Guardian of Lies

purchase two AT &T GSM chips, each programmed for international call coverage. We had the chips installed at the shop.

The phones use encryption algorithms and code keys that are randomly generated. The keys are longer than the human genome and change with each phone call, making them impossible to decode even with the most massive supercomputers. There is no proprietary source key for the government to obtain and no back door that would allow a third party to unscramble a message. We are told that even the National Security Agency has been unable to decode them. It is for this reason that these particular phones are used by the Israeli military.

You do have to wonder what the world is coming to when your own government can’t stick a pipe in your brain to suck out your thoughts.

Harry has his phone tied to a shoelace hung around his neck. He says that if he has to, he will shower with it to keep it out of their hands.

For the time being, mine is in my briefcase.

Three hours into the flight, I am just beginning to doze when I notice the door to the flight deck open. A couple of seconds later, both of the deadheading airline employees step out to use the lavatory and close the flight-deck door behind them. One of them uses the restroom up in first class. The other takes the long walk down the aisle.

As he approaches and then passes my seat, he gives me a good once-over, checking my computer, which is still open on the tray table in front of me. As I look up, he’s checking things out, looking back over his shoulder at me. I give him a few seconds to get down the aisle, then turn and look as he disappears into one of the vacant restrooms at the rear of the plane.

I waste no time, turn off my computer, release my seat belt, and grab my briefcase from the overhead compartment.

Herman stirs and then wakes to the motion. “Where are we?” he yawns.

“About an hour out,” I tell him. I pack my computer back into the briefcase and take out the encrypted cell phone. I slip back into my seat, fasten the seat belt, drop the tray table, and put the phone right in the center of it. It is a little larger than your normal clamshell phone, though it might not catch your attention unless you were looking for it.

By the time the agent makes his way up the aisle, I am dozing again with only half an eye on the phone in front of me. I sense his motion as he stops behind me in the aisle. I stir in my chair and he moves on. A few seconds later he raps on the flight-deck door. It opens and he disappears inside.

I nudge Herman.

“Saw him,” he says. Herman can see with his eyes closed.

I hand him the phone. “Make it scarce.”

“Hmm?”

“Put it in the bottom of your bag.”

The phone disappears into Herman’s carry-on, under the seat in front of him.

“When we get off the plane, we split up, you grab your bags and get through customs and on through immigration. If they ask you, the rea son for the trip is tourism. We’ll meet up out in front of the airport. If you get there ahead of me, grab a taxi and wait. And keep an eye out for me.”

“You think they’re gonna try and stop you here?”

“I doubt it. I just want to be on the safe side.”

Fifty minutes later, Herman is jarred awake as the wheels touch down at Juan Santamaria International Airport in San Jose, Costa Rica. The instant the plane stops at the Jetway and the pilot turns off the seat belt sign, I’m up out of my seat to allow Herman to get into the aisle ahead of me. As the plane starts to empty, I take my time getting my luggage from the overhead compartment as several passengers get between Herman and me.

As we pass the open flight-deck door, there is no sign of the two deadheading airline employees. I continue to hang back so that by the time we get to customs, Herman and I are no longer together. We clear immigration and then spend almost ten minutes standing on opposite sides of the luggage carousel before the bags finally roll in. Herman grabs his and follows the crowd toward the conveyor belt and the two large X-ray machines near the exit.

I let my bag go around three more times as I wait.

I watch the line at the X-ray machine. None of the bags is being opened, and the speed with which they rocket through the machine makes me wonder if the woman operating it is watching cartoons on the screen.

By now, Herman is long gone, out through the door leading outside.

I let my bag go around one more time before I grab it and head toward the machine. I lug both the bag and the briefcase onto the conveyor belt and watch as they roll up the ramp into the machine.

Before I can move, somebody taps me on the shoulder. I turn to a uniformed officer packing a semiautomatic sidearm with a well-worn handle.

“Senor, please get your bags and come this way.

Excuse me?

This way. He points toward a door a few feet away. ?With your bags, por favor.”

I gather my large roll-on and the briefcase and follow him.

Once inside, they close the door behind me and tell me to place the bags on the table in the middle of the room. One of them proceeds to go through my luggage as the other takes my jacket and checks the pockets. Then he has me empty the pockets in my pants and tells me to place everything on the table. I drop a few coins, keys, my billfold, and a money clip.

One of the cops feels around my waist and notices the money belt under my shirt. He tells me to unstrap it and lay it on the table. I lay it down and the other one goes through each pocket on the belt removing the U.S. currency and counting it, nine thousand five hundred dollars exactly.

“Mucho dinero,” he says.

“Vacation money,” I tell him. It is under the ten-thousand-dollar limit requiring disclosure of cash brought into the country. He folds the currency and carefully places every bill back into the pockets of the belt and leaves it on the table.

By now the two of them are looking at each other with quizzical glances. What they’re looking for isn’t here.

“Senor, you have a cell phone perhaps?

No, I don't think so. Is it illegal to have a cell phone in Costa Rica??

He doesn't answer me.

Un momento. One of them disappears outside. The other one waits with me. A minute or so later the other cop comes back. ?Senor, you may put your things back in your bags,? he says. ?You are free to go.?

Gracias. I pack it all up, strap the money belt around my waist under my shirt and tuck it in, don my jacket, and head out the door. As I leave I glance toward the mirrored wall behind me knowing that Rhytag’s men are back there wondering what happened to the cell phone.

Outside in front of the airport, taxi drivers descend on me like a pack, trying to hustle me to the dispatch ticket booth and from there to their taxi. I have to fight several of them off just to maintain a hold on my bags.

In my best pidgin Spanish I try to tell them that I’m waiting for a friend. Then I see the hulking presence of Herman standing next to a taxi forty feet away.

I make it through the crowd and throw my bags into the open trunk of the taxi. We hop in, Herman up front, me in the back. The driver slips behind the wheel and we pull away.

“Any problems?” says Herman.

“They tried to snag the phone.”

He reaches into his bag to make sure it’s still there. “You want it back?”

“Hang on to it. We’ll find a place to hide it when we get to the hotel.”

The romp down the highway is a wild ride, the driver swinging in and out of traffic, past lines of slower-moving trucks and buses, weaving between cars. The right shoulder, it seems, is reserved for underpowered motorbikes.