Dalton looks at the image. “The left? No, Marlon’s the guy on the right.”
“That’s Martin’s cousin Jerome.”
Dalton rubs his eyes and then pulls over the desk chair and sits.
“I’m not explaining this well,” I say.
“You are. I’m just wrapping my head around it. Give me a sec.” Another rub. “Okay, so Émilie recruited a guy named Martin Moyer, who is the one in those articles, the former military man who was kidnapped and nearly killed for messing with some neo-Nazi’s ex.”
“Yes. None of the articles I found had a photo. Understandably—as the victim, the last thing Martin wanted was more attention. However, after I saw the photos of Martin and Jerome, I did more digging and found social media articles on the kidnapping thatdidinclude Martin’s photo, which leave no doubt that the man we know as Marlon is not Martin Moyer.”
“The man we know is the guy on the right.” He points at the photo. “His cousin.”
“Jerome Moyer. I took that from Martin’s socials. Jerome doesn’t have a social media presence. At all. I did, however, find a couple of deep online references that seem to be him, including another photo, older but definitely our Marlon.”
Dalton takes a deep breath, then exhales a long “Fuuuck.” After a moment, he turns to me. “So Martin got accepted and let his cousin take his place? Could that work?”
I pick up my notepad from the bed. “I think so. Émilie’s investigator is the one who worked with Martin. He does all the interviews and provides all the data. Then Émilie needs to provide the fake passport to get Martin across the border. Did they supply Martin’s photo, hoping their superficial resemblance would get Marlon past security? Jerome grows a beard and cuts his hair to match, and that’s good enough? Or did they supply Jerome’s photo, presuming whoever’s making the passport either hasn’t seen Martin’s photo or—again—would figure it was close enough. We’d need to run that past Émilie.”
“Ask her what checks and balances are in place to ensure the person admitted is the person who arrives.”
I nod.
He shakes his head. “You know what checkisn’tin place? Making sure we’ve seen a photo of the person who’s supposed to be showing up. There’s a resemblance, but there’s no way we’d have mistaken Jerome for Martin. We’re more paranoid than any border guard.”
“We need to start getting photos,” I say. “Photos that have been seen all the way up the chain. But fixing that is a problem for another day. For now, it’s clear that the wrong guy is in Haven’s Rock. The question is why Martin did the switcheroo.” I pause. “And my fear is that he didn’t.”
Dalton frowns. Then he swears. “Martindidneed to disappear. So why give his spot to his cousin?”
“Also, Martinhasdisappeared,” I say. “He posted a goodbye on his socials, just as he’d been instructed. Is it possible that coming up here wasn’t what he wanted? That Émilie gave him all the resources he needed to vanish, but he didn’t actually want to comehere? So he let his cousin come up instead, while he hightails it to Mexico? Possible but convoluted.”
“There’s another reason why Martin would disappear and Jerome would show up here instead.”
“If Martin didn’t give his cousin that slot. If Jerome took it.”
“And Martin isn’t around to tell anyone.” Dalton exhales. “Fuck.”
“I’m calling Émilie,” I say. “You need to get on the phone to Anders. We have to get Marlon in custody. Now.”
I don’t bother texting Émilie to warn her I’m calling. She picks up, sounding groggy. I realize it’s barely seven. I know the polite thing would be to apologize for waking her, or at leastaskwhetherI’ve woken her, but that’s wasted time, and this is urgent.
I tell her what I’ve discovered. Like Dalton, she needs to ask me to repeat myself a few times while she processes. But she’s soon up and tapping on her laptop.
“Is there any chance I could be mistaken?” I say. “Some way you can tell me that this kind of mix-up is impossible and we’ve misidentified Marlon?”
“I wish I could, Casey, but I’m looking at all the photos now, and if you say this man on the right is the man in Haven’s Rock, then there has indeed been a switch. The biggest sticking point would be the passport, as you mentioned. I’m just pulling up Marlon’s file, and the photo submitted is…” She curses.
“Jerome, not Martin.”
“Yes. I can very clearly see the difference. Jerome cut his hair and grew a beard, but he is not Martin.”
“There’s just a superficial resemblance.”
She exhales. “Yes, and I fear it’s worse than that. It’s a lack of checks and balances, as you said. Most of our interviews are conducted by encrypted video, unlike when you were admitted and Eric met you in person. Video is never ideal for lighting and image quality. We also minimize points of contact. In Marlon’s case, only the interviewer saw him, via video. The person they spoke to would have been Martin. Then the passport photo goes to the same person. Presumably they would confirm it’s the person they saw in the video interview, but that is not a clear checkpoint.”
“They aren’t asked to study the photo and confirm that it matches. It’s just presumed that they’d notice if it didn’t.”
“Yes. Also, in this case, the person who conducted the interview and received the photo is white.”
