by S L Shelton
“Correct, sir,” Carl replied. “He returned the car to the Frankfurt Airport rental kiosk last night. The notes on the inspection this morning said there were three punctures in the trunk…possibly bullet holes.”
Braun shook his head. “Idiot mercenaries,” he muttered.
“Sir?”
“Nothing,” Braun replied. “What else do you have?”
“The flight,” Carl said cautiously. “I confirmed Scott North was on flight 444 to Atlanta last night. I checked this morning and found there was an entry for his passport through US customs there.”
“Good,” Braun replied slyly. “So he’s back in the US.”
“It would appear so,” Carl said, but his words didn’t seem to convey confidence.
“Is there something more to that item?” Braun asked.
“Well…” Carl said. “It’s probably nothing, but the entry was made manually…not a scan.”
“Interesting,” Braun muttered. “What would cause an entry like that?”
“If the passenger was detained upon arriving in the States, or if there was a problem with the microchip in the passport—”
“Could someone create the entry if the person hadn’t actually been present?” Braun asked.
“Unlikely, sir,” Carl replied. “Travelers wouldn’t have access to the systems required to make an entry.”
“Hmm. What else?” Braun asked.
“The tail numbers on the Gulfstream,” Carl said. “We found them. A warehouse security camera caught them coming into Antwerp on the night of the eighteenth.”
Braun’s heart jumped. “Antwerp?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Carl replied.
“Perfect,” Braun muttered. “Thank you.”
Braun hung up without another thought of Carl. “Patrick, hurry,” he said. “I need to get into the office.”
“Yes, sir.”
**
1:15 p.m.—Brussels, Belgium, Gare du Midi/Zuidstation Metro Station
The train slipped into the station with the sound of squealing breaks. I looked around and got my bearings as I stepped off. The framed metro map showed me the district where the first cobbler on my list lived, Sint-Jans Molenbeek. The cobbler—Beau David—wasn’t far from the station, so I opted to walk the 2.6 kilometers. I regretted the decision within minutes, my freezing nose leading the vote for the bus.
After making it three-quarters of the way without abandoning my original plan of hoofing it (or seeing a bus schedule that coincided with my journey), I decided to push through the aching chill. By the time I reached the address on my list, my fingers were nearly too frozen to press the call button for the apartment.
“Allô,” answered a woman’s voice through the intercom.
“Yes. I’m here for Beau David,” I replied quietly into the speaker.
There was a moment’s pause before a man spoke.
“Who is this?” the man asked.
“My uncle said I could have some work done here?” I said.
“Your uncle?” he asked. “What is his name?”
“That’s why he sent me here,” I replied coolly, “for a name.”
There was another brief pause before the door buzzed to let me in. After climbing the four flights to his apartment, I was greeted at the door by a man in his forties. His thinning hair was combed forward in a vain attempt to hide the receding hairline beneath.
“I don’t typically accept walk-in traffic,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Beau David.”
I smiled and shook it as if it was a genuine pleasure, letting the crinkles in my eyes convey sincerity. “Tom,” I replied.
“Tom, what can I do for you?” he asked quietly after closing the door.
From the direction of the kitchen, the woman asked something in a belligerent tone.
“Oui, oui, oui!” he yelled at her and then turned to me. “Can I offer you something warm to drink?”
“Yes, please,” I replied before my brain even had time to analyze the question.
He yelled something back toward the woman, who seemed to be his wife, just as belligerently as she had asked her question.
“Come,” he said, ushering me into a small parlor near the front door.
Once we were in and seated, he looked at me with the grin of a used car salesman. “What can I do for you?”
“I need an identity,” I said plainly.
“Very good,” he replied as he pulled a pad of paper from his desk and began to take notes.
“I’d rather you didn’t do that,” I said, prompting him to set the pad back down again.
“What nationality do you require?” he asked. “Czech? Turkish? Russian?”
“American,” I said.
He looked at me with sudden worry on his face. “Is this to be a usable identity?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Full identity, with multiple photo IDs, credit cards, and a traceable history.”
“US IDs draw attention,” he said after tapping his chin for a few beats. “Perhaps a Greek ID would be better for you…or maybe Irish. That wouldn’t raise suspicions.”
“It needs to be US,” I replied, hoping I wouldn’t have to elaborate to convince him. If I were to be caught by European Union law enforcement, I’d need a passable US ID I could use to access US consulate personnel.
The woman arrived a moment later with a coffee tray.
“Hello,” I said with a warm smile. She nodded and smiled thinly as she poured two cups.
After pouring she looked back at David. “Ca va?” she asked.
“Je ne sais pas,” he replied, muted.
She looked back toward me.
“Thank you,” I said as I picked up one of the cups.
She squinted at me and replied with a thin, pinched smile before leaving the room. As soon as she was gone, David returned his attention to me. “So, then…an Irish ID?”
“American,” I replied, undeterred.
He shook his head and glared at me with disappointment. “That sort of package would be very expensive,” he replied, leaning forward and lowering his voice as if he didn’t want his wife to hear. “The new tracking filaments are impossible to fake.”
“An older ID wouldn’t have the electronic signature and would be more credible than a newly printed one anyway,” I pointed out.
The woman yelled something in French from the kitchen as I pulled a banded stack of hundred euro bills from my bag. David stared at them for several beats without answering the woman. He licked his top lip and leaned forward to speak just as his wife reentered the room.
“Je crois que non,” she hissed without looking at me.
“Je ne dis pas non,” he replied, pleadingly. Apparently the money was more important to him than it was to his wife.
I could tell I was losing this argument. “Canadian, then,” I said as I pulled another banded bundle of bills from my bag.
“Niet!” she said to David without taking her eyes off him. “Non et non!”
She had made up her mind about me and was having none of it.
He looked down in defeat after enduring her backward glare as she marched away. “I’m sorry,” he said after taking another long and lustful look at the money. “I can’t help you.”
I nodded and rose. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” I said as I tucked the money back into my bag and turned for the door.
“Please forgive my wife,” he whispered. “She doesn’t trust Americans or British after…”
After what? I wondered.
But his statement was never completed. His wife poked her head into the hallway from the kitchen, ending any possibility of an explanation.
I handed him four hundred euros as he opened the door.
“Ah non, non,” he said holding his hands up, rejecting the offer.
“For your time,” I insisted and pressed the bills into his hand. “Perhaps another time.”
He took the money hesitantly and quickly stuffed it into the pocket o
f his vest just as I turned to leave. The door closed and I immediately heard his wife set into him with an angry burst of French profanity. I shook my head as I slowly descended the stairs, their bitter words following me, fading as I went down.
“Shit,” I muttered upon exiting and being greeted by a frigid blast. “That was a waste.”
I saw a trolley nearing the connecting street and jogged to catch it as slowed. As the electric motor whined us up to speed, I looked at the map…four kilometers to the next name on the list—Jean Laurent.
I had gotten decently warm by the time I arrived in Schaerbeek District. With my scarf pulled tight around my neck before stepping off the tram, I braced for more disappointment. The three-block walk to the apartment was all it took to chill me to the bone again.
Laurent’s apartment was on the second floor, accessed from the street next to a small locksmith’s shop. There was no call box, no mailboxes, and no lock on the front door downstairs, so I proceeded up to the third floor, where his apartment was supposed to be: Apartment 3B. I knocked and waited for a response.
After a moment with no reply, I knocked again, more insistently—again, with no reply.
“Monsieur Laurent?” I called through the door and then knocked again. Behind me, I could hear movement at the apartment door on the opposite of the narrow hallway.
I shook my head and turned, knocking on the door behind me. On the other side of the door, I heard someone shuffle and fall over as if they were startled. After a moment, the door opened a crack and from behind the hardware store-grade door chain, an older woman, maybe sixty, peeked one eye through the gap.
“Oui?” she asked gruffly.
“Monsieur Laurent?” I asked, pointing at the apartment across the hall.
She gave a nearly invisible shrug before simply saying, “Non,” and then she slammed the door. The sound of several bolts being flipped punctuated our brief and unhelpful conversation.
I breathed in deeply, holding my breath at the top for a beat, before releasing it along with the frustration. I decided to ask elsewhere to see if I had the right place. I walked back downstairs, ducking as I reached the last step before exiting back onto the sidewalk. Through the window of the small locksmith’s shop, I noticed a man behind the counter. He was speaking with a younger man, explaining a doorknob assembly he had in his hand. I got a sudden flash of memory about my father holding a similar piece of equipment in his hand, explaining the inner mechanism.
Tension crept up my shoulders at the uninvited intrusion before I mentally brushed it off and entered the shop. I let the pair continue to engage as I looked around the quiet, small space.
On a shelf beneath a mailbox display was a small tray of Chinese-made lock picking kits. Even a cheap, Chinese spring steel set would be better than the paperclips I had been using, so I grabbed one from the display.
The old man’s instruction ended abruptly as he looked over the shoulder of the young man he had been schooling.
“Est-ce-que je peux vous aider?” the man asked.
I placed the kit on the counter for him to ring up. The young man turned and walked toward the back of the store, passing through a curtained doorway.
“Sept point cinq euro,” he said, telling me the four flimsy pieces of spring steel were ten and a half euros.
I smiled and extracted a hundred euro bill from my pocket, sliding it toward him.
“Non,” he said simply.
Is that the favorite word of the French? I wondered.
“Monsieur Laurent,” I said, pointing upstairs. “Trios B? Does he live there still?”
The old man turned his head sideways and squinted at me suspiciously. “Laurent?”
“Oui,” I replied.
“Il réside maintenant à Madrid,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “One year past.”
I nodded my understanding.
“Merci,” I replied as I passed him the bill and then tucked the lock picks into my messenger bag.
He went about making change, but I had no intention of taking it, so I left before he looked up again. I had probably just given him more than he made in three days in the shop.
One more name on the list…and the one I had hoped I wouldn’t have to visit—Ismet Gulluce. To find him, I’d have to locate his apartment some twelve blocks from the South Station rail terminal where I had arrived in Brussels earlier that afternoon. But I’d have to travel through a rough immigrant neighborhood to get there. White, English-speaking tourists stick out like swollen red thumbs in neighborhoods like that. The last thing I needed was a mugging gone wrong, followed by police scrutiny of street camera images that included me. Those sorts of red flags would get me noticed and detained before I even had my new ID.
I pulled my collar up high as I made my way toward a metro stop. On the tram ride to South Station, I convinced myself that bundled from the cold, hood up and a scarf around my face, I’d be able to pass through the neighborhood without raising attention from unwanted eyes—I had to at least try.
It was nearly five o’clock when I began my walk down the street that ran parallel to the tracks. Sunlight was fading fast, and I suddenly wished I had come to see Gulluce first—in the daylight.
It was quite a diverse-looking neighborhood. Immigrants from many different nations had their various colors hanging from terraces or taped in their windows. I was even surprised to see a large Catholic church, two synagogues, and a mosque within a couple of blocks of each other…and none of them seemed to be burned to the ground. But I was already drawing much more attention than I had hoped.
The smells of evening meals, wafting through the streets, filled my nostrils and made my stomach rumble, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten anything since the stale pizza this morning. I ignored the internal grumbling and pushed on, doing my best to ignore the attention of groups of young people; despite the cold, they were congregated on several street corners.
Down Rue de Belgrade, Rue de Vaes, and then Rue de Merode I went, turning each corner and catching a glimpse of the growing number of young men who were following me. By the time I reached my destination on Rue de Fierlant, a crowd of about ten had built in my wake, several dozen yards to my rear and across the street.
I rang the doorbell at the door. While I waited for a response, I watched the crowd through the reflection of the glass. Two brave souls had separated from the bunch and started to cross the street behind me.
“Hey,” one of them called. “English?”
I didn’t turn.
“Hey English!” he yelled as he got closer.
The door opened a crack. “I wouldn’t answer if I were you,” the bearded man said through the gap.
“Ismet?” I asked.
“Who is asking?” he replied with a thick Turkish accent.
“I was hoping you could answer that question for me,” I replied as the two boys stepped on the sidewalk behind me.
Gulluce opened the door wider and stuck his head out. “Git! Git buradan!” he said, shooing at them with his hands.
The boys paused, glaring at me and then the old man before backing up slowly. When they finally turned and walked back across the street, the man returned his attention to me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t do that sort of work anymore.”
He began to close the door, but I slid my foot into the gap.
“I can pay you a premium price for your services,” I replied in a lowered voice. “I don’t mind saying that I’m a bit desperate for help.”
His eyes opened wide in fear.
“No,” I said. “No, no, no. Desperate enough to pay well…nothing more. I swear.”
He stared at me for a moment, measuring me as if he could somehow tell what sort of man I was by the hang of my coat. After a few seconds, he opened the door and let me in.
“Thank you,” I said as he closed the door and bolted it.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he replied. “It’s just too cold to be talking about
it with an open door.”
I followed him up the stairs. It was a two-story duplex with the first apartment occupying part of the first floor, shared by a tobacco and phone shop. The second floor apartment, I discovered upon entering, occupied the entire second floor, covering the same area as the first floor apartment and shop combined.
As soon as he had ushered me in and locked the door, he stood and stared at me for a beat, as if still trying to make up his mind.
“Your coat?” he asked, holding out his hand.
I didn’t want to appear rude, but I also didn’t want to startle him with the holster and weapon I had strapped across my shoulders.
“I would, but I think I should hold onto it rather than raise the level of tension in the room,” I said.
He shook his head. “You create more tension by saying something like that,” he replied with a wry smile. “Besides, I’ve seen guns before. As long as you don’t pull it out, we’ll be fine.”
He had read me perfectly. I nodded and unwound my scarf before pulling my coat off.
He invited me into the kitchen with a wave of his hand as he hung my coat and scarf on a hook by the door. When he joined me, he waved again at one of the metal tubular kitchen chairs that sat by the window. “Please…sit.”
The table and chairs, and in fact, the entire apartment, looked as though it had been furnished in the late sixties or early seventies and never updated, with the exception of a modern microwave on the counter.
The kitchen was clean and tidy, though, and the space was warm.
“Please tell me how I can help you,” he said as he poured water from the tap into a kettle.
I sat and placed my hands on the table so he could see them clearly. I wanted to convey I was no threat.
“I need an identity,” I said quietly. “A usable one.”
“Established?” he asked.
“If possible, yes,” I replied. “Multiple photo IDs, credit cards, and a verifiable background.”
He nodded as he set the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. When he turned, he looked at me a moment longer before sitting down across from me.
“I don’t know how old the list is you are working from, but I don’t do work for the CIA any longer,” he said with a kind, although firm, smile. “I’ve been placed on the undesirables list.”