“Yeah, but how did that information reach you? Do they work for you too?”
“Dan, come on. Don’t expect me to answer that. You know full well that in intelligence there aren’t any loyalties. Just interests.” Benny was toying with me again.
“Does that go for you and me too?”
He had talked himself into a corner. “You know that we go beyond that.”
“Benny, don’t play with me. I have to know whether the sleazeballs I was talking to in Islamabad knew who I really am. If they double-crossed me and sold you the information, then they could sell it again to people who aren’t as nice as you are.”
“They didn’t double-cross you with me.” This time there was no grin.
“So, you got it from a third party? They told someone else, who told you.”
Benny lifted a hand in protest. “Please. This is beginning to sound like middle school gossip-who told whom what and when. I’ll just tell you. We intercepted communications between Ahmed Khan and his handler in Tehran.”
My heart raced. “Tehran? He’s working for the Iranians?” “Apparently. He didn’t buy your story about the magazine. He was certain you were working for the CIA. He checked in with Iran about you.”
“And the immediate result was an attempt to kidnap me in Islamabad. Did you intercept the Iranian response to Ahmed’s query?”
“Well, you know what they had to say about it, don’t you? They tried to kidnap you.”
“That tells me a lot,” I said. “That Ward’s disappearance is probably connected to the Iranian intelligence services.”
Benny nodded. “Nothing is coincidental with these people.”
“So what are your plans?”
He paused. “Our bank could use additional business from Iran.”
“And how do you encourage that?”
“Convince them that we are efficient, ask no unnecessary questions, and talk to no governments.”
“There are plenty of banks with those qualifications in Europe.”
“I know. But we have special persuasion techniques.”
“Let me guess-from the department of dirty tricks?” Benny smiled. “Dirty? That only refers to the people we target. I’m talking about intelligence-gathering techniques.” He had the faintest sparkle in his eyes. He knew how serious all of this was and what the implications of it were for me, but that was part of what made him who he was. I’m sure he’d never let his own amusement put my safety or my goals in jeopardy, but this kind of banter had become an ingrained aspect of our relationship.
In fact, I knew all about Benny and his techniques. I could still remember that time when we were in the Academy and he’d pretended to be a police officer and convinced a bank teller to let him take his seat behind the counter because a con man- me!-was about to pass a bad check. That was years ago, of course, but my old friend hadn’t changed one iota.
“OK,” I said. “Let’s get back to the point at hand.”
“Fine by me,” said Benny. “OK. In a sense, we’re both looking for Ward.”
Now that was a surprise. “Ward? What does he have to do with Israel that would make him interesting to the Mossad?”
“You already had one disappointment, when you jumped on that guy in Australia, right?”
“I get it. I fucked up again on something else,” I said, a little testily.
Benny smiled. “Are you ready for this?” he asked. “We’re after him too. So we know that the guy in the Sydney hospital bed isn’t Albert Ward. And he’s definitely not Herbert Goldman. We do, however, think he’s an Iranian agent.”
It was the bull’s-eye of a target I’d been aiming at since I got the case, but hadn’t yet had the proof to present conclusively. It was stunning to hear Benny sound so sure about my hunch.
“Why are you interested in him? Just because he’s an Iranian agent? There are thousands of them.”
“Because he’s one of Iran’s treasure hunters. A person who brought millions of dollars to their slush-fund coffers.”
“Why is it your business?”
“When he steals money from American banks, it’s your problem, but when that money starts financing Palestinian and other terrorist organizations, he becomes my problem too.”
“If you’re so sure it’s him and can support it with facts to convince the Australians, then let’s get him! He could still be in the hospital in Sydney.”
“I wish. Immediately after you left, the Australian police received notification through Interpol about the FBI finger-print comparison, and their conclusion was that your guy wasn’t Albert C. Ward III.”
“I think they were holding him on some local fraud charges,” I said.
“Yes, land-sale fraud. Of the three complainants who said Ward sold them somebody else’s land, not one is available to press charges. Two of them vanished, and the third one quickly withdrew his complaint. The Australian authorities had no choice but to dismiss the arrest warrant. So he walked into the sunset.”
“Just like that?” I asked in disbelief.
“No basis to hold him,” Benny said. He was right. The third witness had probably assessed his diminishing survival options after hearing that the two others had gone missing.
I was fuming. “I can’t believe this bullshit,” I grumbled. Even if he wasn’t Ward, even if there hadn’t been local fraud charges, they could have held him on immigration charges. He entered Australia with a false passport. What kind of idiots were running the force there?
“They dropped the ball,” said Benny. He had had his time for rage and was merely calm. “By the time the Australian police rushed to get a new warrant, the guy was released.”
I paused to rearrange my thoughts. It was too much of a revelation to digest immediately.
“Chameleon-that’s what I’ve been calling this guy in my head. And I was right.” I scanned through my trip to Pakistan, trying to reread things with the knowledge I had just acquired. “So Khan’s agenda…He gave me those half-truths to get more money?”
Benny shook his head. “He did have an agenda, but not the one you think.” Benny-good friend, or not-had a way of being cryptic that sometimes got on my nerves. It was as if he were Socrates, and I, one of his pupils. I wished he would get to the point more quickly, but I knew damn well that wasn’t going to happen.
“What was it, then? It seemed pretty clear that his story about Al Taqwa trying to reverse the charge and get their money back from Ward’s account was bogus,” I said.
“What made you think that? You’re right, by the way,” asked Benny.
“This is home turf for me. It’s just not the way banks work. They don’t put in a lot of effort to get a measly $2,000 back three years later. Khan made it up because he thought I was losing interest.”
“Or,” said Benny, “he was trying to lure you to Iran, probably under instructions from Tehran. They told him they were sure you were an American agent. And they were interested in your Ward investigation.”
“So if the guy in the hospital bed wasn’t Ward or Goldman, who is he? Who’s the Iranian agent?”
“We don’t know yet,” he admitted. “It’s not going to be easy. Even the wife he married in Kentucky believed he was Ward.”
“I need to digest what you’ve just told me,” I said. “Anyway, it occurs to me one good thing has come out of this conversation.”
“What?”
“If you own Tempelhof Bank, can you tell me more about what kind of relationship McHanna has with it?” It wasn’t too late to score some points at home by unveiling a money-laundering operation in New York.
“Who?”
“You mean you don’t know him?” Benny shook his head. “He was a manager at the South Dakota bank that the Chameleon conned. Now he runs a financial-services company in New York, and I think he still is in contact with the Chameleon. I’ve got a piece of information linking him, using an alias, to Tempelhof Bank.”
“Let me find out,” said Benny. “But aside from that, I think we can agree to cooperate in finding the Chameleon.”
“Helping you out is a decision made above my head.” “You never had to ask permission before.”
“That’s true. But working for you without getting my superiors’ consent is a violation of my oath.”
