Kathy and Anita were deep in conversation when Jack and Shadow walked up on the porch. Anita had returned from her family visit to Greensburg and vowed to wait another five years before she went back. Her conditioning was nearly back to normal.
Sitting on the top step with his back against the railing, Jack waited for a break in the discussion. Giving up on getting their attention, he clapped his hands and said, “Remember I told you I had an idea we can use in New Delhi to find our friend. I have an approach that is perfectly legal.”
Anita said, “We haven’t done anything legal since I joined up. Let’s hear it.”
Jack saw that he had caught their interest. “We set up a dummy company that is little more than a name on the door of some local attorney.
“I asked Lee to do that for us. The dummy company hires a detective agency in New Delhi that we can use to be part of our effort to acquire an export/import business opportunity in India. If we find a good opportunity, we will begin the acquisition process that always includes a due diligence phase where it is common practice to snoop into everything you can in advance of a business deal. This process will give us the opportunity to hire Indian lawyers, consultants and investigators. I’m thinking Kathy goes to New Delhi as soon as our research turns up something. How does that sound for starters?”
Kathy said, “It gives us good cover for our actions in New Delhi, but we’ll have to be careful that it doesn’t leave any incriminating trails back to us. We won’t be able to travel internationally using alias documentation. Passports and airport security capabilities have changed over the last couple of years. The area of digital processing has made alias international travel only for the real professionals backstopped by their governments. I think your approach is a good one and we should use it.”
Two days later Kathy and Jack completed their research. Kathy looked at her notes and said, “India is full of import/export firms, consultants, expeditors and lawyers that live off foreigners trying to cope with India’s layers of laws and procedures, and we only researched the city of New Delhi. This is not going to be an easy problem.”
Jack said, “I don’t know. We’ll start with New Delhi and go from there if we have to. We don’t know if Ali is really the name used by the importer/exporter in New Delhi. We were not able to find a firm under that name. We found one of Yuri’s passports under the name of Vladimir Petrov. He used this passport to travel to Paris in March of last year, the only recent European travel in any of Yuri’s passports. Maybe Yuri’s Ali is an Arab, most likely a Muslim, who traveled to Paris in March of ’09.”
Kathy said, “Okay, I also have some assumptions. No Arab would leave his country to live in Hindu India unless he had to or was ordered to by his government. I suspect our firm of interest has been established or bought in the last five years.
“I think we can also speculate our Ali is a Sunni Muslim. Yuri’s records show he had good contacts with Iraqis. It’s doubtful any of his Arab contacts in any country were Shia Muslims. Our Ali ‘exporter’ won’t speak Hindi very well. He will definitely have an accent. Most likely his English will be far better than his Hindi. He may or may not attend a local mosque. I think we’ll find he is between fifty and sixty-five. He probably held a reasonably high government post in his home country in the field of security or intelligence. I guess he smokes and drinks Western booze. Lastly, he’ll be mother tongue fluent in Egyptian, Iraqi, Syrian, Palestinian or Lebanese dialect.”
Jack added, “My search of the internet about detective agencies located in New Delhi turned up a detective agency called the All Indian Detective Agency owned by a former Indian police officer named Arjun Singh. I like what I read. So let’s start with Mr. Singh. We’ll also need a consulting firm based in New Delhi.”
Kathy said, “I’m ready to go. How about a place to stay?”
Jack said, “We’ll use the Oberoi in New Delhi. I’ve stayed there, and it’s first class all the way. This is an information-gathering operation only. We’ve come up with a good cover. Use it. I’ll make reservations for all of us under our cover company, and I think we have some foreign contacts and resources that can help us.”
Jack said, “I went over the list from my father’s files last night and identified a few who might be able to help us in India. The first is a young man who lives in Jordan. An Arab and a Sunni Muslim educated in the U.S., he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Florida three years ago. My father put him through school in return for his help at some point in the future. In the meantime, he has been drawing a generous annual stipend. It’ll go away if he can’t help us.
“The other person who might be able to help us is an Irish woman in her late forties who works in the field of antiquities, specializing in artifacts from South Asia. None of these people knows anything about our activities. They understand they are being paid to help with investigations into business matters. It seems to me, the Irish woman could visit a number of exporters in New Delhi, checking on the legal or quasi-legal availability of artifacts. She and the Jordanian can work with Kathy. I’m sure he could spot a fellow Arab and pinpoint where he came from.”
Kathy said, “I like it. I’m as certain as one can be I’m not known to Indian intelligence, so no difficulties there. I can be ready to go as soon as the visa is ready. I don’t think the Jordanian and the Irish lady should meet. Let’s make sure they’re not in the same hotel.”
Facts and Fictions 