I went to pick up my daughter from the airport. The drive from Modesto lasted as long as it took. Travel time between Modesto and the Oakland airport usually lasted anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours. Traffic could be unpredictable. On one drive from Modesto to the San Francisco Bay Area, we saw a total of six cars on the side of the freeway with flat tires or mechanical problems, based on the fact that their hoods were raised. On the return trip the ride took two and a half hours because road work on route 120 on the outskirts of Tracy closed down all but one lane, and this caused traffic to be backed up starting at the Livermore side of the Altamont Pass.
Waiting in the white lane while our daughter slowly loaded her luggage into the trunk of our car, I saw a person in a hooded sweatshirt bump into a man in a blue track suit. While appearing to apologize, the hooded sweatshirt person deftly pulled the phone from the track suit guy and exchanged it with a different phone, then walked away. I jumped out of our car and ran over to the track suit guy and told him what I observed.
“I know,” he said, his voice a low raspy growl. “And sir, for your sake, please forget what you saw. You didn’t see anything, OK?”
Track suit guy seemed extremely serious, and I suspected he worked for an intelligence agency or a part of the national security apparatus.
“Are you sure?” I asked him.
He just looked at me and gave me an annoyed frown his mouth taut, lips tightly pressed together. I got back in our car. An airport police officer walked over to remind me that the white zone was only for the loading and unloading of passengers.
“I know,” I said, “I thought I saw a pickpocket steal a phone, but I was mistaken, officer.”
“OK, sir, good on you, but remember that the white zone is only for the loading and unloading of passengers.”
“Sure,” I replied, “Have a nice day.”
I put the car in gear and drove off, heading back to Modesto. After a while, I realized that the airport policeman might have been high on marijuana or something. I’m just engaging in absurd speculation, but that might have been his way of coping with hearing the mind-numbing recording about the white zone for the entirety of his shift.
On the news the next day one of the big stories involved the discovery of a man’s body in a bathroom at the Oakland International Airport. The man was described as an unidentified middle-aged Caucasian male in a blue jogging suit whose body was discovered by airport personnel late last night. Newscasters all noted that law enforcement asked that anyone with information about the case contact the authorities.
I called. I met with an FBI agent in an office building in Modesto a couple of hours later. Special agent Deondra Tallerico met me at the door and introduced herself. We went into a tiny office, then through another door that opened into a large room where I saw a couple of other people wearing headsets and looking at a bank of computer screens.
“Don’t pay any attention to them,” she told me, “Come this way.” She opened the door to what looked a like the interrogation rooms one sees on television shows about the police. On one end of the room sat the standard table and chairs like those in the interrogation rooms on television, but on the other end of the room there were a couple of easy chairs, a small sofa, and a coffee table.
“Have a seat,” she said motioning to one of the easy chairs. “Would you like anything to drink? There’s coffee, tea, water, or juice if you’d like.”
She gave me a cup of coffee and sat across from me.
“Agent Tallerico, you’ve probably heard this, but you sure look like…”
“I know,” she laughed, “We’re not related, but yeah, so many times, but she’s about 10 years older than I am. I worked a case in down in Hollywood, and her agent saw me. He almost blew my cover. I wore a wig and oversized sunglasses, but he still saw through the disguise. I had to threaten him and told him to shut up about it because it was a matter of national security.”
I laughed, “Really? I thought you FBI agents were all super serious, no sense of humor, stick up the butt types.”
“Obviously not true,” she said, “So tell me about what you saw at the airport yesterday.”
I gave her a full account of everything I saw at the airport.
“So, you said it was about 7:45 PM, right? When you saw the alleged pickpocket, do you remember the direction the person went in after the encounter?”
“Yeah, the person went toward the far end of terminal one. And I just remembered that the person wore a maroon-colored hoodie, blue jeans, and black athletic shoes with three stripes, that brand, ‘cause that’s what I wear.”
Agent Tallerico spoke into a microphone at her wrist and said, “You got that, right? Cue up the cameras at about 7:40 PM and scroll forward from there. Let me know when you see the exchange.”
A few seconds later, she received another message on her earpiece.
“OK, bring it so I can show it to him.”
One of the people I saw looking at computer screens entered, carrying an electronic tablet. Agent Tallerico showed it to me. She pressed the PLAY button.
“OK, is this what you saw?”
“Sure is… wow, so the pickpocket was a woman?”
The video on the tablet showed the pickpocket walk toward terminal one and taking off her hooded sweatshirt. Inside the terminal, the camera captured her turning the sweatshirt inside out so that it then appeared to be a green hoodie. At the counter she bought a one-way ticket to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. Airport cameras captured her entering the women’s bathroom then exiting the bathroom wearing a green hoodie and a yellow gym suit.
“So, what is she, some kind of spy or something?”
“We’re not entirely sure, but we’re gonna pick her up in New York during her layover there because there aren’t any direct flights from Oakland to Tashkent. And if we don’t catch her in New York, we’ll pick her up on her second layover in Dubai. She’s not going to get away, and it’s all thanks to you. We recovered her jeans from the airport bathroom, and got positive identification from the passport she used to buy her plane ticket. Also, the ticket agent at the airport thought the ticket purchase to be very unusual since she had no luggage and travelled by herself.
“So, that’s it? Did you get all you needed from me?”
“Yes, that does it for now; we really appreciate you coming in to help. Oh, you probably guessed that we did a background check on you. Do not talk to anyone about any of this. You can tell your wife that the FBI wanted verification about what you saw at the airport, but that’s it.”
“Right,” I said, “Got it.” we both stood up and she escorted me out of the building.
We shook hands, then with a smile, she said, “By the way, does your wife know about Saraphina?”
My face flushed. “Yeah, I told her years ago.” Damn! Background checks! I understood that Special Agent Deondra Tallerico was letting me know that I’d better be quiet about the incident at the airport. I waved goodbye and said, “Nice meeting you, Special Agent Deondra Tallerico”
I got in my car and headed home, but I decided to visit my favorite donut shop and get a cinnamon roll.In case you’re wondering, Saraphina was my college girlfriend before my wife claimed my heart. Saraphina Primrose became a lawyer and went into politics. She served as a state legislator in Washington state. I must’ve shown up when the FBI did a background check on her when she became a public defender.