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It’s a three-hour highway drive from Florence to Venice. Dalton quickly became accustomed to the natural rhythm of the bike and Shirley’s driving. Shirley could easily have made it in two hours, but she drove conservatively to avoid police entanglements.
Unfortunately, even one hour would not have been fast enough.
Halfway to Venice, Dalton received a call from Sal. Dalton’s phone was set to automatic answer via his earphone. So Shirley could hear only his side of the conversation.
Sal said, “I’ve got bad news, Dalton. Don’t show your face anywhere. There’s a new smartphone app just released solely to find you. It has facial recognition tailored to your face. It’s very good. State of the art face measurement. It will even see through most disguises. In the first hour after release, it sold a million downloads in Italy. There’s another version for surveillance cameras. The software will pick you out of a large crowd in less than a second. But here’s something that might help: Smudge some dirt or grease above and to the right of your right eye, and below and to the left of your left eye. The smudges don’t have to be very dark, just slightly darker than your eyes are in the shadow of your brow. It should confuse the facial recognition software as to where your eyes are and what your interocular distance is. That should screw up the facial metrics. Maybe.
Dalton replied, “Thanks, that should help. By the way, thanks also for sending Shirley. She and her motorcycle saved me.”
“I’m glad to hear she’s helping you,” said Sal. “But I don’t know anyone named Shirley. If she knows us, we’ve been hacked. Good luck.”