“Sure it is. You mean it’s a computer-generated image or something? Like an avatar? That’s one damn ugly avatar. I look angry or something.”
“That’s not your picture, although it’s obviously close,” Dieter said. “It wasn’t safe to use a real picture of you. Biometric passports hold computerized images of your face and fingerprints. If Pierre convinced the French government to put out a high-level alert, facial recognition software might pick out your picture and alert the authorities.”
Flicka glanced up.
His gray eyes were serious, and his mouth pressed into a tight line.
She looked back at the passport. “That’s not me?”
“No. It’s someone we knew at Rogue Security. Her passport shouldn’t set off any warning bells.”
“She really looks like me.” Even as Flicka said it, she scrutinized the picture.
The blond, green-eyed woman in the picture had a slight bend in her nose, unlike Flicka’s, like it might have been broken a little at some point. Her face might have been a little fuller in the jaw, just a touch more Slavic than Flicka’s heart-shaped face.
But just a little.
Barely any at all.
Almost imperceptible unless you were looking for it.
She said, “Gretchen Mirabaud. That’s odd, a German name and a French one.”
He shrugged. “Swiss people mix and match. It’s not unusual.”
“I know several people with the last name of Mirabaud.”
“It’s a common name among the Swiss French.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
“The important thing is that you need to memorize her birthdate and other information. If the passport control official here at Charles de Gaulle or the US immigration official questions you, you need to be able to answer fluently and easily.”
She studied the information in the passport, looking at every line and feeling the rhythm of the numbers and letters, for about fifteen seconds. “Okay, got it.”
“All of it?”
She’d already let on that she might have a touch of the Hannover memory thing, so she shrugged.
“When’s your birthday?” he asked.
“May fourth.”
“What’s your sign?”
“I don’t believe in astrology.”
“Okay, decent answer, but you know your real sign is Pisces on the cusp of Aquarius even though you don’t believe in it. So if your birthday is May fourth, what’s your sign?”
Flicka thought about it. “Gemini?”
“Taurus,” Dieter told her.
“Oh, no. I could never be a Taurus. I don’t even like beef.”
He laughed out loud. “For today, let’s pretend you’re the most atypical Taurus on the Earth.”
“Silly things like that don’t matter. I can recite the passport number if I need to.”
