Triple Identity (46 page)

“Okay, you're the boss. You tell me to go, and I will.” I could hardly have sounded more reluctant.

“
After
the travel authorizations. You know the rules,” added David.

I did. First the Federal Republic of Germany had to authorize my visit; anyone traveling on official U.S. government business must have the prior approval of the host government. Second, under the Federal Chief of Mission Statute, federal employees can operate in a foreign country only with the U.S. ambassador's consent. Although rarely done, the embassy could even assign a representative officer to be present during all of my activities.

As far as I was concerned, all of this was unnecessary red tape. The same music was always being played and replayed: David demanded that I comply with the rules; I tried, but if I couldn't, I left evidence showing I tried. David knew of my tendency to cut corners. He didn't mind pretending that things never happened — as long as I understood that if the
shit ever hit the fan I'd be the only one showered. On a good day I might have time to duck.

A few days later the paperwork was complete and I was on my way.

I stirred the hot chocolate, wiping my eyes, which had become teary from the cigarette-smoke-filled café air, and thought that now David would have to concede that I'd been right.

Still, I wasn't the kind of person to rub someone's nose in his mistakes, particularly when that someone was my direct supervisor. Moreover, I knew he'd had a point: Igor Razov could eventually help solve part of my puzzle, even if he was only a pawn. It was just a temporary hurdle; I needed to find a way to jump it.

I ventured back into the relentless rain and returned to my hotel. I changed my business clothes and wrote my report. No accusations, just the tale of a wasted visit to prison. I went outside and called David from a pay phone in a dome that failed to shield me from the wind and rain. When I call people, I observe certain rules, one of which is not to call from my hotel room. It's an old habit left over from my Mossad days: Hotels keep a record of your calls. For the same reason, I rarely use my cell phone when on assignment. I don't think I should be that transparent to foreign governments who think I'm just a tourist.

“Did he talk?” asked David.

“Silent as a husband.”

“So the trip was a waste?”

“Well, not yet. While I'm here I want to dig deeper. I have a few ideas, and I'll need
INTERPOL
assistance.”

“What for?”

“I need to see the German arrest file and ask them to issue a search warrant for this guy's local residence. He must have lived somewhere here before his arrest. It might contain some interesting stuff.”

David hesitated. Even though I was investigating money laundering, a crime,
INTERPOL
might not be much help. A U.S. request via
INTERPOL
could almost certainly get me Razov's German police file. To get it fast,
though, I'd have to offer to translate it myself and hope that the Germans would go along. “We might have better luck going through the police attaché at the German embassy in Washington. Still, a search would require a judicial order, so we'll have to send an MLAT request, and that might take more time than we have.”

I couldn't help but think about my son, Tom. Before he'd grown to a towering six foot three, sporting a ridiculous goatee and out-of-fashion sideburns, he used to ask me what the meaning
of money laundering
was. He'd grown up hearing the term bandied frequently around the house. “No, it's not a big washing machine that cleans the dirty bills,” I used to explain to him. “It's when thieves want to hide their stolen money from the police, so they transfer it from place to place hoping it will become ‘clean’ in the process and can't be traced back to their criminal activity. Money that criminals made by breaking the law is always dirty, so they want to make it seem like it came from someplace legal.”

I told David now, “I think I'll push this forward on my own.” Until he decided to request a search pursuant from the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in Criminal Matters (MLAT), I could use the time to find out where Razov had lived and with whom he had associated.

“Okay, where can you be reached?” David asked.

“I'm at the Grand Astron Hotel in Stuttgart.” I gave him my numbers.

I had little hope that the German police file would contain anything meaningful. After all, Razov wasn't in their prison as a result of a crime he had committed in Germany; they were simply keeping him in escrow until he could be extradited to Belarus. The intelligence on Igor's German activities would be as thin as he was. And of course U.S. investigative agents and police could not conduct criminal investigations outside the United States without the approval of the host country, which is rarely given. But, I reasoned, I was also after the money. That was civil law, not criminal — at least not usually. I only hoped that my so-so legal analysis wouldn't be tested in reality.

At last the rain was letting up. I walked to the nearby city square and asked a local policeman in a black uniform where I could find a café or social club frequented by Russian immigrants.

He gave me an unfriendly look and said, “Try Café Moscow, right off Schlossplatz in downtown Stuttgart.”

I finally found a cab, which dropped me off at the café. It was lunchtime. As I entered, heavy cigarette smoke and the smell of vodka assaulted my nose. Posters of old Soviet-era movies adorned the walls, and Russian music was playing.

The café was filled with burly men and a few women with push-up bras and too much makeup. I sat at the bar, squinting through the stinging smoke. I ordered a vodka martini and scrutinized the crowd. Five minutes later I had company. Compared with similar institutions, the response time here was relatively slow.

“How are you, big man?” said a young woman who pulled up a chair to be closer. “American?” She had a pronounced Russian accent.

I nodded. I didn't feel too welcome in Germany as an American. At the time President George W. Bush was trying, without any success, to persuade France and Germany to join the coalition to topple Saddam Hussein. Several street demonstrations against the United States had taken place. In Berlin a remembrance of the World War I antiwar communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht had turned into a march of ten thousand demonstrators protesting U.S. plans to invade Iraq.

“Buy me a drink?”

Well, despite my nationality, I could apparently still attract the bar broads. I consciously let myself be drawn in. Her agenda might have been the bulge in my pants — my wallet. But I also had an agenda, as she would soon find out.

“What would you like?” I said.

“Buy me champagne?” came the expected response. Next, she'd be served with colored water and I'd be charged for the best French champagne.

“No, dear,” I said sternly, “vodka should be just fine.” In a softer tone I added, “Isn't it too early for champagne?”

She smiled and asked the bartender for vodka.

I watched him pour from the same bottle he'd used for my drink earlier. As long as I was paying for vodka, let it be that, and not tap water.

“Tourist?” She leaned toward me to give me a better view of her generous
breasts. A mixed smell of cheap perfume, bad alcohol, and cigarettes was sufficient deterrent to any thought of taking a two-hour leave from my duty. Two hours? Make that ten minutes.

“Yes, on business just for a few days.”

“What kind of business?”

“I'm in microelectronics sales for the computer industry.”

“Is business good?” No subtlety there: She was aiming directly at the size of my wallet.

“Business is okay. You sound like you're Russian, am I right?”

She nodded and sipped her drink.

“Do you speak Belarusian? I need somebody who could do some translations for me. Know anyone?”

“I'm from Russia. In Belarus, they speak a different dialect, actually a different language.”

“I know, but I was thinking anyone who speaks Ukrainian or Belarusian would have very little trouble understanding the other language. Isn't it the same with Russian?”

She shook her head. “Russian speakers would have difficulty understanding either language. But I could ask here for you.”

“Thanks. That would get you another drink from me.”

“Nothing else?” There was a tone of seductive disappointment in her voice.

“We'll see about that later,” I said, calculatingly ogling her generous cleavage. I hoped I was leading her to expect a financially rewarding transaction, albeit one that had to be postponed. For a millennium, as far as I was concerned.

She got up from the bar stool and walked to a table where four men were playing cards. A minute or two later she returned. “There's a woman in town who came from Minsk, that's in Belarus. I'm sure she could help you.”

“Does she speak any English?”

“I don't know.”

“What's her name?”

“Oksana Vasilev.”

That first name sounded familiar. Could it be the same heavyset
woman I had just met in prison? It would be good if I could get her to talk to me.

“And what is yours?”

“Kiska.”

I smiled. It meant “pure” in Russian. “Where would I find her?”

“I don't know where she lives, but try the courthouse, across the
platz
. The people here said she was looking for a job as an interpreter and that the court keeps a registry of interpreters. Maybe she's listed.”

“Smart girl,” I said, and she looked at me to see if there would be any reward other than the drinks.

“I need to go, but I promise I'll be back,” I added, slipping a twenty into her cleavage. I never dreamed of coming back for her. My mother's warning rang in my ears:
Don't pick that up; you don't know where it's been!

I walked to the courthouse a block and a half away and found Oksana's address. Back outside, I hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me on a short tour. Although I didn't think anyone would be interested in what I was doing, old Mossad habits died hard — I needed to be sure.

Stuttgart itself is beautifully located in the Swabian Mountains, at the edge of the Black Forest. Both Porsche and Mercedes have plants there, so the city is home to predominantly working-class neighborhoods.

“Do you want to see the Daimler-Benz Automobile Museum? Perhaps the Mercedes-Benz factory? It is in Sindelfingen, very close to us,” asked my cabbie. He was dark with a huge mustache, but his German sounded perfect. A green crescent on the dashboard gave away his country of origin: Turkey.

“No, thanks.” I looked at my guidebook. “Why don't you pass through the Black Forest. I'd like to take a short walk.”

A few minutes later he drove me to a wide-open picnic area in the forest. It was empty of people. I looked at the sign in German and below it, its English translation, and burst into laughter.

I wished I had a camera. I took a short walk, getting some fresh air — and making sure I had no company.

Next, the cabdriver drove me to the glockenspiel at the Rathaus so I could listen to Swabian music. We continued past the Alte Staatsgalerie, then Killesberg Park, the Schlossgarten, the Ludwigsburg Palace, and the botanical gardens. An hour later, according to what I could make out in the passenger's-side mirror, I was convinced that my paranoia was unfounded.

Finally we arrived at Oksana's address. It was a shabby-looking two-story apartment building in a side street of a working-class neighborhood. Although it was only 4:10
P.M.
, it was already getting dark; other than passing cars, the street was quiet. It was getting colder and soon snow would cover the broken pavement, giving this place a well-deserved, albeit temporary, face-lift.

There were three mailboxes attached to the wall next to the building's main entrance. Oksana's name was clearly marked on the bottom box. A closer look gave me heart palpitations. Below her name was written
IGOR RAZOV
, although an effort to scratch it off the nameplate was visible.

So she wasn't just an interpreter. Was she a roommate, a partner, a supervisor, or all these penalties combined? I rang her doorbell and waited a few minutes, but there was no answer. I looked inside the letterbox. Empty. It was time for some action. I went to the back of the house. A small concrete structure housed the garbage cans. I looked around. Nobody was there. It was already pitch dark. Snow started to fall, muffling even the street noises. I opened one trash can, and two cats jumped from the other, petrifying me for five long seconds. I put my right hand deep into the can. I couldn't see much, and the smell wasn't helping. The can contained just two dripping plastic bags with household trash. I dropped them and wiped off my hands with a piece of newspaper. I couldn't tell if they were Oksana's trash bags, but given the freezing temperature and the dripping liquids, the bags had only recently been deposited.

I lifted the lid off the other can. Inside were two plastic trash bags of frozen garbage and one bag of papers for recycling. I untied the latter bag.
Russian newspapers were on top. I was getting close, unless there were other Russian speakers in the building. Below these lay a few envelopes, but all with windows — no addressee name. I stuck my hand in again, this time fishing out invoices and handwritten letters in Russian. I emptied the newspapers into the trash can and took the bag with the remaining papers. I hoped that the city of Stuttgart would forgive me for mixing garbage. I hid the trash bag under my coat and hastily walked to the street. I walked up a block, but saw nothing unusual or suspicious. I got on a city bus, getting off a few stops later next to a cab station, where I hailed a cab to my hotel. I must have smelled, because the receptionist gave me a funny look. In my narrow room, I opened the bag and spread its contents on the carpet. I realized I'd hit the jackpot as soon as I started rummaging through.