Why would we care? I thought, although I knew the answer. The reunion helped recruit new assets.
“Was the event successful?”
“From our perspective, yes. We had to close the circle.” He’d tacitly confirmed my assumption.
“Any progress in the investigation regarding my Bern hotel-room search? Do you know whodunit?” I touched my head. I’d had enough of unpleasant encounters with strangers in European hotel rooms. Couldn’t my rivals just for once send somebody nice? How come in the thriller movies there’s an attractive woman who is gently confronting the good guy, while in reality I collide with burly men with body odors?
“We have incomplete results.”
I sensed that Casey wasn’t telling me everything, but CIA guys tend to be like that.
“We didn’t clean up the world from all sorts of bad guys, but we’re trying,” he said. “The job at your hotel was carried out by people working for the Iranian security services. We think they were local burglars hired for that onetime job. The Swiss police already have a suspect. Our assumption is that they wanted to know what you found out at the bank. When we realized that, we asked Benny Friedman to find a way to alert Tempelhof Bank to increase security at its ware house. They could attempt to destroy the evidence.”
I paused. “I hate to dwell on this, but how did they find out I was coming to Switzerland and where I was staying?”
“Benny has investigated it from the direction of the bank personnel. The Mossad found a bad apple in the bank’s staff, whose duty was to alert Iran whenever there was any outside interest in their clandestine financial activities passing through the bank. That was a very smart move on the Iranians’ part, installing security on both sides of the money-laundering ring.”
“How did Benny catch the mole, without having any official or formal connection to the bank?”
“Benny never said it in so many words, but I think he pulled out an old trick for smoking out your enemy. He spread a rumor at the bank that on that very day the Swiss police were about to raid the bank seeking evidence of ‘private’ deposits made at the bank by members of the current Iranian regime. One employee was monitored leaving the bank in haste during office hours and was photographed making a call from a pay phone just outside the bank. Benny had anticipated it and bugged all public phones in the area.”
“Shrewd move,” I said in appreciation.
Just as I thought we were done, Hodson gave me a folder.
“Pack your bags, you are going to Australia to get the Chameleon.”
“Again? Why? Hasn’t the telephone number in McHanna’s address book been decoded? The Australian Federal Police can find him easily.” I just didn’t feel like leaving again.
“It was decoded. It belongs to an Australian woman. She told the police that Norman McAllister has rented a small apartment from her but took off just about the same time you gave us the number. He still owes her two months’ rent. So far, the Australian Federal Police have no clue. Since you know what the Chameleon looks like and you have the most ‘Chameleon hours,’ we thought that your presence there could help.”
“Did you try to trace the Chameleon through the $3,000 wire transfer McHanna said he made?” I asked. Maybe not all bases were covered, and I’d be spared that long haul.
“It was just another lie. There was no such transfer to anyone by that name in the past month. McHanna was bullshitting you.”
I thought it was strange. McHanna didn’t lie regarding the Chameleon’s phone number, but lied on the money transfer. I wondered why. But said nothing.
“When am I leaving?” I asked, accepting the travel folder. “To night.”
Two days later I landed at Sydney’s airport and Peter Maxwell, the curly-haired Australian federal agent, picked me up.
“Any news?” I asked anxiously as he escorted me through immigration.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “We searched his rented apartment, but nothing was found. His landlady said he was a quiet tenant and had no visitors, but he was always behind on his rent. She said he left a few short days ago without any luggage, together with two men who came with a late-model Japanese car.”
“Any more details?”
“Nothing, she just saw them from the back. All she could say was that the car was white.”
“Did you get his phone records?” I was hoping for a clue there.
“He never used the apartment’s phone for outgoing calls, only incoming. She said he had a cell phone, but she doesn’t know the number.”
“Did you trace it through other means?”
“No,” said Maxwell apologetically. “There were no listings for any of the names we had.”
“Including Norman McAllister?” I asked with a shred of hope.
“Yes, but there’s nothing. It’s quite possible he used a stolen phone or one of these ‘pay as you go’ phones that require no registration.”
I was exhausted, but after only a few hours of sleep I forced myself to start working. I’ll rest in my old age, I promised myself. I had a hunch where to start looking for the Chameleon.
I called Sheila Levi, the legal secretary that the Chameleon almost managed to marry.
She sounded very surprised, but glad to hear my voice. “I was hoping you’d call,” she said in a soft voice. “In fact I wanted to call you, but I didn’t have your number.”
“I’m here now. Is there something you wanted to tell me?” “Yes. I told you last time we met that I gave Herb Goldman jewelry I’d inherited from my grandmother.”
“Yes.” I remembered how disgusted I’d been to hear how the Chameleon, posing as Herbert Goldman, had used Sheila.
“Well. He sold them to a jewelry shop near the Rocks. About two weeks ago I looked at the window of that shop and was happy to see on display a necklace and a ring that I gave Goldman. They were not sold yet.”
“If you want to get them back, you’ll probably need a good lawyer.” I said.
“No, I didn’t mean that. I entered the shop. I know the owner. He’s a member of the Jewish community-he’s a nice person. I asked him if I could pay him over time for the necklace, hoping to retrieve at least one piece from my grandmother’s gifts to me.”
“And what did he say?”
“He agreed immediately. I’m paying him $10 a week for sixty-five weeks, and it will be mine again. He was kind to let me have the necklace immediately. The interesting thing is that he said that Goldman came by his shop last week to sell him more jewelry.”
If I was still tired, I forgot all about it. “Tell me more.”
“The reason I wanted to call you was that I knew you were looking for him. You see, the shop keep er told me that he refused Goldman’s offer to sell him that jewelry until Goldman could prove ownership. He became suspicious.”
“Why?”
“Because Goldman asked for $500 for jewelry worth at least $1,500.”
“Did Goldman tell the shop keep er he’d be back with proof?”
“I don’t know.”
I called Maxwell and gave him the information.
“It’s a start,” he said. “We have an additional lead. A person answering Goldman’s description has attempted to purchase a forged passport.”
“Any leads from there?”
“No, it was an anonymous tip to our hotline. We assumed he was unable to leave Australia because his Goldman passport became useless ever since you exposed his Goldman identity.”
I ran the facts through my mind. It was possible that the Chameleon had unilaterally severed his relationship with the Iranian intelligence services and had no way of getting another passport. Otherwise he’d have been out of there a long time ago. The fact that he’d tried to get a passport independently both locally and from McHanna only supported my hunch. Active agents of foreign countries can be sure that in time of distress, their handlers will extricate them. When that didn’t happen, the only conclusion was that the Chameleon didn’t contact the Iranians.
“The Chameleon must still be around,” I said.
“The Chameleon?” asked Maxwell in surprise.