The Old Man(79)
The Spencers practiced being Canadian, but for the moment Alan would allow Marie to rehearse the role only with him in their compartment, where nobody could overhear her mistakes. He had spent time years ago learning to pass as a Canadian before he had first arrived in Toronto as Alan Spencer. He told Marie that they weren’t ready to be Canadian in public, but they would work on it together.
Marie soon saw that the differences were not extreme. Most Canadians didn’t say “aboot” for “about” or end every sentence with “eh?” But there were subtler signs and differences for which she would have to prepare. For the moment they were only people from somewhere in English-speaking North America, and they should avoid saying anything about their origins.
Alan was relieved that the bus across the border existed. He had not had time to research this trip in advance. It had simply been an option he’d noticed at Union Station in Los Angeles. He had been assuming they would have to cross the border on foot in some remote spot between official border crossings. But during the years since 2001 there had been a proliferation of agencies and federal employees who watched the borders and the adjacent areas to prevent illegal crossings. Once it would have been an easy trip. Now, the Spencers might not have made it.
As the train approached the station for their stop in San Jose, Alan saw a big Sears store, so as soon as they could get off they went to the store and bought some fresh clothes, toiletries, and other essentials.
Their last night in the United States, Alan went through their backpacks and jettisoned things that they couldn’t bring across an international border. He dismantled the Colt Commander and the two Beretta Nano pistols, and emptied their magazines. He made a pile of barrels, springs, unattached trigger and sear mechanisms, slides, grips, and frames. Any part he could remove, he did. Every few miles during the night he would throw a piece or two out the window as far from the tracks as possible. When the train went over a bridge spanning deep water he dropped more.
He split the money into packets and counted it, so that neither of them would have more than ten thousand Canadian dollars or the US equivalent. That way neither would have to declare the cash.
Alan Spencer cut up their Dixon identification and credit cards and fed the pieces into the wind. By the time they reached the King Street Station in Seattle they were as clear of contraband as they could be. He took Marie to the bus they would be taking to Canada and sat with his arm around her, because he knew she would be nervous as they prepared to cross the border.
The bus driver handed out Canadian Customs Declaration Cards to the passengers who had booked themselves through to Canada. The Spencers had nothing left to declare that would prompt questions.
Shortly after they filled out the cards and the bus was in motion, Alan went into the bus’s restroom. He took from under his shirt a small canvas tool bag he had bought in the Sears store in San Jose. He took out a screwdriver, unscrewed and removed a wall panel that allowed access to the toilet’s water supply pipe, tied the bag to the pipe, and replaced the panel.
The bus crossed the border at Blaine, Washington, and then stopped at Surrey, British Columbia. He had prepared Marie for Canadian customs by telling her to steel herself to look calm, a little bored, but alert. There was a primary inspection station where a man from the Canada Border Services Agency examined their documents, and then a baggage claim where they took possession of their backpacks, and a secondary inspection station where other Border Services people inspected the backpacks and asked questions.
Alan said they had flown to Los Angeles three weeks ago, done a great deal of sightseeing and hiking in parks around Southern California at Joshua Tree and Death Valley and the Angeles National Forest, and were planning to return home to Toronto by train.
As Alan had expected, the inspector showed little interest in their story. The clothes he had chosen for them in San Jose were right—cheap and utilitarian, bought because they’d run out of clean clothes on a trip. The worn hiking boots and gloves they’d had in Big Bear, the lightweight ski jackets for cool mornings and evenings, helped bolster his story that they were hikers. Alan had included brimmed hats to wear in public places where there were surveillance cameras, and shorts. The trip through customs took only about ten minutes, but the tension made the experience seem much longer.
After the luggage had been reloaded into the bus, they climbed in, returned to their seats, and got moving again. Alan returned to the bus’s restroom, removed the wall panel, took his canvas tool bag, and put it into his backpack. From the shape and the weight, he could tell the pistol, silencer, and magazines were intact. Then he replaced the panel. Soon the bus pulled into the station in Vancouver.
Alan hailed a cab to Victoria, and checked in at the Empress Hotel. The hotel was old and formal and luxurious, so Alan took Marie to a department store where they bought more formal clothes and a pair of suitcases.
Marie said, “What are we doing next?”
“Listening to Canadians talk. Looking at what they wear and buying some of it so all of our clothes will have the right labels. Making ourselves into the least likely people to be troublesome.”
“So we’re killing time again?”
“Not killing it. Just slowing down a bit while we get used to things.”
He decided to stay at the Empress Hotel for five more days. They went to museums, shopped, and explored, always listening to the people around them. Most of Alan’s attention was devoted to assuring himself that nothing had changed. Nobody was following them, the Canadian police were not waiting for them when they returned to the Empress each afternoon, and their pictures had not begun to appear in newspapers or on television.