David McCloskey

And I think Bendez is pretty surprised by this.

I think normally there's a bit more of a back and forth between intelligence services over these kind of documents.

So the Americans have names, alias names, and photos that they've got of the diplomats that they're going to use to make documents.

these real Canadian passports, they also get six more passports, backup secondary passports for redundancy.

Because this gets to the detail-oriented nature of the artist validators slash forgers and the document specialists inside the CIA's Office of Technical Service who are going to do this, where

If that passport is being carried by one of the houseguests out of Meribat Airport in Tehran, that passport can't look brand new.

It has to look like there has to be a story behind and stamps and visas in that passport that match their cover story for the persona that they have.

And so, you'd want backups in case you need to be flexible with the kind of documents and visas and stamps that you put inside it.

So, what Mendez doesn't have, so he's got documents, or at least the beginnings of the documents.

He needs a cover story, because who are these people?

Who are they?

If there's six people walking out of Iran or bicycling out on a 300-mile mountain trail in the middle of winter...

Who are they?

And what are they doing in Iran?

So, Mendez comes back from this trip to Ottawa.

He's got the passports.

And he's back in his studio.

Remember, Mendez is a painter, an artist by training.

And in his memoir, Mendez describes it as this moment of alpha or he's in this kind of right brain creative state and he's having a breakthrough.

And he's been turning over the cover problem.