“Take me to the airport, please.”
“Which one? Island or Pearson?”
“Toronto International Airport.”
“That’s Pearson,” the driver said.
Lester B. Pearson International Airport, named after Canada’s fourteenth prime minister, was one of the busiest hubs in the world.
Felk’s cab ride from Union Station downtown to northwest Toronto took some forty-five minutes. As the airport came into view, he consulted the ticket he’d purchased online.
“Terminal One,” he told the driver when they neared the exit ramps for departures.
The driver nodded. “Where you headed?”
“New York,” he lied.
Inside the terminal, Felk went to the self-service kiosk to check in. He submitted his counterfeit passport, followed the prompts on the touch screen. He was not checking in any bags. He had one carry-on. The night before, he’d gone online and submitted his advance passenger information to expedite the process. Now it took little more than a minute for the kiosk to dispense an electronic boarding pass for his flight to San Francisco.
He moved on to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Preclearance section of the airport. He showed his boarding pass to the attendant, who directed him to fill out a blue U.S. Customs card.
Felk completed the form, then moved through the area, joining other travelers in the line that snaked before a row of busy inspection booths, where he’d be processed for entry into the United States.
He surveyed the people near him: a wrinkled slack-jawed man clutching a U.S. passport who kept asking the elderly woman with him to repeat her mundane comments. “I said, it’s eighty degrees in Miami!” There was a young woman behind them wearing a Johnny Depp T-shirt, nodding her head, earphones leaking music as the thumb of one hand worked the phone she was holding. Her other hand gripped the handle of a pink suitcase that had a tiny stuffed bear chained to one of its zippers.
As he neared the row of booths, Felk heard the mechanical
“Did I wave you forward, sir!” a female CBP officer barked.
A short, heavyset man stopped dead in his tracks.
“Get back behind the red line!”
His face crimson, the man stepped back.
Disbelief at her rudeness rippled through the line. Felk was fourth from the front and did not want to draw number nine. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, accentuating her stern face. She could have been in her thirties; and by the way she seized her water bottle, she could have been in battle. As she guzzled, she kept one eye on the line as if they were advancing enemies, even pink-suitcase girl with the teddy bear.
Felk took stock of the other officers nearby. Number seven was a white-haired grandpa who seem bored but calm, and number eight was a twenty-something guy, all spit and polish and worthy of the corps. Then there was number nine.
What was her freakin’ problem? Felk wondered.
The CPB officer at number nine was Magda Vryke, and her problem was manifold.
Today was supposed to be Magda’s day off but fat-ass Daisy called in sick, which was total bull. Then, as Magda was leaving for work, feeling pissed off and bloated, her life partner, Lynne, told her she wanted to back out of their condo purchase.
All were Red Notices with Interpol, which meant the subjects were to be detained on sight and arrested by local authorities.
And—we’re not done yet—some several hundred miles south in Washington, D.C, the Office of Enforcement at U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters had processed an urgent alert from the FBI through Homeland Security to all CBP Preclearance facilities.
It advised to “detain any subject bearing a tattoo similar to the image shown.” Magda Vryke had glanced at the cobra-in-barbed-wire-bracelet picture; read the background history. She was familiar with the high-profile armored car heist murders in New York City. But the alert puzzled her and she gave her head a little shake. If anything, those guys would be fleeing the States, not entering. Whatever, Magda thought as she screwed the cap back on her water bottle and smacked her booth light.
“Next! Come on, step up!”
Ivan Felk arrived and placed his documents on her counter.
“Where are you going today, sir?” Magda Vryke folded his Canadian passport, cracking its spine before inserting it into her passport reader.
“San Francisco.”
She eyeballed him, then the passport photo on her monitor, to make sure they matched. Felk was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved turtleneck sweater that complemented his muscular build. He was clean shaven, as he was in the photo.
“Purpose of your trip?”
“Visit friends, see the sights, vacation.”
Magda punched a few commands on her keyboard.
“Where were you born, Mr. Chapman?”
“Belleville, Ontario.”
“Don’t they have a big base out there?”
“That air base in Trenton is close by, just west.”
“Drove by there once. Impressive.” Magda stamped his passport. “Have a nice trip.”
“Thank you.”
He’d just been admitted entry into the United States. Felk collected his papers, gripped the handle of his bag.
It was on the next level up.
The lines were jammed. People were moving slowly through the scanning stations. Felk saw security cameras everywhere. Occasionally he recognized fellow travelers from preclearance. This area was operated by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. As Felk moved through the line, a CATSA officer directed him to a screening station.
He joined the hundreds of passengers in the global choreography of loading luggage on the conveyor belts, extracting laptops, removing belts, shoes, jackets, emptying pockets and depositing everything into trays. At the direction of the screening officer, Felk stepped through the scanner.
It sounded.
Damn it.
“Step forward and extend your arms, sir.”
