“Did the Romanians give him a passport?” I asked, tacitly agreeing to play Benny's game of hiding from Eric that he'd already shared some of these details with me.
“Yes, although I think DeLouise helped the consul's personal fund for needy families, meaning his own, with a few hundred dollar bills. In spite of the extremely slow bureaucratic process, a passport was issued to him within forty-eight hours. DeLouise-Peled-Popescu returns to Munich, buys a ticket to Moscow, and then before he leaves – boom – a bullet to his head.” He pointed his finger to his temple.
“Something isn't right here,” I said, remembering my earlier conversation with Benny. “Do you know who his Soviet contacts were?”
“We are working on it right now,” said Eric. “I presume they should be in Moscow and Baku, Azerbaijan.”
“It doesn't sound right to me,” I said again. “On the one hand you say that DeLouise was reluctant to use his U.S. passport or openly appear in an airline reservation system, for fear that INTERPOL was looking for Raymond DeLouise – then he makes reservations to Moscow and Baku under that very same name? I know for a fact that he made reservations to travel to Moscow under the name DeLouise.”
Eric and Benny looked at each other. The room was silent.
I continued, “How could he enter the Soviet Union with a ticket carrying a name other than Popescu that appears on his Romanian passport? He couldn't even get on the plane to begin the journey.”
Benny was the first to respond. “We don't know for sure, but with his skills, he could have bought another ticket to Moscow carrying the name Popescu.”
“I can suggest another theory,” I said.
“Enlighten me,” said Eric, his eyes focused on me.
“Well, one explanation could be that the reservations to Moscow and Baku were a decoy perpetrated by DeLouise. We all know that when you want to confuse those who are watching you, you make three, four, or five airline reservations to different destinations under different names and times. Then you use only one or none at all. Bear in mind that DeLouise was trained in covert activities, so he knew the tricks of the trade.”
Eric turned red. “Tom, call the office to cable Langley to check all airline reservations for the period around DeLouise's murder under the three names DeLouise used.”
“Remember that there were more than eight or nine days between DeLouise's murder and the expected departure to Moscow with the ticket he bought under the name DeLouise,” I went on.
“I wouldn't be surprised if DeLouise had intentionally made the reservation under his own name to show the Iranians, Guttmacher, and anybody else who was watching his movements that he was indeed leaving for Moscow to take care of business. However, he also made other reservations, to go to Moscow or elsewhere, as Popescu, well before the date he was supposed to fly as DeLouise. With such a plan he could achieve several goals: one, he leaves for Moscow with everyone else thinking he's still in Germany; two, his departure doesn't alert INTERPOL because he travels under a name that it doesn't have. I also think that just before his purported day of departure to Moscow under the name of DeLouise he planned to cancel the reservations, because he had already returned from Moscow. He probably planned to be invisible for a few days and then call Guttmacher and pretend he had just returned from Moscow.” Everyone in the room looked at me in silence.
My confidence in my own theory increased. “The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that he had already traveled to Moscow even before he called the Mossad or his daughter.”
Benny gazed at me for a moment, reflecting on my theory and then said, “If he in fact did that, it was a brilliant plan.”
“Your theory is inconsistent with your own logic,” said Eric. “If we agree that DeLouise was loath to use any airline, fearing the discovery of his whereabouts, then why did he make reservations under his own name, even if he never intended to take the flight? That would have placed him in Munich, and the police could then narrow in on him.”
Eric wasn't stupid after all. “Well,” I continued, “my theoretical answer is that such a maneuver may have been an indication that DeLouise had no intention of staying in Munich on his supposed day of departure to Moscow. If I read him clearly, his plan was to return from Moscow and either disappear or continue working for the Iranians but from a new location where they couldn't threaten him personally. If he planned to run with the money, that could mean that the collateral he gave Guttmacher was bad; on the other hand, if that was good money, he probably planned this maneuver to transfer the money from Switzerland. Remember that DeLouise received two million and gave collateral with a slightly greater value. Now, if DeLouise takes off, he keeps his own two million advance, and Guttmacher collects the $2.05 million collateral. So, in effect, DeLouise gets his own two million: money he couldn't reach earlier because it was stuck in Switzerland. I don't think that the collateral was bad, because that would have caused Guttmacher to reimburse the Iranians from the bank's own resources. An unwise move for anyone who had significant additional business with the bank.”
Benny interrupted my train of thought. “I tend to believe that theory, even if it does seem far-fetched. Since the Colombians also spotted him in Munich, there was no point in staying here, and he could find a more convenient location with better weather.”
“Let's wait for tomorrow's results. Langley will tell us if your theory holds any water,” said Eric.
“Do we have any other business?” asked Tom. “I guess not,” he concluded when nobody answered.
“OK,” said Eric, “enough for today. We have some work to do in the office. Benny, what's your next move?”
“I'm leaving for Israel tomorrow and will discuss my findings with my director as soon as I see him.”
“Good,” said Eric. “You know the rules of dispersal from this location.”
We did. We left one by one, using different exits and no loud English conversation or attention-attracting movement.
Tom took me back to the Omni Hotel, driving around town to make sure he had not grown a tail. Although I was tired after being out for almost eighteen hours, I was alert. But as I walked down the carpeted hallway a sense of threat seized me. Perhaps it was the feeling that I was returning to my room for the first time since someone had searched it, or that I was participating in planning an exciting operation involving both my birth country and my home country. I felt my muscles contract and my vision go into hyperfocus. Was I subconsciously sensing imminent danger, or was there extra adrenaline pumping into my bloodstream from the events of the past two days? The hallway was empty and there were no noises on an early Sunday morning.
I slowly inserted the magnetic card into the reader and quietly opened the door. The room lights were on. A man was kneeling next to my safe. He was a slim, medium-tall, light-brown-skinned guy in his thirties. He turned his head, startled. He stood up and looked around quickly, either evaluating the situation or seeking a way to escape the inevitable confrontation. There was no chance for that. I was almost twice his size and blocked the doorway. The windows were closed. But even if open, it was still the thirteenth floor. I guess he was superstitious because he didn't try to jump through the window. Instead he pulled a knife and came at me – clumsy and tentative for a man his size; clearly not a hand-to-hand expert. I shifted my weight and kicked out with my left foot, hitting him squarely in the groin. As he bent forward, gasping in pain and surprise, I grabbed his curly hair with my left hand, raised my knee with some force, and smashed his face directly onto it. I heard the crack as his nose broke and the gasp of pain escaping from his clenched teeth when he had quickly to decide which was the most painful: the high-speed meeting of his face with my raised knee, the kick in his groin, or the fact that he was caught.
I let him fall to the carpeted floor and decide for himself while I neatly slipped the knife from his hand. I pulled off my belt and secured his hands behind his back, then extended the belt to strap one leg, enough to make a move impossible. I took off my tie and used it to knot my belt to the bed frame. He was still semiconscious, groaning in pain and bleeding on my carpet, when I went to the telephone and called the police. I looked at my unwelcome guest and thought back for a moment. Amos, my martial arts instructor during special forces training, would have been proud of me. Amos was a short guy with red hair; he was cross-eyed, so you never knew where he was looking. That helped him to kick us hard when we least expected it.
“I need to speak to Herr Blecher immediately,” I said in the calmest tone I could summon, despite my heavy breathing and a heart still pounding.
“Just a minute.”
“Blecher,” said a man's voice.
“This is Dan Gordon. I'm at the Omni Hotel. I've just surprised a burglar in my room.”
