Triple Identity dg-1

by Haggai Carmon

  “So DeLouise was planning to work for free if he ended up with his own money less the commission Guttmacher collected?” asked Ron.

  “No. The plan was that the Iranians would pay him five million dollars, half when they'd receive proof that the materials were ready for shipment and the other half when the goods arrived. But that time never came. And DeLouise never ordered U.S. computers for the Iranians or nuclear materials from the Soviet Union. The whole thing was a hoax he perpetrated.”

  Blecher continued, “But let's go back again. DeLouise's confidence in Guttmacher grew. He was lonely in a strange city and felt that he had painted himself into a corner. Guttmacher became his friend and listened to his gripes and stories. He entrusted him with his important documents. Herr Guttmacher understood that this man DeLouise had a huge fortune; this only fueled his greed. He realized that DeLouise was also disillusioned with his American wife and son because they never came to visit him in Europe. He felt they had given up on him. Guttmacher heard about Ariel, the daughter DeLouise deeply loved and said he was going to take care of.”

  I looked at Ariel. Tears had come to her eyes.

  “Then one day DeLouise told Guttmacher he was being followed. He was sure the Colombians had found him again. Guttmacher calmed him down and sent an ex-policeman to check it out. The ex-cop discovered that the people trailing DeLouise were Iranian agents who probably wanted to make sure DeLouise wasn't an agent of a foreign-intelligence service. They posed no imminent danger, but Guttmacher never told this to DeLouise.”

  “Why didn't he tell him?” asked Mina.

  “Because the fear made DeLouise even more dependent on Guttmacher. Remember, this businessman couldn't go to the police, and with his fortune, he was isolated and fearful in a foreign city. His only stable channel to the outside world was Guttmacher.

  “The incident gave Guttmacher an idea, though. Since he kept all of DeLouise's banking documents and knew about the extortion attempt from the Colombians, he called Ignacio Perez, the Colombian, and offered an exchange: in return for DeLouise's head, Guttmacher would hand over the documents incriminating Perez for money laundering and bribery of judges and politicians in the U.S.”

  “What was Guttmacher's plan?” asked Benny.

  “Guttmacher thought that if all the documents and the keys to the money were under his custody, his new friend would be expendable, and he could keep millions of dollars of DeLouise's money. Because only DeLouise and Guttmacher knew where the money they secretly transferred from Switzerland was hidden.

  “Perez agreed and sent three of his men to Munich. Two of them followed DeLouise and killed him in the street in broad daylight.

  “Guttmacher delivered the incriminating documents, but when Perez received them he saw that a crucial document was missing, the one showing contributions to politicians and judges. He called Guttmacher to complain, but Guttmacher couldn't give him that document – he'd simply never had it. Perez threatened Guttmacher, who didn't know what to do, and there was no one he could ask about that document. DeLouise was already dead. Guttmacher knew what Perez was capable of.

  “Next, Ariel entered the picture. Unbeknownst to Guttmacher, DeLouise, who felt threatened by the fact that he was being followed, had asked Ariel to come from Israel. Fearing that he would be hurt or killed before Ariel arrived, he did two things. First he reserved Ariel a room at a small pension; he didn't want her to be seen at the hotel with him. Ariel is an Israeli carrying an Israeli passport, so her presence next to DeLouise posed a danger to them both. Then he left letters for her with the pension's manager. By that time, DeLouise probably distrusted Guttmacher. Then Ariel arrived and called Guttmacher.”

  “Yes,” said Ariel, “when I realized that I couldn't find my father, I called the one person whose name was mentioned in the letter my father had left me at the pension: Guttmacher. He said he didn't know where my father was, but asked me to leave the name of my hotel in case he heard from him.”

  Blecher continued. “By then Guttmacher understood that by bringing his daughter to Munich, DeLouise had also brought her into the conspiracy. He had to get rid of her. He told Perez that DeLouise had given the missing document to his daughter. Therefore, the only way to get it back would be to kidnap her, and after she surrendered the document, to kill her. Perez's men followed Ariel from her pension and kidnapped her.”

  Ariel picked up the story from there. “I didn't know what they wanted. I had no such document. But I had to gain time, so I told them it was in a safe-deposit box and that only my mother and I had access to. So they made me call my mother, and I asked her to come. I tried to hint that I was in danger and that she shouldn't come, but she misinterpreted what I said to mean that because I was in trouble I needed her. Then I was able to escape and told the guys at the consulate to call my mother to stop her from coming. But she'd already been here. They said they'd taken her back to Israel, and I decided to go to Moscow on my own.”

  “You were either very brave or very reckless,” said Eric. “These people are ruthless. You were a target for a bullet in the back of your neck.”

  Ariel smiled in embarrassment. I looked at her. She was more beautiful than ever. Her copper hair was braided the way I was growing to like, and very light eye makeup highlighted her deep blue eyes. She was again wearing a stunning business suit and looked beyond my reach.

  “The kidnappers were afraid to tell their boss in Colombia that Ariel had escaped, so they frantically started to look for her. They contacted Guttmacher and squeezed him, wanting to know who DeLouise's contacts were in Munich. They hoped to trace Ariel through them. Guttmacher was frightened enough to give them Dan Gordon's name. Actually, he also gave them Peter Wooten's name.”

  “Guttmacher gave them my name? The son of a bitch. He would sell his own father if he only knew who he was. Problem is, even Guttmacher's mother doesn't know his identity,” I said in contempt.

  “Yes. He did, and they got hot on your trail.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I'm confused. I thought you said the Iranians followed me.”

  “Correct,” said Blecher. “But at any given time you were being followed by both the Colombians and the Iranians. The Colombians saw you enter the Mielke Bank. Guttmacher told them you were DeLouise's partner, so they assumed you may have retrieved something from the bank that was connected to DeLouise, perhaps the missing document. Therefore, when you left the bank, one of them attacked you.”

  “Why didn't he take the envelope I had in my pocket? I was unconscious.”

  “The elevator door opened and people came out, so he ran away. But you got even,” said Blecher, “because Rodriguez, the man you caught and beat up in your hotel room, is the one who attacked you outside the bank. We have his confession as well.”

  “Then how did they know I was in Moscow?” asked Ariel.

  “Guttmacher told them,” said Blecher. “I think you called him to say you were going to Moscow and gave him the name of your hotel.”

  “How stupid of me. I should have known that because Guttmacher was the Iranians’ banker, I should be careful with him,” said Ariel.

  “Two of them traveled to Moscow,” Blecher continued. “One of them searched Ariel's Moscow hotel room while the other guarded the entrance. The person who went to Ariel's room was still searching when Ariel surprised him and he tried to drug and kidnap her.”

  “That's when Dan came and kicked the hell out of him,” said Ariel. I thought I heard a slight ring of appreciation in her voice, but I could simply have been hoping for it.

  “That man and his partner are now in police custody in Moscow. We are asking for their extradition to Germany for the murder of DeLouise. The good news is that lately Soviet authorities have started getting rid of perpetrators they don't want by simply putting them on planes to places that do want them, with appropriate advance notification to the receiving authorities. We could have them sooner than we usually do.”

  “How did the man watching the ent
rance to the hotel miss my arrival with Dan?” asked Ariel.

  “I don't know. He should have seen you and recognized you; after all, you'd been his prisoner. I'll ask him after he's extradited.”

  I had a question. “The Munich hotel registration of DeLouise was under the name of Peled, but Guttmacher knew him as DeLouise. Had Guttmacher discovered the double identity?”

  “Not immediately,” answered Blecher. “Guttmacher knew only DeLouise, not Peled. The suite that DeLouise had rented at the Excelsior consisted of two adjoining rooms with different numbers. He simply registered one room under the name of Peled and the other room under the name of DeLouise. He paid the manager to keep it a secret. DeLouise kept the door between the rooms locked when he was out. When a call was made to Peled, it was forwarded to one room, and calls to DeLouise were forwarded to the adjoining room. However, the reception guest roster listed only Peled, not DeLouise. He simply gave Guttmacher his room number so that he wouldn't ask for Mr. DeLouise when calling him at the hotel. Anyway, Guttmacher was the only person calling DeLouise in Munich. It was simple and ingenious.”

  “Why did my father keep the door between the rooms locked?” asked Ariel.

  “Your father was a cautious person. Since he was maintaining a double identity in the hotel, he wanted to make sure that if anyone broke into DeLouise's room he'd find only stuff connected to DeLouise and while in Peled's room there were only things connected to Peled.”

  “Did it work?” I asked.

  “Apparently,” said Blecher, “Guttmacher was really surprised when I told him about the two rooms.”

  “So he had two rooms,” I interrupted. “That explains the hefty hotel bill. What was in the room?” I asked, concealing the fact that I already knew this from the list I had “engineered” from the city morgue.

  “Copies of airline tickets and a trip itinerary to Kenya, South Africa, and Hong Kong,” smiled Blecher. “DeLouise wanted to create the impression that he had left Germany. But that was to no avail. All these precautions didn't help him much, because he was living in the hotel, and it was when he went out to get a newspaper that he was shot. DeLouise and Peled were both killed by the same bullet.”

  “How did you come to suspect Guttmacher?” asked Eric.

  “He had been under our watch for some time because of his suspected money-laundering activities,” said Blecher. “The Bundesnachrichtendienst – the federal intelligence service – was also interested in him because of his dealings with the Iranians. But from my perspective as a police officer, the criminal activity in this case was first discovered by following the lead Mr. Dan Gordon gave us.” He smiled, looking at me.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, do you remember the telephone number you deciphered from the call the kidnappers made after they received the call from a female Israeli agent to the pay phone impersonating Mina Bernstein?”

  “Yes, now I remember,” I said. “It seems like ages ago.”

  “The good lady returned unexpectedly to Israel with the ransom note. Since Ariel was free, she didn't realize we needed the note with the pay phone's number for our investigation. Consequently, we didn't have the number the kidnapper dialed from that phone until Dan gave it to us. We tried to get the number from Mrs. Bernstein through the Israeli Consulate, but that took time, and Mr. Gordon gave us the number first. That number led us to an apartment in central Munich rented by a man who told the landlord that his name was Manfred Holst. But the physical description given by the landlord matched Guttmacher's. We showed the landlord several pictures and he immediately identified Guttmacher as the person who had rented the apartment. From that point on everything was fairly easy.”

  “Why did Guttmacher confess?” asked Ron.

  “He had no choice. I showed him Rodriguez's testimony, which directly incriminated Guttmacher as the man who, together with Ignacio Perez, instructed him to kill DeLouise and kidnap Ariel. We have proof connecting Guttmacher to Perez and to the rented apartment where Ariel was kept, as well as other evidence. But I think, most of all, Guttmacher believes that only a German prison can protect his life. The Colombians are sure he cheated them. In fact, I suspect that the revelation that DeLouise was in fact a former Israeli with a daughter living in Israel helped Guttmacher confess.”

  “How did Guttmacher find out?” asked Ariel.

  “When you arrived in Munich and called him, you told him that you had just come from Israel.”

  “That's right,” confirmed Ariel. “I didn't know that I had to conceal my nationality from my father's banker. Only later did I discover that he was also the Iranians’ banker.”

  Blecher continued, “Guttmacher was surprised and alarmed by this news. Ariel became an immediate danger for him – yet another reason to get rid of her and steal her father's fortune. However, the risk posed to Guttmacher if the Iranians discovered Ariel's nationality was minimal in comparison to his horror when we told him that DeLouise was a former Mossad agent.”

  “Why?” asked Ariel. “Wasn't my father's Israeli background enough of a risk?”

  “Maybe,” said Blecher, “but after Guttmacher heard about DeLouise and his Mossad connection, he confessed immediately. Can you imagine what the Iranians would do to Guttmacher if they discovered that the man to whom he introduced them to work on their secret nuclear program was an Israeli spy? A German prison is Guttmacher's best shelter from the Iranians for the next hundred years.”

  Ariel nodded and smiled.

  “The Iranians are certain that Guttmacher conspired with DeLouise and DiMarco to betray them; they are also convinced that certain recent nocturnal events at the bank and in Armajani's apartment were directly connected to Guttmacher's betrayal.”

  Blecher paused, looked at Benny, Ron, and Eric with half a smile, and said with exaggerated formality, “But of course we have no proof or any suspects in these two recent events, so the investigations of them are now closed.” Benny and Eric nodded lightly; they were professionals, so they didn't smile in return.

  “Any questions?”

  “Mr. Blecher,” I said, “your timing in arresting Guttmacher and the Iranians was perfect, almost too perfect. Was it a coincidence?”

  “No. We received a phone call. Ask Mr. Henderson here, he'll tell you.”

  I looked at Eric. So he was the one who sent the police after hearing the direction my meeting with the Iranians was taking. Would it be the one good deed that would open the gates of heaven to him? St. Peter would probably tell him that one isn't enough. Eric turned his head to me, smiling.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Mr. Blecher,” said Ron, “did you ever recover the missing document that incriminates Perez?”

  “No. I don't even know if it ever existed. It could have been a ploy by DeLouise; we'll never know. He took that secret to his grave.”

  I had another question that had been tormenting me for a while. “Mr. Blecher, there is one open question. If Guttmacher arranged DeLouise's murder, why did he let me continue with my impersonation as DeLouise's partner and let me in on the Iranian documents?”

  “Because he couldn't read you. On the one hand he was sure that the ‘partner’ story you told him was a bluff, but he didn't know who you worked for. Guttmacher told me that at the beginning he suspected you were hired by the Iranians to look over his shoulder, so he didn't mind you getting the information. In fact, he used your appearance to show the Iranians that he tried to undo the damage created by DeLouise's disappearance. Then he was sure you were a CIA agent, then a Mossad agent. He hired a local detective who discovered that your hotel reservation was made by the American Consulate for Dan Gordon. On the other hand you introduced yourself as Peter Wooten. Guttmacher was certain that both names were fake. From Guttmacher's perspective, as long as the Iranian operation remained unfinished, he couldn't touch you. When Guttmacher got a whiff of DeLouise's fortune he began looking for ways to get rid of the Iranians, but he didn't know how. Therefore, his plan was to blame you f
or any failure, hoping they'd direct their wrath at you, leaving him unscathed. He also thought of exposing you as a CIA agent so that the Iranians would take care of you and include you in one of their special early retirement programs.”

  I didn't smile.

  “He finally told them that he suspected you of killing DeLouise. So to an extent it was convenient for him to have you around.”

  “So what stopped him?”

  “The fear that you were working for the Iranians after all. But as far as Guttmacher was concerned, you were living on borrowed time. Once he had complete control over DeLouise's money, you were next on his purge list.”

  “And why was that?”

  “Because obviously you had some connection to DeLouise, and because you knew about the documents that he was keeping for Ariel. Anyone who was connected to DeLouise compromised Guttmacher's plan to take over the DeLouise money and therefore had to be eliminated.

  I wasn't elated by the news that I had appeared on someone's hit list. Guttmacher was so devious, I was sure that even his shadow was crooked.

  Blecher looked around and said, “If there are no further questions, then we're done. Thank you very much for your help.” Blecher and his aide shook hands with us and left.

  Benny, still on the sidelines, then asked me a key question. “Did you solve your problem?” he asked.

  “Which one do you mean?” I asked.

  “Where is the DeLouise money?”

  “I don't know yet,” I answered, suspecting Benny might be ahead of me.

  “So, it won't be long,” he added, only fueling my suspicion.

  “One problem I did solve,” I said.

  “Which one?”

  “How my good friend led me in the direction intended all along by the Mossad. I was blind, maybe because I believed him.”

  Benny's expression got serious, and he gave me that amused quizzical look. “What did I do?”

  “Manipulation,” I said, not knowing if I was mad at him or not. “From the first minute I called you, you knew that DeLouise had been murdered. You also knew that he was connected to the Iranian military-purchasing frenzy, and yet you told me nothing. Of course, I have no problem with the fact that you forgot to mention that DeLouise was working for the Mossad again. I suspect a sweetheart deal: information on the Iranian transactions in return for a safe haven anywhere on the globe, if he failed to reach an agreement with the U.S. government for a safe return to the U.S. without being prosecuted. I guess the shelter would be anywhere but the U.S. or Israel.”