The Reluctant Assassin Box Set Page 11

  “The other thing is that our informants in the mosque said that the photos were circulated by the imam himself. They don’t know where he got them, but he had men distribute them with the story that German intelligence was looking for Sofia.”

  “Klaus had to be behind that,” Atcho added, “and when the effort failed, he went to ground. He’d figure that my being here is a setup, and he wasn’t going to play ball.”

  “Hey,” Horton cut in, his eyes twinkling. “You just used a gringo expression.”

  “I’ve been hanging around you way too much.” Atcho smiled wryly, deep in thought. “Where would Klaus keep his money? How would he move it?”

  “Good thought,” Burly said. “Where are you going with it?”

  “Well, he can’t keep the cash in the duffle bags forever, and he’s done some expensive things, like getting his shoulder rebuilt. How did he move his money?”

  “He’d use a hawala,” Horton answered.

  “A what?”

  Horton explained the workings of a hawala. “They have to be honest. They’re trusted for other things besides just moving money. They forward documents, arrange introductions… Really, they can provide almost any service off the record.”

  “He’s right,” Sofia said. “I’ve never encountered them, but I know about them. Burly probably does too.”

  “Yep,” Burly agreed. “The doctor could have taken cash, but if Klaus is going to do much traveling or buying big ticket items, he’ll have to have a way of securing the funds and circulating them. At some point, he’ll have to move some of it into the traditional banking system.”

  “Time for Detective Berger to bust some chops,” Horton chimed in. “With that kind of dough, if Klaus is using a hawala, he could already be socializing in higher circles—if you catch my meaning. Klaus might have tricked the imam, but he was still involved. If Berger doesn’t want to get tough, leave it to me. I’ll get the job done.”

  Atcho smiled. “I’m sure you could.”

  “Let’s do this,” Burly said. “Atcho, at your press brief tomorrow evening, announce that you’ll take the next day off. Say you’re going to take a day or two to analyze the merits of what you’ve already seen. That’ll relieve pressure from abusing the business community.

  “Sofia, get to Berger. Run by him everything we’ve discussed. I’ll talk with him to impress on him that we need to know whatever the doctor and the imam know.

  “Major Horton keep your informants active and see if they turn up anything. If Berger doesn’t come through, we’ll turn you loose. Germany might be unified, but we still hold Four Powers Agreement authority there.”

  “Geez, sir.” Horton chuckled. “Are we going formal now? The name’s Joe. And you’re right. I can still do secret squirrel stuff here.”

  “Got it, Joe. Is everyone on board with that?”

  Horton slapped his hand down on the table with a loud smack. “We’re on it, sir, like—well, you pick your own metaphor. I mean simile.”

  15

  The next day, Sofia contacted Atcho in the field around noon. “Get back here as soon as you can.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked, alarmed.

  “I’m fine, but we’ve heard from Detective Berger. He has information that’s critical. He’ll join us here with a guy from German intel.”

  Two hours later, Atcho, Sofia, Horton, Berger, and the German intelligence officer met in the conference room and dialed in Burly. After greetings, Berger introduced his colleague. He spoke with a slight Germanic accent but with excellent use of English. “This is Gerhardt of the Bundesnachrichtendienst. You know it as our Federal Intelligence Service, and we just call it the BND. Gerhardt’s been following a case we think is the same one you’ve been investigating, and it might be linked to the murder we talked about. He’ll fill you in.”

  Gerhardt spoke with an almost identical accent in stilted English. “We are familiar with this man, Klaus. He spent days at the Stasi headquarters several months ago. He claimed to be with the IAEA and said he was searching for anyone who has ever been involved in a nuclear program. There would not be many people like that, but he was interested to the point of raising questions about why he would be so diligent. One of our volunteers contacted the IAEA and was told there was no such person in the organization. So, our offices were called in.

  “I am afraid several days passed before the report was seen and acted on. By that time, Klaus had disappeared. However, we were able to reconstruct his search. He marked five names in the records. Of those, three moved out of East Berlin to somewhere else. One of the five died, and one lives on the east side of Berlin. His name is Rayner.

  “One of our officers visited Rayner and showed him Klaus’ photo. Rayner positively identified Klaus, who visited him several times.”

  “Tremendous work,” Burly exclaimed. “Does Rayner know where to find him?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Gerhardt replied. “Klaus represented himself as a researcher for the IAEA and wanted Rayner’s professional opinion of the contents of a suitcase. Klaus said he’d found it in the office of the Stasi director.”

  While Gerhardt was still talking, Burly groaned audibly through the speaker. Atcho, Sofia, and Horton exchanged glances. “That ain’t a good thing,” Horton broke in.

  “No,” Gerhardt said. He related the rest of Rayner’s conversation with Klaus, that the suitcase contained a viable nuclear bomb. It had to be rewired to detonate. It contained plutonium and had no real fail-safe. “Here’s the worst part. Rayner showed Klaus how the wiring had to be redone, and,” he paused, arching his eyebrows, “Rayner confirmed to Klaus that the design was simple enough that it could be replicated. He could copy it as many times as he had resources to do so.”

  The room became deathly quiet.

  “Rayner is a retired nuclear engineer,” Gerhardt continued. “He lives alone and enjoyed the conversation. He thought he was helping the IAEA. He told us that most of the parts could be made in a machine shop. The rest, the electronic items and the battery, were off the shelf. That leaves getting the plutonium.”

  Again, the room descended into silence. Horton broke it with lathered Texas twang. “I got two points to make. I want y’all to remember that I’m just a country boy and don’t know much, but that ain’t one of my points.

  “I think we got this Klaus guy figured out. We know he’s got money, he’s got a bomb, he has the smarts to rewire it, and he knows he can make more—if he can get the nuclear stuff to make them go boom. If he’s still messing with the one he’s got, he’s thinking about targets. We need to figure out what the most likely ones are.

  “The second thing is that he usually sticks close to the mosque. His contacts come through there. I think he’s after jihad—he ain’t basking in the Bahamas. He’s figuring out where he believes he can do the most good for Islam.

  “The other thing is, how’s he going to get more nuclear material and how’s he going to pay for it? I mean, how’s he going to locate the stuff and what’s his mechanism for moving payment? I’d bet that holy guy in the mosque knows who his hawaladar is.”

  He paused with his finger under his chin as if in thought. “Huh, I guess that was three more things. Oh well, one more won’t hurt.” He grinned. “As I recall, we’re having these meetings because of chatter about nuclear stuff in Berlin. My guess is that if we take another gander at those conversations and press Dr. Burakgazi and the imam, we’re likely to get some answers.”

  He paused again, this time, his face deadly serious. “We ain’t got much time. Klaus had months to get the plutonium. The chatter was heavy, but it’s died down, and we ain’t heard nothing from him in two days. He’s on his way to do whatever he’s doing, and,” he gestured at Atcho, “no offense, but you’re second fiddle as his target right now.”

  To Atcho, the atmosphere felt like the silence before a thunderclap. He scraped his chair and leaned forward. “Joe, you hit the nail on the head,” he said slowly. He looked
at the others in the room. “What are the next steps?”

  “For starters,” Burly intoned over the speaker, “Atcho, drop the site tours. We’ll make that scenario quietly go away. We need to pick up the pace. Detective Berger and Gerhardt, can the two of you do whatever it takes in Germany to pull in the doctor and the imam and find out what they know?”

  “We’ve already taken steps,” Berger responded. “A murder was committed. Both men could be material witnesses. We’ll be interrogating them before the day is out.”

  “Good. Joe, I’ll make phone calls to put you in touch with the specific signal intelligence people who picked up the chatter. Going through all of that will be grunt work, but it has to be done. In particular, we need to know where the noise originated.”

  “We also picked it up,” Gerhardt cut in. “I’ll put our analysts in touch to work with yours.”

  The group reconvened the next day in a larger room at Berlin Brigade headquarters, joined by a mixed group of American and German signal intelligence analysts poring over transcripts of telephone conversations. Some listened intently to replay devices.

  “What do we have?” Burly asked, joining by phone.

  “We interrogated both the doctor and the imam overnight,” Berger replied. “Burakgazi was cooperative. He’s a nice man who takes his doctor’s oath seriously. When we showed him the photo of Klaus, he immediately identified him as a patient. He confirmed having repaired Klaus’ shoulder. He said Klaus had almost fully recovered and had concentrated the last couple of months on regaining strength. The doctor hasn’t seen him since a few days ago when Klaus came to meet a woman named Ranim Kuti. Her husband needed similar surgery and she wanted to talk to him about it. She never showed up.”

  Atcho, Sofia, and Horton exchanged glances. They volunteered no explanation.

  “One interesting comment that Burakgazi made was that Klaus was very interested in the war in Kuwait. He wanted to know which side the doctor would support. They had light discussion about it. Klaus asked whether supporting Iraq or Kuwait offered the greatest ability to harm infidels.”

  To Atcho, the air seemed suddenly charged with electricity. He sat bolt upright. “That makes sense,” he said. “He could potentially throw the war one way or the other. If he has more than one bomb, he could explode them where the main coalition forces are deployed. That’s his best shot at waging jihad.”

  “Not so fast, hotdog,” Horton replied. “Sorry to throw a damp towel on that thought. The last time we sighted Klaus was the day before Desert Shield started. That was coincidental. At the time, no one knew it would start the next day. Right now, Saddam’s forces are hunkered down and praying to make it back home.”

  “You might both be right,” Sofia interjected. “We need to think about what’s over there that Klaus could get to. If he could hit the US somehow to breathe new life into Saddam’s ambitions, that’s the best way he could help his notions of Islam. If that’s where he’s going, he would have specific targets in mind.”

  “Agreed,” Burly said, “but how would Klaus deliver a bomb in Kuwait? Getting into the war zone isn’t easy. Let’s not get so focused on Kuwait that we ignore other possibilities.”

  “Excuse me, let me brief you on the imam,” Gerhardt interrupted in his formal manner. “That might give more perspective. We jointly questioned him with Detective Berger. The imam was not so cooperative, although he thought he was helping BND by circulating Miss Sofia’s photo. That is what Klaus told him. That is why the people in Little Istanbul tried to detain her.

  “We had to exert considerable pressure on him, but he finally admitted to having introduced Klaus to a hawaladar, a man named Kadir. We questioned Kadir as well but getting information was difficult. His business relies on confidentiality. At first, he refused to speak with us, but when we pointed out that we could tell the public he cooperated with the police and the BND, he became much more helpful.

  “He conceded that Klaus had deposited nearly five million dollars with him. Klaus ordered reports and photos of Atcho and Sofia through him. He procured the photo of Sofia that was circulated in Little Istanbul. He said two other things of note. Klaus transferred half a million dollars into a regular bank account and wire-transferred it to a bank in Switzerland. Swiss authorities have so far not cooperated in tracking down who owns that account. Klaus also arranged to pick up the same amount in American dollars in Paris.”

  “That’s got to be payment for more plutonium,” Sofia breathed.

  “Anything else?” Burly asked.

  “Yes, one more thing,” Gerhardt replied. “Klaus asked Kadir to make introductions to another hawaladar in Tripoli, Libya. He transferred all his money there.”

  16

  Klaus watched the news with frustration. More than a week had passed since the US had launched its air attack against Saddam, and from his perspective, the war was not going well. He had flown out of Berlin the evening of D-Day, his chartered Lear taking him to Heraklion on the isle of Crete. His only reason for that destination was that it was away from Berlin and no pursuer could use logical rationale to trace him there.

  He had picked the island at random. When he said that his destination was Riyadh, the pilot pointed out that his aircraft would have to refuel. The distance was out of range without a stop and getting into the Kingdom was difficult because of the war. He offered several alternatives, Crete among them. While in flight, Klaus decided to stay for at least a day to think carefully without the pressure of evading authorities.

  The pilot was familiar with procedures and personnel at the airport in Heraklion. A few dollars slipped in the right places allowed Klaus’ five suitcases through customs without difficulty. Then, while the pilot flew out, Klaus found a small hotel and spent the next day catching up on sleep.

  When he rose early in the afternoon the next day, he acquired maps of the Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern countries. He spent that evening studying them and researching alternative routes into Riyadh and the areas near the coalition forces.

  Although a Muslim, Klaus knew little about the geography of the Middle East. Most of his life had been oriented around Chechnya and its subjugation by the godless Soviet Union. Therefore, he had always looked to the northwest. Kuwait, his area of current interest, lay fourteen hundred miles due south of his homeland and fifteen hundred miles southeast of Crete.

  He took a break and went to dinner. He had not determined the next leg of his route or a timetable. In spite of his mission, the beauty of Heraklion and the charm of its streets captured him. Chechen life could be like this, if we could break Soviet chains.

  He was not surprised at the loose attire of people in the streets. He had become accustomed to similar dress in Berlin after the Wall fell. He tolerated the clothing and otherwise enjoyed the friendliness of people and welcomed a chance to rest his mind. Maybe I’ll stay a few days.

  Night descended. Klaus found a quiet restaurant with a pleasant aroma. He took the opportunity to eat and catch up on news from a television on the wall. Despite the agreeable setting, anger surged as he watched nonstop reports of continued US and coalition bombing of Iraq. The young pilots nonchalantly describing their heroics to gaggles of reporters more eager than litters of puppies galled him. The endless footage of laser-guided munitions blowing targets into dust with pinpoint precision fed his fury.

  Still, Klaus found life in Crete’s sun to be invigorating. His shoulder continued to heal and gain strength and mobility. He decided to stay until he was back to full health. He had entered the country under an unused alias, so he was not concerned about detection.

  After a few days, he set a regimen of working out and running along the beach early in the mornings, eating lunch at favorite restaurants, enjoying the seawater for most of the afternoon, and watching the news in the evenings. The latter activity he limited to as much as he could take before once more becoming infuriated.

  Frustration pervaded the group as its members met yet again at Berlin Brig
ade headquarters. Klaus seemed to have vanished. A week had passed, and the last sign anyone had of him was Kadir’s statement that Klaus had moved his money to Tripoli. They had checked all the commercial flights going anywhere, in particular to Libya, but nothing turned up. Operatives in the country detected no trace of him. Chatter regarding “Berlin,” “suitcase,” “nuclear,” and “bomb” had died.

  The business community grudgingly accepted Atcho’s explanation that the US Commerce Department had held up licensing for export of his company’s technology. Invitations to social functions fell to a trickle, a factor that Atcho welcomed.

  Detective Berger pressed hard enough on the imam that he learned where Klaus had lived, but the apartment had been vacated. When shown Klaus’ photo, few neighbors admitted to having ever seen him and divulged that several men had lived in the apartment. The few who spoke of seeing Klaus would not acknowledge knowing any of the other men or where they had gone. No one hinted at the source of Klaus’ money. When asked about Sofia’s photo, most claimed no knowledge of it. Those who admitted seeing it said it had come from the imam in an effort to help the BND catch a terrorist.

  Gerhardt, the BND officer, had no better luck. Neither Rayner nor the doctor had any more information to add to their statements, and nothing new had come in from signal intelligence. No one from the US side had any new insights.

  “Let’s go over everything again,” Burly’s disembodied voice said over the speaker when all were assembled. “We know he has money, that he spent a million dollars in the same place. We know he was here in Berlin, that his shoulder has been repaired and he was mending well. What else?”

  “He figured out that the original bomb had no fail-safe on it,” Horton kicked in, “and Rayner showed him how to rewire it.”

  “We assume he bought more plutonium to make more bombs,” Sofia added, “but that’s pure speculation. What’s the going price for plutonium on the black market anyway? Anyone know?” Sofia looked around the room at blank stares. “Here’s a thought,” she continued. “If he were going to make more bombs, he would need to have some parts of them fabricated. How about if we get Rayner to give us a sketch of the bomb and any component part he remembers. If we went around to the machine shops, we might find one or more that made those parts for him.”