It flags.
I don’t know the exact mechanism they used — a material witness concern, a flight-risk hold, the machinery that exists precisely for men trying to leave the country with st*len money. I just know that when Garrett Payne handed over his worthless passport at the gate, two people in plain clothes were already walking toward him, unhurried, the way people walk when all the hard work is already done.
“Mr. Payne? We need you to step aside and come with us, please.”
He did what they always do. He got loud. He was important, there’d been a mistake, did they know who he was, he had a flight to catch, this was outrageous. And a terminal full of travelers at three in the morning turned to watch a man in an expensive coat come apart at a departure gate, his voice climbing, his face going from indignant to frightened as it slowly dawned on him that this was not a glitch, not a mistake, not something his charm could talk its way around.
