The Counterfeit Agent

by Alex Berenson

  Perfect. It was 1:40. “Julianna, I’m looking at several buildings—”

  She raised a hand to her mouth, flirty mock horror.

  “But you’re first. If you could show me around, I promise to have you out in time.”

  “In that case. If I can make a copy of your passport for security purposes, Mr. Bishop.”

  And send me promotional mail until the end of time. Wells handed it over. “Call me Roger.”

  —

  “Our model apartments are on twenty-three,” she said, as he followed her into the elevator.

  Good news for Wells. Not twenty-one, but close enough.

  “Bet they get great light.” Wells found himself falling into his role as Roger Bishop, apartment hunter. The elevators were slow. One demerit.

  “Wonderful. And we have a great relationship with American banks. Of course, you’re welcome to use your own financing.”

  “Based on the prices I’ve seen, I think cash.”

  She leaned toward him like a plant questing for the sun, and he knew he’d said the magic word. “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you hear about us?”

  “A friend.”

  “An owner in the building?”

  “No, but he knows someone who is. I put in my twenty with the NYPD, now I’m looking to go someplace warm full-time. Get outta Dodge, if you know what I mean.”

  She didn’t. “You’d like a one-bedroom? Two?”

  “I want to see both.”

  “Are you married?” She gave him an almost-flirty smile.

  My fiancée just gave me thirty days’ notice. “Being a cop doesn’t go great with marriage. I was. A long time ago.”

  True enough. And he had a son again. He and Evan had stayed in touch since Wells’s trip to Dadaab. They talked once a week, mainly about Evan’s struggles to get off the bench for the San Diego State basketball team, which had the politically dubious name the Aztecs. For the first time in his life, Evan was playing every night against guys quick enough to beat him off the dribble. He had a beautiful seventeen-foot jumper, but he needed to quicken his release and extend his range. Even then, he might never be more than a spot starter.

  Wells encouraged him but didn’t have great advice. He’d played football at Dartmouth, been a good linebacker by Ivy League standards. But football wasn’t basketball. In college basketball, powerhouses and second-tier teams regularly played each other. In football, a team like Alabama would shred Dartmouth. Not just on the scoreboard. The ambulances would be full by halftime. So Wells had always been shielded from his limits as an athlete. He’d known them, but knowing wasn’t the same as having them exposed on the field, grabbing at air when you were certain you were in place for the tackle. Sports were a cruel master. All the practice in the world couldn’t replace raw talent.

  Not that Wells planned to tell Evan any of this. The boy had plenty of time to learn it on his own. In truth, the conversations between father and son verged on banal. No matter. Wells counted the rebirth of his relationship with his son as a minor miracle, considering he’d missed the boy’s entire childhood.

  —

  Julianna brought Wells into 2310, a two-bedroom. Over the next few minutes she pointed out the appliances—all General Electric—the master bathroom—his-and-hers marble sinks, and the price—among the lowest per square meter in the center city. She was charming without being pushy, pretty without being a distraction. Wells hoped she would find a job at a more expensive building. Her talents were wasted here. He asked enough questions to prove he was serious. Then they were done, and back in the lobby.

  “You really can’t stay?”

  “I’m sorry. Believe it or not, I’m going surfing.” She seemed embarrassed that she’d given him that personal detail and returned to the pitch: “But look around. I’ll see you tomorrow. You won’t find a better value than the Oro Blanco.”

  Wells shook her hand. Walked out. Drove off. Parked four blocks away. Waited forty-five minutes. Ran back to the building. Out of breath. Frazzled.

  “Julianna here?”

  The doorman shook his head.

  “I left my phone upstairs. In one of the model apartments. Maybe the two-bedroom—2310, right? I know they’re not locked. We just walked in.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Only tenants and guests.”

  “Please, you just saw me. That phone has my whole life—if you can’t let me up, can you go yourself?” Wells was betting the answer was no.

  “I can’t leave—”

  “I had to sign in to take the tour. She’s even got a copy of my passport.”

  “All right. But find it quick, okay? Don’t be screwing around up there.”

  “You are a lifesaver.” Wells rode to twenty-three, knowing the doorman would watch the elevator. The Oro had two sets of fire stairs, which offered access to every floor from the inside, according to Julianna. Some people, they have friends a floor or two away, they like to take the stairs. Wells ran two floors down. The twenty-first floor was identical to the twenty-third, down to the hallway paint, a muted subtropical orange.

  Besides a standard lock, 2106 had a deadbolt plate. Wells put an ear to the door. Silence. Then a woman in the apartment across the hall. Wells wondered how to explain his presence. But she turned away, walked deeper into her apartment. Wells reached for his miniature electric pick set, a special CIA design. It popped the standard lock in two seconds, the deadbolt in seven.

  Behind the door he found a clean living room, bare wood floors, cheap modern furniture. A black cloth sofa sat prayerfully close to a flat-panel television. Only an acoustic guitar case saved the room from complete abstraction. Wells headed for the kitchen. Tacked to the refrigerator, a sheet of black-and-white head shots of a woman with tan skin, a crinkled, too-big nose, long ringlets that looked almost silver. Two photos in the center were circled. They had been lit to look more dramatic than the others. My voice will take you to a place of mystery. And I don’t mean the DMV.

  A desk was built under the kitchen cabinets. In the center drawer, Wells found bills and a bank statement for Sophia Ramos. Lots of small withdrawals, a mortgage payment, and two seven-thousand-dollar wire-transfer deposits from a sender called the ABCD Exchange Center, Georgetown, Barbados. Wells suspected that if he went looking for it, he would find servers and fiber-optic cables in place of an actual office.

  Beside the bills, a rubber-banded stack of postcards. Sophia walking on a beach, strumming her acoustic guitar. Sophia Ramos: Escucha La Música! Wells took two. Now, at least, he had her photo. He would look her up, see if she had a regular gig. Nothing about the apartment screamed brilliant singer, but then he was no expert on artistic temperament. Maybe she saved her passion for the songs.

  Underneath the postcards, he found a flowery Spanish birthday card, the words inside printed in blocky semiliterate handwriting: MI AMOR SOPHIA, PIENSO QUE SIEMPRE—EDUARDO. On the facing page, the letters bleeding together in an excess of emotion: TU VOZ ES MÁGICA!!! The card seemed impossibly sad. Wells dropped it like it was on fire.

  At the back of the drawer, he found a photo of Ramos and a Latin man on a beach, their arms around each other. The man was small and solidly built, with a cross tattooed on one pec, the angel of death on the other. She gave the posed smile of her publicity photos. On the back, the same shaky handwriting: Eduardo y Sophia, Miraflores. So this was Eduardo Nuñez. Wells had seen enough killers to know they came in all shapes and sizes, but the calm melancholy in Nuñez’s eyes was disconcerting. Wells wondered if they’d ever meet.

  He copied Ramos’s bank and mobile account numbers, enough information for the NSA to trace her. Then he left. Sophia Ramos was a lead to a lead, not worth arousing the doorman’s suspicions. In past years, Wells had pressed too hard too early on missions, forcing unnecessary violence. He’d already broken a street kid’s elbow this weekend. He preferre
d to keep future civilian messes to a minimum.

  “You find it?” the doorman said as Wells left.

  He held up his phone. “Thanks.”

  —

  After an Internet detour that led him to a strip joint in Panama City, Florida, a search for Sophia Ramos Panama music turned up a standing ten p.m. gig on Monday nights at a club called Cortes Frescos. Not exactly prime time, but a break for Wells. No waiting. He’d see her tonight.

  The club was in Casco Viejo, one of the city’s original neighborhoods, dating from the Spanish colonial era. Now the area was in mid-stage gentrification, art galleries and boutique hotels scattered among empty lots and worn buildings. Cortes Frescos—Fresh Cuts—was a converted butcher shop. Hooks hung from its ceiling. Its walls featured close-up high-gloss photos of T-bones and lamb chops. A painted sign behind the bar warned “No Yanquis,” and the tatted bartender looked at Wells disdainfully. Wells wanted to ask for a Bud, just to see how the guy would react. He restrained himself and ordered a Balboa, which seemed to be the local beer.

  Though he wasn’t drinking these days. He’d decided a few months before that he needed to respect Islam’s restrictions on alcohol and pork. He knew he wasn’t so much recommitting fully to the religion as avoiding hard decisions. Giving up booze was easier than prostrating himself to Allah five times a day, seeking the submission that was Islam’s very name. Not to mention trying to understand if he could consider himself part of the umma, the worldwide brotherhood, when he’d shed Muslim blood more times than he could remember.

  Wells picked at the Balboa’s label as he waited for Ramos. He didn’t see how the moody singer he’d seen in the head shots would fit at this Panamanian version of New York’s now-departed CBGB. Sure enough, he was one of only eight people in the place as she stepped to the stage. The acoustic guitar from her apartment was strapped around her neck. She took the microphone confidently, wearing jeans and a blue halter top that highlighted her best feature, her smooth brown arms.

  “Gracias a todos por venir. Even Americanos who got lost looking for the Hard Rock Cafe.” She stared at Wells. He wondered if she’d made him somehow, then realized new faces might be rare at her shows. “And now I tell you, escucha la música! Listen to the music!”

  Wells was glad Ramos spoke English. Less glad that he’d guessed right about her talent. She sang in Spanish, but he didn’t need to understand the words to recognize that her voice was reed-thin. Wells and the other patrons shifted in their seats, avoided one another’s eyes. After forty-five interminable minutes, Ramos finished with an instrumental number on the acoustic, her fingers working the strings. Her guitar playing was far stronger than her voice. Wells suspected Ramos couldn’t admit that truth to herself. She would sing alone in empty clubs forever instead of joining someone else’s band. Wells wondered how Eduardo Nuñez had come across her. The Peruvian assassin and the Panamanian songstress seemed an unlikely match.

  She finished to relieved applause. “Gracias. Thank you. Come back next week—I’ll be here, trying new material. Escucha la música!” Even before she stepped away from the microphone, the club’s speakers returned to the Violent Femmes, picking up mid-chorus: Two two two for my family and Three three three for my heartache . . . Musical whiplash.

  A tall man waited for Ramos at the bar, a Latin hipster in skinny jeans and thick black glasses. He tried to kiss her on the lips but she ducked him, gave him her cheek. Wells had hoped to approach quietly, put her at ease. But she wouldn’t want to talk about Nuñez in front of this guy. Wells would have to pry her away. He moved to the bar.

  “Sophia?”

  She tilted her head, trying to place him.

  “You were great. The guitar especially.” He had to shout to be heard over the Femmes. “My name’s Roger Bishop. I see you’re busy. I just wanted to tell you, I’m”—Wells was about to say “an A&R guy,” then realized he didn’t know if they still existed—“with an Internet company, streaming radio.”

  “Pandora?”

  “Yes. Exactly. Pandora. Always looking for exclusive content. If you have a minute, I’d love to buy you a drink—”

  “You have a card?”

  “Just gave out my last.”

  Her friend frowned, whispered into Ramos’s ear.

  “Look, we can sit right there—” Wells nodded at a battered table in the corner.

  “Long as you don’t ask me to sign anything,” Ramos said.

  “Of course not.”

  They sat. Now Wells had to switch gears, hope she didn’t toss her beer in his face. He nodded at the bar. “He’s right.”

  She lapsed into Spanish. “Qué?”

  “I lied. To get you away from him. I’m looking for your boyfriend.”

  She shook her head. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Eduardo Nuñez.”

  She pushed away from the table like Wells had told her he was carrying a deadly, highly contagious virus. “How did you find me?”

  “A man named Juan Pablo Montoya. In Guatemala.”

  She leaned in, wrapped her fingers around his forearm. “Tell me who you are right now.”

  “I work for the CIA. Montoya told me Eduardo’s involved with an American who calls himself Hank. That Eduardo—”

  “Call him Eddie. His name’s Eddie.”

  “That Eddie called him, said Hank was planning to kill a CIA officer. They were supposed to talk more, but Eddie never called back.”

  She tilted her head back, looked at the ceiling. Wells noticed for the first time that it was covered with decals of cows.

  “I want to find him before something bad happens.”

  “You know what Eddie did in Mexico.”

  Wells nodded.

  “Don’t you think something bad has already happened?” Her voice was a sneer. She raised her arms Superman-style “Here you come to save the day.”

  “I want to help.”

  “Of course you do. Come back here tomorrow, ten p.m. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Wells wondered why she’d changed her mind so abruptly. “Thank you.”

  “And you’ll bring one hundred thousand dollars in cash.”

  A hundred thousand seemed to the going rate. Wells was about to argue. But they both knew she’d probably seen the last of those handy deposits from ABCD Exchange. She was a lousy singer, but she wasn’t dumb. Anyway, he didn’t mind spending Duto’s money. “Fine.” Wells decided a warning would serve them both. “But understand, the money won’t be all I’m carrying. Try to take it for nothing, I’ll be upset.”

  She nodded.

  “And so we’re clear, you can tell me where to find Eddie.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes slid sideways with the lie. “Yes.” More conviction this time.

  Wells figured she had a lead, a phone number or a plane ticket. Not the whole picture. He’d find out soon enough. “See you tomorrow.”

  She nodded, went back to the bar without a second glance.

  —

  At his hotel, Wells called Shafer.

  “Hundred thousand seems steep.”

  “Foreign aid.”

  “She can get us to him?”

  “She has a lead. A good one.” An exaggeration.

  “I’ll tell our friend. He may want to talk to you about it.”

  “Tough.” Wells was still angry that Duto hadn’t told him how dirty Montoya was. He was done with Duto. For now.

  “I’ll tell him that, too.”

  In the morning, Wells found a text: Kibble in your bowl by noon. Delicious kibble. He imagined Shafer smirking as he sent the message. At 12:10, Wells saw the extra money in his account. A Web search revealed several Chase branches in Panama City. By 12:30, he had presented his passport to a polite assistant manager and in turn received ten slim packets of hundred-dollar bills. The manager showe
d a discreet disinterest in Wells’s desire for hard currency.

  Even so, Wells took a cab to the Trump Ocean Club instead of his hotel, in case someone at the branch had tipped off friends. An American carrying a hundred grand made an easy target. The real problem was once again his lack of a firearm. Wells hung out for ten minutes in the Ocean Club’s lobby before hailing a cab to a Walmart in the suburban sprawl west of the city. He bought an aluminum bat and an ugly knife. He’d have happily traded the metal for a rusty .22 like the one he’d grabbed at the Parque Central. If Ramos didn’t think she had enough information to sell, she might try to take the money preemptively.

  Still only 4:15 as he approached his hotel. When in doubt, move first. The wisdom of Guy Raviv, the best trainer Wells had ever had. Lung cancer had galloped Raviv to the grave, but Wells still heard his rusted-out smoker’s voice every so often. Why give her time to set a trap? Wells nodded to himself and Raviv, headed for the Oro Blanco.

  —

  Julianna mustered a dim smile as he walked into the sales office. “Señor Bishop. Your appointment was for ten-thirty. Six hours ago.”

  “It was unavoidable.” A formulation that left open the question of what exactly it was. Wells spread his hands wide. “I’m sorry, Julianna. But am I lucky? Are you free now?”

  “Between appointments, yes.”

  “Listen, I asked my friend the name of his friend here. Sophia Ramos, in 2106. I’d love to talk to her.”

  “Why not just ask her, then?”

  “I don’t know her well enough. I thought we could both go up together.”

  She shook her head. He could almost hear her thoughts: A jerk for sure, but still a potential buyer . . . I hope. He opened the packet from Chase, showed her the money inside. “I brought my down payment.”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “You want to talk to Ms. Ramos—” Her voice was perplexed.

  “See what she likes, if there’s anything I should know about the building—”

  “And you want me to come up?”

  “At least see me to her door.” He saw she wanted to say no. But the money was a powerful lure.