Three blocks away, he caught a cab that took him straight down M Street to the tony Georgetown Park mall. This time, he had cash for the driver.
For some reason, the mall’s Edwardian interior, in green with brass touches, always reminded him of Harrods in London. The waterfalls, which he normally found soothing, didn’t work their magic on him today. He made his way toward the J. Crew store and paid for his purchases with bills from the twenty thousand dollars in cash he had removed from his safe deposit box. He’d always kept an emergency reserve, just in case, and today he was glad he had. He didn’t dare use his credit card again. He had used it for two cab rides and was sure that was how the assassins had tracked him. With plenty of cash at his disposal, he could afford to ditch the plastic.
Leaving J. Crew, he bent his credit cards back and forth until he could break them into pieces. He pocketed the pieces and made his way toward Voyageur Luggage. At Voyageur, he picked up a wheeled KIVA Designs travel bag that could be converted into a backpack. It was big enough to hold the clothing he bought, but small enough to fit into an overhead compartment. Next on his list was Crabtree amp; Evelyn, where an attractive woman named Leslie outfitted him with a complete men’s toiletry kit and a women’s Pamper Yourself gift basket. Harvath counted out the bills, thanked the clerk, and asked where the nearest men’s room was.
Outside the washrooms was a bank of pay telephones. Harvath chose the one at the far end and, opening the yellow pages, looked up the eight hundred number for Swissair. Knowing the quickest way to get an operator was to select the business-and-first-class-reservation option, he pressed the appropriate button. After only a few seconds a polite agent came on the line. According to the woman, Swissair had a 5:40 P.M. flight leaving Dulles that would arrive in Zurich at 7:35 the next morning. Harvath made a reservation in the name of Hans Brauner, memorized the record-locator number, thanked the agent, and hung up the phone. Harvath had been keeping an eye on the men’s room. There was very little traffic, so he decided now was as good a time as any.
Inside, he looked under each stall to make sure they were vacant and chose one toward the very end. He locked the door and placed his bags in front of him. The pain in his head made it feel as if it were cracking wide open, and his stomach churned violently with nausea. Dr. Helsabeck had been right about stress and exertion making his symptoms worse, but there was no time to coddle himself. Scot faced the toilet and forced himself to vomit. If that’s what his body wanted to do, then let’s get it over with, he reasoned.
He used some toilet paper to wipe his mouth, then removed his Crabtree amp; Evelyn toiletry kit and hung it from the hook on the back of the stall door. Inside was a travel toothbrush and some toothpaste. No one had come into the men’s room since he’d entered, so he left his stall, did a fast tooth brushing with the water from the sink, then returned to the stall and locked the door once again.
Working quickly, Scot fished several Ziploc plastic bags out of his suit pocket. The first contained a contact lens case and the other a small white tube and what looked to be a handful of brown hair. The transformation wouldn’t be huge, but Harvath had learned over the years that with disguises, the sum is often greater than its parts.
The two keys to a successful disguise were, first, to eradicate any traces of a very recognizable feature, which in Scot’s case was the deep blue of his eyes, and, second, to have the disguise be as natural as possible. The more elaborate a disguise, the less chance it had of working. The final goal was not only to look like someone else, but to become someone else.
As Scot put in the brown contact lenses and used the tube of glue to apply the goatee and heavy eyebrows, he began his transformation. He pushed his hair forward and parted it in the middle. With a pair of wire-rim glasses with slightly tinted lenses and a new wardrobe in mismatched earth tones, with dark sensible shoes and a dark suede blazer, Harvath became the man whose picture and name were contained in the false passport he had also removed from his safe deposit box, Hans Brauner of Stuttgart, Germany.
During Scot’s time with the SEALs, he had done a lot of cross-training exercises with some of Germany’s most elite soldiers. One soldier in particular, Herman Toffle, had become quite popular with the SEALs, not only for his bravado, but also for his crazy sense of humor. Scot and Herman the German, as the guys called him, grew to be fast friends. When Herman left the military because of an injury, he entered the private sector and began representing a German arms manufacturer. Scot helped Herman get his weapons tested in America and also plugged him in with former SEALs around the world who were doing military or private security consulting and had a heavy say in their clients’ weapons procurement.
Scot couldn’t accept any commissions, but Herman felt his good friend was due something for all of the business he had helped create. Once, while Scot was on leave in Germany between SEAL training exercises, Herman led him on a cloak-and-dagger tour of Munich which, after several stops for beers, finally ended in a small apartment on the city’s north side. Knowing his friend’s proclivity for loose women, Harvath thought Herman had brought him to a brothel and was going to get him laid.
As it turned out, Herman had a million connections and the two men just happened to be in the apartment of one of them, a master documents forger. Herman introduced the stooped, balding man with thick glasses simply as Tinkerbell. After making Scot up with the eyebrows, goatee, glasses, and contacts, Tinkerbell had him sit in front of a tarp to have his picture taken. Two hours and five beers later, the man emerged from the back of the apartment and handed Scot his new passport. When, through the fog of beers, Scot realized what Herman had done for him, he tried to refuse the gift, but Herman said, “Men in our profession need insurance that employers can’t always provide.”
Harvath knew that Herman was trying, in his own way, to thank him, so he kept the passport locked safely away at his bank, not thinking he would ever need it. The passport was filled with valid entry and exit stamps from America, Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America. Trying to find the most recent stamp would drive an immigration officer crazy, Tinkerbell had said, so not to worry. The old man had also given Scot an address in Munich at which, if he dropped the passport off whenever he was in Germany, one of Tinkerbell’s people would update the stamps for him. Scot knew the gift had cost Herman a lot of money, and even though he originally hadn’t wanted to take it, it looked now as if it was going to come in very handy.
Harvath finished changing into the J. Crew clothes and put the rest of the new clothing into his rolling suitcase. The trench coat and suit he had been wearing went into the J. Crew bag, which he promptly tossed into a Dumpster in an alley behind the mall. Wiping his prints off the Glock, he disassembled it and threw the pieces into three different storm drains. Now all he had to do was make a phone call and he would be free to go.
44
Scot Harvath, having completely taken on the persona of Hans Brauner, strolled with a certain nonchalance through the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton towing his luggage on wheels. When he’d walked through the main entrance, he’d noticed the cab line was full of taxis. In his German-accented English he told the bellman he did not need any help with his bag. Having stopped at the Georgetown American Express travel office to buy a stack of traveler’s checks under his new persona, he was confident in not only the outward appearance of the disguise, but his ability to pull off the complete identity of the character.
Harvath made his way to the pay phones and, glancing at his watch, knew he would have to make this call quickly. He picked up the receiver, deposited the coins and dialed the number.
“Lawlor,” said the voice that answered.
“Gary. It’s Scot Harvath.”
“Scot, where the hell are you?”
“C’mon, Gary, you know me better than to expect an answer to that, and don’t bother tracing this call. I won’t be here long enough for you to get me.”
“What’s this all about?” asked Lawlor.
“I was going to ask you the same thing. I had nothing to do with the deaths of Andre Martin and Natalie Sperando. She was a good friend. I want you to believe that. For some reason, Bill Shaw is trying to set me up.”
“Bill Shaw is trying to set you up? Why would he do that?”
“I know you’re trying to stall me, but I’ll indulge you anyway,” said Scot, looking at his watch to see how long he’d been on with Lawlor. “I think he’s connected to the president’s kidnapping, along with Senator Snyder and maybe Rolander as well. He’s trying to paint me as a conspiracy nut.”
“He doesn’t need to paint you as one; you painted yourself that way.”
