Crime: To Catch a Thief
There are lies, and then there are lies — and not all lies are equal. Or are they? Bob Wittman’s not so sure anymore. What is the difference between a good lie and a bad lie? It’s all evil. He hears himself saying it — in his head, rarely out loud — and he knows it sounds melodramatic, even evangelical. Evil feeding on evil. The man’s not prone to melodrama; he’s not inclined toward fire and brimstone. But he also can’t lie to himself — is that the difference? — can’t deny what lying is, what it does: chips away at his soul, bit by bit, until he can feel himself heading towards a special corner of Hell reserved for fabulists, even well-intentioned ones.
Oh, his intentions are good — saving art, preserving cultural heritage, enforcing the law. No doubt about that, even for him. And he’s certainly not a bad man; he’s known bad men in his career, thugs, murderers, frauds. In fact, he’s an inherently decent man — that’s the problem. When he joined the FBI in 1988, Wittman was like most other agents he knew: consciously upstanding, a straight-shooter, a rules guy. That’s what it took to do the job: always knowing what side of the line to stand on, what page in the FBI manual to turn to. He didn’t drink, so he’d always have his head on straight. He didn’t smoke or sleep around, and he’d married a woman who seemed, above all else, incredibly truthful. It mattered. And it still matters. He’s still happily married, still doesn’t drink or smoke or cheat.
But he lies. Often, and well. In fact, he’s brilliant at it — never breaking a sweat, never skipping a heartbeat, never caught unprepared. It’s as easy to him as knowing the difference between Impressionism and cubism, as tying his shoes. Two years after Wittman joined the FBI, the Bureau sent him to art school, then gemology school, then diamond school, and by 1999 he was teaching at undercover boot camp, even though he had never been through it himself. He was a natural. His job takes confidence, amiability, quick thinking — all of which Wittman has in spades. He’s conspicuously normal — a football-loving, SUV-driving guy’s guy who’s also the sensitive one other agents come to with their problems, who was sent to comfort the families of local people who died on September 11th. He’s nice. People open up to him. He knows how to get people to trust him.
Wittman counts on this a few days after he arrives in Spain, when he waves to Angel Suarez Flores across the lobby of Madrid’s luxury Meliá Castilla hotel. It’s a steamy 3 a.m. after a 103-degree day, and “Profesor Bob” is with his “client” — another undercover officer posing as an Eastern European mobster, in tight black jeans and a leather jacket. Scores of additional cops, armed and wired, blend in as clerks, beggars and guests. Flores looks right past them as he introduces himself, and his associate, to the agents. Scrawny and hunched, he’s an ugly, ugly man — more like a gnarly gnome, snaggle-toothed, bug-eyed and bald. Flores plops into a chair next to the “mobster” and starts speaking to the undercover officer in pidgin French — the only language he thinks they have in common.
