Haggai Harmon - The Chameleon Conspiracy

“I thought you’d do that, so I asked the SWAT team’s commander to keep an eye on McHanna.”

I called the duty FBI agent. “I need to locate Saida Rhaman, telephone 718-555-9878.”

“Hold on.”

“The last known address we have is on Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York.” He gave me the house number.

“What’s the cross street?”

“Third Avenue.”

“Did you check the phone listing?”

“Yes, it’s listed under Nikoukar Jafarzadeh.”

“Please run a check on that person,” I requested.

“OK. Call me in an hour.”

“Sure, and once you’re done with him, I need background on Saida Rhaman, a receptionist at McHanna Associates. Her boss gave me the number listed as Jafarzadeh’s.”

The name Jafarzadeh sounded Iranian, and Saida Rhaman sounded Arabic. But maybe it was a coincidence. Or not. An hour later I called the agent again.

“Nikoukar Jafarzadeh, a male born in Tehran, Iran, in 1970, applied for a student visa in 1988 sponsored by a language-learning institute in Virginia. An F-1 student visa was issued on 2/88. The visa expired on 2/90 and there’s no record of his leaving the country. On 7 November 1992 he was stopped in Arlington, Virginia, on a minor traffic violation. He carried a Virginia driver’s license, number 099889004334. Virginia’s DMV records show his address as 1528 North 16th Road, Arlington, Virginia 22209. There’s no telephone listing for that address. No connection to Saida Rhaman was found. Additional information is forthcoming.”

“Do I understand from the immigration info you’ve just mentioned that he’s an illegal alien?”

“Probably, since we presume he’s still in the U.S. There’s no Social Security number attached to his name, nor an INS ‘A’ number indicating he received permanent residence, a green card, or that one is pending.”

I called Hodson and reported. “Let our people in Virginia handle this,” said Hodson when he heard my suspicions. I was entering his turf.

Mel, the analyst, called me. “You’d better come down here,” he said. “We found something interesting.”

As I walked into the analysts’ room, Mel gave me a document and exclaimed, “Look at this!” It was a one-page form. “This is a money-transfer order of $7,900 to Niarchos Alexander Papadimitriou, International Bank of Hellas, Athens, Greece, account GF 8873554.”

I gave him a wondering look. “And?”

“We also found this,” he said and flashed a red-cover Greek passport. I opened the bio page and saw our dear friend Timothy McHanna’s picture. The name on the passport was Niarchos Alexander Papadimitriou, nationality Hellenic, valid for five years. I leafed through the pages. There were a few entry and exit stamps, all from European countries.

So multiple identities weren’t the Chameleon’s exclusive domain. I returned to the office and ran a check on Niarchos Alexander Papadimitriou. Nothing came out. I quickly sent a query to Interpol, U.S. National Central Bureau to seek Greek police assistance in identifying Niarchos Alexander Papadimitriou, and to ask whether the passport was genuine. I attached a copy. I didn’t have much hope from that end. I suspected that the genuine-looking passport was homemade.

Although the passport appeared to have been used for travel outside the U.S., I assumed McHanna used it for additional purposes. The money-transfer order, though in the modest amount of $7,900, could indicate that McHanna didn’t trust the pension plan the true owners of his company had prepared for him and was building his own nest, padded with somebody else’s money. If there was one transfer, there could be more.

“I suggest you ask your team to keep looking. I think the strategy should be to look for all money transfers to individuals.”

“That’s easy,” said Mel. “We have their computers up and running.”

Within moments the printer spewed out a report of all outgoing money transfers during the preceding seven years, sorted and grouped by recipient.

“That’s fantastic,” I said. “Can we sort the data by date? That way we can see when money went out and to whom. Next we should do the same with incoming transfers, and finally do the same when the sending or receiving party was a corporation or a trust.” I had just brought upon myself weeks of tedious paperwork. Next, we’d compare the accounting with the records I’d brought from Switzerland.

Within an hour we started to see a clear pattern. McHanna was moving small amounts, usually $2,000 or $3,000 at a time, to his Niarchos Alexander Papadimitriou bank account in Greece. In just one year the transfers totaled $215,080. I searched the files for the name Nikoukar Jafarzadeh-just a wild guess-but there was nothing for that name.

The FBI duty agent called. He’d contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and learned that Nikoukar Jafarzadeh’s name had come up following a query on his name at the National Tracing Center, Crime Gun Analysis Branch. It brought up his gun purchases: two sniper rifles and a handgun from one dealer at a gun show in Virginia. The dealer had filled out a form for ATF. That information, combined with the other evidence we already had, was too strong to ignore. First McHanna said that he’d told the receptionist not to come to work on the day following the FBI search, but she had. Next, the phones weren’t working and the receptionist had disappeared. Then came the discovery that her home phone was actually listed under Nikoukar Jafarzadeh, a man with a fondness for sniper guns.

I called Hodson. “I may have a direction for you,” I said. “The shooter may have had inside help.” I gave him the details. “I’ll be back in the office tomorrow,” I said. “Is McHanna there already?”

“Yes, we are working on him now.”

When I returned to the federal building on the next day, I saw Hodson with his aides. “Made progress with McHanna?”

“No. He isn’t talking,” said Hodson. “A dead fish is more talkative.”

“First-degree interrogation?” I asked, thinking how aggressive FBI interrogators can be.

“Second, as well,” he said. “He’s been under interrogation for the past twenty hours, but he isn’t saying anything meaningful.”

I entered the interrogation room. McHanna was rattled when he saw me. He looked bad, really bad, with black circles under his eyes, which were shifting from one side to the other.

“Can I be alone with him?” I asked.

The FBI agent left the room.

“McHanna, look at me. I’m your chance to live through this.”

He raised his head with a contemptuous look that said it all.

“I know what you did during the past two decades, or for an even longer period. No question you’re looking at a prison term. But we can pretend there’s nothing against you and let you walk right now.”

“You mean I can go?”

“There’s some paperwork to complete, but yes, I’ll recommend letting you go.”

“What’s the catch?” he asked suspiciously.

“No trick. You refuse to cooperate. It will be a while until all the documents seized in your office will be analyzed. We may not have a probable cause to hold you any longer, so I think you’re about to leave this place soon. We have patience, though, and I’m sure you’ll be back.”

He gave me a doubtful look.

“Of course, your employers will not be so patient. Do you know why?”

He looked at me, waiting for me to continue.

“Because they’ll understand you talked. Of course, an inadvertent leak from a ‘knowledgeable government source that spoke on condition of anonymity’ could appear in the media saying that you’re cooperating, and therefore were released on your own recognizance.”