Missing Man (34 page)

$20,000 in travel money
: Bob's contract was supplemented in September 2006 with extra travel money, apparently because he exhausted the original amount.

life aboard Hugo Chávez's presidential jet
: Analytical report from Bob to the Illicit Finance Group, September 22, 2006.

Iranian engineers had arrived
: Bob sent several reports about possible Iranian involvement in uranium mining in Venezuela to the Illicit Finance Group, including one on December 1, 2006.

“Yup! The 9th is definitely a go”
: Email from Anne to Bob, October 31, 2006. Other emails and reports indicate the meeting occurred on November 9, 2006.

Bob had also prepared a memo
: Bob wrote a memorandum for the Illicit Finance Group dated November 9, 2006, titled “Summary of On-Going Projects.” In it, he described several potential operations involving Iran.

“I'm attaching a document”
: Email from Bob to William McCausland, an FBI agent then stationed in Budapest, October 28, 2006.

Bob walked into the lobby
: Interview with Philip Scott Forbes, DEA agent.

Bob described the two Iranians
: Bob's reports to the Illicit Finance Group about his meetings in Istanbul with the two Iranians are dated December 8, 2006.

“This has got to be the REAL ‘welcome back' message”
: Email from Bob to Anne, December 12, 2006.

“Our friend, together with his wife”
: Email from Bob to FBI agent Timothy Chapman, December 9, 2006.

6. Christmas

“Sorry to have inundated your front yard”
: Email and memo from Bob to Anne, December 11, 2006.

“Minor problem. We're OUT”
: Email from Anne to Bob, December 13, 2006.

“Wanted to make sure”
: Email from Bob to Anne, December 14, 2006.

“Oh, Bobby”
: Email from Anne to Bob, December 14, 2006.

“T is losing faith”
: Email from Ken Rijock to Bob, January 14, 2007.

“I too am pissed off”
: Email from Bob to Ken Rijock, January 14, 2007.

“Enroute to your house”
: Email and memo from Bob to Anne, December 28, 2006.

“Manhunter”
: Dan Levinson told me about Tom Mangold's interest in writing a book about his father's career with that title.

The Litvinenko Mystery: Both the transcript of Tom Mangold's interview with Yuri Shvets and Bob and Shvets's report about Viktor Ivankov were filed as exhibits during the inquest in 2014 into Alexander Litvinenko's death. By the fall of 2015, that inquest had yet to issue a report. Andrei Lugovoi has denied any role in Litvinenko's murder.

“Can you give me any guidance”
: Memo from Bob to Anne, January 2, 2007.

“Brian and Tim?”
: Email from Anne to Bob, January 4, 2007.

“Thanks for the update”
: Email from Bob to Anne, January 4, 2007.

“Hey Toots”
: Email from Bob to Anne, January 10, 2007.

“Hope they find YOU some travel money”
: Email from Bob to Anne, January 10, 2007.

“Look out!”
: Email from Bob to Anne, January 13, 2007.

“Planning now to fly into DC”
: Email from Bob to Anne, January 14, 2007.

“You've got to stop this shit”
: Interview with Anne Jablonski.

“The first package came”
: Email from Anne to Bob, January 27, 2006.

“Greetings from Paris”
: Email from Bob to Anne, January 29, 2007.

“We don't have much money left”
: Email from Global Witness to Bob, January 29, 2007.

“I know the pressure is on”
: Email from Bob to Global Witness, January 29, 2007.

“I don't know if our friend has changed his mind”
: Email from Bob to Ira, January 31, 2007.

“Whatever works for you”
: Email from Ira to Bob, January 31, 2007.

7. The Black Dahlia

Bob and Chris rarely fought
: Chris described how Bob told her he needed to take a “side trip” for Uncle Sam while in Dubai.

“
TO
: Tim”
: Bob's memo addressed to Tim Sampson was sent as an attachment in an email to Anne, February 5, 2007. It was the only document in Bob's files I saw that was addressed directly to Sampson.

he and Chris drove to a Best Buy
: Chris described shopping with Bob for gifts for a source.

“I wish I were hitting the stores”
: Email from Ira to Bob, February 7, 2007.

“Dear Mr. Levinson”
: A copy of the fake BAT letter was among the documents contained in Bob's files. When I contacted officials of the company about it, they pointed out its mistakes.

“When I speak with him next”
: Email from Ira to Bob, February 13, 2007.

“Leaving tomorrow for Geneva and Dubai”
: Email from Bob to Anne, February 12, 2007.

“The contracts people are NOT yet looped in”
: Email from Anne to Bob, February 12, 2007.

“Hey, sorry about that”
: Email from Bob to Anne, February 12, 2007.

“NO problem”
: Email from Anne to Bob, February 12, 2007.

D'Arcy Quinn
: Quinn declined to be interviewed for this book. His departure from Philip Morris is described in a lawsuit he filed in New York against the tobacco company. It was settled out of court.

Bob's former FBI supervisor
: James Moody, who clashed with Bob and Larry Sweeney over the informant Michael Orlando, apparently harbored a long-running grudge against him. Moody made his remarks about Bob's performance in the Mikhailov case in Robert I. Friedman's book
Red Mafiya.

“Uncle Ira”
: Email from Bob to Ira, February 16, 2007.

“Not easy to assess this one”
: Email from Ira to Bob, February 17, 2007.

“Our guy just called”
: Email from Ira to Bob, February 17, 2007.

“Thanks so much”
: Email from Bob to Ira, February 18, 2007.

“Have been concentrating”
: Email from Dawud to Ira, February 18, 2007.

“Hey hey!!”
: Email from Anne to Bob, February 20, 2007.

“A lot of what we discussed”
: Dawud's article, “An Expat's Letter from Iran: A Super Cop, a Revolutionary Prosecutor and Dumb Diplomacy,” was published on Joe Trento's website on February 9, 2007.

“He's obviously a brilliant guy”
: Email from Bob to Ira, February 25, 2007.

“OOH! Excellent”
: Email from Anne to Bob, March 2, 2007.

“My guys are very, very close”
: Email from Bob to Anne, March 2, 2007.

“You hit a home run”
: Email from Anne to Bob, March 2, 2007.

“Message received”
: Email from Bob to Anne, March 2, 2007.

8. An Appointment on Kish

He filled a small roll-on bag
: A U.S. official who requested anonymity described Bob's departure from his Dubai hotel.

Dubai proved to be a bust
: Interview with the Global Witness official who requested anonymity.

“I've been a good, quiet boy”
: Email from Bob to John Moscow, March 6, 2007.

“Off today for that place”
: Email from Bob to Ira, March 8, 2007.

“Bob, so good to have your words”
: Email from Ira to Bob, March 8, 2007.

Upon landing, his plane taxied
: I was unable to visit Kish, so my description of it and its airport is based on information provided by a fellow journalist.

“Bob, how are you doing?”
: Email from Ira to Bob, March 9, 2007.

9. The Missing Man

On Saturday, March 10
: The description of the day when Bob's family and others became aware of his disappearance is based on interviews with Chris Levinson, several of her children, Dave McGee, Ira Silverman, and others.

Paul Myers
: Myers, the first agent on the Levinson case, did not respond to repeated efforts to interview him for this book. His comments and the actions attributed to him are based on interviews with people to whom he spoke.

the closest FBI official
: The closest FBI official near Dubai at the time of Bob's disappearance was Daniel Roggenbach, who was the bureau's attaché at the U.S. embassy in Abu Dhabi. After
The New York Times
in December 2013 ran a lengthy article I wrote about Bob's case, Roggenbach posted a comment in a law enforcement chat room taking strong exception with the article's implication that the FBI's initial investigation had lagged. Roggenbach, who has since left the FBI, refused to be interviewed for this book or respond to written questions about what actions, if any, he took.

Two of the investigators went to the Dubai Marriott
: A former U.S. official who requested anonymity described how investigators broke into Bob's bag.

she walked into a Langley bathroom
: Interview with Anne Jablonski.

Moody called Larry Sweeney
: Interview with Larry Sweeney.

When Chris told Myers
: Interview with Chris Levinson.

“I'm looking at tasking memos”
: Interview with a former FBI official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“Those sons of bitches have lied to us”
: Ibid.

10. One of Their Own

“I don't think he is missing”
: “Fugitive Says He Met Missing Ex
–
FBI Agent in Iran,”
Financial Times
, April 13, 2007.

Frontline
refused to air
: Interview with Neil Docherty. The
Fifth Estate
documentary about Iran aired in Canada with Dawud in it.

“Do you know about Highway 407?”
: Interview with Linden MacIntyre.

“To the best of my knowledge”
: Email from Dawud to Thomas Cauffiel, April 19, 2007.

Trento considered Ira's omission intentional
: Interview with Joe Trento. Despite his antagonism toward Ira, Trento urged Dawud to lobby Iranian officials to release Bob and offered to come to Iran to get him.

“Iran is dissembling”
: Joe Trento's article about Bob's reason for going to Kish was published on his website on April 20, 2007.

“One acquaintance of both Levinson and Silverman”
: Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, “Terror Watch: The Case of the Missing Agent,”
Newsweek
, April 25, 2007; updated on April 26 to include Ira's comments.

many former FBI agents
: A number of former FBI agents interviewed for this book were appalled by the bureau's lack of initiative in the early part of the Levinson investigation.

Good called Paul Myers
: Interview with John Good.

Myers told Ira his supervisors had denied
: Interview with Ira Silverman.

The FBI would not send agents
: Interview with a former U.S. official based in Dubai who requested anonymity.

“I was told this morning”
: Email from Dawud to Joe Trento, April 30, 2007.

“My CIA sources”
: Email from Joe Trento to Dawud, April 30, 2007.

“People can think what they like”
: Email from Dawud to Joe Trento, May 2, 2008.

11. The Merchant of Death

“He did it for the oldest”
: Ira Silverman and Fredric Dannen wrote about Dave's prosecution of F. Lee Bailey in a
New Yorker
article, “A Complicated Life,” March 11, 1996.

Her first interview
: Chris's interview with Diane Sawyer was broadcast on
Good Morning America
, August 6, 2007.

“Perhaps the one good point”
: Email from Dawud to Chris, August 29, 2007.

the bureau sent Scotland Yard a copy
: Interview with officials of British American Tobacco.

“Mila”
: Jamie Smith devoted a chapter of his autobiography,
Gray Work: Confessions of an American Paramilitary Spy
(William Morrow, 2015), to SCG International's work on the Levinson case. In the book, he called the female operative who visited the Maryam hotel “Mila.”

She spoke with the hotel's manager
: The report written by Mila about her visit to Kish and the Maryam is dated September 23, 2007.

In his heyday, Soghanalian
: My description of Sarkis Soghanalian is based on several sources, including
The New York Times
,
The Washington Post
, and television documents. Lowell Bergman, a former
60 Minutes
producer and
Times
reporter, introduced me to Soghanalian. I met with him in early 2008 at his home in Miami and spoke with him on numerous occasions. He was an engaging storyteller, though I believed he was spinning tales about Bob for his own purposes.

“You need that comfort”
: Soghanalian made this comment in a documentary I found on YouTube called
Merchants of War
.

the “Supernote”
: Richard Gregorie described Soghanalian's role in identifying the source of the near-perfect counterfeit.

“My dear wife and friends”
: Email from “Osman.Muhamad” to Chris, Ira, and other recipients, August 6, 2007.

“Some input my colleagues gave me”
: Email from Jonathan Beery to Suzanne Halpin, August 31, 2007.