Triple Identity

by Haggai Carmon

  “Good afternoon. I'm an attorney from the United States,” I said in a professional manner. That much was true. “I need to talk to someone at the bank concerning a new investment. I need a banker to assist me.”

  “What is the size of the investment? I need to know how to direct your call, Herr …” she paused, waiting for me to give my name. “Wooten,” I said, “Peter Wooten, and the amount is quite large, in seven figures.”

  “Just one moment, please,” she said swiftly. “I'll connect you with our director, Herr Guttmacher.”

  Good, I thought, I'm getting the head man immediately. I guess the sum I had mentioned was high enough.

  A few more seconds and a man's voice came on the line.

  “Guttmacher,” he said. I felt as if he were expecting me to jump to attention and click my heels. “What can I do for you?”

  “I'm looking for a bank to assist me in investments my client is considering making,” I said, repeating my story.

  He said nothing, so I continued. “Can we meet to discuss your services? I'll be in town for only a few days.”

  “I shall be glad to see you,” he said. “How about this afternoon at four, if you have no other plans.” Herr Guttmacher was my only plan for that afternoon, so I quickly agreed.

  “Always plan ahead when meeting with potential sources,” I recalled Alex, my instructor at the Mossad Academy, repeating time and time again. “Although they may or may not be your adversaries, they could snap and become hostile at any point. Therefore, your planning should cover all ends. First comes your own security. Identify the potential risks you are taking in making contact, then set the meeting in a place you are the least likely to be hurt and leave tracers behind you. Make sure someone knows where you are going, whom you are meeting, and at what time you are expected back. And finally, set your goals before you make the appointment. Know exactly what you are trying to get from the source, what you are willing to give in return, and the mechanism for the exchange.” He paused dramatically, looking at us as though he were an attorney offering the jury his closing arguments in the most important case of his career. “A mistake could cost you your life, then and there or later. You'll never know what hit you.”

  I knew this was only a money chase, not terrorists weaving nets in Europe, recruiting local help and eliminating competition at all costs. I wasn't concerned about my personal safety. I wasn't carrying a gun. What would the banker do: toss a checkbook at me? I had researched the bank's history from publicly available sources when working on that previous case. So much for planning ahead.

  Bankhaus Bäcker & Haas was founded in 1932, after the great inflation of the 1920s and early 1930s had destroyed Germany's economy. Two German bankers who operated out of Zurich decided it was a good time to open a branch of their bank in Germany, where most of the banks had not survived the hyperinflation and had folded. Although the bank offered commercial banking services, the heart of its business was private banking. Bäcker & Haas catered to high-net-worth individuals who needed an astute banker to manage assets and hedge against market trends. Above all, such people needed discretion. With a few conspicuous exceptions, rich people don't like to be flashy with their wealth and attract tax collectors, charity solicitations, and sudden new relatives.

  I had also come across rumors, all unsubstantiated, that money launderers favored the bank because its managers looked the other way, ignoring suspicious movements in accounts that would have triggered the attention of more reputable bankers. After the original owners died, the heirs sold the Swiss main office to a group of Saudi investors but kept the Munich bank.

  For starters, I planned an initial interview with Guttmacher in order to study him and his attitude toward borderline financial transactions. I had to see whether he would be a good candidate to lure into my den. I wanted to know how DeLouise had used the bank, and I wanted to glean that information from Guttmacher.

  “Hastiness is of the devil,” Mussa, our Arab customs and manners teacher, used to tell us at the Mossad Academy. “Patience! Arab nomads used to say ‘I waited forty years for my revenge, and when it finally came, I said to myself, perhaps I was too hasty’ Have patience, my friends. Never approach a potential source and expose your time constraints. Always behave as if this thing is not that important, that you have all the time in the world.” He had been referring to Arab sources, but I later discovered the universal application of this wisdom.

  I arrived at Guttmacher's office at the designated time and gave his secretary my business card. It's part of the “legend” I usually prepare before going out of the country on assignment. The business card read “Peter Wooten, Attorney-at-Law,” and gave an address in New York. The information on the card wasn't completely inaccurate. The name was phony and the address was that of a front office used by the Justice Department in decoy operations, but the profession was genuine. The business card was the only physical window dressing I had. The remainder of the legend was in my mind.

  The office was located at the southern corner of the second floor. A long corridor with cherrywood paneling led to his spacious chambers. The wide planking on the floor was covered with a handsome Oriental rug. Landscape paintings hung on the walls. It was obvious that the bank made every effort to make this office reflect stability and old-time respectability.

  I was shown to Guttmacher's inner office. He was a man in his late fifties with a full head of iron-gray hair. I noticed that he had green eyes, although he avoided looking at me when we shook hands. Guttmacher was wearing a conservative suit with a red vest. I sat down on a brown leather couch, surprisingly well-worn for such grand surroundings.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice,” I opened.

  “It is never a problem,” he said, a broad smile revealing a gold tooth. My first impression was that Guttmacher has trained himself not to reveal himself in any way. I thought I knew why. “What can I do for you?”

  “I represent a group of investors from the United States led by one individual. They want to diversify their investments and need a discreet German banker who can assist them in their search for solid opportunities as well as maintain absolute confidentiality.” I paused, looking him in the eye. I had emphasized the word discreet.

  “Any particular area of investment?” asked Guttmacher.

  “In the United States, my clients made their money in fuel delivery and concrete plants, but they're not limiting themselves to these areas. They might consider other profitable ventures, as long as the investments are safe and discreet. The initial investment is approximately thirty-five to forty million dollars, but if your bank turns out to be what they're looking for, that amount could grow substantially.” I paused, drawing out the silence.

  “Let me put it this way,” I continued, reasserting a modest pose. “Although my clients assure me that their money is legal, there could be some tax problems in the U.S. and, therefore, they must insist on complete confidentiality.”

  I hoped I wasn't laying it on too heavily, watching Guttmacher trying to control his excitement. But his body language said it all. He worked very hard at controlling his fidgets; he coughed and swallowed a bit nervously and moved to the edge of his chair. I had expected Guttmacher to sit impassively, to not betray any expression. But he didn't. Apparently his greed had overcome his caution.

  “I need to know more about your clients,” he said. “We have established procedures that require we understand our clients’ specific needs.”

  “I can't reveal their identity yet; I need to get their permission first. Once you provide me with a plan, I'm sure there will be no problem in identifying the clients.”

  “And what would be your role?” he asked.

  I had a sense of cat and mouse here. But which one of us was the cat and which one was the mouse?

  “Liaison,” I said curtly.

  My earlier fears that Guttmacher would grill me or throw me out suspecting I was there to trap him were exaggerated. He was
still guarded but visibly eager to move ahead. Finally, he managed to say, “I'll be happy to assist your clients. Our bank has a long tradition of strict confidentiality, rivaling that of Switzerland.”

  He'd definitely gotten the message.

  “How do you rival the Swiss banks, which are known to be the most discreet in the industry?” I asked, pushing him a bit more.

  “It's not just the banks,” he explained, “it's also the governments. You see, the U.S. has a treaty with the Swiss government that forces them to disclose certain things to the U.S. government agencies. Details about financial activities of suspected criminals, such as money launderers and drug lords. So the Swiss government is actually acting as an arm of the FBI whenever there is such suspicion. The U.S. government forces the banks, through the Swiss officials and the Swiss court system, to disclose information, which the banks then give the Americans.” He smiled genially. “In Germany, the situation is different. Our courts are much more protective of the privacy rights of our clients and the stability of our business relationship. Therefore, such things don't happen here.”

  I listened attentively to his speech. Of course I knew what he was saying; I had been involved in numerous cases in which the Swiss government was helpful. I also noticed that Guttmacher had conveniently forgotten to mention that, under the centuries-old international custom called letters rogatory, as well as through MLAT, a bilateral treaty between governments for mutual legal assistance, the United States and Germany could request and obtain much the same sort of banking information from one another for use in criminal investigations and prosecutions. But the subtext of the conversation showed me that Guttmacher fully understood that the money involved was the fruit of criminal activity. This was a good sign for my evaluation of his corruptibility. If DeLouise had used Guttmacher, he had probably conducted a similar assessment.

  “While communicating with a potential source, and during the development process of your relationship,” Alex had told us, “you may wish to make your party feel that he's being let in on a secret. That attitude bolsters the trust between the two of you and gives your party a sense of pride. Obviously, you never disclose a real secret.” We all nodded. “Simply invent something that may sound plausible to your party, act as if you're confiding in him. Ask him to keep it a secret. Here, we build a good cover story or a plausible excuse in six months of training and endless exercises. Just keep in mind — if your cover is blown, you're next.”

  “You see,” Guttmacher continued in his flowing lecture, “Germany does not have a law against money laundering and, therefore, what is not illegal here cannot become illegal just because the Americans want us to think it is. The war is over, you know,” he ended with a grin, again exposing his gold tooth. Guttmacher struck me as a person who lays his cards on the table but has at least another full deck up his sleeve.

  “No money-laundering law?” I repeated.

  “No,” he said with satisfaction.

  There was truth to what he said, and that was promising because he showed me his dishonesty: a required trait if you want to be considered as a banker for stolen money. I knew that Germany was dragging its feet in passing a law intended to fight multinational crime. A draft of the law was being discussed in the German Bundestag but hadn't yet passed. I remembered having read the draft proposal before leaving the States.

  The guy knew what he was talking about, I thought, giving Guttmacher an appreciative look. He must have been deeply involved in shady transactions if he knew the ropes so well. I didn't mention that I knew that Switzerland had just passed money-laundering laws, albeit limited in scope, thus both bowing to and resisting pressure from the United States.

  “How do you want to proceed?” I asked Guttmacher, showing him I was satisfied with his answers.

  “Where is the money now?” he asked directly. The man had all the sweetness of a funeral director.

  “It's available immediately, if I see the right investment,” I answered, avoiding his unexpectedly direct question.

  He smiled. “Fine. I'll prepare a plan for you. Where would you like it delivered?”

  “To my New York office,” I answered. “You have my card.”

  We shook hands, and he escorted me to the door.

  I decided to walk back to my hotel. I had to see if there was an indication on my guest registration that I was with the U.S. government and either remove it or check out. I strolled a few blocks in the chilly air and found myself in Marienplatz, the center of life in Munich. I looked in my guidebook. I could do this. I could be a tourist for a moment, at least until I could fully absorb the meaning of my meeting with Guttmacher.

  Marienplatz, the guidebook said, was named after the three-hundred-foot gilt statue of the Virgin Mary that stands in the middle of the square. At the north side of the square is the Neues Rathaus. Built at the end of the nineteenth century, it is best known for its glockenspiel. Once a day, its army of enameled copper figures performs the Scheffeltanz, followed by a reenactment of an event that celebrated royal weddings in the fifteenth century. At the end of each session, a mechanical rooster crows.

  Legend has it that, after World War II, an American GI concerned by the deteriorating condition of the figures “borrowed” some paint from his unit's storage area and gave it to the building's caretakers. As a show of their appreciation, the caretakers allowed him to ride one of the horses in the jousting scene, earning cheers from the people gathered in the square.

  After taking in the sights for a bit, I stopped into a café for a cup of tea. I sat looking through the window at the buildings and at the people going by, but not really taking anything in. I decided to walk back to my hotel, preoccupied with Herr Hans Guttmacher. He'd obviously snapped at my bait. He'd proven easy to draw in to corrupt dealings, and that could have been a good reason for DeLouise to hire him. I was anxious to learn, though, whether DeLouise had used Guttmacher. If he had, would he have been Peled or DeLouise?

  At the hotel I found a message from Lan waiting for me at the front desk. “I have the numbers you requested. How do you want them forwarded?” it read.

  I stuffed the note in my shirt pocket and headed up to my room. Lan was always prompt, discreet, and intelligent. She could sense what I meant even if I gave her a seemingly indecipherable hint. I knew very little about her personal life. She was half-Chinese and half-Vietnamese. She'd worked at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon until the last days in 1975 but had stayed behind when the embassy's diplomatic staff left. After things calmed down, however, she was granted a U.S. visa as a token of appreciation. She came to the States and married a Vietnamese journalist in D.C. Her husband died several years later, when she was in her midforties. She'd never remarried.

  I called Lan and asked her to forward the data through the secure connection to the legat at the American Consulate General in Munich. I was always amused at the double-talk in the U.S. Foreign Service: legat, short for legal attaché, isn't always a lawyer but is always an FBI special agent. In the intelligence community, use of these titles is termed light cover; deep cover is reserved for positions outside the embassy or consulate, such as in trade companies or in other businesses in which international travel and contacts would seem normal. CIA jargon for the position is NOC, nonofficial cover. The Soviets used to call their deep cover agents illegal, because they didn't work out of the embassy or in a company connected with their country.

  As usual, I had planted a decoy magazine and a telltale hair when I'd left my room and, when I walked into the room, I went directly to the safe to check on them. The hair was still in place. I took a bottle of good German beer from the minibar and watched TV until I fell asleep out of sheer boredom.

  The following morning I drove to the consulate's compound at Königinstrasse and went to see Helga, the legat's secretary. She looked particularly lovely. “This came for you this morning with the diplomatic pouch,” she said with a smile, handing me an envelope.

  She led me to a small conference r
oom, where I read the memo from Lan.

  October 6,1990

  To: Dan Gordon

  From: Lan A. Tien

  I've attached the telephone numbers you forwarded with the names and addresses of the subscribers. There are ten numbers that we could not identify, even after running the numbers on the investigative telephone database as well as the reverse listing. Please let me know what else you need.

  Lan

  I looked at the list. There were calls to three Japanese restaurants, two jewelry stores, several calls to what appeared to be private residences in Munich, and six calls to Bankhaus Bäcker & Haas, the bank of my new pal Guttmacher. I compared the numbers on the log with the number on the business card Guttmacher had given me. Different. I picked up the telephone and called the number on the log.

  “Guttmacher,” replied a voice at the other end. I hung up. So he'd given DeLouise his direct line. But he hadn't given it to me. I guessed DeLouise was a bigger fish for him. With six calls to Guttmacher identified, the likelihood that DeLouise had more than one contact with the banker had been upgraded from a suspicion to an assumption, but not a fact.

  A separate page showed fifteen international calls made from DeLouise's hotel room: three calls to Switzerland; two to Luxembourg; seven to the United States, all to California; one to Italy; and two to Israel.

  Israel again! The lines next to the two numbers in Israel were empty. “Unknown subscriber” was written in the comments box.

  I looked at the numbers. There were two calls to the same number. I didn't need to look twice to realize it was a very familiar number: the Mossad's clandestine headquarters on King Shaul Boulevard in northern Tel Aviv, across from Israel's Pentagon.

  “What the hell!” I thought excitedly, but then I slowed down. Why would DeLouise call the Mossad thirty-three years after he had left it? For that matter, had he really left it? Had he forgotten the elementary rules of security, which forbid making a traceable phone call from a hotel room?