CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Baumann hiked around the perimeter of the clearing, satisfied no one was around, that no one could come upon him unexpectedly. From the truck he pulled out the MLink-5000, the satellite telephone that resembled a metal briefcase. He placed it on the roof of the car and unfolded it. The top, which flipped open like a book, was the flat-plate antenna. It was much less conspicuous than the older models whose antennas were large dishes.
Since the transmitter’s beam width was much broader than that of the older models, aiming accuracy was much less crucial. As he adjusted the angle of elevation, he studied the little boxes on the LCD readout that indicated signal strength. When he had maximum signal strength, he turned the thumbscrews on the back panel and removed the handset.
Then he placed a telephone call.
From his years in South African intelligence, he knew the workings of the government of South Africa. He knew that any search for his whereabouts would move in one of two directions. It would either be instigated by South Africa and reach outward, or it would be instigated by another country and be directed toward South Africa.
The first direction-a request coming from South Africa and going to security and law-enforcement services around the world-was by far the more likely. A former member of BOSS had broken out of prison, had likely left the country: the South Africans would request help.
Less likely, but far more worrisome, was the second possibility-that some law-enforcement or intelligence agency had learned something about him and had turned to South Africa for help. This would most certainly indicate a leak in Dyson’s coterie.
When governments deal with other governments, they almost always go through established channels. An official request to the South African government for information on one Henrik Baumann might come through diplomatic or intelligence channels; it might be sent to the attorney general, or directly to the South African police. But no matter where it was pointed, it would be funneled to one place. All prisoner records, including court statements, photographs, and the standard fingerprint record, S.A.P. 69, are stored in the centralized records of the South African Criminal Bureau in Pretoria. The Criminal Bureau, however, was a large bureaucracy. A request for records might be handled by any of a dozen or more people.
But a far smaller staff was employed at the Department of Customs and Excise, Baumann knew, processing and handling passport applications. Any thorough search for information on him would include a request for his original passport application. Years ago, there was just one person, a stout Afrikaner whose name Baumann had long since forgotten, who handled requests for copies of these applications.
The clerk in charge was no doubt a different person by now. But there probably was still just one clerk in charge.
By his second call, he had reached the customs clerk in charge of passport application requests, a pleasant-voiced woman.
“This is Gordon Day from Interpol in Lyons. I’m following up on a request…”
“Sorry,” the clerk said politely when Baumann had stated his business. “We’re not supposed to deal directly with outside agencies-”
“Right,” he said, the jolly British civil servant, “but you see, the thing of it is, the request has already been made, and I need to know whether the documents have been sent, is all, because there seems to be some foul-up on our end here, at headquarters.”
“I haven’t gotten any request from Interpol concerning a passport of that number,” she said.
“Are you quite sure?” Baumann insisted.
“Yes, Mr. Day, I’m quite sure, but if you send me a fax with-”
“Is there another agency the request might have ended up at?”
“Not that I know of, sir.”
“Oh, dear. Well, is it possible that our request was filed with another country’s, like the French, maybe, or-”
“No, sir. The only request for that application I’ve received came from the American FBI.”
“Ah,” Baumann said triumphantly. “That makes sense. They put in the request to us, as well. Was the requesting officer a Mr… Mr… I must have it here somewhere…”
“Taylor, sir, from Counterterrorism?”
“Taylor! Right. Well, that certainly clears that up. Thanks so much for your help.”
“Yes, sir, my pleasure.”
Counterterrorism. The FBI. The Americans were on to him. A change in plan was most definitely necessary.
He would not fly to New York. No, that would not do at all. That would be a mistake.
He would fly to Washington.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Twenty years ago or so, Harry Whitman explained, an agent in the Criminal Division had attended the FBI Academy with a South African policeman. The FBI National Academy runs an intensive fifteen-week program at Quantico, Virginia, to train midlevel police officials in the latest investigative techniques. Out of the one hundred law-enforcement officials in each class, fifteen or twenty are foreign.
“This South African guy, name of Sachs, had gone to three FBI-run retraining sessions in Europe, so our people’d had a little bit of contact with him,” Whitman said. He and Sarah stood at the entrance to his office. “We checked him out with State and the Agency, to see if maybe the guy went bad. Negative. Luckily for us, this Sachs fellow’s now in the security services, so we got a line right into the heart of darkness. Had someone on the CIA team in Johannesburg make contact, real unofficial.”
“The CIA guy asked the South African cop for information on the alias Heinrich Fürst?”
Whitman nodded. “And anything else he could get. Taylor’s thinking was that if there was something rotten going on and our contact was party to it, this contact would trigger a flurry of communications. Right after our man met with this guy, we laid on the surveillance. Had the satellite cowboys monitor all signals traffic into and out of South Africa, checking the frequency of cable traffic to their embassy here.”
“And?”
“And nothing unusual went out. No frantic calls or telexes. You can’t prove a negative, but it’s a good sign the contact’s clean.”
“Maybe.”
“Next morning he came back to us with a name. Nothing on any Heinrich Fürst, but ‘Prince of Darkness,’ yes, oh my yes. ‘Everyone in the intelligence service knows who that is-fellow named Henrik Baumann.’ Code name, or cryptonym, is-or was-Zero, designating their most skilled agent. So we had our legat make an official request to several branches of the South African government, the attorney general, the police, blah blah blah, for all records on one Henrik Baumann. Passport applications, birth certificate, files, the works. Now we sit and wait. See if we really do have our man.”
“Are they being cooperative?” Sarah asked.
“Are you kidding? They’re frantic! They’re all alarmed that a former South African agent may be involved in terrorism. Especially a white guy left over from the old regime. They love to dump shit on the old government. Actually, I should call the Communications Center, see if anything came in.”
He picked up his desk phone and pressed a button. Sarah examined the discarded photograph of George Bush and wondered how long it had been resting on its side. Since Clinton’s inauguration?
“I see,” Whitman was saying to the telephone handset. “I see.” His eyebrows were arched.
Sarah looked up at him curiously, trying to interpret his tone.
Whitman hung up the phone and looked directly at her with a peculiar smile. “We’ve got a full set of prints-”
“Great.”
“-and a kink in the fishing line. Just over three weeks ago, our Mr. Baumann escaped from maximum-security lockup at Pollsmoor Prison. Pollsmoor police detectives discovered he was missing, found a couple of bodies, and opened an Escaping Docket to investigate an escape from lawful custody. They followed standard procedure-Form SAP-69, with the fugitive’s fingerprints, and a dossier containing court statements and other records were sent over from central records at the South African Criminal Bureau in Pretoria. But nothing turned up, not a trace of our friend. The South Africans normally don’t reach out to the international authorities in the case of an escaped prisoner, even a former member of their own security services. They’d all but given up looking for him, even put out a burn notice on the guy. Anyway, I’d say we’ve got the right man. Now let me take you to your lovely suite of offices and introduce you to the happy campers you’ll be working with.”