Prologue
JANE
You don’t see me, but I see you.
Two summers ago, you and your husband hurried past me, so absorbed in each other you had no clue I was framing and storing you in my mental database. Anniversary trip? Excellent idea. Marital relationships also need nurturing. Too often we neglect those we love the most.
Not your adorable children, though. Naturally, you dote on them, kneeling to tie their shoes and wipe their little noses, thereby providing me with an unobstructed view of the cherubs. Gotcha! Two more for my catalog, no upgrade required.
They may be six and four now, but I’ll be able to recognize them when they’re eighteen, twenty, thirty, sixty. (Something facial-recognition software can’t do, I might add.) I don’t envy you having to fly with them whining from here to Disney World, which would drive me up a wall. Still, you know what they say about parenthood: the minutes go by like years and the years like minutes. Treasure every moment.
Are you taking care of yourself? I’m a little concerned about the dark circles. Even with the new highlights (gorgeous!), you look drained. I suppose Christmas did you in, not to mention your job. Talk about stressful. Remember when you had to fly from Atlanta last spring and there were storms up and down the East Coast? You were as white as a sheet getting off that flight. I don’t blame you. Turbulence. Is. The. Worst.
“Where the hell is Delta?” your husband bellows, squinting at the signs above the endless rows of airline counters, as if you’d know. As if you live at the airport. It’s sweet how he trusts you.
Do you trust me?
You should.
I am what stands between you touching down in sunny Florida and ending in pieces scattered among floating fuselage. Those scanners? The metal detectors and pat-downs and X-rays you find so annoying? They’re all useless. If we had to rely on them, we’d all be cooked. They’re simply for show, to keep people like you flying and the stock market booming.
You knew that, right?
Because it’s not what you see that’ll save you, it’s what you don’t see.
Me.
Who am I? Well, yesterday, I was a mother like you, in yoga pants and a Red Sox cap, complaining on my cell about the never-ending construction at Logan. A classic. The week before, I was a gambler on my way to Las Vegas. Leather jacket. Tight jeans. Sparkly pink carry-on. That one’s good, too.
Today, I am a sales rep waiting for a company car, my dark hair in a neat ponytail at the base of my neck. My makeup is a palette of understated natural hues. My suit is navy. One hand rests on the handle of my luggage that happens to be completely empty. The other flips through a phone that is not a phone.
If you notice me at all, you might feel pity for a pretty young woman traveling alone. No boyfriend. No husband. No children. How sad.
Don’t be sad. Be grateful. Be glad that instead of cashing in on my unique talents by surveilling for a ruthless private military firm, I spend my days and nights roaming the bowels of Logan, identifying suspects merely by the shapes of their heads, collaring potential terrorists based on nothing more than a glimpse of their eyes.
Thanks to me, they don’t even get a chance to fake their way through Security. I will alert my point person in the TSA, who will send an undercover agent to tap our unwanted traveler on the shoulder, politely directing him, or her, to what might seem like an expedited security check, but which will in actuality be a gateway to their final departure. Their DNA will be tested and matched, validating my identification. Because I retain ninety percent of the faces I see, not because I choose to, but because I have no choice.
After what I’ve seen, you would not want to be me.
One
JANE
What’re you getting Erik for Christmas?” Renee asks in my earpiece as I cut the interminable line at Customs, two passengers behind my target, a white supremacist nicknamed Radix.
Last week on BitChute, Radix transmitted a coded call to arms urging his followers to cause national havoc by “disrupting” air travel, whatever that meant. Clearly, he didn’t blow up the plane that brought him here, but that doesn’t mean he’s given up. He remains in the midst of a very crowded airport packed with holiday travelers. Lots of potential for mayhem and death.
I flick a thumb to the US Customs and Border Protection agent monitoring camera #9. “A turkey.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a present.”
“Not just any turkey. It weighs twenty pounds and it’s covered with a mat of woven, hickory-smoked bacon and filled with a sriracha-infused chestnut stuffing. I mail-ordered it from a gourmet restaurant in Kentucky and it drained my bank account. Erik and I are gonna be living on ramen for weeks.”
She bursts out laughing. “That’s if you don’t end up in the ER. Hope it comes with a defibrillator.”
“I think that’s complimentary.”
“By the way, your target is in the gray sweatshirt with the eagle. He’s got his phone out and appears to be communicating. Might want to make your move.”
I listen to Renee, who’s an actual detective, holed up in a back office surveying passenger data on her computer. As a natural super recognizer with added training in forensic facial analysis, I’m a grunt in comparison. Any information I gather is likely to be struck down in a court of law as too subjective. Instead, my job is to avert an immediate disaster by identifying passengers I recognize as disguised high-value threats so they can be detained and questioned before entering the United States, or—if I’m working with the TSA on the domestic side—an outward-bound plane.
“Gotcha.” Turning off the mic to save Renee’s hearing, I yell in an exaggerated Boston accent, “Excuse me! This is my spot. I went to the ladies’ and now I’m back so move!”
An older woman in front of my target purses her lips in disapproval. I know what she’s thinking. My generation has no concept of decorum. We are sooo rude because of cell phones. Little does she know that her life might hang in the balance depending on what the guy next to her has up his sleeve—literally.
Unfortunately, the target is bobbing his head to a silent beat streaming from his AirPods, oblivious to my caterwauling.
“What are you looking at?” I bark at the poor woman. “How about getting off my case and minding your own damn business!” I punctuate this with an extended middle finger.
My flailing catches his attention. He turns and I get a clearer shot of his features, noting, with irony, that he happens to possess a disarmingly pink baby face with pinchable cheeks. And while he could be Radix’s younger brother, he is not the infamous white supremacist attempting to pass himself off as another college student heading home for Christmas break. He simply is another college student heading home for Christmas break.
“Learn some respect,” the woman hisses.
“I’m so sorry,” I reply, because I am. Sort of.
Wheeling my bag out of line with apologies to the people behind me, I head for my usual post by the restroom. “That’s an all clear on 15,” I tell the CBP agent at Counter 5, where College Boy will be directed.
“Delta 405 from Paris,” the CBP agent returns. “Alert on number 27 with the green backpack. Originated at BGW connected through CDG.” Originating in Baghdad, the airport ranked number one on the Global Terrorism Index, is the kiss of death.