Delaney had not spoken with Gunter Ackermann for more than a year. But as always in the news game, relationships among reporters, particularly those forged in conflict zones, stand the test of time. In early 2002, Ackermann and Delaney had been in a group of foreign correspondents pinned down in Afghanistan near the medieval fortress at Mazar i Sharif while U.S. and British Special Forces tried to take it back from Northern Alliance mujahadeen prisoners who had wrested control from their guards.
It was chaos, and the media who watched it happen were lucky not to be incinerated in the firefight and air strikes that lasted two days. Confusion reigned because many of the U.S. and British forces were dressed in civilian clothes. The prisoners were a mix of Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens. The soldiers said it was difficult to tell who was who. Delaney thought they didn’t try very hard. More than five hundred were killed.
The last Northern Alliance holdouts had taken cover in an underground tunnel. They stayed there despite having no food and repeated attempts to force them out. Coalition troops started fires in the tunnel and even tried gas. They finally forced out the last few fighters by pumping water down the entrance hole and filling it up.
Ackermann was filing to Die Welt, one of Germany’s most-respected newspapers, where he was chief political editor. He had put his hand up for the Afghanistan assignment because, he said, he was bored with years of covering German domestic politics after reunification in 1990. He had held up well during the siege of Mazar i Sharif, despite weighing well over 100 kilograms and smoking 50 cigarettes a day, on days when he could get them. He had loaned Delaney the Die Welt satellite phone in the sand dunes a few times so his Canadian comrade could call his editors. They stayed in touch afterward and Delaney tried to see Ackermann whenever he passed through Europe.
“Francis, Francis,” Ackermann bellowed out from Delaney’s cell phone when he got through on Tuesday morning Berlin time. “What time do you think the most-respected German journalist of his generation gets out of bed in the morning? Especially when recovering from a most exhausting night out?”
“We’re both a little too old for that, Gunter, surely.”
“Speak for yourself, Francis. You Americans are too wholesome for me anyway, it makes me sick. What time is it anyway, for the love of God?”
“Canadian, Gunter,” Delaney said. “Not American.”
“How could I forget? But worse, even worse.”
“Gunter, I need some help, I’m on the tsunami story out in Phuket.”
Delaney heard the scratch of a match in Berlin and knew Ackermann was lighting his first smoke of the day, probably while still in bed. He imagined Ackermann would almost certainly be alone, despite his legendary escapades, as it was his policy never to bring women back to the extremely disreputable flat he owned in a rundown corner of the former Soviet sector of the city. That was what cheap hotels were invented for, Ackermann would say to anyone who asked about this aspect of the bachelor’s life.
“Of course, of course,” Ackermann said, “I am accustomed to this, yes, as always you fail to telephone for many months and then call again only when you need help, forgetting poor old fat Ackermann who saved your life many times in Afghanistan, who fed you and clothed you and wiped your nose as you cried for your mother when the fighting raged around us and you never call me now except to ask for favours. It makes me sick, Francis, sick in my heart that I will help you again as I always do.”
Delaney heard him take a long drag on a cigarette 9,000 kilometres away. “You defame me horribly, Gunter,” Delaney said.
“What is it this time, my friend?” Ackermann asked.
“Not sure, Gunter, exactly. Maybe a coverup of some kind out here. Not sure. Something to do with pedophiles maybe.”
“And German, of course,” Ackermann bellowed. “Am I right? This is why you call me? Phuket is like a little German schoolhouse playground for these animals. Bastards, bastards.”
Delaney filled Ackermann in on all he had gathered so far. He told him also about what his research had gleaned about Herr Stahlman and his last solitary swim off the North German coast. Delaney had no fear that Ackermann would take the story for his own. It was part of an unwritten code that most, but far from all, seasoned journalists worked under. Ackermann was one of those who could be trusted with a possible scoop. “Why would they bother, Francis?”
Ackermann said finally. “Why? It’s police out there with you, mostly, correct? The police love to identify these bastards, living or dead. If it is German police they would very much prefer pedophiles to be dead. Why cover anything up?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Gunter,”
Delaney said.
“And Stahlman, no, Francis, no, the man killed himself, he was in disgrace, he was chewed up by whales in the Baltic Sea. I know the Stahlman story, I was on the desk at Die Welt when the scandal started and when it finished.” “They never found the body.”
“The currents out in the Baltic Sea are famous, Francis. Come visit, we will drive up there, I will throw you in just because you wake me too early in the mornings and they will never find your body either.”
“It all sounds too neat. Car parked, suicide note, then no sign ever of the body.”
“We Germans are a very precise people, my dear Francis, even in death. I have my own funeral planned down to the last detail. Extra-large coffins need to be ordered weeks if not months in advance.” “Not worth a further check around, Gunter?”
“Unfortunately everything is worth a little further check around,” Ackermann said. “We are too many years in the business not to know that, Francis. I will check for you and I will find nothing extra that we do not already know and it will be a ridiculous waste of my precious time and then you will owe me one more favour, to add to our list of hundreds you owe me already. A big dinner at Zur letzten Instanz next time you are through. Number 14 Waisenstrasse—put this in your notebook for reservations purposes. And a one-litre bottle of single malt whisky. At least that, for this favour.”
“You’re a friend, Gunter.”
“Unfortunately,” Ackermann said.
Delaney held off calling Rawson in Ottawa on the Stahlman angle, or any other angle, for the time being. CSIS would be there for him as a fallback for information on the Deutschland story probably, but he had been trying to limit the number of favours he asked his occasional spymasters. The more favours he asked for and the more assignments he took for them, the more they thought they owned him.
Since his near-death experience with Tim Bishop in Iraq in 2003, however, and since the long de-briefs he had given CSIS afterward about his captors and the questions they had asked himself and Bishop while they were detained, Delaney was very much back in the spy service good books. They accepted, as before however, that information gathering where Delaney was involved would have to be a two-way process.
Delaney had helped CSIS out with various assignments since Burma, some of which also yielded for public consumption good, if necessarily somewhat incomplete, news or feature stories. He had investigated for them the Canadian trucking industry and the incessant southward flow of vehicles, most never properly searched for contraband or for illegal migrants, crossing Canada’s land borders into the United States. And he had helped them with some sting operations in Europe, posing as a reporter interviewing Canadian businessmen and scientists in bugged hotel rooms abroad to help CSIS find out who was behind the wave of industrial espionage that was increasingly part of the spy service brief.
They also took a keen interest in his book on the Vatican intelligence service, something he had sworn to write ever since his ill-fated Mazovia assignment in 1995. It had taken almost seven years to find the information he required and also to find the detachment he required to do the writing job. The book caused an initial stir and immediate fierce denials by the Vatican curia of any wrongdoing by their agents, rogue or otherw
ise. Then it sank with dismal sales and little lasting trace.
But the book had helped put an end to his obsession with Natalia. Kate Hunter had helped him end that obsession too—and his research proved helpful to CSIS. Or so they said. They, too, had had unanswered questions about a covert Vatican operation on Canadian soil—whether approved officially or not—that left a CSIS agent, as well as Delaney’s then-lover, dead.
He was to meet Jonah Smith for a final briefing before the interview with Braithwaite, and only at that stage would he decide if he needed any information or insights from Rawson and CSIS in Ottawa to help him figure out what exactly was going on in Phuket. Delaney left the Metropole mid-morning the next day. The three desk girls at the hotel never seemed to have time off. They looked approximately 14 years of age, they were always impeccably dressed in beige Metropole skirts and vests, and they always broke into giggles when Delaney or any other farang visitor approached them for messages or information. Today was no different.
“No message, no message, Mr. D,” said the desk girl with Lek inscribed on her name tag. Her colleagues thought this indescribably amusing.
“No message from your wife, Mr. D,” Lek said. “Too sad. So sorry for you.”
“No wife for Mr. D,” Delaney said. “So no message no problem.”
This sent the desk girls into further spasms of laughter.
“So sad, so sorry for you,” they called out after him as he walked across the spotless white marble floor of the lobby and through the revolving doors to get a taxi. Smith’s hotel was about ten minutes away. Delaney rolled the cab’s passenger windows down to save himself from hypothermia in the air conditioning. The day was sultry, classically tropical. Out over the bay a thundercloud towered, already kilometres high. There would be a terrific downpour before nightfall, as usual at this time of the year.
Smith answered his door at the hotel almost immediately after Delaney knocked. He had taken the morning off to arm Delaney with questions for Braithwaite. Apparently, his superiors could do without Smith’s services for a few hours. Apparently, Smith did not mind upsetting them if they could not.
A petite young woman in a UN shirt stood behind Smith as he greeted Delaney at the door.
“Delaney, this is Conchi,” Smith said, moving aside.
“Con mucho gusto, Mr. Delaney,” Conchi said as she shook his hand.
“Frank. Please,” Delaney said. “You make me feel old.”
“Con mucho gusto, Mr. Frank,” Conchi said.
“She knows what we’re doing today,” Smith said.
Delaney looked sharply over at Smith. In his journalism and in his other less-well-known work Delaney valued discretion very highly. “Don’t worry,” Smith said.
“Don’t worry,” Conchi said, with a very large smile. “I am to be trusted. I am almost police, no?”
“No problem,” Delaney said, without much conviction.
“Good,” Conchi said. “And my good friend Jonah is wrong about this file business anyway, Frank. So there is not much to worry about. That is my opinion.”
“And that is why Señorita Concepción is going over to the management centre now to leave us two old worriers to worry together without interruption,” Smith said.
“You are very rude to me, my love, in front of world famous journalist Frank Delaney,” Conchi said, with another large smile and shrugging her small shoulders extravagantly. Delaney could see why Smith would possibly risk a marriage for the fetching Señorita Concepción. Conchi kissed her man extravagantly on the lips, picked up a small leather knapsack and headed for the door. Delaney noted that Smith’s cheeks had reddened suddenly.
“Goodbye Mr. No Problem Frank Delaney,” Conchi said. “Maybe we will see you again when the worrying stops for the day?” “Yes, maybe,” Delaney said.
He looked at Smith in silence when the door had closed. Smith looked back.
“Yes, she is, isn’t she,” Smith said.
“Very,” Delaney said.
“Too young for me really,” Smith said.
“Apparently not.”
“For now,” Smith said.
“You seem to be telling a lot of people about this little problem of yours, Jonah,” Delaney said.
“There’s nothing to worry about with Conchi,” Smith said. “Don’t worry.”
Like Ackermann in Berlin, Smith did not buy into the Stahlman angle at all. He felt it was too easy, too obvious, too neat.
“How would Stahlman have got out of Germany if he faked his suicide?” Smith said. “How would he have got a passport and a visa for Thailand in another name? How would he have got past Customs at Frankfurt airport?”
“It’s the European Union, Jonah,” Delaney said. “He could drive across a border, he could leave from any number of countries for Thailand. Inside the EU or out.”
“His name would end up in a database somewhere if he left the EU with his own passport. He’d have to have a plane ticket in his name. How would a man like that get himself false identification? He was no criminal.”
“Except that he liked to have sex with small boys.”
“You know what I mean, Frank,” Smith said.
“And what would he live on? The minute he tried to access his bank accounts people would know he was still alive.”
“If they were still looking. Or maybe he carried lots of cash with him.”
“It would have to be lots and lots of cash to start a whole new life in Thailand like that.”
“People can make that sort of arrangement if they want to disappear, Jonah.”
“If they have time, maybe. And it all leaves traces these days. How soon after he got back to Germany from Thailand that year did he kill himself?”
“A couple of weeks or so,” Delaney said. “Not that long afterward.”
“There you go,” Smith said.
“Maybe long enough.”
“Maybe not.”
“Why does it have to be complicated?” Delaney asked. “Why can’t it be a simple explanation like this? A disgraced man fakes his own death, moves to Thailand, lives happily ever after until he drowns in a tidal wave.”
“I just have this feeling there is more to it, Frank. Something really odd is going on around here. Why would Becker be involved?”
“We don’t know that Becker is involved. He may well just be upset that you are questioning his integrity or his team’s integrity. Why would a man like that get involved in some sort of coverup?”
“If that body actually is Stahlman’s, if I accept that, why would a man like Becker feel he had to cover up the death? Of a convicted pedophile? What’s the point?” Smith said.
“I don’t say it’s Becker. It could just be some friends of Stahlman, helping him out.”
“After he has died?” Smith said. “Why would anyone bother? If it is him, he’s dead in a tsunami, what is there left to cover up? Who cares, once he’s dead?”
“Family,” Delaney said.
“Family infiltrating a massive international DVI operation, amateurs and civilians, tampering with police files under the noses of coppers from around the world?” Smith said. “How could they do that? Why would they even bother? The harm’s done years previously anyway, the family’s reputation is ruined, Stahlman’s dead, whether it happened here or in Germany, so what is to be achieved in all of this if you accept that theory?”
Smith was relentless and, Delaney had to admit, began to make a good deal of sense. They left off their argument about Stahlman for a while, however, and turned their attention to the interview scheduled for that afternoon with Braithwaite. Their immediate problem was that if Delaney asked too pointedly about records procedures and missing files in the DVI operation, Braithwaite would know Smith was the source.
“I’ll take that risk, Frank,” Smith said eventually.
“Br
aithwaite sounds like a very tough guy,” Delaney said. “He can make things pretty uncomfortable for you if he thinks you’ve been feeding lines of questioning to a reporter.”
“What have I got to lose?”
“Twenty-one years at Scotland Yard.”
“They can’t run me out,” Smith said.
“Oh yes they can. I’ve seen things like that happen before. Whistle-blowers often lose their jobs.”
“So be it,” Smith said.
“You think it’s worth that sort of risk.”
“When we find out what is actually going on, Braithwaite will thank us for it.”
“That’s in the movies, Jonah. Braithwaite may not look good at all in the end, no matter how it turns out. There are very few happy endings anymore.”
“I want you to ask Braithwaite about this, on the record. I want you to help me find out what is going on and I want you to tell the story as you find it. And I want you to quote Braithwaite in that story about what he tells you this afternoon.”
Smith’s face was reddening again, but no one was giving him a lover’s kiss this time.
Braithwaite’s reeking cigar glowed ruby red, and then the ash turned blue-grey again. He clearly did not enjoy having his picture taken nor did he enjoy being interviewed by a journalist. He was a man more accustomed to asking questions than answering them.
Tim Bishop took a final few photos of Braithwaite behind his battered desk and then began to stow his gear.
“All done,” Bishop said. “I’ll leave you guys to it. Thank you very much, Inspector.”
“Can I see those shots before they go in the magazine, young man?” Braithwaite asked. He did not seem to like Bishop very much, had remarked sourly on the pony-tail when the photographer arrived. “And it’s Chief Superintendent, not Inspector.”
Bishop looked over at Delaney with a grin. “Not my call, sir,” he said. “Up to my boss Mr.
Delaney over there.”
“Not something we usually do,” Delaney said. The cigar glowed red again. It had done so periodically throughout the interview. Bishop’s arrival to take pictures about 40 minutes in had provided a welcome interlude, despite the pony-tail.
The Tsunami File Page 8
