The Counterfeit Agent

by Alex Berenson

  “You showed him.”

  “Word got out and the human-rights coños made a fuss. They called me Diecisiete. My colonel made me resign. I was kind. I should have burned the whole village. They set us up, they knew it.”

  “I hope you don’t stay up late waiting for your Peace Prize.”

  “Afterwards, a friend of a friend came calling. From Medellín. He told me he wanted me to work for him, he needed men like me. I decided if the army wouldn’t have me, I might as well. This was before the Mexicans got in the way, all the money came to Colombia. You can’t imagine. This man had a room in his basement filled with pallets of bills. Waist-high, hundreds of millions of dollars waiting to be laundered.”

  Again Montoya stopped, waiting for Wells to ask about the life. Give him a chance to brag about the hookers, the cars, the parties, Pablo Escobar.

  “Then the Mexicans took over. Meth got popular—they didn’t need us for that, they made it themselves in the desert. Plus we made a mistake and let them into our networks. Another mistake, we paid with product rather than cash. And, the truth, they were harder than we were. For us, the violence was part of business. The Mexicans liked killing. I saw the future. In 1999 I hooked up with the Sinaloas.”

  “And stayed in touch with Vinny.”

  “Every so often, he had a question for me. Mainly political. Which generals were the greediest, which ones we couldn’t buy. After September eleventh, he asked me to tell him if the Muslims paid the cartels to sneak anyone over the border. Though the cartels would never have agreed. They had way more money than those crazy Arabs, and they didn’t want war with the United States.”

  “In return.”

  “Three times the narcos came close, three times Vinny made sure I knew.”

  An answer that explained why Wells was here. Montoya wasn’t just another agent whom Duto had run twenty years before. He was a contract killer whom Duto had kept as an off-the-books source. And Duto had blown three federal drug investigations to protect him.

  Inside Langley, no one cared about the drug war. It was viewed as a nuisance at best, a threat to regional stability at worst. But senators couldn’t work with cocaine traffickers. Montoya was a piece of Duto’s past, and Duto had expected he’d stay there. His phone call had no doubt come as an unpleasant surprise. Duto needed to know what Montoya wanted, whether he was trying a backdoor blackmail scheme, but he couldn’t meet Montoya in person. Thus Wells was beating up kids in Guatemala City.

  “When was the last time you talked to Duto?”

  “Two thousand seven. By then, the Zetas had taken over. The worst of all. Near the border, they had ranches where they dissolved corpses in acid. Not always corpses, either. Sometimes the men were still alive.”

  Listening to Montoya, Wells felt like a coral reef in a befouled sea, the world’s ugliness covering him, seeping through him. “So you ran.”

  “The Zetas told us, disappear or die. The men I worked for had no choice. They had nowhere to go, and they were too proud anyway. I had money, a passport. I didn’t care about a narco ballad for my glorious death. I went to Cuba, ended up here.”

  “You’re not on anybody’s list?”

  “Everyone I worked for is dead. I didn’t snitch and I didn’t kill anyone’s family, except once. Maybe one day someone’s cousin will come for me. We’re only two hundred kilometers from Mexico. Meantime, I enjoy my life. I have a new wife.” He nodded at the painting. “We just found out she’s pregnant. Twins.”

  “Congratulations.” Wells almost envied Montoya his psychopathy. The Colombian had tossed his crimes aside as easily as a bag of garbage. Or leftover bones. Wells wondered if Montoya’s dreams were as pallid as Wells’s own. He wouldn’t ask. He wanted nothing in common with this man. “So you hadn’t talked to Duto in all these years—why call him now?”

  “In Mexico, I worked with a man named Eduardo Nuñez. Peruvian. When I left, he decided to disappear also. We only saw each other once more. But we trusted each other. We stayed in touch, knew how to find each other. A while ago, he told me he had something. That an American named Hank had put a group together, and Eduardo had told him about me. I wasn’t interested, but I wanted to see this guy, if he was any threat. I said okay, if he comes to Guatemala we can meet. A couple weeks later, he called me.”

  “You make him go to the Parque Central?”

  Montoya smiled. “He was smarter than you. We met in the Radisson. He was in his early forties, I think. Medium height, medium weight. Horn-rim glasses and a baseball cap. Nothing in his face to remember.”

  “A good spy.”

  “We met in his suite. Straightaway he showed me two passports, U.S. and Australian. He wanted me to see the quality. They were good. Better than any I’d seen. The people I work for make your friends in Mexico look poor. I need professionals for a professional operation, and I’d like you involved.”

  “He said people? Not agency, not government, people.” The choice of word didn’t necessarily mean anything, but Wells wanted to be sure.

  “Yes. People. I asked for specifics. He said we could talk about money, but that he couldn’t tell me about his group. Not who was financing it. Not who or what they might be targeting, not unless I agreed.”

  “Timing?”

  “He was vague. Said they’d been running for a while, but now they were shifting gears. I asked if it would be one operation. He said no, several, different levels of complexity. I asked him what he wanted me to do and he said the work would be familiar. I told him I couldn’t do anything in Mexico or Central America or Colombia, I was too well known, and he said that wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “But no hint to the targets. Or type of ops.”

  Montoya shook his head. “I’ll admit, I was intrigued.”

  “Assuming it was real.”

  “Eduardo had known Hank before, and he wasn’t the type to fall for a scam. And Hank looked real to me. Agency or ex. I saw case officers in Colombia, not just Duto, and he had the same air.”

  “Which is what, in your opinion? Like he was dangerous?”

  “No. In my experience, very few CIA are personally dangerous. Or brave. The comandante was an exception. He went on raids with us, and after the Special Forces rescued him, the first thing he said to them was—”

  “What took you pricks so long?” Shafer had told Wells the story.

  Montoya smiled, his first real smile of the night. “Sí. No, what all CIA have in common is this attitude that you’re in control. You make me an offer, you don’t care whether I take it. I don’t, someone else will. And if it all blows up in the end, you go to another city, at another station. It’s my life, my country. For you, it’s a game, a job.”

  The description had been more true before September 11, Wells thought. The stakes were higher now, and case officers faced more personal danger. But let Montoya think what he liked. “That’s how this man Hank came across?”

  “Yes. One more reason I didn’t think he was faking. The simplest of all. He had to know that if he tried to take advantage of me, I’d make him pay. I told him I’d think it over, the next day I told him I wasn’t interested. That was it. He didn’t push. Never contacted me again. Then, two weeks ago, Eduardo called. He said, Juan Pablo, you won’t believe this. The American wants us to kill a station chief. I said, Don’t. If you do this, the CIA, they chase you forever. He wanted to talk about it. I told him not over the phone. He was supposed to come to Guatemala last week. He didn’t show up, didn’t call. I don’t know if he’s dead, or still on the operation, or he ran.”

  “He didn’t give you details. Not the country or the time or anything else.”

  “I wouldn’t let him. Face-to-face only for something like that.”

  “Let’s go through it one more time. Some guy whose name you don’t know tried to hire you for a superelite hit squad. Which is now going after
a station chief. Whose name you also don’t know.”

  “The senator will tell you I’ve never lied to him, Señor Wells. Why now?”

  “A hundred thousand dollars.”

  Montoya swept his arm in a vague oval: Look around. You think I need a hundred thousand dollars? “What I want, truly, is for the comandante to talk to INS. A visa. My name is on the restricted list. My wife and I are overdue to visit New York. A shopping trip.”

  One that ends with her giving birth in a hospital in Manhattan so your twins are American citizens. “Not sure he has that pull anymore.”

  “If I’d wanted to blackmail, I would have called sooner. I’m giving him this, a favor.”

  “Tell me about Eduardo.”

  “Mid-thirties. He moved to Panama City after Mexico.”

  “Eduardo was his real name?”

  “The only one I ever knew him by.”

  “How did he know Hank?”

  “Peru. Eduardo was in the army there.”

  “Don’t suppose you have a picture of them.”

  “I have a phone for Hank that doesn’t work anymore and two numbers and an email for Eduardo. You can have them all.” Montoya walked out. Wells was glad to be alone. The Advil had lightened the pressure in his skull, but overwhelming fatigue had taken its place.

  He closed his eyes for a few seconds, woke to find Mickey the Doberman nuzzling his crotch. “Mickey—”

  Behind him, Montoya yelled in Spanish. The dog trotted out, leaving Wells with a trail of slobber across his sweatpants. “He gets excited.”

  “I’m just glad he likes me.”

  Montoya handed Wells a paper, three phone numbers and an email address, written in an elegant script. Wells wondered if he should tip the possible Iranian connection, decided to take the risk. “Did Hank or Eduardo ever mention Iran?”

  Montoya shook his head.

  “The Revolutionary Guard? Hezbollah?”

  “Nothing.”

  Wells pushed himself up. A wave of dizziness nearly pulled him down, but he braced his hands against the table until it passed.

  “Stay the night if you wish.” Montoya put a hand on his arm. Wells shook him off. He wouldn’t become beholden to this man for even a few hours of rest. He wouldn’t give Montoya the pleasure of thinking they were brothers-in-arms.

  —

  At the hotel, Wells drew the blackout shades and slept. Shafer could wait. He woke once but couldn’t remember his dreams. Or even if he’d had any. In the morning, his headache had diffused like a stain down his neck. A sign of healing. He hoped. Twenty-seven days left before Anne’s deadline. Or was it twenty-six? His phone vibrated. Shafer.

  “This is not the Jewish Weekly.”

  “What does that even mean, Ellis?”

  “You got to Guatemala City a day and a half ago.”

  “Talked to him last night.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t want to talk too much on an open line, but it’s weird. He’s got almost no details, and the ones he has are bizarre. A supersecret organization with untold wealth. But he’s convinced it’s real. And Vinny’s right, he’s a serious guy. A snake, but serious.”

  “Snake.”

  “This little trip was good for me. Reminded me how dirty Vinny can play when he sets his mind to it.”

  “You forgot?”

  Like Shafer hadn’t been in that office two nights before, telling Wells he owed Duto a favor. “Point is, I’m half convinced, too. He gave me three phone numbers and an email address. I’ll send them. Anything new up there?”

  “Nobody talks to me anymore.”

  “Poor Ellis. The guy who connected him to the case officer has a girlfriend in Panama City. I’ll go down there while you run the numbers.”

  “Extending your vacation.”

  “Always wanted to see the Canal Zone. Call me if anything hits.” Wells hung up. He wasn’t sure he believed Montoya’s story, but it was too good not to chase.

  8

  MANILA

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER

  Soon as the plastic surgery healed, Duke went recruiting. Agents he’d run in Lima. Mercenaries he’d met in Baghdad. An ex–FSB officer from the bars in Phuket. The game was tricky. He needed guys as desperate as he’d been. But not so desperate that they would trade him to the police or the agency to solve their problems. Guys who saw a couple moves ahead, saw he was serious and the money was real.

  He found them. Three South Africans for security and skull cracking. A Peruvian and a Mexican, left over from the cartel wars. Brothers from Beirut who’d lost their parents to a Hezbollah bomb and thought the idea of coming back at Iran was just peachy.

  As Salome had promised, technical support was no problem. She handled the back end. She had a houseful of hackers and document forgers somewhere in Eastern Europe. Safe houses all over the world. Private planes. Duke didn’t see the budget, but they were spending at least a hundred million dollars a year. Government-sized money, though he couldn’t figure which government.

  Nine months after their first meeting in Hong Kong, Salome ordered him to Rome. She gave him two photographs of trim middle-aged white men in sweaters and slacks. He knew they were German even before she told him. Only Germans wore mustaches so proudly.

  “Herrs Schneider und Wolff run a steel company in Munich. Sudmetallfabrik A.G. They’re selling ultra-high-strength steel to Iran for centrifuge parts. The export papers say it’s for a gas pipeline in Indonesia, but it’s being diverted in Dubai. They know. They’re charging double the usual price.”

  He asked a few questions. She had the answers. He didn’t doubt her intel. These guys weren’t exactly the top of the food chain, but he supposed that was the point. Even if no one’s heard of you, if you’re helping the Iranian nuclear program, you’re at risk. Plus they’d be light on security. If his guys couldn’t handle this job, they’d have no chance with harder targets.

  “No warnings.”

  She shook her head. He ought to have been horrified. They were about to kill two men for selling steel. But he felt the same cool excitement that came at the blackjack table when the cards fell his way. His whole life had brought him here. He was through swimming against the devil’s tide.

  Besides, slowing down the Iranian nuclear program wasn’t the world’s worst idea.

  “When?”

  “Soon. Our backers have been patient, but they’d like to see some return on their investment. Beyond that, the operational details are up to you.”

  He wished he had something smart to say, something to immortalize the moment. “Done and done.” The words didn’t sound as cool out loud as he had hoped. She handed him the file with their photos and nodded: dismissed.

  —

  He wanted to kill them together. Separate simultaneous assassinations meant keeping two teams in constant contact. Using a single team for two jobs was even riskier. Too much could go wrong in even a five-minute window. Best to shoot them at work, be gone before anyone called the police.

  Sudmetallfabrik operated from a two-story factory in a middle-income neighborhood in northwest Munich. Two weeks of surveillance revealed that Schneider and Wolff followed a simple, rigid schedule. No surprise. They were German. Schneider, the company’s Geschäftsführer, arrived each morning at 7:30 a.m. Wolff, his deputy, came in ten minutes later. Both men drove gunmetal-gray BMW sedans. Schneider left between 5:45 and 6:00 p.m. Wolff stayed another half hour.

  The factory had a single guard at its front gatehouse and was ringed by a low fence with no barbed wire. But it had cameras watching the entrance, and one hundred and fifty workers inside. Not ideal.

  Fortunately, Schneider and Wolff made a habit of having lunch outside the factory. On the first four days of the workweek, Schneider’s BMW rolled off the lot at noon. It returned an hour later, plus or minus five
minutes for traffic. The men went to a different restaurant each day. On Friday, they stayed in. Duke figured they ate with their managers on Fridays.

  They followed the same restaurant schedule both weeks. Monday was Alter Wirt day, traditional Bavarian. Duke planned to hit them on their way out of the restaurant’s parking lot. They’d be more relaxed. They might even have had a beer or two.

  He put Eduardo Nuñez and Rodrigo Salazar on the hit. His cartel vets. Nuñez was almost Duke’s age. They’d worked together in Lima. Salazar was a few years younger, and Duke knew him only through Nuñez. They were used to narcos who traveled in armored convoys. He doubted they’d ever had a job this easy.

  The day dawned bright, clear, unseasonably warm for fall in Munich. Schneider and Wolff rolled off the lot at 12:01 p.m. Five minutes later, they reached the Alter Wirt. Duke trailed in a Passat, with Nuñez in the passenger seat. He wanted to be sure they had the right targets. Killing two random Germans would be an unpromising start to his new career. He drove slowly past the parking lot as the BMW’s doors swung open.

  “Yes?” Nuñez said.

  He watched Schneider and Wolff step out. “Yes.”

  Ten minutes later, he dropped Nuñez off at a bus stop that had no surveillance cameras. After that, the job belonged to Nuñez and Salazar.

  —

  At 12:57, Schneider and Wolff left the Alter Wirt. They were eager to get back to work. Sudmetallfabrik was bidding for an order from a natural-gas plant in Qatar. The BMW’s keyless entry system unlocked the car as Schneider approached. The men slid in, buckled up. Schneider put the sedan in reverse—and the rear camera warning beeped. A black motorcycle filled the screen in the BMW’s center console.

  Schneider wondered where the bike had come from. He hadn’t seen it in the lot as they walked out of the restaurant. Nonetheless, there it was. A sportbike with rider and passenger, both wearing black helmets, tinted faceplates.

  The passenger stepped off, walked around the side of the BMW. Schneider wondered if the man was upset that he’d backed up. Schneider hadn’t hit him, or even come close. But these younger bikers were fanatical about their motos. Schneider himself rode, though only on weekends.