The Chameleon Conspiracy

by Haggai Carmon

  I was on my way to the men’s room when a siren started wailing.

  I heard shouts. “Secure all classified materials. Close all windows; all personnel must now evacuate.”

  I ran down the stairs, but the few others who joined me didn’t seem to be in a particular hurry. SUVs were waiting outside the building with their doors open and engines running.

  “Get in, get in,” ordered a marine in uniform.

  “Are we under attack?” I asked the person sitting next to me.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Then a bell sounded.

  I saw Ned Applebee announcing loudly, “OK, the drill is over, you may now return to your positions.”

  I let out a deep breath and approached Applebee. “We are in the epicenter of terrorism,” he told me. “We must be prepared. There are several threats or actual attempts every day. We live in a cage. See for yourself,” he said, grimly pointing at the outside wall.

  “I can see that,” I said, looking around. The compound was surrounded by brick ramparts topped with razor wire, and reinforced by steel pillars to stop any car from breaking in.

  “This place was built after the previous embassy building was burned to the ground by an angry mob in 1979,” said Ned.

  Once Abdullah drove me back to my hotel, I waited for him to leave, checked out, and took a cab. It was in clear violation of my security instructions, but following strict orders was never my forte. But now these instructions made me realize that I had to enhance my own security, not breach it. After driving around the city for two hours, I called my hotel from my mobile phone and made a room reservation for Peter Helmut van Laufer, from Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana. An hour later I called the hotel again and asked at what time the front desk shift changed, because I needed to catch up with someone from the morning shift.

  “At four p.m., sir,” said the receptionist.

  I continued touring Islamabad from within my cab. The city is in fact a nice town surrounded by hills. What struck me most was the abundance of trees, giving the city a calmer atmosphere. “This is a new city, sir,” said my driver. “Only in 1959 this site was chosen to replace Karachi as the capital of Pakistan. Internationally known urban planners were commissioned to design the new city. In 1967 Islamabad was officially made the capital.”

  “What are the landmarks?”

  “There aren’t many,” he said. “There’s the National Assembly Building, and Quaid-i-Azam University.”

  I asked him to take me downtown. The change was significant. Hundreds of carts, bicycles, and peddlers were all over. Colors and smells were strong, giving the place a vibrant presence, as opposed to the too-planned wide streets of the other zones. I quickly became convinced that Islamabad drivers believe that traffic laws are informational only. The most-used instrument of their cars is the horn. If you learn to drive in New York City and live through it, with the delivery vans and the yellow taxicabs, then you may qualify to drive in Pakistan. I wouldn’t be surprised if an Islamabad taxi driver told his passenger, Take cover, I’m changing lanes. I repeatedly looked around to see if I attracted any unwanted attention. Other than the children begging at traffic lights, I noticed nothing suspicious.

  At four thirty p.m. I returned to my hotel with the cab, and checked in.

  “Welcome, Mr. Van Laufer,” said the smiling reception-desk employee when I told him my name. “How was your flight?”

  “Too long,” I said.

  “Can I see your passport, please?”

  “Sure,” I said and gave him my Dutch Guiana passport. Dutch Guiana ceased to exist in 1975, when it gained independence from the Netherlands and became Suriname. For a non ex is tent country, the passport I gave him was a work of art. It even had a registration number and an “official” seal, an authentic-looking cover embossed with gold lettering, and my genuine laminated photo. Its pages carried many visa and authentic-looking entry and exit stamps from very valid and existing countries. Unless you were a geography buff, you couldn’t tell the passport and the stamps were faked. It looked like a real passport, but it wasn’t.

  Before going on assignment to Third World countries, or even to Western Europe, when my adversaries are no gentlemen, I assume a different identity. Due to political sensitivities, most of the time I cannot use a real passport issued by another country, unless I received it from that country’s government. (If the assignment is for the CIA, it’s a different ball game.) When crossing borders on routine Department of Justice cases, I always use a very genuine U.S. passport, almost always my standard dark-blue tourist passport. I have to carry my official U.S. government passport while overseas on official U.S. government business. But its distinctive dark-red cover is nothing to show when standing in a long line of strangers waiting to pass a foreign immigration agent. For other identification purposes, particularly when nongovernmental entities are involved, I resort to second best, passports “issued” by a service carrying names of countries that have changed, or even better, never existed. What’s the chance that an average hotel receptionist or banker will know that British Honduras is now Belize, that Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, or that Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika to become Tanzania? With the declining popularity of Americans abroad, better to be a businessman from Dutch Guiana than a U.S. government agent.

  During my Mossad days, the standards and practices were different regarding the use of passports. Admittedly, though, times were also different. Things that were acceptable in the early seventies may be no-no’s now, and vice versa. I still remembered Alex, my Mossad academy instructor, lecturing on the various uses of passports:

  We grade passports according to the security they afford the user—best, second, action, and disposable. The best passports, which are at the top of the list, are genuine passports with real people’s names that could survive a police check in the country of origin. The second-quality passport is also a genuine passport. However, there’s no real person to match the bio page. The third type is an action passport that could be used while performing a quick job—concluded in a matter of days— in a foreign country, but that’s it. We can’t use it to cross national borders, definitely not through airports. The least valuable is the disposable passport. This one’s usually hot, meaning that it was either lost or stolen and therefore probably appears on most police watch lists. The best part of that passport is its cover, because it can serve its purpose when you need only to flash it. Obviously you can’t use it as an ID, unless you opt to be stupid, depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

  Apparently, the hotel employee at the desk wasn’t a geography maven, because he didn’t even blink at my passport. I had already made up a “legend,” a cover for why I don’t speak Dutch, or why I was so much lighter than my supposed countrymen, not looking like the citizens of Dutch Guiana—now Suriname—who have much darker skin than mine. If asked, I could simply say that my father was a doctor, an eye specialist in tropical ailments, and I was born in Dutch Guiana when he was sent by the UN to help fight eye disease. Nationality? I don’t really have one. At the age of four we moved to Switzerland. I studied in South Africa and Canada. My father was born in Germany to a Swedish father and a Czech mother; my mother was born in Hungary. Her father was Romanian and her mother Greek. My parents escaped their countries just when World War II started. That legend usually does it and has always satisfied people’s curiosity.

  I also knew that being born in Dutch Guiana didn’t by it-self confer citizenship. You needed one parent or grandparent with citizenship through whom you could claim it. If pressed, I’d have come up with a Dutch grandparent for the purpose. But I’d never needed to. In my wallet I also carried a Dutch Guiana driver’s license and a genuine Visa credit card issued to Peter Helmut van Laufer by one of those offshore banks that don’t ask too many questions about your true identity or the source of the money you’re caching away, as long as you don’t ask them why they charge an annual fee of $750 for the card. I also had another camouflage pass
port of another non ex is tent country carrying my real name, as well as my genuine official U.S. government and tourist passports, just in case a suspicious banker called the local police.

  If that happened, I could say, Oops, sorry, wrong passport. It’s my old name, legally changed. Here’s my other passport. I’d choose whether to flash my other camouflage passport, or, if push came to shove, and only as a last resort, my U.S. tourist passport, hoping I’d be allowed one phone call to the U.S. consul. The amount of explanation I’d have to offer the consul would probably exceed the amount of money suggested by a local policeman as contribution to shore up his personal finances and smooth things up. Never would I show my official passport. That could guarantee a free ride to jail in any country that regarded intelligence as the exclusive prerogative of that country’s government. Violators go to jail, and the guaranteed result would be the size of the scandal, not whether it had actually erupted.

  The hotel’s lobby was half empty. I leafed through the local Yellow Pages and called Peninsula Bank, using my mobile phone.

  “I’m the business manager of Wild Nature and Adventure magazine, based in South Africa,” I said. “We plan to establish a small office in Islamabad. I’d like to open an account with your bank.”

  “Of course, sir. Please come to our branch. We’ll be happy to assist you.”

  I took a cab and landed at the manager’s desk in thirty minutes.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you,” said the manager, a heavy-set, middle-aged man with jumbo ears and piercing black eyes. He wore a three-piece wool suit with a chained gold watch tucked in the vest’s pocket. Hell, I thought, this isn’t London circa 1930, it’s Islamabad in 2004, and it’s hot in here.

  He shook my hand. “My name is Rashid Khan.” I looked at him thinking that for him, the happy hour is a nap.

  I gave him my business card—Peter Helmut van Laufer, with an address in Amsterdam.

  “This is our temporary European office, which we are closing next week. There isn’t too much wildlife in Europe anymore,” I said with a smile. “So, for the time being let me give you my number in Islamabad: 051 991 6687.” He wrote it down on my business card. “We intend to open in Pakistan our regional office for Asia. Until I have Pakistani incorporation papers for our local company, perhaps I should open a temporary personal account.”

  “No need to wait, sir,” said Rashid. “I can open an account for the magazine immediately. When you receive the certificate of incorporation, please send me a copy.”

  An hour later I had a bank account for Wild Nature and Adventure Magazine. I deposited $500 in cash.

  It was time to chat. “I need a recommendation for a lawyer who can help us with our local Pakistani needs. Do you happen to know any lawyer who handles business and intellectual-property matters, and whom you can recommend?”

  His eyes lit up. “Certainly, sir, you should call Ahmed Khan,” he said, and pulled a business card out of a drawer. “He’s very good,” he said, and began praising the attorney’s services.

  The recommendation was too enthusiastic, I thought.

  “Thank you, that’s very helpful. By the way, we once employed a photographer in Islamabad, but have lost contact with him. How do you think I can trace him here? I may have a job for him.”

  “Ask Ahmed Khan. He’ll arrange everything for you.” “Thanks,” I said. As I got up to leave I added, “If you happen to hear the photographer’s name, or, even better, meet him, give him my number.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Albert C. Ward III.”

  “The name rings a bell,” said Rashid. “Maybe he’s a customer.”

  “Think so?” I said innocently. “Well, if so, I’m sure he’d be grateful if you gave me his address or phone number.”

  A few clicks and gazes into his computer monitor later, he said, “We did have him as a customer, but although the account is still open, there has been no activity for many years. We locked his credit balance in an interest-bearing account.”

  “Was it a big amount?” I tried my luck.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t tell you that. But what I can say is that under our bank’s rules we move inactive accounts to a long-term interest-bearing savings account only if the balance exceeds $500.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So you believe he’s no longer in Islamabad?” “I’ve no idea, sir.”

  “OK. Just in case, can I have his address?”

  “It will do you no good. Our mail to that address was returned.”

  There was no point in pressuring him for the address. It would only have aroused suspicion. Why would I be interested in searching for a person who no longer lived in Islamabad and hadn’t for many years, just to offer him a job? Far more bothersome was the fact that Ward had left an amount of money in excess of $500 in his bank account, and never returned to claim it. He was a young man with limited resources. For him it was a substantial amount, so why had he abandoned it? I suggested all sorts of theories, some improbable, and some gruesome. But I let them rest until I could breathe some life into them.

  I returned to my hotel, ignoring peddlers who tried to interest me in everything from souvenirs to dried food. I had dinner at the hotel’s Thai restaurant, the Royal Elephant. I made sure to ask the waiter for mild food. Although I like spicy food, the Thai and Indian version of spicy is way out of my league. If you ask for spicy, they give you their version of spicy food, which burns you on the inside for days. I once ventured to ask for spicy food in India. Three days later, the doctor finally let me crawl out of bed.

  I called Ahmed Khan. It was past seven p.m., but I hoped he was still working. His phone answered after two rings. When he heard my name, he became very interested, or rather eager. “Yes, Rashid told me about you. I’ll be glad to be of service.”

  I invited him to have a drink with me at the hotel.

  “No alcohol, sir, I’m sorry. I’d be delighted to have tea, though.”

  An hour later, a fat man dressed in a beige suit that was about six months late for dry cleaning walked to my table at the lobby lounge. “Hello, sir, I’m Ahmed Khan.” He looked to be about forty-five and was even heavier up close.

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” I said. For about an hour I told him about the magazine, asking questions I thought would be expected of a business manager coming to a new country to set up operations. His answers were somewhat vague, and were mostly characterized by the sentence, “Don’t worry, I can arrange it, I’ve got contacts.” One would wonder why “contacts” were necessary for simple things such as incorporating a company, renting an office, or leasing a car. The impression I received of Ahmed was that he was more a “fixer” than a lawyer. I had no evidence, but I had the distinct feeling I could steal horses with him, if the price were right. I realized of course that such a quality could go in the opposite direction as well. I had to make sure to play this right.

  He then brought up the matter of Albert Ward. “I understand you’re looking for him?” he asked.

  “Yes, he was a very good photographer, and I’ve got an interesting assignment for him—that is, if I find him.”

  “I’ve got contacts,” he said. “Would you be willing to pay for the information?”

  “Well,” I said, “what do you have in mind?”

  “It may cost up to $1,000,” he said, surveying my face for a reaction.

  “That’s too much,” I said. “We don’t need him that badly.” He wasn’t about to let go, and I knew it. The bean counters in Washington would be all over me if I spent that much money on a tip that might be dry and covered with sixty generations of spider webs.

  “What were you thinking, then?” he said.

  “No more than $250,” I said.

  “Maybe $400?”

  “No. $250. If the information is accurate and I find him, I’m willing to pay $100 more as a bonus.”

  The following morning I woke up by the ring of my mobile phone. “Good morning, Mr. Van Laufer. This is
Ahmed Khan.”

  “Good morning,” I said, rubbing my eyes and looking at my watch. It was almost nine. I had overslept.

  “I’ve got information about Albert Ward. Can I meet you in my office?”

  “Could you come to my hotel? I need to be here to meet some people.” In fact I had no such plans, but I didn’t trust Ahmed, and the idea of going into town just to meet him didn’t seem right.

  “Sure,” he said. “I can meet you at twelve thirty.”

  “Good,” I said. “Meet me at the Dynasty Restaurant at the hotel.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ahmed Khan met me at twelve fifteen as I was crossing the lobby to buy a newspaper. We sat at a table in the corner. I looked at him, waiting for the news.

  “Albert Ward left money in his bank account at the Peninsula Bank,” he said. I was motionless.

  “How much?”

  “Around $2,000.”

  “So?”

  “He never came back for it.”

  “I see,” I said. Ahmed Khan was selling me recycled information he had probably received from Rashid.

  “The last transaction he did at the bank was to buy Iranian rials; he used $200 to purchase them.”

  “So he went to Iran? Then I guess I’ll have to give up on him.” I was acting indifferent, but in fact this information made my heart go ballistic.

  Ahmed wasn’t deterred. “I think I know where he went.”

  That certainly aroused even more interest, but I wasn’t about to show it, or the price would go up immediately.

  “Where?”

  “To Tehran.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve got sources.”

  I wasn’t about to cross-examine him over that. He’d have to give me something better for my $250, and he knew that.

  “Do you have an address in Tehran?”

  “Yes.”