Wulfram chuckled at their old joke.
Theo leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
Dieter glanced where Theo was looking.
Hundreds of gray dots pock-marked the white acoustic ceiling tiles.
Theo said, his voice wandering as if he were musing aloud, “Not a reality show, but maybe a teleconference. What if you were disguised as an additional security consultant, hired to look for Flicka? We have technical guys here who could electronically distort your voice.”
Wulfram looked at Dieter.
Dieter interpreted Wulf’sglance and complete lack of emotion as thrilled excitement. They had been friends for a long time.
Wulfram said, “Rae took theater classes. She might know someone who could apply theatrical makeup to disguise you.”
“I worked with these guys foryears,”Dieter said. “They know me. They know everything about me.” Seriously, Luca Wyss and Friedhelm Vonlanthen would recognize Dieter’s fart.
Wulfsaid, “I want that mole out of my security detail. Whoever they are, they’re around my wife, mypregnantwife.”
“They might catch on, and then they’ll move on you.”
“Then you’ll have to be very good at this, won’t you?”
Dieter wasn’t confident about that in the slightest, despite the fact that he’d been playing the part of “Dieter Schwarz” for over a decade.
“How about having someone elsedo it?” Dieter said. “Someone else can play the additional security consultant, and I’ll watch through closed-circuit television to see if I can spot anything.” He gestured across the desk. “Theo, here, could do it.”
“They’ve seen me on the plane to Paris and around his house.” Theo was still staring at the ceiling. “If we’re going to use someone else, then it should be someone that none of themhave ever seen before. My cousin Noah could play the consultant, and you could watch them on another monitor. He didn’t go to Paris. Visa problems.”
Dieter said, “Now that’s a plan.”
“I’ll call him,” Theo said. “We can set it up for a few hours from now.”
“Splendid,” Wulf said, standing and straightening his shirt cuffs under his suit jacket. “I’ll alert theWelfenlegionthat I’ve hired anadditional consulting firm to search.”
With a nod to Dieter, Wulf strode out of Theo’s office and into the corridors. The door thumped closed behind him, a strong, soundproof door even though it was glass. Dieter suspected that theWelfenlegionwould pick Wulf up on the other side of the security checkpoint, as they probably were armed to the teeth and wouldn’t want to stow their weapons to enterthe building.
But Wulfram wasn’t his problem anymore.
Dieter stood to go, though he would linger a few minutes in the hallways to let Wulf and his detail get a head start. He couldn’t let them see him.
He turned back to say goodbye to Theo, repressing the urge to chew him a new one for narcing to Wulf that he was in town and had found Flicka.
Theo said, “One more thing before you go.”
“What?”
“There’s no record of a Dieter Schwarz entering this country.”
“That’s surprising,” Dieter said, not letting his face move at all, even though he wanted to deck Theo for even looking into that detail.
Theo said, “There’s no record of a Dieter Schwarz existing at all.”
“You should check Swiss military records. You’ll find all sorts of paperwork, passports, commendations, and sniper qualificationsin that name.”
Yeah, it was a little bit of a threat.
Theo continued, “But there is a record of a Raphael Valerian Mirabaud entering the United States. He looks a lot like you, and his criminal record makes him a target for blackmail or coercion by bad actors.”
