The Tsunami File (16 page)

Delaney asked.

“Well,” he said. “I have some papers from the
Deutschland
file. Here with me. Copies.” “You what?” Smith shouted, jumping up from his chair. “What? Are you crazy?”

Delaney wondered if Smith would actually go over and hit Zalm.

“Easy, Jonah. Easy,” he said.

“I'm sorry, Jonah,” Zalm said. “I couldn't tell you before now. I thought you would be so mad. You have a right to be mad. But how could I tell you I was acting like a fool? I thought the file would turn up anyway or that maybe it didn't matter very much anyway that one file went missing because eventually the pathology teams would get to the body again and have another look and take more fingerprints and you could work on those again, eventually. But then when you told me you and Frank had been out to the compound and that someone had been in the containers and that the prints were actually taken off the fingers altogether, I knew this was getting serious.”

“It's always been serious, you bloody fool,”

Smith shouted.

“Easy,” Delaney said.

“I'm sorry, Jonah,” Zalm said.

Smith looked over at Delaney.

“This is unbelievable,” he said. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“I wanted to make IDs,” Zalm said again.

“You're a fool,” Smith said. “I thought you were a friend.”

“Please don't say that, Jonah. Please. I am your friend. Look. I can fix it now, look. I have the papers. Here.”

Zalm picked up his envelope and pressed it into Smith's hands.

“This is the
Deutschland
file?” Smith said.

“Yes, yes. A lot of it. Copies. And most of the photocopies of papers in other files that I took. It's not all
Deutschland
. But we can fix it now, Jonah? Can't we?”

Smith looked over at Delaney again, incredulous and angry at the same time.

“Why didn't you tell me before this, long before this? You knew very well that I needed those papers badly, Stefan. You knew I was in trouble about them. I even went to Braithwaite. You let me go to Braithwaite about this.”

“I couldn't tell you, Jonah. I couldn't tell you. I felt ashamed and stupid.”

“Why are you telling us now?” Delaney asked.

“Because it's getting serious now,” Zalm said.

“It's always been serious, Stefan, right from the beginning,” Smith said. “You stupid man.”

“I know, I know, Jonah. But if people are cutting prints off the fingers . . .” “You foolish, foolish man,” Smith said again. He sat and stared at the battered envelope on his lap.

“What you need is in there, Jonah. I'm sure,” Zalm said. “There's a copy of the
Deutschland
prints in there. I looked again. And some of your notes.” Smith just looked dejectedly at the envelope. “I can't believe you would do this to me, Stefan,” he said.

“We can fix it now,” Zalm said. “Can't we?” Smith said nothing.

“Have a look, Jonah. Maybe we can fix it,”

Delaney said.

Smith slowly opened the envelope and spread the contents out on the table. He took out some reading glasses and suddenly became very serious, professional. He sorted papers and studied some of them very closely. Delaney and Zalm said nothing, letting him work. Zalm chain-smoked clove cigarettes.

Eventually, Smith said: “These aren't the same prints. For the
Deutschland
body.”

“How can that be?” Zalm shouted. “I got them right from the
Deutschland
file.”

“How can you know that, Jonah?” Delaney said. “How could you remember something like that? Even you can't memorize people's fingerprints.

Come on.”

“I know these aren't the same,” Smith said. “I told you both, remember I told you both, there were only three prints taken off that body that were of any use at all. The other seven were not usable; the quality was simply too bad. I told you both this, several times. Then those three possibly usable prints went missing from the file. Then the whole damn file itself went missing altogether. But these prints Stefan's brought today are not the same. They're all quite good quality. Not just three of them.” Smith peered at them again.

“That's not possible,” Zalm said. “I took those from the file. I know I did.”

They all stared at each other in silence. Smith's anger seemed to be subsiding as his forensic imagination became engaged.

“Eventually, Delaney said: “Maybe someone substituted the prints. After Stefan made his copy.”

“What do you mean?” Smith said.

“Well, maybe someone took the first set out and put a less good set in. After Stefan made his copy. Maybe from another body. No?”

Smith pondered this.

Zalm said excitedly: “Yes, yes, maybe. Jonah? What do you think?”

“Why would they do that?” Smith said.

“To confuse things, to confuse you. Because the original set was too good, maybe. I don't know. They went to a lot of trouble on other things. Why not this?”

Smith stared at the prints again.

“These are quite good,” he said. “Classic whorls, most of them. Some composites. And a nice little scar on the middle finger, left.”

“When did you make the photocopies, Stefan?” Delaney asked.

“Oh, Frank, I can't remember exactly,” Zalm said. “Weeks ago.”

“Before I told you about the trouble?” Smith asked him.

“Yes, Jonah. I can't remember exactly when, but it was before that.”

“It's possible someone changed the prints, isn't it, Jonah?” Delaney asked. “To confuse things. Before you had a really good look at the file?”

“Anything is possible, Frank. I can see that now,” Smith said. “But why would they then take the three not-too-badquality fingerprints away from the file after that?”

“To confuse things further?” Delaney said. “It's possible, no? Or maybe they were afraid you'd actually make another match of some kind with those three that would be so implausible for that body that you'd know something strange was really going on?” “Yes, that could be it,” Zalm said hopefully. Smith stared at the Dutchman. Delaney was not sure what Smith would do next. He looked calmer, almost resigned to something now.

“You are a very foolish man, Stefan,” Smith said.

“I know that, Jonah. I'm sorry.”

“You behave like a stupid police cadet.”

“I know.”

“What you did was illegal.”

“I know, Jonah.”

“I can't believe you would do such a thing.” They all sat in silence. Smith stared at the
Deutschland
prints. Delaney watched Smith. Zalm smoked nervously, and watched them both.

“I'll run these through the DVI databases here in Phuket,” Smith said eventually. “There may be some antemortem prints in there that match. If that doesn't come up with a match, I'll run them through the Interpol database back in Lyon.”

“Won't people know if you do that, Jonah?” Delaney asked.

“No,” Smith said. “I have access to the antemortem print database here, from all countries. Whenever a tsunami missing person's AM marks get sent from a country somewhere, they go in. To check prints against a national police records somewhere, I have to make a special request. But for the DVI databases here, no. And for Interpol, no. I have access. And one of my very good friends in Lyon is in charge of all the forensic databases there anyway. He can help me if I need extra help.”

“And if all that doesn't give us a match?”

Delaney asked.

“Then I'd have to request a records search in a national police database.”

“Germany.”

“Yes,” Smith said. “That would be the one, I'd say.”

“Tricky.”

“Yes. But let's see what I can turn up before that. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it.” “We can fix this,” Zalm said. “I know we can.”

Delaney felt it was time he called in some markers from the Canadian spy service, providers of substantial freelance income and substantial useful information over the years. Much of the information CSIS deigned to provide him was incomplete, when it suited them or when they decided he didn't need complete information to do the jobs they occasionally asked him to do. He was accustomed to treating CSIS information cautiously, sometimes skeptically, but always with respect. They treated the information he provided to them in precisely the same way.

Jonathan Rawson was Delaney's CSIS handler and, in a way, after almost ten years, his friend. Rawson knew all about the Natalia story, had been heavily involved, and he knew about some of the angry, violent and illegal things Natalia's murder had subsequently inspired Delaney to do. Some, but not all.

Delaney dialed Rawson's private number in Ottawa immediately after Smith and Zalm left his hotel room. He was reasonably confident the Englishman and the Dutchman would not launch themselves into a fistfight in the elevator on the way down.

Rawson had, paradoxically, become a far happier man after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Suddenly, with the world irrevocably changed, and security and intelligence work around the world seen in a fresh light, Rawson's personal crusade to transform CSIS into what he always called a “real” spy service rather than a Canadian facsimile of a spy service had started to bear fruit.

Suddenly, Rawson and his like-minded colleagues no longer had to go cap in hand to their bureaucratic and judicial masters to beg permission for more resources, more staff, more latitude in operations outside Canada's borders. Suddenly, everyone who mattered in Rawson's world came onside and gave him and his colleagues virtual carte blanche.

Suddenly, Rawson could work alongside American and British and French and other spies, could design and execute covert operations on foreign soil, and not feel so much like a country bumpkin anymore.

The same changes had in fact occurred in the RCMP. Delaney had watched as Kate Hunter's police work changed from standard financial crime investigation, the white-collar crime work she was so good at, into higher level, far more complex and far more consequential investigations into the financing of international terrorism, the illicit flows of money around the globe that financed deadly operations aimed at maximum carnage for civilians and maximum martyrdom for perpetrators. Kate's RCMP world, too, had in its way also been transformed by the September 11 attacks.

Rawson was as Delaney expected, in his office in Ottawa, just back at that time of the Canadian morning, from his customary jogging excursion around what many believed was one of the most boring capital cities in the world. Delaney had always argued that only Canberra, Australia, was worse.

“Jonathan Rawson, good morning,” Delaney's spymaster said in his customary mellifluous tones. Delaney could imagine him in his office overlooking the Rideau Canal, jogging gear hanging on a peg behind his door, freshly shaved and showered, not a strand of salt-and-pepper hair out of place—ready and willing to fight terrorism and intelligence service budget cuts on all fronts.

“Francis Delaney, good evening,” Delaney said.

“Ah, Francis, good to hear your voice,” Rawson said. “Where are you, in evening time zones?”

“Thailand,” Delaney said.

“On no,” Rawson said. “Please. Not another catastrophe I have to bail you out of.”

Rawson had done excellent work in early 2001 negotiating Delaney's release from Insein Prison in Rangoon after he had badly upset the Burmese authorities, and a number of other extremely unpleasant people, while on assignment for CSIS. Delaney had been deported eventually to Bangkok and had proceeded to upset Rawson and CSIS even further.

“Not so far, Jon. Playing reporter this time.”

“So you were last time. Or that was the original plan.”

“The real thing this time. I'm doing up an
International Geographic
piece on the tsunami.

Disaster victim identification.”

“You are the right man for that job,” Rawson said. “Disasters.”

“I'm staying out of trouble.”

“I doubt that very much,” Rawson said. “Not if you are calling me from overseas.” “Can you talk?” Delaney asked.

“The new CSIS has the latest toys, Francis. I'm in my nice new office on my nice new secure phone, if that's what you mean. Go.”

“OK, Jon, I need a favour.”

“Oh no.”

“Can you check out a couple of names for me? And a third one if I get it? Police types, the first two.

One from Germany and one from the Netherlands.”