Tony was apprehensive. His plan counted on Marco helping him. He took a couple of mouthfuls of poached egg before broaching the subject.
“Obviously, I need to get out of the country as quickly as I can. The police are going to be watching all the airports, and the sea ports, of course. Being in this business, you always have to be prepared to get out fast. I had a backpack permanently packed with what I would need in case of an emergency exit. Besides that, we knew that I would have to leave as the Bank of England thing will be discovered in a couple of months when the Bank does its audit. Carlos gave me a false Irish passport with a visa for Brazil and $100,000 cash as part of the deal. He also gave me Nick Styles’ passport with his photo replaced with mine.”
“So you’re going to go to Brazil?”
“No, you are,” said Tony.
“What!” said Marco.
“I’m going to need your help,” said Tony. “Of course you can say no, but there’ll be no danger to you and you wouldn’t be breaking any laws. You just have to lead them off track, while I have time to get away,” said Tony.
“OK, I’m listening,” said Marco.
“You fly to Brazil, pretending to be me, while I fly somewhere in the opposite direction. We already look alike and with some hair dye and skin coloring, we could fool anyone. I’ll give you my passport, airline tickets and a bunch of cash.”
“Wait, wait,” said Marco, “I’ll do all that I can to help you, but I won’t do anything illegal. I’ll do it but I’ll travel on my own passport. They’ll expect you to be using a fake passport anyway. If I use your passport, I’d get arrested before the plane took off. After they find your car at the airport, they’ll check airline CCTV and think I’m you. They’ll be convinced that you are in Brazil. But it will be me, traveling in my own name — completely legal.”
“Okay, okay, but this is not going to work if you don’t use my passport when you check into the hotel in Rio. You don’t have to do anything else illegal. You can say I forced you into doing this, in the very unlikely chance that something goes wrong. But I don’t see how it can,” said Tony.
“I need to text Saphia,” said Marco. “There’s no way she can come over with all this going on.”
After breakfast, Marco went into work at the TV station to arrange his “spur of the moment” holiday. While he was there, he visited the make-up department to pick up what he needed to make him look like Tony.
Marco looked a lot like Tony already, but he needed to darken his skin and dye his brown hair black.
He asked one of the hairstylists to cut his hair in the same style as Tony’s. He had a photo on his iPhone of just Tony’s hair, to show her the style. After the haircut, the make-up girl darkened his skin.
“What’s going on, Tony? Who are you tryin to impress?” Asked the hair dresser.
“I’m going on holiday to Mexico tomorrow. I don’t want to look like a tourist. I want to blend in and look like a local.”
When he got back, Tony was impressed with Marco’s tranformation. “Wow! It’s weird — like looking in a mirror!”
Marco laughed. He had to admit, they did look like twins.
“I can’t thank you enough, Marco, I really need the next few days to disappear,” Tony he explained to his friend. “They will be chasing after you which will give me time to be long gone.”
Tony passed over an envelope. “There’s a thousand pounds, a thousand US dollars and a thousand Euros, it’s your to keep — petty cash, and I’ll be finding a way to get you more. There are two credit cards in my name — MasterCard and American Express. There’s ten thousand pounds in each account, use them as much as you like in Brazil, but only there, they’ll soon track down those accounts and that’s what I want them to do. There’s a signed and witnessed affidavit in there, saying that you are authorized to use my account — just in case. There are also two passports, a fake Irish passport - name ‘Brandon Moran’ and my real passport.”
While Marco was in work, Tony walked to a nearby Internet cafe, where he used a VPN to book the airline tickets. He booked a Ryan Air return flight to Barcelona and then a one way Iberia Flight to Fuerteventura — in the name of Antonio Rossi. He used an Antonio Rossi PayPal account for payment. On his way back saw a barbers shop. He looked inside and saw the barber sitting in one of the barber’s chairs reading a newspaper. He went in and told the barber he was going to Brazil and needed a close crop.
“What about a #3 with the clippers?” asked the barber.
“Make it a #1,” said Tony.
Tony’s ready to leave. His flight to Barcelona was leaving in the afternoon. Marco drove Tony to the East Midlands Airport. They said their goodbyes and Marco wondered if he’d ever see his best friend again.
The next day, Marco changed the plates on Tony’s Warrior and drove to Heathrow. His flight to Sao Paulo was leaving in the evening.
After he parked at the airport, he put Tony’s plates back on the car. He wondered how long it would take the police to discover the car.
He hadn’t told Saphia anything other than he had to make a business trip to Paris and he wouldn’t be able to call her until he got back, in a few days.