Free The Chameleon Conspiracy by Haggai Carmon Page B

huge surprise, all the red-eyed, weary passengers of my flight were
     stopped in the terminal’s hallway by uniformed policemen with dogs on short leashes. Without much ado, we were told—or rather
     ordered—to form two lines and put our hand luggage on the floor. Nice welcome, I thought, but times being what they were,
     it was reassuring in its own way. Policemen then walked two dogs slowly along each passenger line, letting one dog, then the
     other, sniff each piece of carry-on luggage. Ten minutes later it was over and we were let go, without even one word of explanation
     or apology.
    There were ways to look for drugs or explosives, but that one was the most unexpected. I knew they had to use at least two
     dogs per line: one dog trained for explosives that sits stock stilland points if it finds them, the other trained to detect drugs by sniffing the luggage. Trainers had discovered that they
     couldn’t cross-train the dogs, or the sniffing narcotics dogs might set off explosives. If using both types of dogs, you’d
     take the explosives dogs down the line first. Then, if no explosives were found, would come the drug dogs, which could snurfle
     to their hearts’ content without setting anything off.
    Peter Maxwell, a tall man with a rugged, tanned face and a firm handshake, waited for me in the customs hall.
    “Welcome,” he said as he walked me past customs into his unmarked police car. “Was it too tiring?”
    “Somewhat,” I answered, deciding not to rant about the sudden search. “Any developments?” I was eager to jump into it.
    Peter smiled. “Yes, we found the lad at a Sydney hotel.”
    “Is he still there?”
    “No. Ten minutes after we started questioning him, he said he was sick and fainted.”
    “He actually fainted?”
    “You ask me, this bloke is full of shit, but just in case, we admitted him into a hospital.”
    “Is he under your watch? This guy can disappear in no time.”
    “We’ve got a warrant for his arrest on local fraud charges, so in fact he’s a detainee in the hospital.”
    “When can I see him?”
    Peter looked at his watch. “How’s this afternoon sound? I’ll drop you off at your hotel, and if you aren’t too tired, you
     can walk to the hospital. It’s very close to your hotel.”
    When we arrived at the hotel, I checked in, threw my luggage on the floor, and ran out the door. I was dog tired, but I hadn’t
     come to Sydney to rest. I had to see Albert C. Ward III right away.

C HAPTER E IGHT
    Manhattan, New York, September 11, 2004
    Crushed by the fact that I had been wrong about Ward, I had to find a new bearing. I paced through the hallway outside my
     office. If the man in the hospital bed wasn’t Albert Ward, then who was he? His denials didn’t impress me. I’d seen con men
     in action, and wasn’t about to be convinced by this guy. On the other hand, there was firm scientific proof that he wasn’t
     Ward. Had I picked on an innocent person? I still had no idea of what the missing link could be. What about Otis’s faxed letter
     connecting Ward with Goldman? Why wasn’t that enough? But until the FBI and the Australian Federal Police cleared this matter
     up, I needed to move on. The solution had to be in the file. But where?
    I sat down at my desk and opened the file for the umpteenth time. First, I read my notes taken during my conversation with
     the high school principal. Ward had wanted to be a photographer for
National Geographic Magazine
. Maybe I should see if he had ever made good on that dream.
    “It’d take time to search the archives dating back to 1980,” said a very polite woman when I called National Geographic. “Not
     all our freelance photographers are included in our computer database. If the person you’re looking for sold us a photograph
     many years back, a manual search would have to be performed.”
    “Thanks, but can you please look to see whether his name appears on your computer database?” I asked. It was an