Haggai Harmon - The Chameleon Conspiracy

“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.

“Yes, that’s the name I gave him.” I went on to give him the limited scope of information about the Chameleon’s ties to Iran I was authorized by Holliday to divulge to the Australians. “I think that even while still in the U.S., the Chameleon panicked and was sure that the FBI was on to him. He needed to escape. Of course, if he’d asked to be returned to Tehran, they would have smuggled him back. But since he didn’t, and based on our interrogation of another suspect in the U.S., I think the Chameleon had decided on going in de pen dent, without telling the Iranians. He simply obtained a false passport under the name of Herbert Goldman, a thirteenth alias, and decided to go to Australia, hoping that the FBI wouldn’t trace him and that Tehran would ultimately forget about him. That by itself is a cause for concern for any intelligence service, because independents try to market the goods they have to anyone that will buy them-in this case, information about his previous employer.”

“We know about the Iranians’ reaction in these instances,” said Maxwell without elaborating.

“I’m sure the Chameleon obviously knew of the Iranian intelligence services’ policy to save on pension payments to self-declared retirees, by moving to entitle their families to some death benefits instead. We suspect he went in de pen dent in Australia, because he called a contact in New York seeking a passport and money. The man who’d conned millions out of banks and investors remained penniless. He had to resort to petty crime and defrauded Sheila Levi, that poor secretary he’d promised to marry. He hinted to his New York contact that the FBI may have received information from the Australian Federal Police that had traced him in Australia.”

“It could be just disinformation the Chameleon was giving that person in New York, probably to obtain his cooperation,” said Maxwell dismissively.

“You are right,” I answered. I couldn’t tell Maxwell that McHanna had a direct interest in keeping the Chameleon quiet. Temporarily or permanently.

I felt tired. The twenty-four-hour travel between the U.S. and Australia had taken it’s toll on me. I returned to my hotel. When I woke up there was a coded message from Hodson on my laptop. The following is additional information obtained from McHanna during his interrogation; be aware that it has not been corroborated. McHanna alleged that the Chameleon had told him during the telephone conversation that was earlier disclosed to you, that he (the Chameleon) had a lot of money hidden in Switzerland, probably a commission he paid himself each time he stole on behalf of the Iranians. McHanna also said that the Chameleon couldn’t get to his money, because it was kept in cash in safe-deposit boxes in Switzerland. That made wiring the money impossible.

That’s very interesting, I thought. McHanna lied to me regarding the wire transfer to the Chameleon and now he tells the FBI that the Chameleon has a safe-deposit box in Switzerland? That wasn’t earth-shattering news. The Chameleon had to keep his money somewhere. For me, the things that the Chameleon didn’t say in that connection were far more interesting. My conclusion from McHanna’s statement was that the Chameleon was totally dependent on him. I was sure that McHanna couldn’t risk the Chameleon talking. That would endanger McHanna’s freedom if the FBI found out what he did, or his life, if the Iranians discovered he’d betrayed them and killed their agent. No, I concluded. McHanna doesn’t want us to find the Chameleon alive.