Chapter 59

 

The moment the train rolled out of the Zurich bahnhof, Frank felt his mood rise. No way would some women put the fear in him! This was his game—he called the plays. The joy of the con was always in the act of walking away, cutting out, getting away with it. The necklace rested safely against his belly and the guy who would pay big money for it was sitting three rows ahead of him.

Van der Went insisted they travel separately, but that didn’t mean Frank wouldn’t have his eye on the Dutchman during the trip. He studied the man, as much for his style as for the deal they were about to complete. Anton looked like a mill worker on his way home, blending seamlessly with others in the commuting crowd in his wrinkled pants and coarse shirt, a flat cap on his head, a small knapsack near his feet. At the next stop, a lot of the working types got off. Anton draped his casual jacket over his seat and visited the lavatory. Frank tensed, wondering if Anton was pulling a sneaky way of getting off the train. But the man came back wearing a neat white shirt and tie, and the pants had lost a lot of their slouchy appearance. His hair was combed and he stowed the cap and rough shirt in the knapsack.

Frank was impressed. Most people would never realize they were looking at the same man. At the next stop, the casual jacket got turned inside out changing its color from blue to gray. The knapsack went from cloth to leather, and the man now wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and spent the rest of the ride consulting his smart phone.

Frank realized he would need to implement similar changes in his own appearance before he finalized the deal with Anton and these colleagues. By the time he boarded a flight for America, he’d better be someone that no one in Europe would remember.