The Tsunami File

by Michael E. Rose

  “Don’t play naïve, Francis. Don’t pretend you don’t know how the world works.”

  “So who’s trying to force me off the road and into rivers?”

  “Germans?” Rawson said.

  “Government? Or the German spy service? I don’t think so. They don’t work like that over here, Jon.”

  “Not officially,” Rawson said. “But freelancers, maybe. Or old guard, or people who messed up in 1990 or in 2001. Who knows? Could be any number of people. You seem to be stirring the pot over there, Francis. So I hear. We’re getting all kinds of echoes now.”

  “Please don’t pretend you hear everything, OK Jon? Not CSIS,” Delaney said.

  “The Germans very much want to talk to you, too.”

  “Christ,” Delaney said. “Were you indiscreet with the Germans too?”

  “Francis, get serious. To get information you have to give information. Now the Germans want a little information from us. And so I need some information from you.”

  Delaney drove. He considered which morsel of information to now toss over to CSIS.

  “You remember that Horst Becker name I asked you to check out for me a while back? The pathologist from the army hospital in Frankfurt?” he said.

  “Yeah, I do,” Rawson said.

  “Phuket is a bit of an odd assignment for a guy like that; that’s what we both figured, right? Well, he’s still over in Phuket as we speak, still working with the disaster victim identification teams over there. And I have really, really pissed him off, Jon. Now I’m probably going to piss him off even worse.”

  “How do you plan to do that, Francis?”

  “His signature is on Klaus Wolfgang Heinrich’s autopsy report from 2001. Cause of death, smoke inhalation. Official, duly signed.”

  “Interesting.”

  “He’s been saying very dire things to me and to a source of mine on the Interpol DVI team over in Phuket about our not so discreet inquiries into a missing tsunami file that had a set of Heinrich’s fingerprints in it. This Becker guy says he doesn’t like wild accusations, meddlers, journalists, pains in the ass generally. He’s a very grumpy sort.”

  “This is getting good,” Rawson said. “I like this.”

  “I thought you’d think that,” Delaney said.

  “I’ll check him out a little more.”

  “Fine. Maybe try putting his name out among your pals in Berlin and Washington. Put the cat among the pigeons for me, will you? I’d like to see what happens when Herr Becker’s name comes up in certain circles around now.” “You have the autopsy report?”

  “I know where it is. It wasn’t too hard to get at.”

  “Stand by, my friend.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I notice though that you haven’t told me why this story gets you down to the south of France.” “No. I haven’t yet, that’s right.”

  “Any particular reason you can’t share this with CSIS, Francis?”

  “Things are still not quite clear yet, Jon.”

  “I can help you with that, probably.” Delaney was genuinely unsure how much to tell Rawson about Ulrich Mueller at this point. He decided not to throw Mueller’s name into the mix. He would talk to Ackermann, and to Jonah Smith and others, first.

  “Give me a little while more on that angle, Jon. OK?”

  “I hate it when you say that, Francis. You know I hate that.”

  “I know, Jon, I know.”

  “I get called up in the middle of the night when you start saying things like that and when you start to piss people off. My wife hates it when the phone goes in the middle of the night.” “I’ll try not to wake her.”

  “I’m thinking other people may start to call.”

  “I’ll see if we can avoid that this time too, OK?”

  “I’ll have someone meet you in Germany.”

  “Not necessary at this stage, Jon.”

  “I think it is. The Germans will think it is. A little de-brief for them at this stage would mend a few fences for us, Francis.”

  “No way, Jon.”

  “You going to be on a Lyon-Berlin flight?”

  “Via Frankfurt. But I have to get to the airport in one piece first, Jon. People are trying to run me off the road over here.”

  After his conversation with Rawson, Delaney still had a long drive to Lyon. He had been checking his rearview mirror all through the phone call. He saw no sign of the blue Espace. He slowed down a little, not wanting to be needlessly delayed now by traffic policemen.

  The drive gave him some clear thinking time and worrying time. He tried as he drove to think of all the people he might have upset so far, or that Jonah Smith had upset so far, or that may have heard what Rawson liked to call echoes. It was a rather long list.

  He very much doubted anyone officially representing the German government would be beating up Scotland Yard fingerprint men in Phuket or trying to run down Canadian journalists on assignment there, or trying to run them off the road on assignment in France. Nor did he think the German spy service, officially at least, would feel any great need to do that sort of thing.

  But, again as Rawson had said, freelancers and old guard might well be upset enough to resort to rough stuff. The question was: who had enough to lose in this thing to play rough?

  Delaney wasn’t sure he bought into the notion that any CDU power brokers would think it wise to play this way, even with an election on the horizon.

  That also went for the SPD, even though both sides had a lot to lose in the pre-election period if scandals were to hit them.

  Delaney was more partial to the idea that some BND spy service types, freelancers, people who perhaps needed and wanted no authorization from on high, might be a better bet. People from the period just after the Wall went down, and who had been badly burned by Stasi in the Heinrich double-agent debacle. People who looked very foolish indeed when Stasi files started to reappear and who would now look even worse if they were shown to have faked a death to cover up their ineptitude. People not unlike Horst Becker, for example.

  As Ulrich Mueller himself had said back in the chateau, spy services quite often do what they want despite a government’s knowledge or wishes. Or rogue operators inside spy services. Delaney was all too familiar with that sort of scenario. Or maybe heavy political operators in an election, freelancers of another sort, will do whatever they want despite their party’s official knowledge or wishes.

  The problem with people like that, in such a scenario, is that they wouldn’t feel at all constrained at this stage. They would feel they had a lot at stake, they would be highly unpredictable, and, it appeared, getting angrier and more dangerous by the day.

  The attendant at the toll plaza where Delaney had to get off the highway a few kilometres from Lyon airport was a man without empathy or humour. A career spent in a dark autoroute kiosk taking money from passing motorists had made him hard. He took no interest at all in Delaney’s attempt to explain why he had no validated payment card. The only solution possible, the attendant insisted, was for the driver in such a highly irregular situation to pay as if he had started his journey in Marseille and travelled the whole length of road.

  Delaney, under the circumstances, simply paid and then drove under the barrier which the attendant eventually raised. Despite the fact that no Renault Espace now loomed in his rearview mirror, he saw no good reason to waste valuable time arguing over a few euros and small points of procedure with French fonctionnaires.

  He had missed the afternoon Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt by the time he returned his car, much worse for wear, and had another fonctionnaire moment with a distressed Hertz rental agent. The young woman had apparently had no experience whatsoever filling in the masses of forms required when a vehicle is returned in a damaged state. Delaney then had a restorative lunch at the Lyon terminal, along with three restorative
glasses of wine, and managed to get himself in to Frankfurt just after 7 p.m.

  Rawson was very good at ignoring Delaney’s wishes and requests at such times. The reverse was true, of course. So Delaney was not terribly surprised as he exited the flight from Lyon to see two earnest young men in charcoal grey Hugo Boss suits standing to the side and scrutinizing all arriving passengers at that gate.

  Young Man Number One identified himself as Richard Pearson. Rawson had assigned him to meet Delaney at the airport. His CSIS duty station was Berlin. Young Man Number Two was Karl Bauer, the BND’s pick for the little international welcoming committee. Both took their work very seriously indeed.

  Pearson was extremely tall and thin, all arms and legs and acute angles. His sideburns had been allowed to descend fashionably low on his cheeks, and were carefully shaped into flawless sloping wedges. Delaney imagined the young CSIS man patiently labouring over these each morning, with the shaving mirror and nice designer razor his girlfriend would have given him for Christmas.

  Bauer’s head was shaved clean. Most probably a style reaction to premature balding. He, too, would be spending a fair bit of time each morning with quality shaving gear and a mirror. The air around Bauer was heavy with men’s cologne. The BND, like CSIS, was changing with the times.

  “Anybody following you?” Pearson asked after he had gravely shaken Delaney’s hand.

  “I told Rawson I really didn’t need an escort,” Delaney said. “Thanks all the same. Everything’s under control now.”

  “Mr. Rawson didn’t think so,” Pearson said.

  “He thought things were actually getting out of control.”

  “He’s a worrier. Has been for a long time.”

  “We’d like a word with you, Mr. Delaney. And Karl’s guys would.”

  Bauer knew a cue when he heard one. “Exactly so,” the German said. “Your inquiries are of interest to my service, Mr. Delaney.”

  “My inquiries for which story?”

  “Story?” Bauer said.

  “I’m a journalist. On assignment.”

  “Great cover,” Pearson said.

  “Shall we perhaps go to a quieter place to talk?” Bauer said. “The police have some interview rooms here at the airport which I’m sure they will let us use.”

  “There’s nothing to interview me about, Karl,” Delaney said. “I told Rawson everything’s under control. No escort needed.”

  “It is not an escort I refer to, Mr. Delaney,” Bauer said. “We would like some information from you, please.”

  The young German’s face was reddening. “Everybody wants information all the time, Karl. Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don’t.

  Sometimes the time is not right for sharing.”

  “We like to cooperate with our BND colleagues whenever possible, Mr. Delaney,” Pearson said.

  “I’m sure you do, Richard,” Delaney said. “It’s the Canadian way.”

  He stood looking at the two young spies in silence. He wanted to see how they would fill such silences, at this stage of their careers. They looked distinctly uneasy. If there was a field manual available, perhaps they would have consulted it. Delaney was enjoying this more than he should.

  “Are you refusing to come with us?” Bauer said eventually.

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “I am not a police officer, Mr. Delaney,” Bauer said.

  “Exactly,” Delaney said.

  “Come off it,” Pearson said. “No need to get huffy.”

  Delaney smiled. “I am a bit huffy sometimes, Richard. It’s true. It’s sort of who I am. Rawson will attest to that.”

  “What’s the harm in helping out our German friends in this?” Pearson said.

  “What will our German friends do with information I give them, Richard?”

  “I don’t know. They’ll decide later. What to do, how to play things.”

  “Exactly. Thank you. Information is a very tricky thing. Everything depends on how you use it. Personally, I like to know how information is going to be used before I share it. Or, actually, I just prefer to use it myself.”

  “That is not how these things work, Mr. Delaney,” Bauer said.

  “It’s how they work with me,” Delaney said.

  “Hang on, hang on, let’s not get huffy,” Pearson said. “Give me a second.”

  Bauer tried to look menacing. Pearson pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

  “Calling in air support, Richard?” Delaney said.

  “Mr. Rawson?” Pearson said into the phone, a little too loud. “Richard Pearson here. I’m at Frankfurt airport with Frank Delaney and Karl Bauer, the BND guy on this detail. Mr. Delaney is, well, not happy with the idea of sitting down with us to have a little chat.”

  Pearson listened intently as Rawson spoke at the other end.

  “So why do you use him?” Pearson asked eventually, looking over at Delaney, then at Bauer. He listened again for a while.

  “I see. I see, I get it,” Pearson said when Rawson had finished talking. He looked at Bauer again. “I see.”

  He listened again as Rawson spoke in Ottawa. Then he handed the phone to Delaney.

  “Mr. Rawson would like to have a word with you,” he said.

  “Berlin your first overseas posting, Richard?” Delaney asked as he took the phone. “They can get tricky sometimes.” Rawson heard that.

  “Francis, will you please stop hassling my guy over there?” he said. “Give the kid a break.”

  “He’s doing a good job, Jon. He’ll go far.”

  “For God’s sake, man, just sit down with Bauer for a few minutes and bring him up to speed. He can probably help you.”

  “I doubt that, Jon.” Delaney said. “Not yet anyway.”

  “The BND say they’re worried about your safety when you go back to Berlin,” Rawson said. “I’ve told them what happened to you on the highway down in France.”

  “That’s nice of them to worry about my welfare, Jon.”

  “Let’s not fool around, OK Francis? Please? For once? Just give them what you’ve got, let them look after you when you’re in Berlin and then we can all decide what to do next.”

  “I’ll decide.”

  “No, Francis.”

  “Yes, Jonathan.”

  “Christ,” Rawson said.

  “The Germans will want to do one thing. The CIA or whoever will want to do another thing. You guys will have your ideas. For all I know the damn Stasi will have a few thoughts on this too if there are any of them still around. Then there’s the players out in Phuket, we’ve got a collection of good guys and bad guys over there. It’s a free-for-all, always in a situation like this, Jon, you know that. So, I’ll decide.”

  “That’s not how it works, Francis. I have to tell you this over and over again. You never listen.”

  “I do, Jon. Sometimes.”

  “When it suits you.”

  “Yes.”

  Rawson said nothing for a moment. Delaney decided to help fill the silence.

  “Look, Jon, you know me. I gather up little bits of stuff here and there. I pile it up and look at it. I’m a bit of a hoarder, you know that. I pile things up on my little wagon for a while and I look at it for a long time. But you know me, Jon. An ammunition wagon is not interesting in itself. I’m a rifle, not an ammunition wagon. I like to use what I’ve gathered. Bang, bang. Even just for target practice.”

  “We like to use ammunition too, Francis. We do too. We don’t like to let information just sit there on the wagon either.”

  “No one does. The BND clearly don’t, the CIA don’t, the Yanks in general. Police certainly don’t. RCMP, the BKA, who knows who else. It goes on and on. Stasi. There’s a good example. Stasi were masters at gathering information, for years, right? But they really knew how to use it and whe
n to use it. They had fairly strong ideas on how to use information. They really used it very, very well.”

  “I don’t need a history lesson today, Francis.”

  “OK, I’ll stop. I’ll put your guy back on.” Delaney handed the telephone back to Pearson.

  “Here you go, Richard,” he said. “Your boss is a little pissed off.”

  He heard Rawson’s faint metallic voice coming out of the phone before Pearson could put it to his ear.

  Under the circumstances, Delaney changed his travel plans. He decided it would be unwise now to go to Berlin at all. Too many people there were interested in his movements. Bad guys and, supposedly, good guys. He was standing in one of the world’s busiest airports, with a credit card in his pocket. There were any number of ways to get to Thailand from Frankfurt that night. The big flights to Asia left Germany very late, and he could be on one of them with no trouble.

  Pearson and Bauer both looked stricken when he told them he had decided to head to Bangkok right away.

  “This is a mistake, Mr. Delaney,” Bauer said.

  “This is not good.”

  “I think it’s good, Karl. That’s what counts,” he said.

  Delaney managed to buy a very expensive one-way ticket to Bangkok on a Thai Airways flight leaving just before midnight. Flight 7663 would be in Thailand by mid-afternoon the next day, and he could be in Phuket by dinnertime Sunday. Pearson and Bauer accompanied him to various airport desks as he made his arrangements. Both of them also spent a bit of time on their phones.

  “I could buy you each a beer before I take off,” Delaney said eventually. “Cheer you both up.” Pearson looked interested. Bauer did not. “Your lack of cooperation has now been noted in senior circles, Mr. Delaney,” Bauer said frostily.

  “You should expect no help from my service now.”

  “That’s OK, Karl. I understand.”

  “I’m not sure my guys are onside anymore either, Mr. Delaney,” Pearson said.

  “I’m used to that,” Delaney said. “We have a bit of a love-hate relationship going on. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. It’s like a marriage. Don’t worry. Tell Rawson I love him all the same.”