Paul Christopher - The Templar conspiracy

"You're awfully free with your secrets," said Holliday. "We could have been cops."

"You're not," said Pyx. "Paddy would have killed you by now if you had been. He also let me know you were coming, and if he hadn't I would have known about it from the moment you turned off the main road." He smiled, clearly taking no offense at Holliday's comment. "And I wouldn't have greeted you with coffee and chocky croissants, believe me." He shrugged and nodded toward the LightWorks console. "Besides, I have a perfectly valid film-editing enterprise going on. There's nothing here that's particularly incriminating except on the drives, and I can dump data faster than any copper could ever get into this room."

Holliday frowned. "I didn't see him call you."

"He text messaged me from Pilsen. I gather you had a little trouble in the land of bad Czechs."

"Some," said Holliday.

Peggy's attention was suddenly drawn to a large camera mounted on a professional tripod against the wall, facing the bookcase doorway. "That's a Cambo Wide DS with a Schneider 35 XL Digitar lens, and a Phase One P25 medium-format back." Her eyes widened. "That's, what, thirty grand?"

"More like thirty-five," said Pyx. "Just about the most expensive point-and-shoot you can buy."

"I'd hardly call it point-and-shoot," said Peggy.

To Holliday it looked like a fat lens attached to a big, flat, square piece of metal. It didn't really look like a camera at all.

"It's in line with the digitizing equipment governments use," said Pyx. "Which is how they make passports now, at least in the United States and Canada. It's supposed to be foolproof. Instead of photographs being glued and laminated, they're digitized, then thermal printed right onto the page."

"Must make your job harder," Holliday said.

"Much easier, as a matter of fact." He gestured toward the back of the bookcase door. It was painted a neutral off-white and a pair of low-level lights placed high on either side of the doorway effectively washed out any shadow. "Stand there, would you?" he asked. Holliday positioned himself against the doorway. "Head up, no smile, mouth closed," he instructed. There was a snapping sound and a bright flash, and Peggy realized the lights on either side of the door were photographic strobes. "Now step away and let Ms. Blackstock take your place." Holliday moved and Peggy stood against the door. Pyx adjusted the tripod down to compensate for the difference in their heights and the strobes flared again. "Great." Pyx nodded. He took the flash card out of the camera, slipped it into a special drive unit beside one of the flat screens, then typed a set of instructions into the computer. "Any name preferences?"

"No," said Holliday.

"Me neither," agreed Peggy.

"Okay, you'll be, uh… Norman Peterson, and Ms. Blackstock will be Allison Masters."

Pyx went back to the keyboard and started typing again. "Place of birth, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Date… 1981 or so. Mother's maiden name… Father… Documents provided. Guarantor." He typed on, humming under his breath, and finished the online form a few moments later. "Next thing is the routing, so it doesn't come back to me here," he explained. "First I grab an appropriate Canadian consulate-Albania, say-and put in their address as a point of origin." He read it off the screen, "Rruga, Dervish Hima, Kulla, Number Two, Apartment Twenty-two, Tirana, Albania, and finally the packet-switching code." He finished typing with a flourish.

"What does all this accomplish?" Holliday asked.

"This will tell the passport office computer in Ottawa that Mr. Norman Peterson and Miss Allison Masters, both presently in Paris, France, which is the closest actual passport-issuing office in the area, are renewing their passports, and have, in fact, already done so. It is telling the computer that the new passports are actually waiting at the embassy in Paris. Meanwhile a different set of instructions has been sent to new files, along with a request for a JPEG digitization of two new passport pictures. Everything gets backdated by a few days, the passports get printed during today's run and they'll be ready and waiting for you when you get to the embassy. Show them the birth certificates, driver's licenses and Social Insurance Numbers I'll provide you with and they'll give you two perfectly authentic Canadian passports, hot off the press, orchestrated by yours truly. If one of their electronic forensics people tries to reverse analyze the transaction it will dead end at the Albanian consulate, which is probably located in a dirty little hole-in-the-wall office above whatever passes for a convenience store in Tirana. It's a little convoluted, but it's a perfect hole in the system. Bust into their own database, they assume that the instructions are their own and thus legitimate and authorized. Hasn't failed me yet."

"Don't you mean Social Security Numbers?" Peggy asked.

"Don't make that mistake at the embassy in Paris if anybody happens to question you, which they won't. Social Security is American; Social Insurance is Canadian."

"But we're not going to Paris," Peggy argued.

"Oh yes, you are," said Paddy Philpot.

With the exception of their passports, they had all the documents they needed by two in the afternoon. As a bonus Pyx had thrown in two valid Bank of Nova Scotia Visa cards in their new names, each with a ten-thousand-dollar limit that, according to the Irishman, would somehow be skimmed from the huge Canadian bank's vast stream of invisible wireless transfers that pinged off satellites around the world each day.

They spent most of their day at Le Vieux Four drinking ice cold Sangano Blonde beer, nibbling on cheese and pate and listening to Paddy Philpot spin tales about his old cloak-and-dagger days. Holliday could almost forget why they were in this beautiful place. Almost.

In the early afternoon, documents in hand, they thanked Pyx for his hospitality and the speed and quality of his work, then climbed back into the Mercedes and headed down the mountain to the valley below. Finding the auto route, they made the sixty-mile trip to Lyon in a little over an hour and Philpot dropped them off in front of the modern Part-Dieu railway station.

"There are fast trains all the time. The trip to Paris takes about two hours. You should be all right. You remember the name of the hotel I told you about?"

"Hotel Normandie. Rue de la Huchette between Rue du Petit Pont and the Boulevard Saint-Michel on the Left Bank," said Holliday, repeating Philpot's instructions.

"Good man." The CIA analyst smiled.

"We owe you for the passports," said Holliday grudgingly. "I haven't forgotten, you know. We'll pay you back."

"Think nothing of it, Doc. Consider yourself back on the Company payroll."

"What about you?" Holliday asked.

"I have some people to see back in Prague. But we'll meet up again back in the States." He took a small black cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to Holliday. "I'll call you." He smiled again, rolled up the window and drove off.

Holliday and Peggy turned, crossed the broad sidewalk and went into the low-ceilinged modern terminus. They bought a pair of first-class tickets on the next highspeed train to Paris, a brand-new TGV Duplex double-decker with big, airplane-style seats, lots of legroom and a top speed of 186 miles per hour.

They boarded the train, found their seats and settled in for the relatively short journey. So far they had seen nothing suspicious, but without passports and only forged documents to identify themselves they both felt vulnerable. The train was packed, mostly with tourists of various nationalities on their way back to Paris, but they had seats together and no one paid them any attention.

The train headed smoothly out of the station, right on time, and a few minutes later they were gathering speed as they raced through the suburbs of the big French city. Neither one of them had spoken since leaving Philpot at the entrance to the station.