Walking into the Ocean (31 page)

The Air Malta daily landed at Luga Airport in the blasting light of late afternoon. The flight was stuffed with pasty vacationers, all anticipating that curative sun. Peter struck up a conversation with a Gloucestershire cab driver who made the trip six times a year and now planned to emigrate. Like most other Mediterranean spots, Malta had attracted the gamut of partygoers and elderly couples, many of whom were buying into the condo boom on Malta and Gozo, its secondary island. His seatmate recommended the view from the starboard window as they swooped to three thousand feet and approached the airport from the south. Even through the limited porthole, Peter could see the full dimensions of the main island. Malta was a battleship of limestone, fixed in a sea of unchanging blue. The hill towns at its centre formed a ship's bridge from which an admiral could observe the Mediterranean in all directions, or so Peter imagined. The man beside him identified the highest plateau on the island, which was topped with castle battlements, as the old capital of Mdina.

But Valletta was Peter's destination, and he glimpsed it off to the left as the plane came in to land. The airport was small but crowded with tourists. The Home Office, under whose aegis New Scotland Yard operated, issued all detectives the equivalent of diplomatic passports, and Peter was immediately fast-tracked through customs. He paused to look over at the regular lines, where the other passengers from his flight were queuing up. He was curious about the rigour of Passport Control's vetting of ordinary travellers. He wasn't about to patronize this country; he had no doubt that the Maltese officers were using the latest passport scanner mandated by the European Union, of which Malta was a recent and proud member. But documentation was not the only challenge; that could be faked, and a good customs man learned to read faces and interpret travel patterns. Also, like every other tourist destination, Malta tried to process its cash-loaded guests as rapidly as possible. The line was moving quickly. With a good false passport, Lasker could easily have slipped into the country — and out again.

Outside the main immigration office within the airport stood a short man in a dark blue uniform. Malta Police Headquarters had been forewarned by Bartleben personally; it was a case of deputy commissioner contacting deputy commissioner. The similarity likely stopped there, Peter mused. His host wore the colourful insignia suited to his elevated rank, and his dyed, razor-cut hair and recently trimmed moustache completed the aura of someone parochially important. Peter had expected nothing less from an official named Antonio Albanoni. He reminded himself to choose his words carefully.

The deputy commissioner arched an eyebrow discreetly when he saw Peter approach. Peter had once flown into a tiny airport on the Greek island of Samos to pick up a suspect and found himself greeted in the waiting area by a hand-lettered sign that read,
Welcome Chief Inspector Cammon
; he had prayed that the fugitive wasn't in the airport at that moment. Albanoni extended a hand and offered a pearly smile. Peter was reminded of the Claude Rains character in
Casablanca
.

“Chief Inspector, I am Antonio Albanoni.”

“Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice,” Peter responded.

The Maltese deputy commissioner squared his shoulders and this time raised both dyed eyebrows.

“The prisoner has escaped,” he said.

So much for jet-lag recovery, Peter thought. The latest email from Malta Police, transmitted to him via Bartleben's office, had informed him that Lasker was being watched at his tourist hotel in Sliema. How had he escaped the island?

Peter retained sufficient aplomb to fake a benign expression. “Is he still on the island?”

“We don't think so.” Albanoni began to explain the situation in a rushed, high voice that took on an Italian rhythm as he speeded up. Peter could barely understand him. “We know that he had a false passport. We now suspect that he had a second false passport.”

Peter now had to face the prospect that he and André Lasker had just passed each other at thirty thousand feet.

“Is it too late to meet at your offices?” he asked.

“No, no, not at all! The detectives who were watching Mr. Lasker are on shift until eight o'clock.”

Albanoni drove his own official car, an unmarked Saab, into the heart of Valletta. Malta had been one of the countries to which Lasker had exported his used cars, and Peter assumed that this was not one of his vehicles. They passed through an impressive stone arch and into the older part of the capital, where many of the buildings were constructed with soft, yellow stone, giving them an Arabian feel. He caught a glimpse of the fortifications ahead just as Albanoni took away the view by veering down a side street. A minute later they parked next to a modern four-storey office building. Peter observed that it housed both the Police Service and the Security Agency.

The Home Office shared its country briefings with New Scotland Yard; indeed, the Yard provided the crime sit reps for these profiles. Peter knew that since 9/11 Malta had expanded its security capacity, with a new anti-terrorism act to back it up. He wondered if officers from both the police and the Security Agency had been inputting to the Lasker case, since the crossover in manpower and in skills was sometimes useful, although it just as often held the potential for confusion. Many in the police professions believed that the distinctions between policing and counterterrorism were artificial, and Peter agreed, but he was certainly willing to respect jurisdictional lines in a foreign country.

The deputy commissioner led him down a long hallway to his corner office. “You can store your valises here,” Albanoni said, “and someone will transfer them to the Marriott.”

The usual framed citations hung from the walls, each of these bearing official stamps with the Maltese cross in red. Peter, in his time, had never hung anything in his office at New Scotland Yard. He wasn't impressed by those who did, although the photograph of Albanoni standing beside Pope John Paul II was unnerving.

After washing up in Albanoni's “executive” washroom, Peter repaired with his host to a meeting room on the same floor. Two tough cops, tired and unshaven, wearing their street clothes, slouched on the far side of the table, looking defiant and very unhappy; their dressing-down had already been applied. Albanoni introduced Detectives Bahti and Korman. Peter shook hands, but only Bahti, the younger but evidently the senior of the pair, made eye contact. Scotland Yard was mythical to them, and Peter, in his dark suit and tie, was an alien curiosity. Accordingly, he decided to keep the entire discussion at the factual, procedural level, no matter how the deputy commissioner tried to add a flattering gloss to his descent from London. He was comforted by having two obviously streetwise detectives to work with on this manhunt.

“Gentlemen, first things first. Don't worry about losing Lasker. I've been searching for him for weeks and never came close. Let's start by you taking me through your surveillance.”

The two men were mollified by Peter's introduction, though they kept a wary eye on Albanoni. Bahti, the evident leader of the pair, sat up straight. “We have been watching your man for seventy-two hours, maybe a bit less. Rotating shifts, twelve-and-twelve.”

“Back it up a bit,” Peter interjected. “How did you get the alert in the first place?”

Albanoni answered. “Three days ago, your office cabled a list of names that appeared on British and
EU
export manifests for three automobiles headed for Malta. We checked for the matching import stamps here on Malta, and we found them; they fit the cars' description. The local signature was in the name Herman Willemsea, and the Customs official recalled that the person showed a Maltese passport in that particular name. We have checked. There is no citizen of Malta with that name.”

Bahti jumped in, eager for some credit for his and his partner's initiative. “Your office told us that Lasker could be in Valletta using one of the names connected to the cars. We decided to check hotel registrations for the last week. Hotels here are required to make these available to the authorities. We found him.”

“But the hotels don't retain passports?”

“No,” Bahti said, “but he was registered at a particular hotel under the name Herman Willemsea, and he showed a passport with that name on it. He never identified himself as André Lasker, and there was no sign of a Lasker passport either at the hotel or at Customs.”

The detectives created an expectant pause. “You see what happened, Chief Inspector?” Bahti went on. It was a test. There was a huge contradiction here.

“I do,” Peter replied. “Do I have this right? Someone with the false name Willemsea signed the import documents several months ago. But not the same person who used the passport at the hotel.”

The one called Korman smiled for the first time. “Right. Mr. Lasker had another, probably British, fake passport that he used to
enter
Malta, and then someone gave him the Willemsea passport when he arrived, to use
while he was here
.”

“And therefore,” Peter added, “someone had the skill to alter passport photographs, and manufacture fresh passports on short notice. This is a sophisticated operation.”

“We began surveillance,” Bahti said. “We managed to observe the suspect up close in the lobby. He matched the photograph sent to us by Europol of Mr. Lasker. Not a great picture, but clear enough.”

“The same picture was distributed by Interpol and by Scotland Yard,” Albanoni added, unhelpfully.

“We were told not to arrest him yet, until you got here,” Korman said.

Bahti continued. “We believed that if he abandoned the hotel, there were few places he could hide in Sliema, or even in Valletta. And our people at the airport were on alert for the Willemsea passport.”

The flaw in their assumptions was obvious, but Peter restrained himself. Lasker had employed a
third
passport, though possibly the same one he presented upon entry, to flee the country. Either way, the only name they knew was Willemsea.

“When did you lose him?”

“This morning,” Bahti said. “The desk clerk was instructed to watch for our man. They have a small breakfast room on the entry floor. He came down at his usual time, had coffee and fruit, and read the
International Herald Tribune
.”

“He went out the back,” Korman added.

Peter turned to Albanoni. “Does everyone have his picture?”

“Yes, but why are you asking that?”

“Because I think Lasker flew out of Luga today, using a separate passport.”

“A third one? Well,” Albanoni said defensively, “our Customs Officers were told to watch for the man in the picture.”

“What flights leave between, say, 9:00 a.m. and mid-afternoon?”

Korman was the only one who had the answer. “Air Malta to London, British Airways to Heathrow, Ryanair to Barcelona, Alitalia to Rome and Lufthansa to Frankfurt. A few charters returning home to the Continent.”

“What about Ryanair to Pisa?” Bahti asked.

“Not today.”

It was intriguing to guess at Lasker's preferred destination. Peter believed that the mechanic wouldn't take the direct route back to England — namely, the Heathrow flight — and thereby risk the predictable tight screening at customs. Luton or Gatwick were no less fastidious but, with a disguise, he might have a better chance to get through. Lasker might also have flown to the continental hub that had the most connectors to the U.K.

“Well,” Peter sighed, “let's check the most and least likely destinations, and narrow from there. Can we call up the Ryanair site on the web?”

Bahti smiled. “You want to see how he can reach Britain the easiest?”

They trooped down to an open area in the police building where Bahti and Korman had their desks. Each was piled with reports and telephone messages. Bahti tapped the keyboard on the desktop at his station, and the Ryanair homepage came onto the screen. He pressed another key and the destination map unfolded. He clicked on Barcelona and the classic starburst of lines flew out from the Spanish city to a number of European cities, including London.

“Okay,” Albanoni said, “let's contact security at Barcelona. Somebody needs to go to the airport to see if anyone of Lasker's description got on the Ryanair to Spain, and check the Rome and Frankfurt flights. I will call Europol in The Hague and Interpol in Lyon.”

He was about to dispatch both detectives to the airport, when Peter interceded. “Wait a moment. Do you have the documents covering the three automobiles that Willemsea imported to Malta?”

All three nodded. “We have them in the Lasker dossier,” Bahti said.

“Is there a local destination for the cars, and address?”

Bahti understood. “Yes. There must be a Maltese address identified on the forms. Only a Maltese can legally import.”

They made another journey down the hall, to Albanoni's file cabinet. The detectives were a bit uncomfortable being in the boss's office. They dug out the dog-eared shipping forms and discovered that the address at the bottom of all three was the same.

“We all know him,” Korman said.

“Him?” Peter said

“He is in the import-export trade. All kinds of goods. Sylvio Kamatta. He has an office on the harbour.”

“Is he reputable?” Peter said. The detectives smiled and shook their heads.

“Is he known to deal in forged passports?” Peter added. There was no answer but the two street detectives were already reaching for their coats.

Korman and Bahti were assigned to take Peter to track down Kamatta at his office, which was located near the adjacent waterfront of Vittoriosa, while the deputy commissioner went off to find men to handle the airport. This arrangement suited Peter, who preferred to have the two plainclothes officers with him when he interviewed the suspect. Peter understood the reality that there was always at least one tough kingpin at the centre of every elaborate fraud. The interrogation of Kamatta wasn't going to be polite. They needed to pick up the Lasker trail as fast as possible.