Defection Games (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thriller) (8 page)

“Inside the folder you’ll find your new European passport, credit cards, family photos, and pocket debris. You also have an electronic ticket confirmation for a United Airlines flight out of Dulles International Airport.”

“Please put me on another airline,” I said, "I don't fly United, and anyway, I want to fly from New York, not Dulles. I need to run some errands with my children and dog in New York."

“There’s a direct flight from JFK
A
irport with Emirates. You’ll be undercover. So federal government rules about flying a U.S
.
flag carrier won’t apply. Should I book you on that flight?”

“Good, please do.”

All went as planned. I went home, kissed my children goodbye over dinner, made dog-sitting arrangements for Snap, and returned to the airport to catch my flight to Dubai. And so here I was, leaning back in my too-narrow plane seat, crunching dry crackers, thinking what a fitting cryptonym “
Tempest
” was for the operation. I expected
Tempest
to start quietly and end with a bang.

My favorite Beethoven Piano Sonata, No. 17 in D minor, nicknamed ‘
Tempest
,’ also alternates between peacefulness and unexpected turbulence turning into a storm.

As we approached Dubai’s international airport, I could see the famous palm-tree shaped man-made island, with its glittering villas for the rich and famous on each side. They look like something you’d see in South Beach, only whiter, much taller, much grander — all against the blue sea water on one side, and an empty desert backdrop on the other, like some kind of mirage. As I exited the sleek airport terminal, a wave of hot air hit my face. It was a fifteen-minute cab ride to the Hyatt Regency Hotel on the Deira Corniche, overlooking the Arab Gulf at the mouth of Dubai Creek.

“Welcome, Mr. Van der Hoff,” a neatly and modestly dressed receptionist smiled at me. She quickly gave me my room key card.
Hearing her use my new name was strange.
”You’ll have to get used to it
,
as you did many times before, to other odd names assigned to you
,” declared my little inner devil as I walked to the elevator. I’m now Jaap Van der Hoff, a trader in electronic spare parts with an office in Rotterdam, and an apartment in Paris, where I rarely stay because my business requires constant travel. I roam Europe and the Middle East looking for business opportunities. Divorced, two adult children. One lives in my Paris apartment while he attends the Sorbonne University.

I had a delicious dinner at the hotel's Al Dawaar, a 25th floor revolving restaurant. The views of the Arabian Gulf, the Creek, and the city of Dubai were spectacular. On one side, the black glassy water; the ancient desert horizon behind it cut by sharp palms. On the other, Dubai—filled with sleek metal and glass structures, whirring and lit, like some self-generating machine. On the following day, playing the part, I scheduled an appointment with the manager of United Gulf Trust, a private banking subsidiary of the Swiss Alpes Bank and Trust.

“My letter of introduction,” I said, handing him a sealed envelope. Hamid Al Zarwai invited me to take a seat in his palatial office. He was a trim man in his late 40s, with salt-and-pepper hair and wearing a dark, superbly-tailored lightweight wool suit with a vest. His small, gold-rimmed glasses gave him an
almost academic air. The temperature outside was 100F, but the windows were tinted and his office was cool.

He quickly read the letter that Eric had arranged. It was on the letterhead of Templehof Bank, Zurich, a Swiss bank secretly controlled by the Mossad as its proprietary company, without the Swiss government’s or the bank management’s knowledge.

“What can I do for you?” Hamid Al Zarwai asked in a polite tone. His English was British, and he sounded like the product of a private school.

“I own a company trading in electronic components for industrial use, and I’m closely affiliated with a much bigger company,” I said. “We are looking for a way to,” I paused, as if looking for the right word, “penetrate into the Iranian market, without alienating the Americans.” I waited for his reaction, but he just continued listening.  The buzz words, ‘
alienating the Americans,’
delivered the message that the type of trade I had in mind was embargoed. It could mean business that violated the laws against sponsoring terror, or those against nuclear proliferation, or even both. I was very familiar with the rules of the U.S Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and I had no doubt that he, too, shared that knowledge.

Al Zarwai nodded, expressionless, his eyes on me. I was sure I had his attention.

“I need your help to assess how to go about it. We have very strong ties with German, Belgian, and Dutch manufacturing companies. They had previously traded with Iran but had to stop under international pressure. However, they now realize that Chinese and Russian companies came in their place, and the sky didn’t fall. I think these manufacturing companies would agree to resume their exports to Iran if they could be guaranteed safe passage, to keep them out of hot water with their own governments as well as the U.S government. They conduct substantial trade with U.S companies and, for obvious reasons, don’t want their plans to resume trading with Iran to wind up being public knowledge. I myself have nothing to lose by pissing off the Americans—my company operates out of Europe and has no American interests—but unfortunately the companies we represent could lose many millions if they wind up blacklisted by the U.S government.”

“I understand,” he said, very calm, very cool, still his face remained expressionless. Had I piqued his interest? His eyes betrayed nothing; he had an excellent poker face, but his body language betrayed his effort to express no emotion. He
was
interested.

I went on. “European newspapers have written quite a lot recently about how the American government is banning American banks from doing any business with Iranian banks. So when I was talking to my affiliated companies about potential business with Iran, the first question they asked me was, how do you prevent business with Iran from being identified by the U.S
.
? Can we use European banks without branches or ties with the U.S
.
to avoid trouble?” I was trying to convey that I knew that the U.S
.
Treasury had compiled a list of Iran’s major banks, such as Saderat, Bank Melli, and Sepah, and had blacklisted them along with many other banks and individuals, so, obviously, these banks are out.

"Why?" he asked, again with placid eyes. Although I was certain he knew the answer.

"Because the European companies we work with insist upon receiving letters of credit and bank wire transfers for the goods sold. They know that the U.S
.
is monitoring the world’s banking activities to detect illegal trade with Iran in violation of U.S
.
and U.N
.
sanctions, and they don't want to get caught doing business with Iran. The U.S
.
reaction is likely to be — well, painful.” I paused, waiting for a comment from that Sphinx, but he just sat there nodding his head without saying anything.

A moment later, he finally reacted. Slow gears? Or did something about me finally click? He’d sized me up and liked what he saw? 

“Don’t worry,” he said almost casually as he took his glasses off. He began cleaning them with a lens wipe. “We use intermediary banks for these purposes. Iranian banks know how to do it.”

I knew what they were doing: “stripping” — asking intermediary foreign banks to remove any markers of the transactions’ ties to Iran or to Iranian banks.

“As you must know, Mr. Van der Hoff, we like to help our customers meet their legitimate goals. I think that what you are looking for is possible. However, that is not the type of business we do.”

Our research had definitely shown his bank as being active in financing hush exports to Iran, and now he was playing hard to get? When he saw my slightly raised eyebrows, he added, “We finance transactions, issue letters of credit and other documentary financing. Regarding all other aspects of your commercial relationship, I suggest you meet Mr. Kamiar Nemati.” That name sounded very Iranian to me. Nonetheless, his extra cautiousness was obvious and understood. He couldn’t risk his
bank and its Swiss parent by discussing ways and means to bypass U.N
.
sanctions with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who barged into his office, particularly when the visitor could be a U.S
.
government agent, like me.

“Who is Mr. Nemati?”

“The very respectable president of Cross Gulf Trading Ltd., a Dubai company specializing in trade with Iran.”

“Thank you, please make the introduction,” I requested.

“With pleasure. Please give me your business card. I’ll have Mr. Nemati contact you.”

I gave him my business card and wrote on its back my hotel’s telephone number. “I’ll be in Dubai for another week, if he could call me.”

He got up. I shook his hand and left. Outside his office, I wiped my hand on a tissue. Al Zarwai’s hands had been clammy.

VI

January 2007 - Dubai

If I was being monitored, and I was certain that I was, I was satisfied that I’d taken the first step to make my visit look
legitimate, doing what a trader was expected to do. And if suspected of being a foreign agent, my conduct could not support that. It was time to move to the next step. It was part of my “trader” legend. It was also the real purpose of my trip. I went to ‘We Forward Unlimited.’ According to the Dubai postal records, this company owned the postal box that the third letter to the Consulate gave as a point of contact.

‘We Forward Unlimited’ occupied half of the third floor of a modern office building
in a commercial area filled with similar buildings, one giant gleaming office park. More than ten people were working in an office with sleek leather couches in the waiting area. Everything here, just as in the rest of Dubai, seemed hyper-modern. The air conditioning was glacial.  A quick glance down a large hallway showed state of the art computer equipment.
     A man dressed in typical Arab garb—a tunic, in his case bright white with blue trim—but without the
kaffiyeh
headdress, welcomed me.

“Welcome, Sir, how can I help you?”

"I need office services--"

"Please follow me." He brought me to a small office with glass walls.

“I frequent Dubai several times a year on business and intend to increase my presence here in the future. However, I don’t have a local office where I can pick up my mail. I don’t really need an actual office in Dubai for the time being, but I want my Dubai address on my business cards and letterhead to look respectable.”

“We are perfectly fit for your needs, Sir," he answered immediately. "You can use our street address or our post office box.”

“Can you tell me a little more about how it works? Thing is I travel constantly and don’t want to risk missing any business opportunities.”

“No problem, Sir, here's how it works. First, you pick an address.”

“Well as I said, I don’t have an address here, that’s the problem. I stay at a hotel each time I visit.” I played the confused businessman who keeps asking questions.

He smiled patiently. “We can provide you with an address in Dubai. You may also want to consider our services in other countries as well. We can help you with the same address service in any of the Gulf States, in some European countries, and even
in the U.S. You can give any of these addresses to your business contacts, if you need more than one address.”

“I think a local post office box is better. I don’t want to be embarrassed if someone actually comes to your office and realizes it isn’t mine.”

“Not a problem, you can use our POB address.”

“Do you have only one?”

“In Dubai? Yes.”

“Tell me about your mail procedures.”

“When we receive your mail, Sir, you decide what mail gets opened, scanned, emailed, and recycled, or forwarded to you by postal mail unopened. When we receive mail addressed to you, we first scan the sealed
envelope, and post the image on a website that only you will be able to access by entering a password. If you wish to delete the image, you can do that with a click of the mouse. You can also leave us a message on the website to scan the contents of the envelope and email them to you. Once you read the contents, you can delete or print it anywhere. See, the great thing about our service is that no matter where you are in the world, you can read your mail. You don’t need an email address to receive important mail, you know,” he said in a low, confiding
tone, “email boxes can be hacked and business opportunities stolen, because your business rivals will know where to look. But with our system nobody, but you and we, knows that you have a dedicated website where you can read, delete, or print your mail.”

“What do you do with the originals after scanning?”

“We follow our clients’ instructions, of course. Forward to another location, keep them in our archives until the client comes to pick them up, or shred them.