Page 79 of Ground Truth

“We have a video image captured during a crowded street scene. Nothing else to go on,” Jarsdel said.

“London. Near Buckingham Palace. During the last royal wedding,” Hedinger said.

“Which didn’t narrow things down,” Jarsdel replied. “So many tourists in town when the royals have their celebrations.”

“Exactly,” Hedinger said.

Jarsdel said, “We checked the databases. No record of the woman entering or leaving the country within ninety days either side of the video. Not under her real name or using her US passport, anyway.”

“You think she came in illegally and she’s still there,” Hedinger stated.

“Limiting the search to Wales, Scotland, and England, you’re looking at seventy-six million people. It’ll take a while to canvass them all,” Jarsdel said sardonically. “England alone is sixty-eight million.”

“I didn’t expect to hear excuses from you,” Hedinger stated flatly.

“We’re working on it. How soon do you need this done?”

“As quickly as possible.”

“As a US citizen, she would have a biometric passport. We can pull the fingerprints and iris scans from there and compare them to potential matches, once we have comps,” Jarsdel said.

“We know her real identity. But we have no idea what she’s calling herself now.” Hedinger paused to sip his coffee. “You’ll need to be creative and clever. If she could be found with a simple database search, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“What more can you send me to work with?” Jarsdel asked. “I have photos, fingerprints, date of birth. How about DNA?”

“No. Just the video you’re working from,” Hedinger said. “The situation is simple. We thought this woman was dead. Turns out she might still be alive. We need to fix that.”

Jarsdel paused. Hedinger waited.

“That’s not my usual line of work,” Jarsdel said. “I’m not a fixer.”

“First time for everything,” Hedinger replied. “This is a chance to broaden your skill set. You can charge higher fees.”

Jarsdel paused again, longer this time.

Hedinger became impatient. Partly because this was an offer Jarsdel was not allowed to refuse. He should have known as much.

Jarsdel inhaled deeply and said, “I’ll send materials as soon as I have them.”

Hedinger said, “Call me on this number when you have something to report.”

“Will do.”

“And to be crystal clear, this matter is for your eyes only,” Hedinger said before he hung up.

He slipped the phone into his pocket where he could feel it ringing when Jarsdel called.

Then he pushed a couple of keys on the laptop and watched the woman in the London video again while he waited for his lunch.

Hedinger had never met Greta Campbell. But he’d seen this brief video clip at least fifty times since Brand brought the matter to his attention. She was a handsome woman, even now.

Unlike Brand, Hedinger refused to succumb to self-delusion.

Ignoring trouble had never, in all his years, made trouble disappear.

Quite the opposite.

For Hedinger, trouble was like a nuclear bomb.

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