spiky cut. McGee’s spin as a coiffeur was horrible and Ryan had to step in to rescue him and clean it up.
McGee did his mustache on his own and when he was finished, they both looked in the mirror together. The transformation was remarkable.
With the Colonel’s blessing, Ryan selected clothes and a pair of shoes from her closet. She was fortunate they were so similar in size. McGee had changed into some of the extra clothes he had fled his home with.
The operatives were well aware of the amount of domestic surveillance technology that could be arrayed against them and had already ditched their cell phones. That one move would go a long way toward blinding the monster that would be tracking them. The other move that would keep them hidden was abandoning their credit cards. From this point forward, everything would be paid for in cash.
The last thing they agreed upon was very selective use of the Internet. Social media platforms were a godsend to the intelligence community. They recorded in stark detail almost everyone, everywhere, and everything you were connected to. Along with cell phone and credit card activity, social media and email accounts were one of the first places Phil Durkin would be looking for them.
Because people’s digital exhaust gave so many clues about them, they had to break with all of their old habits. They also needed to break with any friends, family, or colleagues they normally communicated with. That was another pond Durkin would be skimming as he tried to determine their whereabouts.
In essence, they were dropping completely off the grid. For her part, Ryan considered them blessed that the Colonel had made her home available to them. If not, they would have been forced to break into a vacant house or leapfrog from cheap hotel to cheap hotel, and both strategies were fraught with a myriad of problems.
The other thing Brenda Durkin had graciously made available to them was use of her 1990 Ford Mustang LX. Not only was it a nondescript vehicle, it also was built before the explosion in GPS technology. It was perfect for their new, under-the-radar personas.
Leaving Fort Belvoir, their first stop was an office supply store. While Ryan purchased what they needed inside, McGee walked around back. After making sure there were no security cameras or personnel present, he checked all three dumpsters until he found what he was looking for. By the time he returned to the Mustang, Ryan was already waiting for him.
Their next stop was a midrange men’s clothing store that specialized in business attire. Against McGee’s more flamboyant taste, Ryan picked out a cheap, off-the-rack gray suit, along with a plain white shirt, a boring tie, a belt, shoes, and a pair of dress socks.
“You got me everything but the pocket protector,” he said as she directed him toward a dressing room to put it all on.
When he stepped back out and the salesman complimented him on the fit, Ryan had him remove the jacket. Because of his physique, it was too tight. That was not going to do for her purposes. “This isn’t a casting call for a mob movie,” she stated as she sent the salesperson to find him a bigger size.
Twenty minutes later, and with McGee costumed for his part, they paid cash for the clothing and left the store. At a coffee shop a couple of blocks away, they assembled their props and quietly went over the plan one last time.
“What if I get asked a question I can’t answer?” said McGee.
“You’re there strictly for intimidation. You don’t answer questions, you ask them. By the time we leave, I expect this guy to be admitting to things he did all the way back in grade school. The object of our visit is simple. We scare the hell out of him and then we give him an out.”
“But what if he talks? What if the minute we leave, he picks up the phone?”
“When you see his credenza, you’ll understand why that won’t happen.”
• • •
The small community bank was an hour’s drive northwest of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters. Ryan parked a couple of blocks away, rather than in the bank’s parking lot, just in case anyone got suspicious and wanted to take down a description of their vehicle along with its license plate number.
It was a pleasant enough bedroom community with broad sidewalks and thick-trunked, stately trees. It looked like it was probably a nice place to raise a family.
As they