“Did you identify additional Atashbon members through the reunion?” I was curious if our visit to Tehran was worth it.
“At least one, but we are working on additional names as well.”
“Who is the one?”
“Remember the Farshad Shahab you met, the guy who studied at the University of Nebraska? Erikka told us all about the meetings.”
“So she knew?”
“No, she thought we were a marketing company working for the bank in connection with the bank’s effort to get Iranian business. Well, he was an Atashbon, and was actually arrested in the U.S., but he managed to get away.”
“Arrested as an Iranian agent and was let go?” I asked in disbelief.
“No,” he sounded apologetic. “We didn’t know his true identity then. He assumed the identity of Alec Simmons, a smart and brave young American. When Simmons was captured by Iranian agents, he was interviewed and filmed. Apparently he understood why the personal details were so important to his interrogators. So he changed some of his personal information, hoping that anyone using his identity would be caught. He misspelled the names of his parents and gave his captors a wrong Social Security number.”
“And we missed it?”
“Almost. When Farshad enrolled at the university, he had the nerve to ask for a student loan, and gave what he thought were Alec’s parents’ names and his Social Security number. A routine cross-referencing flagged a problem. He was arrested but released on $2,000 bail. Everybody thought it was just a simple fraud matter. Farshad jumped bail and took off. He soon assumed a different identity and lived in the U.S. for five more years.”
“So he never graduated from the University of Nebraska?” “Of course not. He couldn’t even return to Lincoln. Finally, before returning to Iran he pulled off the final scam when he bought an engineer’s diploma from one of those diploma mills where the only thing between you and a degree is $5,000 and the week it takes to print and deliver the impressive but bogus certificate.”
“Come to think of it, when we met, I was quite amazed to hear bold criticism from him of the Islamic regime. He probably did it to provoke me to say something incriminating, or hint at a recruiting possibility, which would make him a double agent.”
“I have no doubt of that,” said Casey.
“I suspected him at the time,” I said, knowing I sounded like a Monday-morning quarterback. “No Iranian would dare be so critical of his government to a complete stranger. I intended to check him out later. But it didn’t occur to me he was dangling bait to make me attempt to recruit him.”
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty,” said Casey matter-of-factly.
I tried to think of other people I’d met, but my excitement was impairing my focus.
Two days later I was in New York. After three days of debriefing, spending time with my children, and getting used to civilization again, which included taking three hot showers every day, I felt I had to complete my mission. As if on cue, Benny called.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“In New York,” he answered.
“Good,” I said. “I need help on the case.” I was back in business.
“Is that a way to speak to an old friend? You don’t say hello, how are you, and more specifically you don’t tell me how it was?”
Jewish guilt games again? Well, he had a point. I hadn’t even thanked Benny yet for his role in saving my life.
“Sorry, you’re right. First and foremost, thank you for your role in getting me out. I know it was your men who whisked me out.”
“A small contribution to the case,” he said. “That’s nothing among friends.”
“Not so small, given the other stuff. Let’s have lunch.”
I made reservations at a kosher restaurant right off 47th Street in Manhattan that caters to the heavily Jewish Diamond District, and met him there. We spoke for a few minutes on the case. The Chameleon was very much on my mind, and the time I’d spent in the stinking hole underneath the textile factory did help in cracking the mystery to its end. We lapsed into quiet as the waiter placed a plate on the table loaded with cold cuts, rolls, and deli mustard.
Benny smiled. “Let me guess, you’ll have a double helping of everything.”
I was eager to dig in, but first I said, “Well, it takes quite a bit of this kosher food to fill me up.”
“You’ll survive,” said Benny drily.
“The way I see it,” I replied, “I don’t smoke, do drugs, gamble…so food is my one concession to vice.” I got back to business. “Benny, I need your help.” I’d had a lot of time to plan my next move while idling in hiding.
“What is it this time?” he said, pretending, just pretending, to be annoyed.
“I need access to Tempelhof Bank’s records.”
“Access?”
“Yes, I need to look up the bank’s contacts with McHanna Associates.”
“Who are McHanna Associates?”
“I already mentioned them to you. A New York–based financial corporation run by McHanna, who was the Chameleon’s victim in South Dakota.”
“What do you expect to find out?”
“I want to see the level of cooperation between McHanna Associates and Tempelhof Bank.” I decided not to broaden Benny’s horizons yet, nor complicate the request any further by telling him I also wanted to see whether the bank played a role as intermediary between McHanna and Al Taqwa. When I saw Benny’s expression I asked, “Is there a problem? You own the bank!”
“Dan. We own it, but management doesn’t know it, and obviously the Swiss government doesn’t either. I can’t just go there and start snooping.”
“Then how do you control the bank?”
“Through nominee directors. Distinguished businessmen. Even the instructions concerning the bank’s marketing efforts in Iran through the reunion were suggested to management by one of our nominee directors.”
“So management doesn’t know who they really work for?”
“You got it,” said Benny. “They believe oil billionaires from the Gulf States own the bank.”
“How did you manage to do that and survive the Swiss regulators’ scrutiny?” I asked curiously.
“Don’t ask,” said Benny. “But it works fine. Now you can understand my difficulty, not to say inability, to let you have access to the bank’s records.”
“I don’t need current records,” I said. “I need to go back to 1980 or 1981 through, say, 1995.”
“It’s possible that the records for the earlier years are archived or even shredded. But that I can find out.”
Later on in the afternoon Benny called. “These guys are so meticulous, they never destroy anything. The documents are stored in”—he paused, and I heard pages turning—“Manheim Document Storage, in Bern. Does that help you?”
“In a way. I’d either need to break in or get a court order.” “Get a court order under some pretext,” suggested Benny. “We don’t need the media attention if a break-in is discovered.”
I returned to my office and found in the day’s mail Mrs. Nazeri’s power of attorney that I had had sent to her earlier, marked The Law Offices of Dan Gordon, Esq. She had executed it before the Swiss consul in Tehran and faxed me an advance copy. This was the original. As I instructed my assistant to messenger it to the surrogate’s court downtown, I reflected that at last, I was practicing law again. Well, not exactly. I wasn’t expecting to be paid, and my motive went beyond the need to serve a client. Also, the pleadings had been drafted and filed by a discreet Agency lawyer, not by me.
No matter. I was the one who’d signed the petition seeking my appointment as the administrator of the estate of the late Philip Montreau, aka Christopher Gonda. Wasn’t that enough?
A week later the surrogate’s clerk called me. “You have indicated in the petition a Swiss address of the decedent.”
“Yes.”
“Did the decedent have any assets in Switzerland?”
“I think he
just had bank accounts.”
“You will most probably need ancillary letters of administration for a Swiss court. The Swiss banks will not honor a New York court’s order. You’ll have to convert it to become a Swiss court order as well.”
Nonetheless, he said, my appointment had been confirmed, and he faxed me a copy. In short order, I dispatched a locksmith to meet me at Nazeri’s apartment. The locksmith opened the door, replaced the lock, gave me a key, and left.
I entered the spacious three bedroom apartment. Nazeri had spent a lot of money on decor. Not to my taste, all these pink figurines and lace, but still expensive. I searched the apartment. It was clean. Too clean. I put on plastic gloves and looked around. I opened drawers and closets. Nothing. It was like a model apartment in a development for people of middling taste. There was nothing personal in the apartment, and there were no documents whatsoever, not even an old phone bill. The apartment was neat and tidy, as if the maid had just left, removing everything personal or made of pulp. I sighed. I’d have to send lab people to search for fingerprints.
I returned to my office and wrote a report to the file. Two days later the surrogate’s court issued the additional documents to be sent to Switzerland. After we had them approved with an apostille, that antiquated but still-necessary method of authenticating documents for transmission to foreign authorities, I sent them to Switzerland by registered mail. Boring, formal, but necessary.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A week later Dr. Liechtenstein, our Swiss attorney, faxed me the court’s decision. It took me some time to decipher the archaic German they used. I read it again and again until I understood that in fact the Swiss court had authorized the request of the New York City Surrogate’s Court to
order Tempelhof Bank to open their archives and provide the New York Surrogate Court’s appointed Administrator Herr Dan Gordon with copies of records of deposits and other transactions of the late Philip Montreau, also known as Christopher Gonda, who resided in Wehntalerstr. 215, CH-8057 Zürich, made or occurring between January 1, 1980, and December 31, 2005, at Tempelhof Bank, or for which Tempelhof Bank acted as a banking correspondent.
The order contained additional conditions and details, but I was already celebrating in my heart. I had managed to make another small step forward.
I called Dr. Liechtenstein in Zürich and asked to arrange my visit to inspect the documents.
“I’ve already talked to them. It will have to be at their storage facility,” he said. “I’m sorry—they tell me that the physical conditions there aren’t so good.”
Five days later I was in Zürich, my court-authorized appointments and travel documents having been fully vetted. “You never know with the Swiss authorities,” Bob Holliday had said. “They’re extremely fussy when U.S. government agents visit their country, even when the visit complies with a Swiss court’s order.”
I met Dr. Liechtenstein with the bank’s lawyer, and we traveled to Bern’s Manheim Document Storage company. There were an hour and a half of formalities, which included my execution of a confidentiality agreement, in case during the course of my search I was exposed to documents unrelated to Mr. Montreau, and therefore not included in the court’s order. I signed. Why should I care if I stumbled on secret deposits of this dictator or that thug? I raced through the formalities. I had one agenda: Chameleon and his Atashbon cohorts. I wouldn’t be distracted, not even by the bureaucratic hurdles put up by the young blond man who was assigned by the bank to help me. I knew he was in there to make sure I wasn’t sidestepping my court-approved gangway, which was like the one used to herd cattle to the slaughter. My gangway here was fitted with virtual sides, railings, and other means of protection, to prevent me from looking at any other documents. Here, I thought, I was the cattle.
I’d come prepared. Before leaving New York I had met with Special Agent Matt Kilburn of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Unit, whom I’d first met at the conference in Giverny, France. Matt had been working on the investigation of Nada Management, previously known as Al Taqwa, and provided me with excellent written and oral reports on the methods of its operation.
Heinrich Andrist, my chaperone, appointed by Tempelhof Bank, was a gentle person with a very polite demeanor.
“OK,” I said as all the lawyers left. “Let’s start with 1981. Can you tell me how these cartons are cata loged?”
“By account number and by our client number index.”
“Can I see the index?”
“I’m sorry, you can’t. It contains names and details of the bank’s customers, and that is protected by Swiss law.”
“Of course. Let’s look up by name. The decedent’s name was Christopher Gonda, and then Philip Montreau. He may have also used Reza Nazeri.”
“Of course, Herr Gordon,” he said patiently. He went to the third row of the eight-foot-tall heavy metal shelves, climbed a small stepladder, and pulled out a carton case.
“That’s Mr. Gonda’s file for 1981.”
I chose that year to begin my search, although I was almost certain I’d find nothing. But just in case, I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss anything.
I quickly ran my eyes over the yellowing documents. There were bank statements and deposit slips, telegraphic transfers and other documents. But there was nothing to quench my thirst or satisfy my hunger for pertinent facts. They were just old papers, seemingly irrelevant to my subject of interest. I need to see the buzzword Al Taqwa, or other similarly exciting leads telling me where the money went. An hour later I closed the box and shook my head.
“Nothing here,” I said. “Please bring the next box.”
Heinrich brought me 1982, then every year through 1987. Nothing. The documents represented typical bank accounts of a businessman who liked to travel and buy expensive gifts for himself. There were many transfers or withdrawals, but with all deposits made in cash, it was impossible to trace their origin or the source of his income. I made a record of significant outgoing transfers, all of them to other banks in Europe and the U.S. Hours went by. Heinrich looked at his watch; it was four thirty p.m. But he still said nothing.
“Please get me the 1988 box, and we’ll call it a day,” I said. He seemed relieved.
That box was bigger than the rest. As the flying dust reached my nose, I sneezed, and then, getting a better look, restrained myself from crying aloud. Lying atop the pile was a printed envelope of Al Taqwa. Inside were copies of seven wire transfers made from an Al Taqwa account in Lugano, Switzerland, through Tempelhof Bank to a McHanna Associates account at Manufacturers Hanover bank in New York. I quickly added up the amounts. They totaled approximately $7 million. The transfer orders were signed by Gonda. That was a strong indication that he had signature rights at Al Taqwa to move funds around.
I frantically leafed though the other documents in the box and felt like Ali Baba in the children’s story, breaking into the cave of the forty thieves and finding heaps of silver and gold, bales of silk and fine carpets. An inch deeper into the box, I found additional documents showing wire transfers from Gonda to Al Taqwa and from them to McHanna Associates, using Tempelhof Bank as a correspondent bank. Heinrich made me copies of the documents I selected. I signed a receipt and left.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven A.M.,” he said.
I returned to my hotel, ordered room service, and concentrated on reading the documents.
An alarm bell sounded. “Feuer, evakuieren Sie bitte alle Räume.…
Fire, please evacuate all rooms.” I opened my room door. People were running in the hallway. I didn’t see or smell fire or smoke. I looked out the window: there was no fire engine or any special activity in the street.
“Another fire drill,” I muttered. I’d already been through one in Islamabad—I should have been considered exempt. I was in shorts and a T-shirt and didn’t feel like leaving my room again. I had no intention of playing. I closed the door. Seconds later came a series of strong bangs on my door. I opened it.
A man with a flashlight and fireman’s hat said in a thick German accent, “You must to leave now.”
“What?” I asked, pretending not to understand.
“You must to leave,” he repeated.
Reluctantly I stepped into my pants, took my laptop and my personal documents, and went to the door. I stopped, turned around, and took the copies of the bank documents I’d had made at the storage facility. Maybe I could find a corner to go over them while this stupid, untimely drill was going on. The elevator door was blocked, and I had to use the stairs.
About a hundred people were in the lobby, some in night clothing and some wrapped in blankets. Twenty minutes later I heard, “Falsche Warnung”—false alarm, said the guy who had ousted me earlier from my room, as he entered the lobby. “Somebody pressed the alarm button. We shall report this to the police. It’s illegal to do that,” he announced in German, then repeated it in English. I had no patience or interest to hear the rest of the things he had to say and ran first to the elevator.
I opened my door and took a step back. My room had been ransacked—every drawer thrown open, the suitcase shaken out. I opened the door wide, placed a shoe to stop it from shutting, and gingerly walked inside. If the intruder was still inside my room, I didn’t want to be locked in with him. He could be armed, and there could be more than one intruder. I checked the bathroom and the closet. They were empty. I looked around. The bed linens were thrown on the floor, and my clothes in the closet were piled up in the corner. Somebody had pressed the fire-alarm button to get me out of my room.
The Chameleon Conspiracy Page 33
