Haggai Carmon - Triple Identity

The paper had no date, letterhead, or a signature. On the second piece of paper there was only one handwritten line: “Cosmos Hotel, room 1123.”

The security man told me that the police were about to arrive. I didn't think I should waste my time waiting; I'd learned all I could at this point. I gathered up Ariel's things and went back to my room.

I knocked on the door carefully. She opened it with the chain on, then all the way when she saw me.

“Are you OK now?”

“Yes, I think so.” She seemed more calm.

“The police should be here any minute. They'll want to interview you. I think we should talk first.” I had to be more businesslike than I felt.

She sat down on the bed and waited for my questions.

“Ariel, I think you should tell me the real reason you came to Moscow,” I said. “Don't hold back. We should be past that.”

She paused for a moment, looked at me trying to decide whether or not she agreed with me. Finally she said, “I think I can trust you now, Dan. The truth is that I had two letters from my father, not one.”

I waited for her to continue. But when she paused again, I asked, “You mean Pension Bart kept two letters for you?”

Ariel nodded.

“But there was only one letter in the safe at the bank. What happened to the other?”

“I knew my mother could have access to the safe and if anything were to happen to me, the sentence about the envelope Guttmacher was holding for me would lead her to him. Remember, I was clueless in a foreign city. My father was missing, strangers were following me, and the police treated me like a daydreamer.”

“How would your mother know to go to the Mielke Bank and open the safe-deposit box?”

“That's simple. I told her that during our telephone conversation when my captors made me call her.”

I was puzzled. Mina Bernstein had looked surprised when I'd told her I'd found Ariel's safe-deposit box. So she had kept this information from me. I felt disappointed. I thought Mina had told me everything. But why would I be angry with her for withholding information from me while I was deceiving her concerning my motives and my employer?

“What was in the other letter? Do you still have it?”

“No. I couldn't put it in the safe-deposit box; I was kidnapped that same day.”

“So they took the letter with them?”

“Oh, no! Earlier that day I burned parts of it but kept the important stuff.”

“Why did you have to burn it?” I asked. I had a suspicion, but I wanted Ariel to tell me first.

“At the end of his letter my father told me to burn it, but I was afraid that if I burned it completely I'd forget the things he wanted me to do.”

“What was in the letter?”

“The letter described my father's contacts with Guttmacher and the Iranians. There were lists of materials and equipment that the Iranians wanted to buy with names of suppliers and other technical information.”

I hoped that the blood rushing to my face didn't show. “Do you still have that list?”

“Yes,” she nodded, “I copied part of it.”

“Where is it? Can I see it?”

“I have it in my luggage. It's just a list of compounds and such details. I did not copy the supplier names and all other details. I left what's left of the original with all the details in Munich.”

I needed to reassure her that she had done the right thing before I ventured further in asking her to get the lists.

“You took a great risk by moving around with the list.”

“Not really,” she smiled. “Don't forget that I have the perfect explanations for that if I'm ever asked. I'm a nuclear scientist, a doctoral candidate, and my scientific articles were published in several professional magazines. I'm on my way to meet scientists in Moscow.”

This information was so important I wanted Ariel to continue without interruption, but she was waiting for my questions.

“Did your father describe his relationship with the Iranians? It's a pretty surprising alliance, I must admit.”

I'd hit a raw nerve.

“The answer is so obvious that I'm surprised you're even asking. He wasn't about to trade with them. Not ever. He was after two things: his freedom and their money. You don't think that with his background he'd do anything to help the Iranians and hurt Israel. Never. He was planning to get their money and then extricate himself from his troubles with the American government by giving them a complete file on the Iranians.”

I listened, mildly stunned. Ariel had just repeated Benny's account. DeLouise was trying to kill two birds with one stone. Although he was about to make a bundle off the Iranians, he hoped to rid himself of his problems by bringing this extremely valuable information to the CIA. Then the path to any deal he could make with the regulatory banking agencies would be smoothed by the compliments showered on him by everyone from the White House down.

“So your father had actually prepared a file?”

“Yes,” said Ariel, and I sensed that she was proud that he had.

“Where is it?” I asked, trying to contain my excitement. I hoped she wouldn't notice my eagerness. “In Munich,” said Ariel, apparently missing my reaction to the revelation. “I couldn't take it with me to Moscow.”

“Is it safe there?” I asked, hoping she'd tell me where it was.

“Yes. It's safe,” she said. “Well, I hope so,” she added.

“Is it bulky? I guess it contains many documents.”

“Well, there are bank records, contracts, even a few documents in Farsi.”

“So the file came with your father's letter?”

“Yes. Everything in one big envelope.”

DeLouise must have sensed what might be coming, so he'd left a trail. I silently thanked him for that.

“You still haven't told me all the details about why you came to Moscow,” I pressed.

Ariel paused a moment and squared her shoulders. “I felt I had to complete my father's job and get back at the Iranians who killed him. I wanted to expose their plans and their Soviet cohorts. The Iranian fanatics should not be allowed to get an atom bomb. As a scientist I know the devastating consequences the device could bring, and as a citizen of Israel I fear for my country. The Iranians have threatened Israel repeatedly and promised destruction of Israel. They should not be allowed to have the means to carry out their plan.”

“Why do you think the Iranians killed him? Do you have any proof?” I wondered whether Ariel knew something I didn't.

“If they didn't, then who did?” she retorted.

“There could be any number of bad guys. The Colombians, for example. Aren't they the people who kidnapped you?” It seemed clear, in the end, that Ariel knew nothing about her father's murder.

“I thought of that,” said Ariel, “but they killed my father in the street. If they wanted any documents from him, they'd have kidnapped him like they did me. Besides, the Colombians weren't necessarily working for the cartel; they could have been working for the Iranians.”

“Well,” I said, “criminals act under different logic than yours or mine. Everything is possible.” She had a point though, I conceded.

“Anyway, I was convinced that that was what my father had wanted me to do by leaving me the file and the letter with the materials lists. So I decided to go to Moscow to try to meet with his contacts; they could tell me about the sale of the nuclear materials to the Iranians. Nuclear materials are familiar territory for me.”

“So what did you do?”

“There was one name, Igor Zurbayev, with a Moscow address and a telephone number in the file that my father left me. I called him and arranged to meet him in Moscow.”

“For what purpose? Were you going to buy the nuclear materials and give them to the Iranians?” I said in disbelief. “The whole thing doesn't make sense to me.” I was beginning to tire a bit. It was all crazy and stupid. There must be a different agenda here – Ariel could not be that irresponsible.