She chuckled lightly and said, “Is there anything you haven’t planned for?”
“Well, the wings could still fall off the plane.”
“That’s not funny,” Caitlin said.
“By the way, that was good back there.”
“What was?”
“The way you played with my hair.”
“Really? You liked it?”
“Yeah, that added a good touch of authenticity. It gave us credibility as a married couple.”
With some effort, Caitlin kept the irritability she felt from showing in her voice. “Oh? I’m glad you approve.”
They reached security and queued up behind the other flyers.
“Caitlin, just to be safe, take your phone out and keep your eyes on it except when the guard checks your ticket, and then only look directly at him.”
“Why? What’s wrong now?”
“This airport has installed face recognition software, and if we’re programmed into the system, the computer will spot us a second after it sees our faces.”
“I thought that was what the wigs and stuff were for.”
“It’ll help against the guards, but not against the computer. We didn’t have a choice about coming here, and I’m thinking that they haven’t had time to load our images into the local system.”
“You think? That’s not encouraging. I thought you had this all worked out.”
“I know it’s a risk, but what isn’t. They’ve only been looking for you for a couple of days, and unless they were really on the ball, they wouldn’t have programmed in our faces.”
They reached the front of the line, showed their tickets and were allowed through. A light breeze fluffed her wig as they passed through the detectors. They failed to activate the sensors.
As they made their way down the corridor to the gate, John took her hand and gave it a little squeeze. “That should do. If the computer had our faces, we would already be under arrest.”
“Does that mean that I can stop acting like we’re married?”
“Huh? Well, no, I wouldn’t go so far as that. Can’t be too careful.”
“Since you seem to know everything about their security, why is there a breeze when you go through the metal detectors?”
“Breeze? Oh, I barely noticed it. It’s the air samplers. The newer detectors draw air across your body and sample it for chemical or biological agents.”
“Oh, I guess that’s a good thing.”
“Certainly, it keeps anyone from smuggling explosives or darn near anything onto a plane.”
John led her to seats near an emergency exit, and they watched the gate until their flight was announced. When Caitlin started to rise, John took her wrist and pulled her back down. “There’s no rush. We’ll wait until the final boarding call.”
“What now?” she asked.
“It’ll give us a better opportunity to notice anything that happens. Once on the plane, we’d have a difficult time escaping.”
“Escaping what? You said no one spotted us and you’ve gone to a lot of trouble not to leave any traceable path.”
“No path is untraceable. It’s just a matter of making it a difficult path to follow. Something could still have gone wrong, a check of travelers; for all we know the real Robert and Charlotte Owens could be boarding a flight today also. Then a computer check of travelers would show that one of those couples is bogus and the next thing we’d know your friend Holdren would be pulling us off the plane.”
“That’s not ... all right. It’s possible, but what are the odds of that happening? There has to be a lot of people with that name in the Bay Area. Just because two couples with similar names happen to book flights on the same day shouldn’t flag anyone’s search program.”
John shook his head. “You forget that this isn’t a case of the same name. It’s the exact name, and we’re traveling as a couple. I should have planned better and used unrelated names. As long as the airlines are confirming identities, then they can also be confirming addresses with DMV on each person traveling. It wouldn’t take much to cross reference all the travelers with DMV records.”
“But the attendant didn’t look at our licenses long enough to copy down an address.”
“No, but what if he’d already called up all the Robert and Charlotte Owens in the files. It would only take a second to confirm an address.”
Caitlin stared at him for a few seconds and then shook her head. “John, you are just too paranoid.”
“Maybe, but we’ll still wait ‘til final boarding is announced.”
There wasn’t any point in arguing with him. His mind was made up, and besides, she had gone to him for help. She needed to let him do things the way he thought they should be done. He was the one with the experience, not she. It made her wonder. Just what kind of experiences had he encountered? He talked about security, and he mentioned serving in the military, but what else had he been doing over the last decade or so. Felipe had implied that he helped people escape the law. Did he work for organized crime, the Mafia or whatever they called it these days? And were they true felons or just someone like herself who was caught up in events beyond her control? She needed to find out what was in the file Scott had sent her. Since it didn’t look like Louie was going to be able to decrypt the file, assuming he was still alive, then she would have to deduce the password Scott may have used.
What common item would he have used? Something from their past? Perhaps he’d used a location or a friend’s name? But where? Who?
Caitlin was still thinking over possible passwords when John nudged her elbow and broke her train of thought. “Come on, that’s the final boarding
