Of Images and Angels 9

Preston’s mind reeled, but some deeper part of him understood all too well that he would have to say “yes.”
His only question was Angie. As he turned to look at her, she blurted out, “Met u al de weg, schatje.” Nobody had to translate that for him: I’m with you all the way, sweetheart.
Their hostess responded, “Goed zo. We want you to continue the training by wandering the countryside here. Feel free to check out the tourist traps in Valkenburg, but I’d like you to focus on being able to use that facial recognition stuff.”
She rose to her feet and took a step toward them. “I’d also like to braid that lovely red hair, Angie. It will make it easier to hide under a hat. Preston looks nothing like the man who wandered the area around The Hague, but we’ll get you both hats and sunglasses just the same. There’s no sense taking unnecessary risks with either of you being identified by anyone, regardless how harmless they may seem. Preston, do your best to stay in character as a Dutchman.”
Their adventurous natures chafed at skipping the most exciting attractions as they wandered Valkenburg each morning. It was more important to take pictures of other people doing those things, all kinds of things, and then spending the afternoons testing their skills at matching faces with various social websites. Angie picked up on it quickly.
Preston got up the make them tea. As he was brining the cups to the table, she had a clearly puzzled look on her face. Before he even sat down, she said, “The software has keyed on someone off to one side here. We have him in two frames but why does he get a blue square? I thought it framed our subjects in red.”
Preston froze for a moment. “That’s a different function. It’s someone we’ve tracked before but never identified.” He pulled the laptop closer and began mousing and typing. His heart stopped when it pulled up the image that had gotten them into so much trouble. It was the face of the Israeli spy.
Preston had never seen his hosts so busy once he showed them their unexpected discovery. No one had to tell them to stay inside their apartment for awhile. They had not asked, and had no way to guess how many of the orchard employees here were in on the “hobby,” but two or three different ones popped in once or twice for confirmation of something. Twice they were asked for various enhancements of this or that image, having passed the entire collection to their hosts as soon as they made the discovery.
It was late that evening, and who could sleep? They tried to compare notes and make as much sense as possible without bothering anyone else. There was a gentle knock on the door, but it still startled them, since no one had come by in the past few hours.
Their hostess came in all business, yet somehow elegantly relaxed. “Our boy isn’t alone, but we are sincerely puzzled why they would send him when he was already ID’d. We’ve decided it can’t be a matter of bait trying to flush us out. The trail for them must have gone cold in town, but we can only surmise he’s been promoted from basic thug to some kind of supervisory role, at least for their current operation. It may even be a form of discipline to make him clean up his own mess.”
Preston wondered out loud, “We were hardly the only people using a camera in a tourist trap like Valkenburg. At the same time, anyone who knows photography can spot another photographer in a crowd of yokels with cameras. Real photographers take a lot more time and far fewer candid snapshots, but shoot a lot more frames of the same subject from only slightly different positions.”
Their hostess shook her head sagely. “No doubt they were shooting both still and video cameras trying to pick out that very thing.”
Angie remarked she had noticed another couple had been doing something similar at two or three places in town over the past three days.
The hostess paused for a moment. “Do you like camping?”
Angie and Preston looked at each other with faint grins, almost synchronized in saying, “Of course we do.”
The older lady smiled. “I’m sure we can find some equipment around here you might find useful for exploring. My husband and I tried it, but we are just too old for that sort of thing. Still, we kept the gear.”
Stepping slowly toward the door, their hostess went on. “The two things any self-respecting Dutch village has in these parts are a bakery and a bicycle shop. It’s a short drive to Margraten, which is just such a village. I want you to buy good mountain bikes to fit your bodies. Pack your bags before you go; we’ll have someone drive you down and park off a ways. Once you have the bikes, grab you bags and take a tour of the Ardennes. You’ll love the scenery in the Belgian hedge lands and the high moors. I recommend you ride through Banholt, then stick to the small paths over the border to someplace like Sint Martens. You should know how to recognize the GR markers, but we’ll get you a map just in case. From there, use your imagination, but stay well east of the Maas Valley. We don’t have any friends in that area right now.”