When Civil Servants Fail

by John Schou

and said, “Mr. Stewart, I suppose. I am Eric Gusto and this is Frederik Nielsen. We are associates of Mr. Smith in Hellerup, whom you told Mrs. Wilson about.”

  The young man stared at us, obviously shaken by the unexpected reception. “I don’t know who you are talking about.”

  “There are two CIA-agents waiting for you outside the customs exit and they were so nice to talk a bit too loud about special hallmarks of Mr. Stewart. In particular, they noticed your shoes and camera. Also your long hair, beard and sunglasses were mentioned and a red shirt, which I cannot see, but CIA-agents in Singapore must have seen it. My suggestion is to change shoes with one of us and then send us out to receive the wrath of the agents – and in the meantime, we may pass. Fred, your shoe size?”

  “41”

  “I have 44 and you Mr. Stewart?”

  “7 1/2 “

  “I forgot, we measure in cm and you in inches.”

  The newcomer laughed. “OK, let’s say 41, then. I happen to know the size in your measure.”

  “All right, Fred and you go off to the toilet and change shoes and hat or cap. Mr. Stewart, try to collect your hair in the hat you get from Mr. Nielsen – and give him your sunglasses and your camera. Here in Denmark, there is so little sun that we seldom use such devices. Today is perhaps an exception.”

  Mr. Stewart was not in an easy position – should he thrust us? He decided at least to play our game and Fred and he disappeared to make the change. There was no time to care about the beard; anyhow, here in Denmark, full beards are far from rare.

  As they came out, Fred offered to help an elderly lady carrying her suitcase – after all, Mr. Stewart had one, too. He went out past the customs office, and as soon as he was out of my sight, there was a tremendous noise outside.

  I called into the customs office: “Georg, your friend Frederik has become sort of trouble outside. Georg came out as a blizzard and put his cap on. The noise increased. Mr. Stewart and I waited another minute, and then we went out. To the right, there was scenery: Fred was handcuffed, hands on the back, and Georg, now assisted by two policemen, tried to explain to the Americans that they had no authority to arrest anybody in Denmark. We went to the left, leaving the participants of the chaos on their own. Except for Fred, nobody noticed us. He would not betray his Danish nationality before we were out of sight.

  We grasped a taxi and drove to a hotel in Hellerup. I asked the driver to take the old road, so that my guest could get an early impression of Copenhagen. In reality, I wanted to avoid the highway. I took out the batteries of my mobile phone, so that it could not be used to settle my position.

  In Hellerup, which is just a few kilometres North of Copenhagen, I booked a room under my name for 3 days and paid cash in advance. They were not insisting on a registration, so you could guess there would be no tax paid from this visitor.

  I was near to Mr. Smith, and I could not yet call him without betraying where I was. I would also not be in the position to lead him or the Wilsons to the hotel, since I could assume that our small road, which ended blindly by the water, was observed. I had told Fred that I would go to Meeting Place 4, if he would kindly tell Mr. Smith that, expecting that he would then know where. However, I wanted instructions from him, how to proceed.

  He found a very peculiar way to do that. I had left Mr. Stewart to rest in his room after informing him of my precautions, which forced a period of inactivity upon us. Suddenly, two women stood before me in the lobby. I recognized Susanne immediately, a blond and slim, longhaired girl, 25 years old, who was slowly introduced into our business. Her companion had not so slim proportions, was wearing a blue dress and sunglasses. Again sunglasses in the wintertime, fortunately she took them off and then I recognized Mrs. Wilson.

  “How do you come here?” I asked by surprise.

  “Mr. Smith called me after Fred had given him report about the occurrences this morning and asked for my assistance,” Susanne responded. “Accordingly, I fetched Mrs. Wilson in my car. First, we sent the cook away in the big Cadillac. The windows are darkly toned, so it was impossible to identify the passenger, and immediately, a small silver-coloured car followed. However, there was still one car guarding the house, so I called Fred with my mobile phone. He told me to meet him after 15 minutes in a small park house nearby. I should just drive in, see that he was there and then drive out again. I noticed in the mirror that I was densely followed but drove quite normally. I entered the park house, saw Fred who immediately drove after me, and as I drove out again, he simply blocked the exit. That’s all, and then we came here. Mr. Smith told me to handle the case the best I could, he was preparing something else.”

  “I hope the car was driven by one of the guys from this morning,” I said, silently laughing over the picture of Fred blocking the only exit. It was a good exercise for Susanne.

  We went now all three up to the room where Jack was sleeping. He had thrown himself on the bed without undressing, suffering from the ‘jetlag’. After all, he slept superficially and woke up as we entered.

  “Hi Jack,” said Mrs. Wilson, expressing more hope than recognition.

  “Hi Mum,” answered the fugitive.

  “We thought you were dead. Why didn’t you call us before?”

  “Because it is dangerous to know that I am alive. I wanted to spare you that danger and start a new life in a new identity – but Australia has turned to be a miserable place for free thinkers, and I hoped to start anew somewhere else. Unfortunately, the events of today have showed that I still am a hunted fugitive, more than five years later.”

  I interrupted their discussion: “Excuse me my intrusion, but Mrs. Wilson, do you recognize your son beyond the shadow of a doubt?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But his exterior has changed a bit in the past five years. Please pose him some questions that only Jack Wilson should know about.”

  Jack wanted perhaps to make it easier: “Perhaps which school or college I visited or matters of the family life.”

  “Where were you on holiday in the summer of 1999?” I asked

  “I don’t remember,” said Mrs. Wilson after a short intermission.

  “But mum, we were in the Virgin Island. It was when they stole dad’s credit card.”

  “Oh yes, that’s right,” Mrs. Wilson said.

  “And the following winter?” I persisted.

  “I was alone for a week by Lake Tahoe in Nevada. My father had a small operation, nothing dramatically, but I had to go alone. I went there with a girlfriend, Catherine, but we quarrelled a lot, and after five days, she simply left me. On her way back to Frisco – San Francisco to you – she had an accident and ...”

  “Stop! So far correct, Mrs. Wilson?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Great. Anyhow, the interest posed by CIA is almost a proof of your identity, unless you have done something very, very bad.”

  “My worst crime was to stay alive while I was supposed to have died. My sole existence is proof of the hoax that the events of 9/11 were. And the origin of my persecutors shows who is, at least partly, responsible for the malicious event in 2001.”

  “You make us all very curious of the events. But wait, I shall give Mr. Smith the crucial report of the confirmation of your identity.”

  “Then ask him also, if he can advice me a way out of this calamity. I am sick and tired of being on the run,” Jack said.

  “We shall also support his efforts in that direction,” Mrs. Wilson said.

  “You can tell your mother about the last five years, but wait with 9/11 until I am back – probably in an hour.

  “But I thought you would not use the telephone, and the house is definitely under surveillance,” Jack argued.

  “There is another way, but I cannot tell you. Susanne, please stay here, have you any appointments in the coming 24 hours?”

  “No, not really.”

  “And you can stay here without giving anybody a message?”

  “I would like to tell
my boyfriend that I am not coming home this evening.”

  “OK, I shall take care of that. You cannot call yourself. I forgot to tell you to take the batteries away. It does not suffice to turn it off the mobile phone.”

  “Then how will you call him yourself?”

  “I won’t. Someone else will do it.

  “Who?”

  “If you want to work for Mr. Smith, there are questions not to be posed. I guarantee that the call shall be made.”

  She scratched a number on a piece of paper. “OK, under a slight protest, but so slight that Mr. Smith does not hear. His name is Robert.”

  I was just about to ask about his surname, because Mr. Smith would definitely then ask me. However, a glance at Susanne’s face convinced me to avoid it.”

  The hotel is not far from Mr. Smith’s house. I had certainly no sunglasses or wore other suspicious disguise, but I must admit that I made a small detour away from the big street in north-south direction, Strandvejen, in order to avoid being seen where our small street was beginning. Now coming from the north, I took the parallel way down to the Sea, Øresund, and rang the doorbell. An elderly woman, Mrs. Clausen, let me in without asking any questions or even utter a word of greeting. An important part of her housekeeping was financed from a monthly cash supply by Mr. Smith, the neighbour. This was the reason, so far not discovered by any authorities – or intelligence services: From the house, there was a direct cable to Mr. Smith’s house, and not combined with any conventional telephone. Through that, I told Mr. Smith what had happened and received new instructions. I did not forget Susanne’s boyfriend (neither did Mr. Smith). More importantly, he wanted me to take a Dictaphone for recording Jack’s story. In order not to awake any suspicion, Juanita would hang some (dry) clothes in the garden (in November!), then talk to Mrs. Clausen – who was fortunately almost deaf but therefore needed written instruction in big letters – and discretely hand over the device.

  The old woman was perhaps deaf, but not stupid. She was richly paid each month and only disturbed every now and then. Her big luck was being Mr. Smith’s second neighbour when the World only counted one and the sea was the other. She brought me the Dictaphone and I went back to the hotel, the same way I had come.

  I told Susanne that her boyfriend would be taken care of by Mr. Smith personally; should there be any problems originating in, that a strange man informed that she would not be home tonight, I should gladly give her a photo of Mr. Smith to show her friend. I then ordered the neighbouring room for her.

  We were now all looking forward to hear, how Jack, as a passenger of UA93, survived 9/11 – and it was indeed a fascinating story, here given with his own words.

  4 – A Long Travel Home

  I was going home to California from Washington early in the morning, I thought. The sun was going to rise as I arrived at the airport, it looked as if it was going to be a beautiful day but some problems arose as I tried to book in for the scheduled plane.

  “I am sorry, Sir, but the plane you were supposed to take was already filled, that is, I admit it was overbooked. However, we have another plane for San Francisco a little later and as a small compensation, I can give you a business-class seat.”

  “When will the second plane leave?”

  “It should be leaving at 8:20 a.m.”

  “All right, accepted, but don’t forget the promised upgrading, I have long legs.”

  “No problem, Sir, there is plenty of room for the legs in that plane. So far, we have just about one fifth of the seats occupied.”

  “Strange – and with another plane from the same company hopelessly overbooked?”

  She drew her shoulders up, opened her hands to each side and said, “The computer’s will is our command.”

  The computer! Always is the computer given credit to all possible errors, why not the humans who fed the computer? Never