Triple Identity

by Haggai Carmon

  Jeff added, “We also planned a decoy operation in another bank down the block, Bayerische Hypotheken und Wechsel Bank. We're trying to learn how to trigger their alarm system. It's electronic and linked to a monitoring control center. We want them to think there's a break-in and send the police in that direction. The street leading to that bank is not directly connected to the street on which Guttmacher's bank is located, and any police-car movement would be in the opposite direction. The sirens would also tell people that the police are on the way without knowing that they're on the wrong way. We'll monitor their waveband.”

  “Now we're getting somewhere. Avi, you and Jeff need to talk logistics,” said Eric. “You two can work at the dining table. Speaking of which, is anyone hungry?”

  “Good timing,” I said. “I'm starved. I haven't eaten all day.”

  I grabbed Benny by his arm. “Let's you and me be the pickup and delivery boys.” We made a quick list of orders and left. It was time for Benny and me to talk.

  The rule was to leave the apartment one by one, making sure nobody was in the hallway, and then use different building exits. We met and talked only a block away after checking for watchers.

  “Let's find a kosher place,” I said to Benny. He said nothing but I knew he appreciated my suggestion. He kept kosher; he wouldn't eat otherwise.

  “I know a good one on Reichenbach Street,” he said. Although it wasn't far, we took a cab. The place was bustling, many of the men wearing yarmulkes and beards. I saw Benny's eyes widen when he ogled the plates full of mouthwatering, cholesterol-laden delicacies. We placed our orders for takeout.

  Benny caught me off guard. “I think you're angry at me for withholding recent information about DeLouise,” he said in a tone that indicated it was all right with him.

  “No, I'm not angry, I'm surprised or disappointed. More of one than the other. I'm not sure which.”

  Benny gave me his no-nonsense, sharp-eyed look.

  “I couldn't tell you that Dov Peled, aka Raymond DeLouise, made a surprise contact with us after thirty-three years. You know the rules. Need-to-know basis. Even if you were still in the organization, I couldn't have told you unless you needed to know.”

  I sat there silently. I knew he was right, but somehow I had hoped that our friendship and common past would be stronger than these rules. I had to realize that even a strong friendship was a matter of degree in this business.

  “At least can you tell me if you have Mina Bernstein? I hope that isn't information classified on a need-to-know basis. Even if it is, I need to know.”

  “No need to be sarcastic, Dan. Yes, we do. We sent her back to Israel. The lady wouldn't be safe here until Ariel was found.”

  I was moderately relieved. Lack of any elaboration by Benny showed me that maybe Mina didn't tell them about the safe-deposit box. Otherwise he would have asked me for a copy of its contents.

  “Why did DeLouise call you?” I asked.

  “He didn't call me personally. The duty officer forwarded his call to the unit controlling agents operating on foreign lands.”

  “What did he want?”

  The waiter called our number and we went back to the counter to pick up the order. It smelled great: brathächen (fried chicken), klopse (meatballs), bratkartoffeln (the German roasted potatoes), apfelmus (thick applesauce), doboschtorte (a seven-layer cake with mocha cream), and bread rolls, which in southern Germany are called semmeln. At the last minute Benny ordered kalb schnitzels, breaded veal cutlets on rolls.

  I had an instant recollection of my mother's kitchen. These were the same mouthwatering smells, only without her smiling at me and saying, “Come, I prepared your favorite dish, sit down and enjoy.”

  “Let's go,” I said. I wanted to continue the conversation outside the restaurant. We stood at the street corner. I zipped up my coat. The sky was clear and the light wind chilled the air.

  “What did DeLouise want?” I asked again.

  “He needed help. He said that a Colombian drug cartel was after him for some documents implicating them in massive money laundering in the U.S. He said he couldn't call the police because he was wanted by the U.S. Justice Department over the failure of his bank and he was afraid of being extradited to America if he contacted any European police.”

  “Couldn't he use his Israeli identity? The U.S. wouldn't have had INTERPOL broadcast an international lookout for someone named Dov Peled. INTERPOL was looking for Raymond DeLouise.”

  “Apparently he wasn't sure whether the U.S. government knew about his additional identity. He couldn't risk it.”

  “Why did he think the Mossad would help him?” I became curious.

  Benny hesitated as a cab drew up. “Let's get in,” he said, in a transparent effort to cut the subject off.

  “No, let's walk; it's only a mile or so. We need to clear this up before we get back to the others. Did it have anything to do with his service for the Mossad in the French nuclear installation?”

  Benny turned. “Fine, let's walk if you insist. I need the exercise.”

  We went on for a while, but Benny said nothing.

  “So?” I urged.

  “I see you know about his past. So why are you angry at me?”

  “Because I thought we were friends. You could have tipped me off about his phone calls to the Mossad.”

  “That's the whole point. I couldn't because it might have compromised other things. You know that. Don't forget I wasn't talking to my friend Dan Gordon, I was talking to Dan Gordon who works for the American government.”

  “I don't have conflicting loyalties,” I said. “What I learned in the Mossad I keep a secret, and what I learn during my service for the Justice Department I give the same level of confidentiality and loyalty. In my line of work there's no conflict between Israel and the United States; on the contrary, there's a joint interest.”

  “I respect your integrity,” said Benny, perhaps feeling that he'd hit a raw nerve. “I'd never doubt that. There's no need to be defensive.”

  “So DeLouise was cooperating with the Mossad? Is that it?” I continued, satisfied with Benny's clarification.

  “No,” he said decisively, “definitely not. He said that if he was caught by the Colombians they'd kill him, and if the Americans found him first he might be interrogated and the fact that he was planted in France by the Mossad could surface.”

  “So he wanted the Mossad's help in return for his silence? Is that all?”

  “Generally yes,” said Benny, relieved that I seemed to be satisfied by this. “He was subtly blackmailing the Mossad. We weren't going to be blackmailed, not by him or anyone else.” Benny sounded determined.

  “My God. So you people terminated him,” I said in disbelief.

  “No,” countered Benny, “of course we didn't. We don't do our own people, you know that.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “We told him that we couldn't protect him, but if he came to Israel he would be safer from the Colombians.”

  “I must say I understand him. There's no absolute safety and I guess he didn't want to be living in Israel or anywhere else in constant fear of the Colombians.” Israel, like most European countries, does not extradite its own citizens, so at least he'd be safe from that. “But, come to think of it, he was born in Romania of Romanian parents, so he could have obtained a Romanian passport. Why couldn't he use it to go to Israel or anywhere else?” I pressed.

  “He said that he risked himself once going abroad because he felt that it was unlikely that anyone would think he'd be using the name Popescu again. The potential benefit was substantial: getting enough on the Iranian plans to allow him to trade this information for the termination of any criminal charges against him in the United States. This was a decisive move, which he took in view of the potential benefit. But using the Romanian passport just to escape would have rendered him a fugitive. Only a question of time before he was discovered.”

  “A calculated risk,” I concluded, when
the information had sunk in.

  “Anyway, his suspicion of Guttmacher was growing, and DeLouise felt that his problems should be resolved at their root so that he could return to the United States. He understood that his stay in Europe under Guttmacher's protection was short-lived. Trading on the Iranian secrets was a better choice, because it had the potential to totally extricate him from his problems.”

  “What did DeLouise say to your offer to return to Israel?” I asked.

  “He said he couldn't because he was afraid to use an airport. He was sure that INTERPOL had every patrol on every border looking for him. Airline records and passport control could have exposed him to the authorities and to an immediate arrest and extradition to the United States.”

  “There are many ways of entering and leaving a country without letting the border control know about it,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “Of course,” confirmed Benny, “but DeLouise was reluctant to come out of hiding and trust a smuggler who could blackmail him or simply sell him out. Although he never said so, I suspect he wanted us to do the job. Extricate him from Germany, bring him to Israel, and give him a new identity.”

  “Did you do it?” I asked, wondering how many more identities DeLouise had.

  “Certainly not. From our perspective there was no justification for that. Particularly when facing the risk of confronting the U.S. and Germany. We are not in the business of hiding people who run from the law, even if they were in our service thirty-three years ago.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “In a way. I told him he was on his own. So, as second best, he asked us to send his daughter, Ariel, to Munich to help him. We agreed to pass on his message.”

  “Is that all you did?” I asked. I didn't quite buy his answer.

  “No, of course not,” said Benny, with the small smile of a cat who'd just licked the forbidden cream.

  “I'm listening,” I said, encouraging him to continue.

  Benny looked at me hesitantly. “And this time I need to know,” I insisted.

  “Well, we had two of our guys in Germany watching him. More to see what he was doing rather than to protect him.”

  “You mean your men witnessed his murder?”

  “Our instructions were to give him some room, unless they were the only ones who could save his life. And he was attacked when they were across the street more than fifty meters away. Too far to step in.”

  “Did your men identify the killer?”

  “No, they were wearing helmets.”

  “They? The police report said there was one killer.”

  “No, there were two of them on a motorcycle. Remember, our guys are professionals and they'd been watching DeLouise, while the bystanders who testified to the police were alerted to the event only after they heard the shooting. The one who sat on the backseat of the motorcycle got off, approached DeLouise, and shot him, while the other waited five meters away on the motorcycle with the engine running.”

  “Come on, tell me what you know. Don't make me cross-examine you,” I said impatiently. “I guess you discovered who the killers were.”

  “No, we didn't. That's a job for the police. We had no direct interest in it. Since DeLouise was no longer a security risk for us, who killed him became a secondary issue. Hey, life's tough.”

  “Oh yes,” he added, as if he had just remembered something. “Here's something we couldn't give the police because we didn't want to be connected to the crime scene.” Benny took a spent shell out of his pocket. “These guys who killed DeLouise may have looked like professionals but they weren't; just a couple of sloppy thugs who left this behind.”

  I took the shell and inspected it. It was a .38 caliber and had no manufacturer's name on it. Benny was right; a professional would never have left this behind. It's the same as leaving your fingerprints. If the gun were found, the shell could be connected to the gun and its owner to the crime.

  I put the telltale shell in my pocket and turned to Benny, “Thanks, did you pick up on all his European and Soviet escapades?”

  Benny didn't answer.

  “Go on,” I said, “It's important for our joint operation, and I know you have more information. I need the whole picture before I go to Moscow.”

  “Why do you ask? You mean Eric didn't tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “We told him what we knew. I was sure he gave you that information.”

  “No, he didn't,” I said bitterly. “I don't like that jerk. He sits on important information like a dog on a heap. He only likes to get information, not to give any. It seems that the only thing he'll share with me is a communicable disease,” I said sarcastically. “Tell me what you gave him.”

  “It's not a big secret that we've been chasing the Iranians in Europe trying to figure out what they are planning next. We know that ever since our jets leveled the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 they've been suspecting that their nuclear capacity would be our next target.”

  I had no argument with Benny.

  “It's obvious that the Iranian ayatollahs are fanatics and will not hesitate to wipe out Israel,” Benny went on. “Our research department believes that the Iranians are deliberately leaking the news about their nuclear capacity. They are signaling the U.S., which is now planning an attack on Iraq, to stay away.”

  It was time to shift the conversation back to what I needed. “What about DeLouise and the Iranians?”

  “We still don't know if he tried to con them and make a quick bundle, as he told us, or if he, in fact, intended to deliver on his promise and broker a sale of nuclear materials from one of the republics of the Soviet Union. We don't know for sure yet; we are working on that now.”

  “So I guess the Mossad would recommend that the joint operation with the CIA be authorized? It would be a good opportunity to share information and move a step forward in finding out what the Iranians still need.”

  “I don't know,” said Benny. “There are so many factors in the decision-making process. The prime minister would be the one to decide, although the head of the Mossad has the same authority.”

  “Well, at least he has some understanding of how these operations work,” I said. “After all, didn't he head up European operations working out of the Paris station?”

  Benny took out one schnitzel from the bag and ate it while we walked.

  “Now you see why I insisted that the break-in be silent,” he said. “That's why I interrupted you. I knew what you were about to say. But I wanted Eric to hear it first from me.”

  Benny had learned how to be a politician too.

  “We can't let the Iranians know we have their shopping list or that we are able to identify their suppliers.”

  “Why?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

  “Because they will take protective measures. We don't want that to happen. You saw what happened to the people who didn't listen to our friendly advice to stop shipping deadly materials to Iraq. Remember what happened to Gerald Bull. But I can offer you the flip side of it,” he added in a serious tone. “If the break-in becomes public, as well as the list, the suppliers will panic and might halt further shipments before we have exhausted all the benefits from the intelligence. They know that having their names on the front page of every newspaper in the world could be detrimental to their health, not only from Israel or the U.S. but also from unexpected directions. Think of the green environmentalist organizations; they are an emerging power in Europe,” he concluded with an ironic smile.

  Of course I remembered. Israel had suspected that a TZI nuclear reactor built by the French for the Iraqis in the late 1970s, allegedly for “research for peaceful purposes,” was in fact a crucial leap forward in Saddam's dream of an Iraqi A-bomb. Israel knew better than to attribute any peaceful intentions to Saddam. Israel had complained publicly, but the French had refused to listen. The transaction was too financially lucrative. So on the night of April 6,1979, at a factory in La-Seyne-sur-Mer, a small Fre
nch village on the Mediterranean forty miles east of Marseille, a group of men penetrated the warehouse where the core of the nuclear reactor designed to hold the fuel had already been crated for delivery to Iraq and blew it up. Someone had then left messages at the news agencies attributing the detonation to the “French Ecologist Group.” Nobody had ever heard of the group before, nor has anyone heard of it since.

  As a result Saddam had had to wait almost two years for the next shipment. Again, Israel wouldn't allow it, and Israeli jets flew one thousand kilometers and destroyed the reactor site in Iraq just shortly before it became “hot.” As usual, political hypocrisy went into operation, with public rebuke of Israel but a silent satisfaction that the Israelis had done the dirty work of others. “It was a world-class ‘bang and burn,’” I said.

  “Yes, but anyway it's not for me to decide if Israel should participate in the planned break-in into Guttmacher's office,” Benny continued, taking the last bites of his sandwich and bending forward, trying to keep the oozing sauce from staining his pants and then throwing the paper napkin into a garbage can on the street corner. “My recommendations would come only from the operational perspective. We should let the politicians make their own decisions, or mistakes. Do you remember the MOG rule?” No, I hadn't forgotten the rule governing break-ins, commonly referred to by its Hebrew acronym. But Benny answered the question anyway. “Operations and incursions must be approved by the prime minister. Although I believe that the planned break-in is not included in the list of activities requiring preapproval, in the ‘cover your ass’ atmosphere I wouldn't be surprised if the head of the Mossad would nevertheless seek an approval.”

  “You still haven't told me what you know about Raymond DeLouise and the Soviets,” I persisted.

  “Let's talk inside. Eric must clear it first. I don't want to be caught in a turf war here.”