Triple Identity Read Free Page A

States, he'd been promoted to director of the Office of International Asset Recovery and Money Laundering. There he had an ample budget, fifteen staff lawyers, and a free hand to recover internationally located funds, fruits of money laundering or bank and insurance fraud. In most of David's cases, the amount to be recovered exceeded ten million dollars. In at least six or eight cases a year, it topped one hundred million. DeLouise's case deserved special attention; the amount I was expected to retrieve for the U.S government was significant and DeLouise had brought about the collapse of a bank.
    The phone clicked at the other end. “I found Raymond DeLouise.”
    “Great,” said David. “Where is he?”
    “In Munich.” Before David could comment, I added, “In the city morgue. He's been on a cold slab for several days.”
    There was a pause. I could almost hear David's mind at work, analyzing the facts.
    “How did he die?”
    “A bullet to the head is detrimental to anyone's health,” I said dryly.
    “How did you find him?” he asked.
    “It's complicated. Triple identity,” I said. “It seems that there was more to DeLouise than met the eye.”
    “Why was he left in the morgue for so long?” he asked.
    “Well, from what I could understand from the city morgue office, DeLouise wasn't carrying any ID. The German police traced him through a hotel key they found on his body, and they've just notified thehotel of his death. But it took them a while because the key didn't have the hotel name on it. They had to have a detective visit every Munich area hotel to compare keys. The police are waiting for instructions from the Israeli Consulate about DeLouise's relatives and what to do with the body.”
    “You mean the American Consulate,” David corrected.
    “No. The Israeli Consulate. He also had Israeli citizenship, and he registered at the hotel under his Israeli name. That's identity number two.”
    “Are you sure the body in the morgue is indeed our man?”
    “Pretty sure; I went over the inventory list of personal belongings the police found in his room. There were some legal papers concerning his collapsed bank in California and a newspaper clipping describing his sudden disappearance from the United States. I think it's him all right. Besides, he looked just like his photograph only a lot paler. However, final identification will have to be made by the family. You can call the FBI directly because I'm not sure the Munich police realize that they should also notify U.S. authorities through INTERPOL .”
    “Why?”
    “The question is how likely is it that Munich police will check INTERPOL ‘wanted’ info about this guy. They would only be likely to notify U.S. law enforcement through INTERPOL if they'd checked and found that we were looking for a man with that name and ID and this is not the case here.”
    “I see.”
    “You may want to spread the word and score some points for your office,” I suggested.
    David ducked the curve ball.
    “I see you've already talked to the German police. Do you know who else might have been after him?
    “No, I haven't talked to the police directly yet,” I said. “But the office of the morgue showed me the police report that came with the body for autopsy. There was testimony from a bystander who said that he saw DeLouise standing near a newspaper stand when a man dressed in black leather overalls and a black helmet rode up on a motorcycle. He stoppednext to the guy, got off his cycle, pulled a gun, shot him once in the head from a distance of approximately four or five feet, and rode away.”
    I let that sink in. “It seems like a professional hit. Not a robbery or anything else,” I added.
    “The German morgue let you see the police report?” he asked in surprise.
    “Well, the technician needed some encouraging. He settled for a green picture of Ben Franklin.”
    David paused, as if to allow himself some deniability at a later stage. Federal employees are not