D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

Jalil became all business, turning his sober black-eyed gaze on Michael, appraising him at once. He turned back to Erika and nodded. “To you, I owe everything. Come, come,” he said, waving them inside.”

Jalil’s flat was best described as student eclectic. There were the obligatory gallery posters on the walls advertising art shows from ten years in the past, some of Jalil’s art—a pastiche of early Andy Warhol—sat on an easel near the large bay window that dominated the room. As for furniture, the room was alive with pillows of every description, some as big as sofas. But nothing resembling conventional tables and chairs could be found. The only concession to modern living was an obscenely expensive stereo powered by valves and a door leading to a darkroom that held the best and most expensive equipment for the manipulation of photographic images.

The next few hours went by in a whirlwind of motion. Minutes after they’d arrived, Jalil had Michael filling out a forged passport application, which included a space for a signature. He told Michael to leave everything but the signature space blank.

Unlike passports from other countries, where the bearer signed his passport after receiving it, British passports had the signature re-photographed and made a part of the photo, presumably as means of preventing forgery. It was then pasted into the passport in the proper place, and laminated.

As Michael handed the form to Erika, Jalil brought out his photographic gear and set it up facing a light blue backdrop. Michael vaguely remembered when he had his original picture taken that it was the same robin’s egg color. Jalil, looked up from the viewfinder of his Hasselblad camera with a critical gaze. “Oh, my, this will never do,” he said, clucking like a mother hen.

Michael frowned and turned to Erika, who seemed to be staring at him with the same appraising eye. “He thinks you look too good.”

“What?”

“Please not to be misunderstanding. You must remember when you have a picture taken for a passport you are never at your best. Please do not smile and do look as if you have been standing in line for three hours.”

These people are bloody crazy, Michael thought, but he stared back at the camera with what he hoped was an expression of mild hostility.

“Perfect!” Jalil shouted and snapped the picture.

Blinking from the spots before his eyes, Michael watched while Jalil stepped into his darkroom and closed the door. A second later the red light over the door popped on, signaling to those outside that it was unsafe to enter. Half an hour later, Jalil emerged with a print about the size of a wallet photo. He was smiling broadly.

“The Passport office has a special prismatic camera that will photograph both the subject and his signature simultaneously,” he said. “Of course, I cannot get one of these marvels and must be content with my humble equipment. They forget the art of collage. I must be telling you that the gods have smiled on their humble servant this day.”

He proffered the photo to Erika, who nodded approvingly, and then passed it to Michael. The signature was seamlessly married with his photograph, laminated, then cleverly embossed with a forgery of the official Passport office embossing stamp. It would no doubt stand up to even microscopic examination. As for his image, he cringed when he saw his wide-eyed grimace. He looked like a bloody criminal. “Maybe we should do it again,” he said.

A look of annoyance flashed across the Pakistani’s face “No, no,” he said. “It is exactly perfect, my friend, exactly perfect.”

Next came the blank passport form that Jalil withdrew from a strong box he kept in a hidden compartment in the back of one of his closets. It was one of the old blue ones, with the gold coat of arms, before the changeover to the brown Common Market type.

“I have a friend at the firm who printed these magnificent items. He slipped me several after every run.” Jalil said, smiling proudly. “This one is among the last.”

“What about other countries? Does your friend have those, as well?” Michael asked.

Jalil wagged his fingers. “That, my inquisitive friend, is better left unsaid. Now, where would you like to have been?”

“Excuse me?”

“We must have a travel history, unless, of course, you want a new passport, in which case we will have to start over.”

“Oh, now I understand. I don’t care.”

“Have it show trips to the United States and the Orient,” Erika said.

Jalil nodded. “Very good.”

“What about East Germany,” Michael asked. “What if we need to go there?”

“That is quite the impossible, my adventurous friend. The DDR changes its stamps every month. It is too hard to keep up with. I would need the right stamp for the right month that you supposedly traveled. If it were wrong....”

The implication hung in the air and Michael shook his head. “Fine, we’ll deal with that if and when we need to. Carry on.”

Jalil then set about putting in the requisite stamps.

“What time of year do you take your vacation?” he asked, about to apply the first one.

Michael thought a moment. “Usually in early June.”

Jalil put down the stamp he was holding and picked up another. He pressed it onto a red ink pad and then into the passport. For some reason this made Michael nervous, as if he were taking some irrevocable step into uncharted realms. It was another silly feeling, but it persisted. He moved over to the window and looked out onto a tiny courtyard and the back of the building on the next street.

“You have any way of looking out onto the street in front?” Michael asked.

Jalil paused in his stamping,