more women problems than I’d prefer. On the other hand, if you consider it a fringe benefit, we can work something out,” he added with a grin.
“For now, I think I’d put it in the category of ‘fringe benefit,’ ” Daria said, smiling back. “I accept the job offer. We’ll work out the pay.”
“Thanks,” Mike said, standing up. “Get used to finding out-of-the-way buildings to beat people to death in.”
“I’m sure they’ll deserve it,” Daria said, smiling darkly.
“So how are you going to use my passport to fix everybody else’s?” Mike asked Vanner. “Copy the pages?”
The intel specialist was seated at a table at the rear of the plane, working on his computer.
“Won’t work,” Vanner said. “The Georgian passports have different watermarks. I scanned in all the entry and exit stamps on your passport including most especially the Croatian one. Now I’m creating a three-D model of what the stamp looks like,” he continued, spinning the computer around so Mike could see.
“Very nice,” Mike said dryly. “It looks like a stamp. And that gives us… what?”
“Well,” Vanner said, hitting a key and looking at a large item that looked vaguely like a printer on the floor, “in about fifteen minutes it should give us a Croatian entry stamp.”
“How?” Mike asked.
“That,” Vanner said, pointing at the box, “is a desk-top manufacturing device. Give it any sufficiently small three dimensional design and it can make it. Right there.”
“You’re kidding,” Mike said, furrowing his brow. “Right?”
“Nope,” Vanner said, grinning. “It’s no good for multipart machinery but it can make any solid object that’s smaller than its collection area. The technique is called sintering. The machine takes the CAD diagram and splits it into thin layers. The way it used to work is that each layer would be laid down and then welded to the lower layer, sintered actually. This one is a rapid system that lays the whole model down, layer by layer, then heats the item up and forms it in one go.”
“I almost hate to ask how much that thing cost,” Mike said, shaking his head.
“It was the first run of a new generation of them,” Vanner replied. “And a lot. But I thought it might be useful to have along. And I got a deal on it as a beta tester.”
“We’re going to need more than one,” Mike said, thinking about the future.
“Well, I’ve got an in with the manufacturer,” Vanner said, grinning.
“You do have ink, right?” Mike asked as Vanner slid the still hot stamp into a holder. It sure looked like an entry stamp.
“Fourteen different colors and shades,” Vanner admitted. “I mean, I’m not a professional forger, but I can hum a few bars.” He picked up a piece of paper and opened up a stamp pad with Mike’s passport open on the table in front of him. Humming, he inked the stamp and then stamped it on the piece of paper.
“Looks… pretty much the same,” Mike admitted.
“It should, it was made from this model,” Vanner said. “I had to work out the background watermark and I think that might have led to some thin spots…” He pulled out a loupe and considered the stamped paper under the light. “Yeah, there are some rough spots. But if it’s not a close inspection it should work. And if any of these passports get a close inspection we’re going to have problems.”
“Well, we should be okay on the U.S. end,” Mike said. “Where’s the MI-6 guy?”
“Going over the hard copy files,” Vanner said. “Turns out he speaks and reads Albanian.”
“I hope he’s not developing more intel than we’d like,” Mike said. “Where?”
“Front of the compartment,” Vanner replied. “I’m going to get started on the exit stamp…”
“This is horrible stuff,” Carlson-Smith said, skipping to the next video.
“See anyone you recognize?” Mike asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Carlson-Smith said tightly. “I was assigned to the Kosovo sector for some time and I recognize several gentlemen who are or were similarly assigned.”
“Interesting that they were able to get them there,” Mike said. “I suppose you’ve also seen the video that we’re interested in.”
“Vanner pointed out the file,” Carlson-Smith said. “I’ve avoided it. That’s for you Yanks to fix up. The rest of this is going to be more… difficult. They’ve compromised the bloody head of the French force in Kosovo. And he’s been promoted. He’s in charge of the military-civilian liaison office in France that’s supposedly been backstopping Interior Ministry Forces on rounding up France’s Islamics. Which has been notably unsuccessful, I might add.”