In 2010, a janitor at a British airport noticed something fishy about a passenger in the Emirates Airline’s first class lounge. The passenger had entered the lounge’s shower room carrying a shoulder bag and two small suitcases. He was in there for 25 minutes – a long time to spend in a bathroom at the airport. The janitor, who recently took a terrorism workshop, decided to inspect.
The passenger didn’t touch the shower and apparently didn’t use the toilet. The sink didn’t have a single drop of water in it. There was a box at the bottom of an otherwise empty trash can.
That was the beginning of the true story of an epic smuggler of birds and their eggs. It’s the focus of the new book called “The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird.”