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 Koniginstrasse 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 room, 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 Backer amp; 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?
I grabbed my notes and put the list back into the envelope. I stuffed it all into the inner pocket of my blazer and went back to Helga's workstation. She was out, but Ron Lovejoy was sitting at his desk with his office door open.
“Good afternoon, Ron,” I said, from the doorway, “Can you spare me a minute?”
“Sure,” he said, “come right in.”
I sat in a chair across the desk from him. Lovejoy was a well-built, clean-shaven man in his late forties with gray hair and rimless reading glasses. He must have been a jogger or maybe spent a lot of time at a health club. The thought made me feel rather guilty When I'd joined the Israeli army, I had barely 175 pounds on my 6?4? frame. And now? Well, never mind. I knew I had to do something about it and kept promising myself to change things. But somehow, between cases and trips, I never really got around to it. If I were three inches taller, my weight would be OK. I'm not overweight, I told my friends who'd criticized my few extra pounds, I'm just short.
“Well, the clues I dug up in Israel led me here, and I'm hoping I'll find an ex-wife and the daughter, Mina Bernstein and Ariel Peled.”
“So you haven't found DeLouise yet.”
“Yes, I did. He's dead.” I realized I had not yet shared this information with Lovejoy He'd left his office before I'd called David Stone in Washington with the news.
He didn't react when I told him about my visit to the morgue. Sitting behind that consulate desk didn't expose him to those kinds of stories; it was probably his field service in the FBI that made morgue visits sound routine.
“How long would it take to get a copy of the German police report?” I asked.
“Well, it depends. Usually they don't share their investigations with us unless they need our help. When that happens, we insist on getting all the details before we send Washington a request for FBI assistance.”
“Is there a better way?” I asked.
“Frankly, though it sounds convoluted, the easiest and fastest way to get that report is for an FBI agent working the bank investigation in the States to send a message through INTERPOL mentioning the U.S. criminal investigation of DeLouise and asking urgently for a copy. Make sure he asks for a faxed copy of the complete report in German – ask INTERPOL specifically not to translate it. If the Germans and INTERPOL are willing, that will speed things up. The Bureau can get it translated once it arrives.”
“I think my retirement could come up before we see this report travel through channels. Have they asked for your assistance?”
“No,” he said, “at least not yet. I didn't even know he'd died until you told me. But give them time; they work slowly but meticulously. But at least, if they send a request to the U.S. through INTERPOL, they usually come and ask me to have the Bureau get them the same thing. I'm sure they'd like to have his criminal record, if there is one. Plus a background check to discover potential enemies. All that takes time.”
“That's exactly why I'm trying to work concurrent to the criminal investigation,” I said. “If the German police insist upon completing their criminal probe before telling you anything, my own chances of making progress here are slim. His assets won't wait for the Germans to finish what they're doing. Assets of the dead have a tendency to dissipate and disappear quickly. And the assets of someone who might have been killed because of them vanish even faster.”
Lovejoy looked at me. “Homicide investigations take precedence over civil matters. You know that.”
I knew that, but the criminal investigation was German while the civil asset chase was American. However, I wasn't about to argue with him or wait for things to run their course. Under the rules, the legat is the representative of the U.S. Department of Justice in the country, and even if not an attorney, he or she outranks DOJ lawyers temporarily in country. So, in fact, Lovejoy was my superior in Munich. I had a feeling that unless I moved fast, the assets would. But give a little to get more. I had to share more information on DeLouise with Lovejoy.
“There is a slight twist to this story. The person in the morgue is Raymond DeLouise, a U.S. citizen, but he was registered at the hotel, and probably elsewhere in Germany, as Dov Peled, an Israeli citizen.”
“And why is that?”
“Dov Peled is the legal name he had while living in Israel in the 1950s. Shortly before his assassination, he was hiding in Europe from disgruntled minority shareholders of his bank and from U.S. law-enforcement agencies, hoping that his resurrected name would shield him.”
“Apparently, it hasn't,” said Lovejoy sarcastically.
“I guess not,” I agreed. “We have to let the German police know about his double identity if we want their assistance. Otherwise, why would the American Consulate become interested in the murder of an Israeli citizen with no apparent ties to the United States?”
“Are you sure Peled is DeLouise and vice versa?” asked the legat.
“As sure as I can be from comparing the face in the morgue to the passport photo the Justice Department gave me.”
“OK, I guess I can call my contacts at the police. I'll simply tell them that Peled was a U.S. citizen who also legally used the name DeLouise, and that he was a fugitive from U.S. justice, so we'd appreciate details of their investigation.”
I nodded. “Can you do that now? I need to see what they have so far. Maybe they won't be so formal.”
“I can try,” said Lovejoy, “but don't hold your breath. These guys go by the rules.”
“Could you also ask them about Mina and Ariel? I'd like to know whether their names appear on a missing persons report.”
“That's easy,” said Lovejoy. “I'll call you when I have something.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I'm going to head back to my hotel now.”
I picked up a message from the reception desk and went to my room. I reached into my pocket for the room key and out came the car keys as well. I had forgotten about the rented BMW, still parked outside the consulate. I
