Dark Zone

75

Donohue walked through the boarding area where the second-class passengers were already queued up. He continued past the small shops that sold refreshments, making his way to the restroom. It was a small crowd for a Eurostar, he thought, maybe a quarter of the normal size, which seemed odd, because the trains were normally much more crowded. He paused at a sink, washing his face and making sure that the stalls were clear. An American tourist was helping his young son at a stall nearby, dad watching over the unlocked door. Otherwise the place was empty.

The assassin turned and walked into a stall on the opposite end, sitting down on the commode.

When he heard the child flush, Donohue took off his windbreaker and unzipped the lining, turning it around so that the jacket was now bright yellow nylon, very different from what he had worn to the station. From his wallet he unfolded a small mustache, applying glue from the center of a roll of Life Savers. Mustache applied, he took out his passport and smeared the rest of the glue on the photo, daubing a tiny amount at the edges as well. Then he removed a replacement page from his pocket, unrolling it carefully and feeding it down carefully. The page was clear except for a new photo, but it had to be put down carefully to preserve the anticounterfeiting impressions. Mucking this up would mean having to pull off the mustache, fairly painful after the thirty seconds it took for the glue to set. But he got it perfectly.

He held the passport page at an angle, making sure there were no flaws.

Passport prepared, he removed a small envelope from behind the license in his wallet. Inside the envelope were two tinted contact lenses to change his eye color. He had trouble getting the first in; the second felt as if he’d jabbed his eye but slipped right into place. In his experience, few people checked the eye color entered on passports — as his experience at the gate proved, since the eye color entered on the document matched the tinted brown effect, not his real eye color, which was a nearly opaque blue. But it was the sort of detail that Donohue insisted on getting right, just in case.

He reached down to his pants and pulled them off, turning them inside out also so that they now appeared to be black sports pants rather than jeans. Psychologically, it was his most vulnerable moment, far worse in his mind than if he’d been caught monkeying with the passport. But this passed as soon as the waist was snapped. He finished his transformation by placing two lift blocks into his shoes, adding another inch and a half to his height. As a last stroke he ran his fingers through his hair, rubbing a bit of coloring cream into the sides. The cream dappled his black a touch gray; he stroked at the side, then took out a comb and straightened it.

He went out and studied the effect in the mirror.

Distinguished.

The loudspeaker announced that the train for London was now boarding. Donohue nodded at the mirror and left the restroom a new man.