Chapter Text
The seat belt light came on and Peter Marshall, according to his passport, obediently fastened his and looked out of the window as the plane began its descent into Newcastle airport. Several rows behind him a baby began to wail as the change in air pressure affected its eardrums. To his right, Shale grunted in disapproval and it was enough to make Alex’s lips twitch in amusement. He was more used to private jets or first class on scheduled flights. This wasn’t even a scheduled flight. It was a charter, run by the travel agency TUI, taking people back from their summer holiday in the Antalya region on Turkey’s south coast to their usual lives in the north east of England.
Part of Alex wished that he had just spent a week sunning himself on a beach in Turkey. He hadn’t. He had just spent a couple of days assisting in the assassination of a politician in a ski resort in Switzerland. He had acquitted himself well and had been rewarded with this assignment.
‘It’s a test,’ Yassen had told him. ‘The UK makes up a significant portion of SCORPIA’s income stream. The board need to know you can operate there.’
‘But the risk?’
‘That’s the test. The technicians think we can fool the CCTV facial recognition software so you’re not picked up.’
‘How?’
A set of uncomfortable plastic additions to his face was how. Two loops in his nostrils spread them out. Fake teeth braces changed how wide his mouth was and its position in relation to his nose and chin. Elastic straps hidden in his hair and attached to the skin beside his eyes made one of them slightly lopsided. Thick glasses completed the look.
‘Irresistible,’ Crux had told him as she fitted them on his face.
‘I still look like me,’ Alex had said.
‘Not to a computer. Facial recognition software doesn’t look at faces like a human does. It takes measurements. Nose width, angles between features, how far is it between the corner of your mouth and the middle of your eye. Change enough of those measurements and the software doesn’t recognise you.’
Alex knew better than to argue with Yassen in front of Crux but when the woman had left them alone in the hotel room, the Russian stepped closer to Alex.
‘I would not put you in this sort of danger if I thought it would fail.’
‘But if it does?’ Alex felt the same kind of dread in his stomach as he had under the unfriendly watch of the SAS men on Santa Catalina.
‘Plans are in place to rectify that scenario,’ Yassen had said in a voice that told Alex not to argue any further. ‘Are you ready?’
Alex had stifled a sigh and picked up his bag. ‘Yes, sir.’
The dread still hadn’t entirely left him. Alex felt it again as the wheels bumped down onto the runway.
‘Showtime,’ Shale said to him and Alex dredged up a smile.
+++
Newcastle airport is busy for a regional airport dealing mostly with budget airlines and charter flights but it’s not large to anyone used to major hubs like Heathrow and Gatwick. It was a short walk before Alex found himself in the queue to have his passport checked. He knew that he was already on camera but no one in uniform had so much as given him a second glance let alone tried to arrest him which was a little reassuring. But this was the immigration check and that was a different level of scrutiny.
Shale was just behind him and he could see that Mace was already through the automatic barriers so he wasn’t alone. A space became free and Alex was beckoned over to it by one of the attendants.
Alex took off his glasses, put his feet on the indicated spot, put his passport on the scanner plate and waited. The system thought for a long while. The lights on his section turned from white to red. Alex glanced around for the attendant.
‘Try it again,’ the attendant said, miming him taking out his passport and putting it back in.
Alex did so. The system thought and then went red again.
The attendant looked sympathetic. ‘Just go down there and one of the immigration people will deal with you.’
Alex nodded. He’d been expecting this. In fact, he’d made sure that he’d put the wrong page of his passport into the scanner so that the system had never got around to scanning his face. He waited at the immigration booths until he was beckoned forward. He handed over his passport. The immigration officer checked his passport over and slid it into his machine.
‘You been causing problems with the automatic barriers?’ The man asked. Maybe he was trying to reassure the boy in front of him.
Alex nodded. He kept himself as relaxed as he could be. The passport was an expert forgery, he knew and there was no mismatch between the photo on the document and how he looked. Keeping his face away from the detailed scanner in favour of a human was the plan he'd worked out with Yassen.
‘Happens all the time.’ The officer checked his screen and smiled as he handed the passport back to Alex. ‘You’re all good.’
Alex smiled and went through to where Shale and Mace were waiting for him.
‘So far so good?’ Shale asked.
‘Yes,’ Alex said repressing a shaky sigh.
‘Then let’s get out of here.’
++++
It took twenty minutes but then the three of them had their luggage and they were out of the terminal and walking towards the car park.
‘We’re through,’ Mace said.
It started to rain.
‘Welcome to England,’ Alex said.