Hilts frowned. “I didn’t see him call you.”
“He text messaged me from Modane. I gather you had a little trouble there.”
“Some.” Hilts’s attention was suddenly drawn to a large camera mounted on a professional tripod against the wall, facing the bookcase doorway. “That’s a Cambo Wide DS with a Schneider 35mm f/5.6 XL Digitar lens, and a Phase One P25 medium format back.” His eyes widened. “That’s what, thirty grand?”
“More like thirty-five,” said Pyx. “Just about the most expensive point-and-shoot you can buy.”
“I’d hardly call it point-and-shoot,” said Hilts.
To Finn it looked like a fat lens attached to a big, flat, square piece of metal. It didn’t really look like a camera at all.
“It’s in line with the digitizing equipment governments use,” said Pyx. “Which is how they make passports now, at least in the United States and Canada. It’s supposed to be foolproof. Instead of photographs being glued and laminated, they’re digitized, then thermal printed right onto the page.”
“Must make your job harder,” Hilts said.
“Much easier, as a matter of fact.” He gestured toward the back of the bookcase door. It was painted a neutral off-white and a pair of low-level lights placed high on either side of the doorway effectively washed out any shadow. “Stand there, would you?” he asked. Hilts positioned himself against the doorway. “Head up, no smile, mouth closed,” he instructed. There was a snapping sound and a bright flash and Finn realized the lights on either side of the door were photographic strobes. “Now step away and let Miss Ryan take your place.” Hilts moved and Finn stood against the door. Pyx adjusted the tripod down to compensate for the difference in their heights and the strobes flared again. “Great,” Pyx said and nodded. He took the flash card out of the camera, slipped it into a special drive unit beside one of the flat screens, then typed a set of instructions into the computer. “Any name preferences?”
“No,” said Hilts.
“Me neither,” agreed Finn.
“Okay, you’ll be uh… Norman Page, and Miss Ryan will be Allison Mackenzie, how’s that?”
“Whatever.” Hilts shrugged.
“Fine,” said Finn.
“Good Lord,” Simpson said and laughed. “Do I detect a literary allusion?”
“Hardly literary,” Pyx said with a smile.
“I don’t get it,” said Finn.
“Of course not, dear, you’re far too young.”
Pyx went back to the keyboard and started typing again. “Place of birth, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, date… 1981 or so, mother’s maiden name… father… documents provided… guarantor.” He typed on, humming under his breath, and finished the online form a few moments later. “Next thing is the routing, so it doesn’t come back to me here,” he explained. “First I grab an appropriate Canadian consulate… Albania, say, and put in their address as a point of origin.” He read it off the screen, “Rruga, Dervish Hima, Kulla, number two, apartment twenty-two, Tirana, Albania, telephone number 355 (4) 257274/ 257275, fax number 355 (4) 257273, and finally the packet switching code.” He finished typing with a flourish.
“What does all this accomplish?” Hilts asked.
“This will tell the Passport Office computer in Ottawa that Mr. Norman Page and Miss Allison Mackenzie, both presently in Paris, France, which is the closest actual passport-issuing office in the area, are renewing their passports, and have in fact already done so. It is telling the computer that the new passports are actually waiting at the embassy in Paris. Meanwhile a different set of instructions has been sent to new files along with a request for a JPEG digitization of two new passport pictures. Everything gets backdated by a few days, the passports get printed during today’s run, and they’ll be ready and waiting for you when you get to the embassy. Show them the birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and Social Insurance Numbers I’ll provide you with and they’ll provide you with two perfectly authentic Canadian passports, hot off the press, orchestrated by yours truly. If one of their forensics electronic people tried to reverse-analyze the transaction, it will dead-end at the Albanian consulate, which is probably located in a dirty little hole-in-the-wall office above whatever passes for a convenience store in Tirana. It’s a little convoluted, but it’s a perfect hole in the system. Bust into their own database, they assume that the instructions are their own and thus legitimate and authorized. Hasn’t failed me yet.”
“Don’t you mean Social Security Numbers?” Hilts asked.
“Don’t make that mistake at the embassy in Paris if anybody happens to question you, which they won’t. Social Security is American, Social Insurance is Canadian.”
“But we’re not going to Paris,” Finn argued.
“Oh yes you are,” said Arthur Simpson.
“What about Lausanne?”
“The man you’re looking for doesn’t live there anymore.” He paused. “In fact, the man you’re looking for has been dead since Thursday, September eight, 1960, at eleven twenty-two p.m.”
“Awfully precise,” commented Hilts dryly.
“That’s when the ship went down,” said Simpson. “Let’s finish up with Liam and then I’ll tell you all about it.” Which he did.
25
With the exception of their passports they had all the documents they needed by two in the afternoon. As a bonus Pyx had thrown in two perfectly valid Bank of Nova Scotia Visa cards in their new names, each with a ten-thousand-dollar limit that, according to Pyx, would somehow be skimmed from the huge Canadian bank’s vast stream of invisible wireless transfers that pinged off satellites around the world each day.
They spent most of their day at Le Vieux Four in the sun-warmed garden behind the house drinking ice-cold Sangano Blonde beer, nibbling on cheese and pate, and listening to Arthur Simpson tell his tale. As the sun warmed her Finn could almost forget why they were in this beautiful place, with its buzzing bees and chirping birds scolding them from the branches of the old birch trees at the end of the garden. Almost.
In the early afternoon, with documents in hand, they thanked Pyx for his hospitality and the speed and quality of his work, then climbed back into the Mercedes and headed down the mountain to the valley below. Finding the autoroute, they made the sixty-mile trip to Lyon in a little over an hour. Simpson dropped them off in front of the modern Part Dieu railway station.
“There are fast trains all the time. The trip to Paris takes about two hours. You should be all right. You remember the name of the hotel I told you about?”
“Hotel Normandie. Rue de la Huchette between rue de Petit Pont and the boulevard St. Michel on the Left Bank,” said Finn, repeating Simpson’s instructions.
“Good girl.” The old man smiled.
“We owe you for the passports,” said Hilts grudgingly. “I haven’t forgotten, you know. We’ll pay you back.”
“Think nothing of it, Mr. Hilts.” Simpson looked fondly up at Finn through the open window of the car. “Repaying a favor to the memory of an old friend.”
“We will pay you,” said Finn, her tone firm.
“On your way,” Simpson ordered.
“What about you?” Hilts asked.
“I have some people to see back in Italy. But I’m sure we’ll meet again before this is over. Look for me.” He smiled again, rolled up the window, and drove off. Hilts and Finn turned, crossed the broad sidewalk, and went into the low-ceilinged modern terminus. They bought a pair of first-class tickets on the next high-speed train to Paris, a brand-new TGV double-decker Duplex with big airplane-style seats, lots of leg room, and a top speed of 186 miles per hour. They boarded the train, found their seats, and settled in for the relatively short journey. So far they had seen nothing suspicious, but without passports and only forged documents to identify themselves they both felt vulnerable. The train was packed, mostly with tourists of various nationalities on their way back to Paris, but they had seats together and no one paid them any attention. The train headed smoothly out of the station, right on time, and a few minutes later they were gathering speed as they raced through the suburbs of the big French city. Neither one of them had spoken since leaving Simpson at the entrance to the station.