The Chameleon Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page A

scams fitting Ward’s modus operandi. Had Ward died? No death certificate bearing his name or any of his aliases was
     issued anywhere in the U.S.
    Had Ward left the U.S.? If so, how? His U.S. passport, issued in 1980, had expired in 1990. The State Department reported
     that this passport hadn’t been renewed. Had a new passport been issued bearing any of the aliases the FBI said he used for
     his scams? The State Department said no. Was Ward in prison on an unrelated conviction? Again, the FBI said no.
    The mantra
think outside the box
rang in my mind. They were the words of Alex, my Mossad Academy training instructor, repeated in his Canadian accent. “Your
     rivals aren’t ordinary people. They operate differently, so why would you expect them to think like an average Joe? Put yourself
     in their skin. Then take one step forward.”
Good,
I thought,
as long as we aren’t on a cliff’s edge.
    What did I do to deserve these damned stale cases? Suddenly angry, I tossed a heap of paper off my desk. It was useless—plenty
     more was still piling up on my desk. Why the hell was the FBI dumping these cases on us two years after the last scam and
     almost two decades since the first one, and where was theinternational connection? I silently cursed the anonymous FBI agent who had cleared his desk at my expense. I wished he’d
     drown in paper. I couldn’t decide who to grumble to first—David or the FBI.
    When I cooled off, I remembered what Alex had always told our class: “When you find yourself at a dead end, start from the
     beginning. One step back may not be enough, because it will lead you to the same brick wall. Revisit all assumptions, and
     recheck all facts. One or more could be flawed.”
    OK, Alex, I thought with a mental sigh, if you could only see how I apply your wisdom. I wondered what had happened to him.
     Ever since I’d left the Mossad, Benny Friedman, my classmate, had been the only lifeline to my professional past. For all
     I knew, Alex was still in the system, or maybe growing flowers in his village in northern Israel, enjoying retirement. I read
     the files again. Two hours later, I still couldn’t find anything I’d missed the first time. The only mention of anything foreign
     was Ward’s departure from the U.S. in 1980. But he returned sometime in 1985, as the credit reports showed. There went the
     international connection. I had no idea where to begin.
    Think outside the box
rang again.
    The only thing left for me to do was go back and check the raw intelligence data the FBI was analyzing.
    I was frustrated and intrigued at the same time. How could somebody evade the law for so long? It was clear that Ward knew
     well how to assume new names and identities. Was thinking that he had employed that skill to vanish, thinking within the box
     or outside it? I needed something to hang on to in this case, or the file would grow moss on my shelves, and I’d be getting
     polite but per sis tent reminders from David to report progress.
    I called David Stone in Washington, DC, grimly bracing myself.
    “David, how come you agreed to take Ward’s cases? They’re so stale that even the bookworms who lived in the reports died of
     old age.”
    “Dan, the FBI is fairly confident that Ward is outside theUnited States,” he said. “That makes the case ours, at least as it concerns the $311 million he stole.”
    I was startled for a moment. “$311 million? The amounts in the file don’t even come close to that.”
    “Do the math again,” said David. “Eleven known cases—he fared nicely.”
    “OK, I’ll look again at the numbers. But what makes them think he’s outside the U.S.? There’s nothing in the file to indicate
     that. Or the FBI is holding an ace up their sleeve.”
    “The Bureau won’t tell us. So I guess it’s intelligence, not facts or evidence, and you know how zealously they protect their
     sources.”
    “What do you mean they won’t tell us? Last time I checked we work