Thomas Perry - The Face-Changers

She pushed the car harder, going as fast on the empty streets as she dared, and finally she saw the green car pass under a streetlight ahead of her. She lifted her foot off the accelerator and let her car coast down to the speed limit. She would have to be cautious now. The fact that there was so little traffic had allowed her to find the car, but it would also make her headlights stand out in its rearview mirror.

After two more blocks, the car swung up a ramp and onto the interstate. Jane gave them a few hundred yards, then followed. She let a big truck flash past her as she came into the right lane, then pulled up to hide behind it. Jane forced herself to be patient. All she needed to do was stay far enough back from the dark green car and keep other vehicles between them, and she would be invisible. After a few minutes she tagged along with a passing Mercedes, and stayed behind it until the green car took the airport exit.

Jane followed long enough to see it turn into the airport drive and stop at the curb in front of the terminal, let the woman off, and pull away. Jane took a few seconds to study the woman in the bright lights as she walked from the curb to the terminal; then Jane continued on to the long-term lot, parked, and ran for the shuttle bus back to the terminal.

She stalked the departure level, scanning each waiting area until she found the woman sitting a few yards from a United Airlines gate. Jane looked at the television monitor above her on the concourse and learned that a flight to Los Angeles was leaving in twenty-five minutes.

Jane walked up and sat beside the woman, but didn’t look at her. She said quietly, “I’m sorry, but we’ve had to change your itinerary. We think you might have been followed to the airport.”

The woman looked at her, and Jane watched her work her way through a sequence of emotions, trying to find the one that fit. First she was startled that a stranger was talking to her, and felt afraid. Then there was a second when the words she had heard acquired meaning and she felt relieved: this woman beside her wasn’t trouble. She was here to get her out of trouble. But that brought a new, undirected fear. Now the trouble had no face—it was everywhere. When Jane judged the woman had reached the right level of receptivity, she said, “Here’s what we do. You’re going to get up and go into the shop over there. The first one. When you come out, just go in the other direction, down toward the baggage area. Go outside and get on the shuttle bus for long-term parking.”

“All right.” The woman prepared to stand.

“Wait,” said Jane. “First give me your ticket.”

The woman looked puzzled, and behind the inquiring look was suspicion. “Why?”

Jane nodded toward another woman sitting across the waiting area. “We’re going to send a decoy in your place.”

The woman was filled with admiration: Jane was clever and devious, but best of all, Jane wasn’t alone. There was a whole team here to keep them both safe. She handed Jane the ticket and Jane put it in her purse. The woman stood up and walked toward the store.

Jane moved across the concourse and waited a few minutes to see whether anyone separated from the crowds that passed by and approached the woman in the gift shop. No one did. Apparently the face-changers had not placed anyone here to be sure she actually made her flight. Jane walked down to the ground level, stood at the telephone booths along the wall, and waited. She looked at the woman’s ticket to Los Angeles. The face-changers had not made the mistake of paying for it out of some general account. The ticket was in the name Melinda Kelly, and it had been charged to a credit card in that name.

Jane had taken the ticket from the woman partly to see what it revealed, but also to keep the woman from having options. As long as the woman had the ticket in her hand, her decision would not have been final. She could still get suspicious, change her mind, and step onto the plane. But now that Jane had the ticket, the woman was committed. Her mind would be busy thinking up reasons why giving it to Jane had been a great idea. Jane went out the door and walked down the sidewalk to the next terminal. She watched the woman come out of the United Airlines terminal and step onto the next shuttle bus. When it moved farther up the drive to Jane’s terminal, she stepped on too. The ride was quick, and Jane spent part of it watching for the green car that had dropped the woman off at the airport, and the rest watching for any other car that might be following.

When the bus stopped two rows away from Jane’s car, she got off. After a second’s hesitation, the woman did too. Jane walked to her car, opened the passenger door for the woman, got in, and drove out of the lot.

“Where are we going now?” the woman asked.

“We’ll still head for L.A.,” said Jane. “We’ll just use a less direct route.” She was silent for a few seconds, so the woman would remember she had not told Jane where she was going. “It’s more painful, but it’s worth it.”

The woman said, “What’s your name?”

“I don’t have a name.”

“Then what do I call you?”

Jane said, “That reminds me: you can’t be Melinda Kelly now that you’ve made a flight reservation in that name. You’ll be Darlene Hunt and I’ll be your sister, Ann, for the moment.” She glanced at the sad, scared face beside her. “Your older sister. After the first time we use those names, we’ll be somebody else. If you have to make a move, don’t be the same person in two places in a row.”

“I know,” said the woman. “They told me that.”

“Good,” said Jane. “Just so I don’t waste my breath, what else did they tell you?”

“To stay where they put me, live there quietly, and not make friends too quickly. Not to do anything that will get my picture in the newspapers or on TV, not to buy anything on credit, get married, get sued, call the police, apply for a passport.” The litany came out as though she had been forced to repeat it a few times, then had recited it to herself until she had come to resent each word of it separately.

Jane accelerated, but stayed in the right lane because it was easier to see headlights overtaking her from the left, and while she was still in the populated area where exits came every minute or two she could take one without much notice if she needed to. “It sounds as though they gave you the basics, anyway.” She gave a reassuring half-smile. “Don’t worry about this little detour. To tell you the truth, I think it’s a false alarm.”

The woman’s eyes brightened. “Really? How can you tell?”

Jane shrugged. “You were about to get on your flight to L.A., right?”

“Right.”

“If somebody had been following you—and I’m talking about anybody now, from a serial killer to the F.B.I.—the place to stop you would have been before you got into the waiting area. A person who wants to kill you has to make a move before he goes through the metal detectors or he’ll have to do it in public with his hands. And cops aren’t just interested in you. They want everyone around you, too. They would have moved in at the moment when you were getting out onto the curb—used a car to block the driveway in front of the terminal and arrested both of you before you made it to the door.” The woman’s earnest, unlined face was just attentive. It showed no more reaction to one kind of pursuer than another. Maybe she didn’t know who was after her.

She said, “So why did you go along with it—take me away like this?”

Jane gave a rueful smile. “It’s my job.” Then she added, “I guess they didn’t give you lesson number two. This is the price of disappearing.”

“What is?”

“You’re going to spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder. When you see something that might be trouble, you don’t wait to see if it is. You go.”