Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thrillers)

by Haggai Carmon

  “I need documents,” I said. “Show me your files, and I promise I’ll be out of here in no time.”

  He pointed at a two-drawer gray metal file cabinet. It was not locked. I flipped through the files. Most of them were personal. “Show me your bank account records in BVI.”

  He was dumbfounded. “I don’t have any,” he finally managed to say.

  “But you own that account in Traders and Merchants Bank!”

  “No, I only have an account with Sepah Bank here.”

  “Who’s your insider officer?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Insider officer, your VEVAK case officer who handles you.”

  “Mustafa Hadid.”

  “Do you have a file on him here?”

  He shook his head. I quickly ran through the files, but there was nothing of interest, except, except… a fat file with the initials “LSIT.” Ha! These were the initials of Shestakov’s company. I pulled it out and flipped it open. The first thing I saw was a lease agreement for a single-family house in Arabian Ranches for AED 275,000 per year (approximately $58,000.) The renter: Ali Akbar Kamrani.

  “Is that where Madani is being held?”

  Pale and shaking, Ali Akbar nodded.

  “Who instructed you to rent this place?”

  “Shestakov.”

  I looked at the date of rental. September 1, 2006. That meant that an operation to kidnap Madani had been contemplated before Madani was about to defect. Unless, of course, the house had other uses. I continued sifting through the file. In fact I didn’t exactly know what I was looking for. I knew that Ali Akbar was a self-confessed VEVAK agent, a clandestine recipient of money from Shestakov—and maybe also from SVR—for “fixing” things.

  Did he have a third loyalty?

  Where were the documents regarding the BVI account?

  There was nothing in the file cabinet. It was only my speculation that he was the owner of that BVI account, just a hunch with nothing to back it up with. I turned around. Ali Akbar would be my compass. His face would tell me if I was approaching the hot stuff. When I closed and shut the file cabinet I saw an expression of relief on his face. I looked behind the cabinet, but saw nothing other than spider webs.

  I opened it again. There must be something here. I pulled the upper drawer out completely and ran my hand under the top. Bingo. Taped to the flat metal was a file, half an inch thick. I looked at Ali Akbar. He was shaking. I pulled out the file. It was full of documents, most of them in Arabic or Persian, but the few that were in English looked promising. Wire transfers between Sepah Rome and Tehran of significant amounts, and I mean millions. There were also official-looking letters with the Revolutionary Guard emblem, but although I could read them, I understood little.

  “Mr. Van der Hoff, please, I ask you to leave. You are going through my personal records. These files have nothing to do with the materials that you are interested in.”

  “Really?” I asked and continued with my search. A white office envelope felt as if it contained more than just paper. I looked inside. It contained a green American Express credit card that looked as if it had never been used.

  There was a tense look on the face of Ali Akbar. Although he tried hard to keep me from noticing, my Mossad body language course told me that I was holding something that caused him great concern. The card looked just like all American Express cards. The little devil inside me was also curious. Why would he keep the card secreted?

  Before I could answer, I felt a blow to my head that shook me. I fell to the floor. Before losing consciousness briefly, I saw Ali Akbar holding a table lamp with a heavy base. I opened my eyes and closed them again. The headache was splitting. The apartment was quiet.

  I opened my eyes again. Ali Akbar was crouching close to me, searching my pockets. The keys to the apartment! I’d locked it when we’d entered. I half closed my eyes so as not to alert him. But Ali Akbar was too busy looking for the keys. Luckily I’d put them in my pants’ back pocket and was lying on my back. Therefore he couldn’t get at them.

  I thought of Amos, my martial arts instructor during Special Forces training at the Mossad. Amos was a short guy with red hair, cross-eyed, so you never knew where he was looking. That helped him to kick us hard when we least expected it. He would say:

  When your enemy is very close to your body, that limits your options. Look for the available vital points or vulnerable points. They can kill, or cripple your enemy. Therefore use them only when it’s either your or his life, and you cannot escape. Don’t be a hero. You have an assignment to carry out. If you deliver your enemy a crippling blow, you will be the survivor, not the winner. Choose the target carefully.

  I did.

  As Ali Akbar leaned toward me closer, until I could smell his body odor, I hit his ears suddenly with both my slightly cupped palms. That created a painful and serious vacuum effect that could burst both his eardrums. Injury to the inner ear and the cochlea also means loss of balance. He gasped in pain and fell backwards. I turned on him and pushed upwards with my fingertips into the hollow areas just under his ears, and finished him with an elbow strike to his nose. He was out instantly.

  I got up, breathing heavily. Ali Akbar was showing signs of returning to reality from the temporary serenity I had imposed on him. I looked for the file I’d retrieved earlier, and, most importantly, the envelope with the credit card that seemed to be the immediate trigger for his attack. The contents were scattered on the floor. I picked them up and left the apartment, locking it from the outside.

  I didn’t know if Ali Akbar had called for help while I was knocked out. I left the apartment building, entered my car, and waited. My camera was ready. If Ali Akbar had summoned help, it would not be the police. They could ask too many questions. I wanted to take a good look at any people he’d called, for future reference. After ten minutes of sitting in my car, lights off, I saw a black Buick stop next to Ali Akbar’s apartment building. The man who exited the car looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him immediately or get a good shot of him. He rushed into the building.

  I started my car and returned to my hotel, headache and all, but with significant prizes. I sent a short message to Eric, reporting where I was and that I’d made serious progress, and went to bed. I had to think about how to break the news to Eric that if Kamrani was right, Madani was in Dubai, and, therefore, the person Eric had in the US—Madani Number Three—as well as his wife and son still waiting in Europe, were also fakes.

  I woke up a few hours later. It was still dark outside. My head was hurting but my mind was clear. I sat at the small desk, turned on the banker’s lamp, and looked at the scanned photo Pierre had given me in Paris of Christian Chennault. Gotcha! I said to myself, that’s the man I saw a few hours ago rushing into Ali Akbar’s apartment building, Christian Chennault, Leonid Shestakov’s henchman. If I needed further proof of the Shestakov-Ali Akbar connection, I didn’t have to look any further. I’d just seen it.

  Then I looked at the credit card I took from Ali Akbar. I was troubled, but didn’t know why. “Let’s play a game,” I said to myself, “let’s look at the account number.” I turned on my laptop, keyed in the twelve-digit password and logged in through a secure server to the office. I ran the account number on the database. The response came in immediately: No data is available. Check the account number as it appears to be invalid.

  I compared the numbers on the card with the numbers I keyed in. They matched. I’d made no mistake. I tried again. The same auto-response came. The only conclusion I could make with my head hurting was that there must be a mistake. Either American Express issued a card with an erroneous account number, or the Agency’s database was screwed up, or the card was forged.

  I went back to bed. I was still bewildered and uncomfortable about how to break the news to Eric. But, what the hell, I thought and fell asleep.

  When I woke up, I sat on my bed trying to collect my thoughts. What if Kamrani was lying about Madani’s being h
eld in Dubai? What if the credit card was a simple amateur forgery? Anyway, nobody can use it because every card-reading machine would reject it immediately. Then what’s the use? And what is the real reason for printing this card and then secreting it so carefully?

  A blow to my head again, this time metaphorically. You’re an idiot, my little inner devil told me. After all those years with cipher training you couldn’t see it? The credit card is a code card, a key, not a credit card!

  I looked at the card again. This time I counted the card number’s digits. Sixteen! American Express cards have fifteen. This one was never meant to be used for charging champagne. To make sure, I followed the routine of manually checking the validity of the card. I wrote down the sixteen-digit number and doubled every other digit from right to left. I added the new numbers to the undoubled digits. Now all double-digit results should be added as a sum of their component digits; sixteen is actually one plus six. The result I had was seventy-two. Since the final sum on a valid card must be divisible by ten, and the result was seventy-two, then the only conclusion was that card was a fake. The Agency’s database was correct.

  Ali Akbar had made no hostile moves when I interrogated him over very important matters. But when I found the credit card, that blew his top, and he’d hit my head. I copied the numbers and sent them to Eric and Paul, suggesting that they also copy NSA—the National Security Agency, the US agency that encrypts and deciphers all communications that further the interests of the United States.

  XXII

  July 2007, Washington, DC

  It was time to leave and go home. I decided to break the news to Eric, Benny, and Paul personally about Madani’s allegedly being held by Shestakov in Dubai.

  I flew to London and I called Eric, asking to have a meeting as soon as I arrived, then caught a connecting flight to Washington, DC. An Agency car met me and took me to Langley. In Eric’s office, I put an envelope on the coffee table between us. “It’s all in there,” I said, “all my findings.”

  “Tell us now,” said Benny. “We’ll read it later.”

  “OK, Benny, do you remember telling us that your men approached Tango while he was in Italy on a business trip?”

  Benny nodded. “Yes, he was identified by our talent spotter. We did a target study that marked him as a suitable and worthy target for recruitment.”

  “Well, it was business, all right. There were some requests for bidding made by Tango, or maybe a better term would be double-dipping. During the same time he talked with your men, Tango was already working for Shestakov. The immediate reason for his visit to Italy was to set up a bank account to receive Shestakov’s payments. Obviously he couldn’t open an account at Sepah Bank, knowing that the payments he’d receive would be reported to VEVAK. Therefore he opened an account at Banco di Luigi, a small and discreet bank in Rome.”

  “Do you have these statements?”

  “No. But I have intelligence telling me the account has several million euros. The US can ask the Italian government for authenticated copies of these statements if we establish that the request falls under the US-Italy Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.”

  “Where did you get the intel?” asked Eric.

  I wasn’t about to tell him that Aldo had told me. Eric would crucify me for cutting corners. “Ali Akbar Kamrani told me.”

  “Voluntarily?” asked Benny with a surprised smile.

  “Yep. Another squeeze of Kamrani’s balls can get you surprising results. I went to Dubai for that. Tango received a one-time amount of one million dollars, and additional frequent payments. Ali Akbar hinted that Madani had partners.”

  “But Kamrani is an Iranian agent. Didn’t he report this to VEVAK?”

  “Apparently not. He was more afraid of Shestakov’s thugs, who are next door to him, than of VEVAK, which is across the bay. Anyway, I suspect that Ali Akbar Kamrani himself was double-dipping, working for VEVAK and getting ‘bonuses’ from Shestakov.”

  “Meaning?”

  “A few days after Shestakov made payments from his account at Sepah Bank in Rome to Tango’s bank account in Luigi Bank, there was another transfer, of exactly fifteen percent of each transfer, to a bank account in the British Virgin Islands.”

  “Got details?” asked Benny, with increased interest.

  “No, just the name of the account and an account number. I know that the bank account is held by a trust, and British Virgin Islands law is very strict in defending the anonymity of the ultimate beneficiary of the trust, unless…” I paused.

  “Unless what?” asked Benny.

  “Unless you can show that you have been wronged by ways and means that you can only partially understand or by persons unknown. If so, you can apply to the BVI High Court for a document disclosure order against any third party in the BVI who is not a mere witness but who has gotten caught up in, facilitated, or become involved in a wrong. In the BVI, there are more than 470,000 active offshore companies. Such a third party is almost inevitably a locally licensed and regulated trust company, or a company formation and administration agent.

  “BVI trust companies are expected to hold ultimate beneficial ownership and ‘Know Your Customer’ documentation. Such documentation should reveal who actually stands behind any BVI company that is administered by a regulated BVI trust company. Such a court order should lead us to the disclosure of this type of documentation.”

  “How do you know all that?” asked Benny, a bit suspiciously.

  “Well,” I said with a smile, “don’t forget that I’m a lawyer,” and when Benny’s facial expression signaled Oh, come on!, I continued: “I consulted Martin Kenney, a leading fraud attorney in BVI and the local member of FRAUDNET, a worldwide network of attorneys created by the International Chamber of Commerce. I told him that I’m a Tel Aviv lawyer acting as an estate’s executor trying to invade a BVI Trust that the estate was suing.

  “Kenney told me that if my client was the apparent victim of a breach of a fiduciary duty or an apparent victim of a fraud, we can seek disclosure orders against any third party in the BVI who has apparently gotten mixed up in or become involved in the handling, transfer, or concealment of the fruits of the fraud or iniquity complained of. He warned me, though, that sometimes hard-core fraudsters will anticipate the possibility of the use of such orders, and may therefore interpose a further layer of fraudulent data by the use of a nominee ultimate beneficiary owner—a totally illegal method of concealment. Kenny said that he is able to get around this problem and place us on a path of inquiry to show who stands behind a nominee ultimate beneficiary owner.”

  “We can’t go to court just now,” said Benny. “The whole case is super confidential at this time.”

  “I thought of that as well,” I said. “According to Kenney, he can ask for a seal and a gag order, to protect the integrity of a fraud recovery or similar investigation. We can move quietly in the BVI court, by filing ex parte—without the other party present, just us and the judge. However, all ex parte orders in the BVI require the applicant to make full disclosure of all material facts. This requires a very full, detailed, and objectively supported application. And therefore we may have a serious problem.”

  “Still, nice job, Dan, but I don’t think the Israeli government would allow that, and, frankly, I don’t think that the US government would go for it, either.”

  “Then there’s the ultimate solution,” I said smiling, anticipating the obvious. I enjoyed toying with Benny, for once, after being subjected to his little games throughout our decades of friendship. “There are no alternative ways to obtain the disclosure of documents that show who actually stands behind a BVI company available to a private person, except for foreign government financial intelligence units. They can issue requests to the BVI Financial Services Commission for the same data. Any such request is heavily guarded and protected.”

  Benny looked at Paul and Eric. “Can FinCen do it?” He was referring to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network established by the
US Department of the Treasury to provide a government-wide multisource financial intelligence and analysis network.

  “Sure,” said Paul, “will do.”

  “And now, to the main news,” I said. “According to Ali Akbar Kamrani, General Cyrus Madani, the real one, is being held captive in Dubai by Shestakov.” I expected the sky to fall, but it did not. “If he’s right, then the person you are holding, Madani Number Three, is a fake.”

  Eric took the initiative. “We already know that Number Three is fake. It took us one day to discover that. He’s in a federal prison now.”

  “On what charges?”

  “Multiple. For example, making false statement to a federal agency about a matter within the agency’s jurisdiction. Let me have all the information you have regarding Madani in Dubai.”

  XXIII

  September 2007, Washington, DC

  Two months went by. I was busy reducing my caseload, looking forward to spending a vacation with my children, when I was called to a meeting in Washington, DC, with Benny, Paul, and Eric. I wondered if there was something to run my blood hot and to cool off my vacation plans.

  “Dan, this meeting is intended to wrap things up. The Tango case is closed,” said Eric. “Madani was pulled out of Dubai. He is here, he is the real thing, and he is talking. And,” he added, probably anticipating my usual skepticism, “he is not a dispatched agent.”

  “How did he get to the US?” I asked. I’d heard nothing since I’d given Eric the address in Dubai that might have been where Shestakov was holding Madani.

  Paul answered, “A team of Navy SEALs raided the villa. He was flown to the USS John C. Stennis of the Fifth Fleet. In South Africa he boarded a US military plane to Washington, DC. The Iranians have no clue where he is, but they are, uncharacteristically, keeping quiet about it.”

  Benny said in a philosophical tone, “You probably remember the biblical story of Saul, who went looking for lost donkeys and found himself becoming a king?”