The Tsunami File (8 page)

Delaney had helped CSIS out with various assignments since Burma, some of which also yielded for public consumption good, if necessarily somewhat incomplete, news or feature stories. He had investigated for them the Canadian trucking industry and the incessant southward flow of vehicles, most never properly searched for contraband or for illegal migrants, crossing Canada's land borders into the United States. And he had helped them with some sting operations in Europe, posing as a reporter interviewing Canadian businessmen and scientists in bugged hotel rooms abroad to help CSIS find out who was behind the wave of industrial espionage that was increasingly part of the spy service brief.

They also took a keen interest in his book on the Vatican intelligence service, something he had sworn to write ever since his ill-fated Mazovia assignment in 1995. It had taken almost seven years to find the information he required and also to find the detachment he required to do the writing job. The book caused an initial stir and immediate fierce denials by the Vatican
curia
of any wrongdoing by their agents, rogue or otherwise. Then it sank with dismal sales and little lasting trace.

But the book had helped put an end to his obsession with Natalia. Kate Hunter had helped him end that obsession too—and his research proved helpful to CSIS. Or so they said. They, too, had had unanswered questions about a covert Vatican operation on Canadian soil—whether approved officially or not—that left a CSIS agent, as well as Delaney's then-lover, dead.

He was to meet Jonah Smith for a final briefing before the interview with Braithwaite, and only at that stage would he decide if he needed any information or insights from Rawson and CSIS in Ottawa to help him figure out what exactly was going on in Phuket. Delaney left the Metropole mid-morning the next day. The three desk girls at the hotel never seemed to have time off. They looked approximately 14 years of age, they were always impeccably dressed in beige Metropole skirts and vests, and they always broke into giggles when Delaney or any other
farang
visitor approached them for messages or information. Today was no different.

“No message, no message, Mr. D,” said the desk girl with
Lek
inscribed on her name tag. Her colleagues thought this indescribably amusing.

“No message from your wife, Mr. D,” Lek said. “Too sad. So sorry for you.”

“No wife for Mr. D,” Delaney said. “So no message no problem.”

This sent the desk girls into further spasms of laughter.

“So sad, so sorry for you,” they called out after him as he walked across the spotless white marble floor of the lobby and through the revolving doors to get a taxi. Smith's hotel was about ten minutes away. Delaney rolled the cab's passenger windows down to save himself from hypothermia in the air conditioning. The day was sultry, classically tropical. Out over the bay a thundercloud towered, already kilometres high. There would be a terrific downpour before nightfall, as usual at this time of the year.

Smith answered his door at the hotel almost immediately after Delaney knocked. He had taken the morning off to arm Delaney with questions for Braithwaite. Apparently, his superiors could do without Smith's services for a few hours. Apparently, Smith did not mind upsetting them if they could not.

A petite young woman in a UN shirt stood behind Smith as he greeted Delaney at the door.

“Delaney, this is Conchi,” Smith said, moving aside.

“
Con mucho gusto
, Mr. Delaney,” Conchi said as she shook his hand.

“Frank. Please,” Delaney said. “You make me feel old.”

“
Con mucho gusto
, Mr. Frank,” Conchi said.

“She knows what we're doing today,” Smith said.

Delaney looked sharply over at Smith. In his journalism and in his other less-well-known work Delaney valued discretion very highly. “Don't worry,” Smith said.

“Don't worry,” Conchi said, with a very large smile. “I am to be trusted. I am almost police, no?”

“No problem,” Delaney said, without much conviction.

“Good,” Conchi said. “And my good friend Jonah is wrong about this file business anyway, Frank. So there is not much to worry about. That is my opinion.”

“And that is why Señorita Concepción is going over to the management centre now to leave us two old worriers to worry together without interruption,” Smith said.

“You are very rude to me, my love, in front of world famous journalist Frank Delaney,” Conchi said, with another large smile and shrugging her small shoulders extravagantly. Delaney could see why Smith would possibly risk a marriage for the fetching Señorita Concepción. Conchi kissed her man extravagantly on the lips, picked up a small leather knapsack and headed for the door. Delaney noted that Smith's cheeks had reddened suddenly.

“Goodbye Mr. No Problem Frank Delaney,” Conchi said. “Maybe we will see you again when the worrying stops for the day?” “Yes, maybe,” Delaney said.

He looked at Smith in silence when the door had closed. Smith looked back.

“Yes, she is, isn't she,” Smith said.

“Very,” Delaney said.

“Too young for me really,” Smith said.

“Apparently not.”

“For now,” Smith said.

“You seem to be telling a lot of people about this little problem of yours, Jonah,” Delaney said.

“There's nothing to worry about with Conchi,” Smith said. “Don't worry.”

Like Ackermann in Berlin, Smith did not buy into the Stahlman angle at all. He felt it was too easy, too obvious, too neat.

“How would Stahlman have got out of Germany if he faked his suicide?” Smith said. “How would he have got a passport and a visa for Thailand in another name? How would he have got past Customs at Frankfurt airport?”

“It's the European Union, Jonah,” Delaney said. “He could drive across a border, he could leave from any number of countries for Thailand. Inside the EU or out.”

“His name would end up in a database somewhere if he left the EU with his own passport. He'd have to have a plane ticket in his name. How would a man like that get himself false identification? He was no criminal.”

“Except that he liked to have sex with small boys.”

“You know what I mean, Frank,” Smith said.

“And what would he live on? The minute he tried to access his bank accounts people would know he was still alive.”

“If they were still looking. Or maybe he carried lots of cash with him.”

“It would have to be lots and lots of cash to start a whole new life in Thailand like that.”

“People can make that sort of arrangement if they want to disappear, Jonah.”

“If they have time, maybe. And it all leaves traces these days. How soon after he got back to Germany from Thailand that year did he kill himself?”

“A couple of weeks or so,” Delaney said. “Not that long afterward.”

“There you go,” Smith said.

“Maybe long enough.”

“Maybe not.”

“Why does it have to be complicated?” Delaney asked. “Why can't it be a simple explanation like this? A disgraced man fakes his own death, moves to Thailand, lives happily ever after until he drowns in a tidal wave.”

“I just have this feeling there is more to it, Frank. Something really odd is going on around here. Why would Becker be involved?”

“We don't know that Becker is involved. He may well just be upset that you are questioning his integrity or his team's integrity. Why would a man like that get involved in some sort of coverup?”

“If that body actually is Stahlman's, if I accept that, why would a man like Becker feel he had to cover up the death? Of a convicted pedophile? What's the point?” Smith said.

“I don't say it's Becker. It could just be some friends of Stahlman, helping him out.”

“After he has died?” Smith said. “Why would anyone bother? If it is him, he's dead in a tsunami, what is there left to cover up? Who cares, once he's dead?”

“Family,” Delaney said.

“Family infiltrating a massive international DVI operation, amateurs and civilians, tampering with police files under the noses of coppers from around the world?” Smith said. “How could they do that? Why would they even bother? The harm's done years previously anyway, the family's reputation is ruined, Stahlman's dead, whether it happened here or in Germany, so what is to be achieved in all of this if you accept that theory?”

Smith was relentless and, Delaney had to admit, began to make a good deal of sense. They left off their argument about Stahlman for a while, however, and turned their attention to the interview scheduled for that afternoon with Braithwaite. Their immediate problem was that if Delaney asked too pointedly about records procedures and missing files in the DVI operation, Braithwaite would know Smith was the source.

“I'll take that risk, Frank,” Smith said eventually.

“Braithwaite sounds like a very tough guy,” Delaney said. “He can make things pretty uncomfortable for you if he thinks you've been feeding lines of questioning to a reporter.”

“What have I got to lose?”

“Twenty-one years at Scotland Yard.”

“They can't run me out,” Smith said.

“Oh yes they can. I've seen things like that happen before. Whistle-blowers often lose their jobs.”

“So be it,” Smith said.

“You think it's worth that sort of risk.”

“When we find out what is actually going on, Braithwaite will thank us for it.”

“That's in the movies, Jonah. Braithwaite may not look good at all in the end, no matter how it turns out. There are very few happy endings anymore.”

“I want you to ask Braithwaite about this, on the record. I want you to help me find out what is going on and I want you to tell the story as you find it. And I want you to quote Braithwaite in that story about what he tells you this afternoon.”

Smith's face was reddening again, but no one was giving him a lover's kiss this time.

Braithwaite's reeking cigar glowed ruby red, and then the ash turned blue-grey again. He clearly did not enjoy having his picture taken nor did he enjoy being interviewed by a journalist. He was a man more accustomed to asking questions than answering them.

Tim Bishop took a final few photos of Braithwaite behind his battered desk and then began to stow his gear.

“All done,” Bishop said. “I'll leave you guys to it. Thank you very much, Inspector.”

“Can I see those shots before they go in the magazine, young man?” Braithwaite asked. He did not seem to like Bishop very much, had remarked sourly on the pony-tail when the photographer arrived. “And it's Chief Superintendent, not Inspector.”

Bishop looked over at Delaney with a grin. “Not my call, sir,” he said. “Up to my boss Mr.

Delaney over there.”

“Not something we usually do,” Delaney said. The cigar glowed red again. It had done so periodically throughout the interview. Bishop's arrival to take pictures about 40 minutes in had provided a welcome interlude, despite the pony-tail.

“So, where were we?” Delaney said after Bishop had gone.

Braithwaite looked at his oversized diver's Rolex. “We were almost finished, I thought,” he said.

Braithwaite had given Delaney some very good material for a magazine feature on the DVI effort, had Delaney still only been working on a magazine feature. Even discounting Braithwaite's heavy bias toward what the United Kingdom authorities were doing to assist, the extensive resources the UK authorities had committed to the disaster's aftermath, et cetera, et cetera, even discounting Braithwaite's obvious UK agenda in granting the interview in the first place, the Detective Chief Superintendent had given Delaney some good material.

Delaney had, as always, saved the most difficult questions for last. Any experienced journalist would have done the same. Get as much information as you can, routine or otherwise, before asking questions that may get you thrown out of the interview room, or worse, depending on what country you were in and who was across the table from you.

Braithwaite had responded in what Delaney thought was a reasonably forthright way to questions about the initial problems in Phuket and mistaken identifications and angry relatives of the dead. He had responded as well, and without too much stoking of his ever-present cigar, to questions about whether certain DVI teams were concentrating primarily on identifications of their own nationals, with a view to hasty exits once all of their citizens had been accounted for. Braithwaite had, naturally, denied this.

He had lavishly praised all members of all national police teams who were on the ground in Phuket, had assured Delaney that all aspects of the operation were now on track and under control, and that it was only a matter of time—still months to go admittedly, but with an end very much on the horizon—before almost all the bodies would be identified. Braithwaite did not deny, however, that some bodies, perhaps a significant number, would never be identified despite the best forensic work possible. This was simply an accepted outcome of any such postdisaster situation, especially in what he insisted on calling “the Third World.”