Triple Identity dg-1

by Haggai Carmon

  “Any other revelations that you've forgotten to give me?” I asked. Eric didn't answer.

  “There is one final thing,” said Benny. “DeLouise knew that the only way to show he was working on the deal was for him to travel to the Soviet Union. But he was reluctant to use his U.S. passport, because he figured that there must be an INTERPOL lookout for him and border officials generally check these. He couldn't use his Israeli passport under the name Dov Peled either. Israeli citizens need a visa to visit the Soviet Union. He couldn't ask for a visa without attracting law-enforcement attention, uniformed or plainclothes. He also knew the Iranians would be watching him to make sure he didn't betray them. Therefore, the likelihood of their finding out that he traveled with an Israeli passport was too much of a risk. DeLouise knew what happened to those who betrayed the Iranians.”

  “So he needed a third passport,” I said ironically.

  “Exactly,” said Benny, ignoring the fact that I already knew about this part. “DeLouise aka Peled was also known as Bruno Popescu; that's his birth name. So he travels to Bonn, goes to the Romanian embassy, and asks for a Romanian passport under the name of Bruno Popescu. Traveling to the Soviet Union with a Romanian passport has another advantage: he doesn't need a visa, a privilege left over from the time Romania belonged to the Eastern Bloc countries.”

  “Did the Romanians give him a passport?” I asked, tacitly agreeing to play Benny's game of hiding from Eric that he'd already shared some of these details with me.

  “Yes, although I think DeLouise helped the consul's personal fund for needy families, meaning his own, with a few hundred dollar bills. In spite of the extremely slow bureaucratic process, a passport was issued to him within forty-eight hours. DeLouise-Peled-Popescu returns to Munich, buys a ticket to Moscow, and then before he leaves – boom – a bullet to his head.” He pointed his finger to his temple.

  “Something isn't right here,” I said, remembering my earlier conversation with Benny. “Do you know who his Soviet contacts were?”

  “We are working on it right now,” said Eric. “I presume they should be in Moscow and Baku, Azerbaijan.”

  “It doesn't sound right to me,” I said again. “On the one hand you say that DeLouise was reluctant to use his U.S. passport or openly appear in an airline reservation system, for fear that INTERPOL was looking for Raymond DeLouise – then he makes reservations to Moscow and Baku under that very same name? I know for a fact that he made reservations to travel to Moscow under the name DeLouise.”

  Eric and Benny looked at each other. The room was silent.

  I continued, “How could he enter the Soviet Union with a ticket carrying a name other than Popescu that appears on his Romanian passport? He couldn't even get on the plane to begin the journey.”

  Benny was the first to respond. “We don't know for sure, but with his skills, he could have bought another ticket to Moscow carrying the name Popescu.”

  “I can suggest another theory,” I said.

  “Enlighten me,” said Eric, his eyes focused on me.

  “Well, one explanation could be that the reservations to Moscow and Baku were a decoy perpetrated by DeLouise. We all know that when you want to confuse those who are watching you, you make three, four, or five airline reservations to different destinations under different names and times. Then you use only one or none at all. Bear in mind that DeLouise was trained in covert activities, so he knew the tricks of the trade.”

  Eric turned red. “Tom, call the office to cable Langley to check all airline reservations for the period around DeLouise's murder under the three names DeLouise used.”

  “Remember that there were more than eight or nine days between DeLouise's murder and the expected departure to Moscow with the ticket he bought under the name DeLouise,” I went on.

  “I wouldn't be surprised if DeLouise had intentionally made the reservation under his own name to show the Iranians, Guttmacher, and anybody else who was watching his movements that he was indeed leaving for Moscow to take care of business. However, he also made other reservations, to go to Moscow or elsewhere, as Popescu, well before the date he was supposed to fly as DeLouise. With such a plan he could achieve several goals: one, he leaves for Moscow with everyone else thinking he's still in Germany; two, his departure doesn't alert INTERPOL because he travels under a name that it doesn't have. I also think that just before his purported day of departure to Moscow under the name of DeLouise he planned to cancel the reservations, because he had already returned from Moscow. He probably planned to be invisible for a few days and then call Guttmacher and pretend he had just returned from Moscow.” Everyone in the room looked at me in silence.

  My confidence in my own theory increased. “The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that he had already traveled to Moscow even before he called the Mossad or his daughter.”

  Benny gazed at me for a moment, reflecting on my theory and then said, “If he in fact did that, it was a brilliant plan.”

  “Your theory is inconsistent with your own logic,” said Eric. “If we agree that DeLouise was loath to use any airline, fearing the discovery of his whereabouts, then why did he make reservations under his own name, even if he never intended to take the flight? That would have placed him in Munich, and the police could then narrow in on him.”

  Eric wasn't stupid after all. “Well,” I continued, “my theoretical answer is that such a maneuver may have been an indication that DeLouise had no intention of staying in Munich on his supposed day of departure to Moscow. If I read him clearly, his plan was to return from Moscow and either disappear or continue working for the Iranians but from a new location where they couldn't threaten him personally. If he planned to run with the money, that could mean that the collateral he gave Guttmacher was bad; on the other hand, if that was good money, he probably planned this maneuver to transfer the money from Switzerland. Remember that DeLouise received two million and gave collateral with a slightly greater value. Now, if DeLouise takes off, he keeps his own two million advance, and Guttmacher collects the $2.05 million collateral. So, in effect, DeLouise gets his own two million: money he couldn't reach earlier because it was stuck in Switzerland. I don't think that the collateral was bad, because that would have caused Guttmacher to reimburse the Iranians from the bank's own resources. An unwise move for anyone who had significant additional business with the bank.”

  Benny interrupted my train of thought. “I tend to believe that theory, even if it does seem far-fetched. Since the Colombians also spotted him in Munich, there was no point in staying here, and he could find a more convenient location with better weather.”

  “Let's wait for tomorrow's results. Langley will tell us if your theory holds any water,” said Eric.

  “Do we have any other business?” asked Tom. “I guess not,” he concluded when nobody answered.

  “OK,” said Eric, “enough for today. We have some work to do in the office. Benny, what's your next move?”

  “I'm leaving for Israel tomorrow and will discuss my findings with my director as soon as I see him.”

  “Good,” said Eric. “You know the rules of dispersal from this location.”

  We did. We left one by one, using different exits and no loud English conversation or attention-attracting movement.

  Tom took me back to the Omni Hotel, driving around town to make sure he had not grown a tail. Although I was tired after being out for almost eighteen hours, I was alert. But as I walked down the carpeted hallway a sense of threat seized me. Perhaps it was the feeling that I was returning to my room for the first time since someone had searched it, or that I was participating in planning an exciting operation involving both my birth country and my home country. I felt my muscles contract and my vision go into hyperfocus. Was I subconsciously sensing imminent danger, or was there extra adrenaline pumping into my bloodstream from the events of the past two days? The hallway was empty and there were no noises on an early Sunday morning.

  I slowly
inserted the magnetic card into the reader and quietly opened the door. The room lights were on. A man was kneeling next to my safe. He was a slim, medium-tall, light-brown-skinned guy in his thirties. He turned his head, startled. He stood up and looked around quickly, either evaluating the situation or seeking a way to escape the inevitable confrontation. There was no chance for that. I was almost twice his size and blocked the doorway. The windows were closed. But even if open, it was still the thirteenth floor. I guess he was superstitious because he didn't try to jump through the window. Instead he pulled a knife and came at me – clumsy and tentative for a man his size; clearly not a hand-to-hand expert. I shifted my weight and kicked out with my left foot, hitting him squarely in the groin. As he bent forward, gasping in pain and surprise, I grabbed his curly hair with my left hand, raised my knee with some force, and smashed his face directly onto it. I heard the crack as his nose broke and the gasp of pain escaping from his clenched teeth when he had quickly to decide which was the most painful: the high-speed meeting of his face with my raised knee, the kick in his groin, or the fact that he was caught.

  I let him fall to the carpeted floor and decide for himself while I neatly slipped the knife from his hand. I pulled off my belt and secured his hands behind his back, then extended the belt to strap one leg, enough to make a move impossible. I took off my tie and used it to knot my belt to the bed frame. He was still semiconscious, groaning in pain and bleeding on my carpet, when I went to the telephone and called the police. I looked at my unwelcome guest and thought back for a moment. Amos, my martial arts instructor during special forces training, would have been proud of me. Amos was a short guy with red hair; he was cross-eyed, so you never knew where he was looking. That helped him to kick us hard when we least expected it.

  “I need to speak to Herr Blecher immediately,” I said in the calmest tone I could summon, despite my heavy breathing and a heart still pounding.

  “Just a minute.”

  “Blecher,” said a man's voice.

  “This is Dan Gordon. I'm at the Omni Hotel. I've just surprised a burglar in my room.”

  “Did he get away?”

  “No. I got him down and tied him up. Send your men over. He may also need some medical attention.”

  “Done,” said Blecher.

  Ten minutes later, the man on the floor was showing signs of returning to reality from the temporary blackout I'd imposed on him. I checked his pockets, searching for a gun. I found only some cash. No weapons or ID.

  “Water,” he said faintly. I rolled him over and looked at him. Blood was smeared on his face and neck. His nose was already swollen.

  I went to my bathroom, brought back a glass of tap water, and held it to his lips. He drank and sighed.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  He didn't answer. I grabbed him by the hair again and asked him whether he wanted an encore. “Julio.”

  “What is your last name?”

  “Rodriguez,” he whispered, and asked for more water.

  “What is your nationality?”

  “Please, water.” he repeated.

  “Where are you from?”

  He didn't answer.

  I grabbed his hair again. “I'm going to blow your fucking brains out if I don't start getting some answers!” I was not armed, but my visitor had already experienced what my bare hands could do to him.

  “Colombia,” he almost shouted.

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Nothing,” he begged. “Money, jewelry.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “The door was open.”

  “I don't believe you, you son of a bitch.” I yanked his head up to where I could look him directly in the eyes. “Have I given you any indication that I give a shit about what happens to your pathetic life? Give me the truth or I start messing up other body parts.”

  He didn't answer, and I heard steps at the door. It was Blecher and a few of his hounds.

  “He's all yours,” I said, and gave Blecher a brief account of the events, then went to the bathroom to wash Julio's blood off my hands.

  “I don't think he was looking for money,” I said when I came out of the bathroom.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He gave me his name – Julio Rodriguez – and told me he's Colombian. My room was ransacked earlier today. It may have been this jerk. He could be one of the gang that's after the papers DeLouise gave Ariel. I guess he thought I had them.”

  “We'll try to find out if Rodriguez is connected to Ariel's kidnapping,” Blecher assured me. “I have just heard from the Israeli Consulate that Mina Bernstein has returned to her home in Israel. That's too bad, because I wanted to ask her a few more questions.”

  “I'm sure the consulate could arrange that,” I said. “Anyway, I expect to have developments concerning Ariel as well. Have you made any progress?”

  “Yes, we have,” said Blecher, giving me a cold look. “It is most unfortunate that you have been keeping information from the German police on the Ariel matter.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, sensing the grievance complaint against me rapidly approaching. “I gave you everything I had.”

  “Not all of it,” said Blecher. “It was highly irresponsible not to alert the police that the kidnappers were waiting for a phone call at a certain location. We might have caught them.”

  “You know that it was the mother's decision not to call the police. But more important, I found out about the note only five or six minutes before the time she had to make the call. There was no time to call the police.”

  Blecher gave me a long look, trying to decide whether to believe me. “I have also just heard from the Israeli Consulate that the second call was made by another woman from the consulate,” he said.

  “So, what have I got to do with it? I gave you the audio and the videotapes. Didn't I mention that the caller wasn't Mina?”

  “No,” said Blecher.

  “I had nothing to do with it, I'm sure you know that. If that was another woman who called, it must have been because they hoisted Mina back to Israel. Remember I work for the U.S. government, not the Israeli government.”

  “Yes,” said Blecher. I didn't understand what he meant, but I wasn't interested in pressing the issue any further.

  Alarm bells were ringing inside my head. Was it a residual thrill from the fight I'd just had or the intuition that I'd just made another step forward in my investigation? Obviously, I'd become somebody's target. Although Rodriguez said he was Colombian, it didn't necessarily mean he was telling me the truth or that he was from the same team that had pursued DeLouise or kidnapped Ariel. He could be working for somebody else.

  By this time, two plainclothes detectives had Rodriguez up and moving.

  “We're taking him downtown for questioning. We'll let our doctor see him. What did you use on him, a hammer?”

  “Wait,” I said, and gave the man's knife to Blecher. “It looked like he was going to stab me with this, so I had no alternative but to reshape his face.” Blecher asked me to come to the station to give my testimony.

  “Later,” I said, stretching the leeway I had received thus far from Blecher, since I was working for the U.S. government.

  I called Eric from a pay phone outside and told him about the incident. “What do the German police think?” he asked.

  “I don't know yet. Blecher wants to see me in the station later. Anyway, I'm checking out of the hotel; it's getting too hot here. I'll call you from my new location.”

  I packed my luggage, checked it into storage, and left the hotel through the employees’ exit. I took a bus for a few blocks, got off, and went into the lobby of a residential building. I looked through a window for a few minutes, checking to see if I'd been followed. The place was quiet. I took a cab to Rosenheimerstrasse in the center of town and got off near the German Museum, took another cab to the Sheraton Hotel, and checked in using the Peter Wooten name. I called from a pay phone and left me
ssages for Eric and Ron asking them to arrange for my bags to be brought over from the Omni. Two hours later my bags showed up and I could relax. I decided to stay in my room and watch CNN and old American movies on the only English-speaking German channel. Although I understood enough conversational German to watch the German-dubbed English-speaking movies, it was still strange to hear Gene Hackman or Harrison Ford speak German. I ordered room service and ventured out only once to call my children in New York.

  The following morning the phone rang. It was Eric. Yes, my theory concerning DeLouise's travel ploys had some truth in it. When he said “some truth” I knew all of it was true. He just couldn't admit that I'd been right.

  “What did you find out?” I asked.

  “DeLouise used his Romanian passport under the name Bruno Popescu and left on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Moscow on September 17th. In Moscow he checked into the Hotel Intercontinental. Three days later he returned to Frankfurt and probably drove back to Munich. We don't know at this point whom he met in Moscow or where he went.”

  “Well,” I said, “it seems that you can do without me for a few days. I'm going to Moscow.” I wasn't asking Eric's permission to go; I was simply informing him of my plans.

  “I need you back here in four or five days. I expect to hear from Benny by then. Also, do you plan to notify Guttmacher and the Iranians about your forthcoming trip?”

  “No, I have no intention of doing that. I made it clear that I owe them nothing. Although they were intimidating at times, I think they got the message.”

  “All right. When you're in Moscow, just in case, go to the embassy and make contact with a Charles Hart. He's my counterpart there. I'll let him know you're coming.”

  I called my long-suffering office in New York from a street pay phone and asked Lan to book me on the afternoon flight to Moscow and make arrangements for me to stay at the Cosmos for five days. I gave her my new numbers at the Munich Sheraton and alerted her that in Munich I'd be Peter Wooten, but in Moscow I'd return to my real name. Then I asked her to connect me with Stone.