“Checked the guy here,” he said. “It’s a no go on the first one. Have you gotten anywhere with the background checks on the other two?”

“Maybe.”

“For god’s sake, Dingo…”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Both of the other guys look good. Hilton and Marriott. Both have emotional support dogs rather than seeing eye.”

“And…?”

“The guy at the Marriott has a good Facebook page, and it looks legit. Definitely not Ledger in all the pics.”

“That can be faked.”

“Sure, but there’s a lot of them, going back like eleven years. The time it would take to build all that phony history … man, that’s weeks of Photoshop alone.”

“What about the other guy, the one at the Hilton?”

“Of the two, he has my vote. Has LinkedIn with a picture that could be any of a thousand guys. Not Ledger’s face, of course, but a photo with details that match a likely disguise. And his Instagram is all funny memes and business stuff. He sells restaurant software to American chains doing business overseas. His Instagram avatar is a cartoon. Same goes for his Twitter. Lots of retweets from Forbes and Bloomberg, some Wall Street Journal stuff. And lots of pictures of restaurants all over the world.”

“So, you’re saying he’s trying to be anonymous?”

“That or he really is socially awkward and that’s why he has an emotional support dog.”

“Okay, I like that. Why’s the other guy have one?”

“PTSD. Not from the war, though. The roof of his church collapsed, and he was one of the few survivors.”

Stafford looked out the window at a light drizzle falling onto the Rotterdam streets. People hurried to get out of the rain. He watched a very pretty woman with incredible cheekbones and Jamaican braids walking through the shower with a joyful expression on her face.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll hit the Hilton first. Stay on it, though. If the other guy makes any kind of move, let me know.”

“Sure.”

Stafford hung up, nodded to himself, feeling good about the guest at the Hilton. He went out into the rain. He walked directly past a middle-aged woman wearing a dowdy cardigan who walk-jogged through the drops to get into the lobby. He had no idea who Peggy Ann Gondek was and did not even glance in her direction.

She, on the other hand, gave him a double take because at first glance she thought she was seeing Joe Ledger. But that second look convinced her it wasn’t Joe, not even in disguise. She turned away, forgetting about the man completely.

CHAPTER 80

ROTTERDAM MARRIOTT HOTEL

ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

Truth to tell … when I started talking to Toys, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to say.