“Not if we do it through the New York office and say we’re on the trail of some guy who’s wanted for some brutal crime in Europe or something.”
She nodded. “All right, let’s focus on the passport issue. Say for the sake of argument he entered the U.S. directly, but not on his own passport. What are the search options there?”
“Quite a few,” Pappas said. “Can I smoke?”
“I’d rather you didn’t, not with Jared so close by.”
“You’re no fun.” He sighed, stretched his legs, took another sip of coffee. “We went through this drill in TRADEBOM,” he said. “When we searched the apartments of some of the suspects, we found Nicaraguan passports-real, legitimate Nicaraguan passports.”
“How’d they get them?”
“Who knows? Some corrupt Nicaraguan official sold blanks to the Sandinistas, who sold them, or gave them, to ideological soulmates. This stuff happens all the time, all over the world.”
She thought for a moment. “So, what, we have our foreign legats talk to all their counterparts and local liaison?”
Pappas nodded.
She went on, “Ask every country we have dealings with to check whether a passport was issued to this guy. Maybe even ask them to do a complete records check, if they’re so inclined.”
“But without a photo, we’ll get squat. And not every country will comply. They’d be more likely to help out if they believe our guy forged one of their passports. But a lot of countries won’t give us the time of day.”
“Seems pointless.”
“That’s right. The thing we have going for us is, it’s not likely-probabilities, again-that he’d use a foreign passport.”
“Why not, if it’s so easy to get one?”
“Because that entails going through both customs and immigration in most U.S. airports and having officials take a nice, hard look, and who needs all that? Certainly not our Prince of Darkness.”
In her peripheral vision she saw that Jared was standing before them in his Lion King pajamas, squinting, hair mussed from sleep. “Could you guys keep it down?” he said grumpily.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Sarah said.
“Sorry,” Pappas said. “We’ll be quieter. Hey, buddy, do you mind if I smoke in here?”
“No, Alex, it’s okay. You can.”
Sarah got up, gave Pappas a black look, and kissed Jared on the forehead. She took him back to bed. When she returned, they resumed in much lower tones.
“Okay, so he’s got to get his hands on a U.S. passport,” she said. “How does he do that?”
Pappas exhaled delicately out of one side of his mouth, ostentatiously keeping the smoke away from Jared’s direction. “A number of ways. There’s the classic method of going to a cemetery, copying down the name of someone who died in infancy who’s also around your age, getting his birth certificate, then applying for a passport. Easier said than done; it’s awfully labor-intensive, and more and more often birth and death records are collated, so you can’t pull a fast one. No, he’d have to steal one or acquire a forged one.”
“It’s not so easy to forge a U.S. passport anymore.”
“No, it isn’t. Though admittedly not impossible if you hire someone really skilled. But that’s a limited pool of talent.”
“And if he does hire someone good?”
“If it’s a top-flight forgery, we’re not going to catch it anyway.”
“Oh, come on, Alex, isn’t there a computer network linking all border entry points? Called something like IBIS, for Inter-Interagency Border Inspection System? Correct?”
“Correct, but-”
“As I recall from New Agents training, we used to post watch lists and photographs of fugitives at border entry points, and the customs agent would consult his lookout lists either alphabetically or by passport number.”
Pappas nodded and fished out another cigarette from the pack.
“But now we’ve got automatic document readers at most major ports, right? They optically scan the coded information at the bottom of the passport, and they’re programmed to look for variances and patterns to make sure a passport is valid. So if our guy flashes a forged passport, isn’t he going to be caught instantly?”
“If it’s a lousy forgery, sure. But not if it’s any good. You’re dreaming if you think the system is set up to catch fakes. It’s not.”
“But if the number of a fake passport doesn’t match existing passport numbers, won’t it be flagged?”
“Wrong. More techno-lust. Little-known fact: the system doesn’t notice passport numbers that don’t exist.”
“Jesus Christ. But surely lost or stolen passports are logged onto the system. Otherwise, what the hell is it good for?”
“Yes, lost or stolen passports are entered into the computer, so if someone tries to use one, a ‘red flag’ goes up-an alert message or whatever it is. That’s how we caught those terrorists who stole all those U.S. passports a couple of years back.”
He was referring to a recent incident, which the FBI has never made public, in which a terrorist group seized fifteen hundred valid U.S. passports. But the FBI had each of the passports flagged on the INS computer system and thereby caught any terrorist who tried to use one.
“Which means,” Sarah said, “Baumann’s not going to use a stolen passport.”
“Well, no, not necessarily. There’s always a delay between the moment he, or someone else, steals a passport and the moment it goes onto the on-line lookout list. Maybe the guy he lifted it from doesn’t notice for a couple of days. Or maybe the lady whose job it is to enter passport data into IBIS took the week off to visit Disney World with her kids.”
“So he can use a stolen passport.”
“Correct.”
“Shit. All right, I’ve got it. We do a cross-check.”
“Hmm?”
“Okay, so we know the automated, optically scanning document readers at all ports of entry store all information on who’s entered the country, at what time, on what day and on what flight and where, right?”
“Right.”
“That’s all on an immense database at State. And we cross-check that list against a list of all passports reported lost or stolen within the last month. So in effect, what we’re coming up with is a list of all lost or stolen passports that’ve been used since they were reported lost or stolen.”
Pappas chuckled. “More of your beloved technology.”
“Of course, it won’t work if the passport Baumann used to get into the country was never reported. But say it was. Then we’ve got a list of all illegal entries, and we filter out that list, and we’ve got him.”
“Can’t be done,” Pappas said flatly. “These are two separate, discrete databases. Sad, but true. We’re not set up to do something like that. Sounds good in theory, but you’d have to check a list of thousands of stolen or lost passports against millions of people who’ve come into the U.S. recently-and do it by hand. It would take forever. Tedious, mind-numbing, and frankly impossible.”
“That’s why God invented computers.”
“Listen, Sarah. For as long as I’ve been in the Bureau, that’s never been done. Never. There’s a reason for that.”
“Yeah. They didn’t have Ken Alton, computer wizard. I’ll give him a call. He’s probably just booted up his computer for the night.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, kid. And don’t forget, even if you somehow find out what passport he used, he’s already in the country.”
“Shame on you, Alex. Then we’ve got us a trail.”
“Hardly a trail.”
“Oh, come on,” Sarah upbraided him. “Then we’ve got us a damn good start.”
“If we’re lucky.”