Margaret Truman's Allied in Danger Page 11

  “I’ll think about it,” Mac said.

  “Piece of cake,” the doctor said.

  “I’ll think about it,” Smith repeated.

  He left the physician’s office with his usual conflicted reaction. He knew that knee replacements had become almost “routine,” although he questioned whether any surgery was ever “routine.” His knee hurt, especially when he was on the tennis court, but not to the extent that he was eager to go under the surgeon’s knife. Annabel had subtly urged him to consider having his knee replaced, but whenever she did he announced that it was feeling better, especially after having received a steroid shot, and the topic was shelved until the next time.

  After leaving the orthopedist’s office he’d spent two hours in court representing a woman who’d sued a department store in which she’d tripped on the escalator and injured her shoulder. Smith would have preferred a different judge than Mitchel Junke, who, the saying went, never met a plaintiff in a personal injury suit he believed. A year from mandatory retirement, and with a shock of hair that he’d dyed a hideous orange color, he ruled his courtroom with an iron fist. Smith knew to keep his briefs short and to the point lest he receive a stern admonition from Junke. It went well. The attorney for the department store lacked Smith’s insight into the judge’s personality and did everything wrong, which pleased Smith while simultaneously activating his sympathy gland. The judge ruled in Smith’s favor. The woman, his client, gave him a cursory thank-you and walked from the courtroom, a satisfied, smug look on her face. Smith decided while gathering up his papers that the next time a personal injury client appeared at his office he’d claim he was too busy to take the case. Life was too short.

  His victory in court was soon forgotten as he drove to the Rock Creek Park Tennis Center, where he was scheduled to meet an infrequent, but favorite, tennis partner in one of that facility’s indoor courts, Joe Stanko, a top official at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. Stanko and Smith had met a few years earlier at a conference and had hit it off immediately, bound by a mutual love of many things—including tennis. Their busy schedules precluded them getting together often and Smith made time whenever Stanko could carve out a few hours to meet for a match.

  Stanko, a few years older than Smith but who worked at staying young, was waiting when Smith arrived.

  “Ready for a good workout, counselor?” Stanko asked as they left the locker room and stepped onto the court.

  “I just came from one,” Smith said, laughing.

  “Judge gave you a hard time?”

  “Actually, he was surprisingly pleasant this morning, at least to me, but my young opponent took it on the chin.”

  “All part of a lawyer’s learning curve,” Stanko said. “Ready for a good match?”

  Smith started strong, his backhand more effective than usual, and his serves had good velocity on them. But as he and Stanko finished the first set with Smith the winner, and started their second, Smith’s knee began to ache whenever he put pressure on it. He compensated for it, which threw off the rest of his body’s motions, and Stanko won handily. Smith could have mentioned his aching knee but refused to use it as an excuse.

  They retreated to a juice bar within the complex and sat at a table, their exotic liquid concoctions in front of them.

  “Aside from your client’s case that you won this morning,” Stanko said, “what other cases are you involved with?”

  “Actually, Joe, things are slow these days, although I am involved with a man whose father got caught up in one of those Nigerian financial scams. The father blew most of his money. When he finally realized that he’d been scammed he killed himself.”

  “He was that embarrassed?”

  “Evidently. His son says that he’d begun to lose his mental faculties, which I suppose could help explain how he fell for the scam.”

  “Hard to understand,” Stanko said, running a towel over his shaved head and sipping his juice. “You ought to talk to Ralph Cleland.”

  “Who’s he?” Smith asked.

  “He heads up a small office in my division at Commerce. He spent four years posted to our trade office in Lagos, Nigeria, as part of the consulate general’s operation there. He’s our expert on Nigerian financial scams, probably knows more about them than anyone else in D.C.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you had such an office.”

  “It was inevitable that we’d end up with one. No matter how long they’ve been around, Nigerian financial scams are still big business. I forget the exact number—Ralph can give you an accurate figure—but the Financial Crimes Division of the Secret Service receives hundreds of calls and a ton of letters from American citizens who receive bogus letters offering big payoffs in return for sending large sums of money to the hustlers. Incredibly, some of these people actually follow through. People assume that these scams only impact a few gullible people, but hundreds of millions of dollars are squandered every year by folks like your client’s father.”

  “I’d appreciate being put in touch with Mr. Cleland,” Smith said.

  “I’ll have Ralph call you,” Stanko promised.

  Smith hadn’t been back in his office for more than a half hour when Cleland called. “Joe Stanko suggested that we get together,” he said.

  “I’d like that very much,” said Smith. “Buy you a drink?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Cleland said. “How about Mastro’s Steakhouse on Thirteenth Street?”

  They met at five thirty at the bar. Cleland was a roly-poly sort of man with a ruddy complexion. After initial getting-to-know-you chatter Smith told Cleland about his client Anthony Borilli and what had happened to his father. He ended with, “There’s a Nigerian charity, Bright Horizons, here in D.C. that I’m led to believe is involved in the scam that Mr. Borilli got caught up in. My problem as Borilli’s attorney is finding someone here in the States to sue on his behalf. I was hoping that this Bright Horizons might be the key.”

  Cleland, who’d ordered a Jack Daniel’s neat, laughed. “Ah,” he said, “good old Bright Horizons. Did your client’s father go to Nigeria?”

  “I don’t believe so. His son never mentioned that he did.”

  “Just as well. Of course the father ended up dead anyway by his own hand, but the same thing might have happened if he’d made the trip.”

  “Do people caught up in these scams often go to Nigeria?” Smith asked.

  “They certainly do, and some don’t come back. That’s what prompted us to set up an office to deal with the situation. The Nigerians who run these scams like to entice their marks to not only send money; they lure them to Nigeria supposedly to meet with the government officials or the ones who run the fake charities, you know, to give them a sense of legitimacy, shake the hands of these so-called important figures. Some of them bribe officials to let them use a room in a government building to add authenticity. What sometimes happens is that the sucker is told that no visa is necessary, and the perpetrators of the scam pay off airport personnel in Immigration or Customs to allow them in the country without one.”

  “I have a feeling I know how this story ends,” Smith said.

  “You’re probably right,” Cleland said. “Entering Nigeria without a proper visa is a crime. Once the sucker is there, he or she is told that they’ll be arrested unless they come up with additional money.”

  “And if they balk?” Smith asked, anticipating Cleland’s response.

  “Some of them are never seen again. If they make a fuss they’re—well, you can imagine. We’ve had some American citizens disappear there, poof, gone, no trace, no explanation. It’s a serious problem, Mac, damned serious. I keep tabs on it through my office, but our hands are tied when it comes to bringing pressure on the Nigerian government to clamp down. Too many government officials, big and small, profit from allowing them to continue.”

  “My private investigator Robert Brixton has come up with the name of a warlord in Nigeria who might be involved
with Bright Horizon’s role in the scams. Agu something-or-other.”

  Cleland gave out with a hearty, knowing laugh. “Agu Gwantam, good old Agu. I knew him well when I was on the ground in Nigeria. He’s headquartered in Port Harcourt, down south in the Niger Delta. That’s oil country. Agu is one of those bigger-than-life characters, weighted down in gold chains and rings, gregarious, speaks good English with a British accent, dresses to the nines, and always has a bevy of beautiful females hanging on him. He tried to get me into bed with one of them, but I was too savvy to get snookered into that situation. There had to be cameras in the hotel room recording every minute. Hell, I was tempted. She was beautiful, but so’s my wife. Besides, my wife has one hell of a temper and is a good shot.”

  Smith laughed. “Another drink?” he asked.

  “Thanks, no. I’ve got to get home. As I said, my wife, the sweetheart that she is, has a temper. We have family coming for dinner.” As he downed what was in his glass, he said, “You know, Mac, it’s sad what’s happening in Nigeria. I enjoyed my time there, had the best of everything, terrific quarters, household staff for my wife, and we made some really lovely friends. Nigerians for the most part are good people, gentle and generous. The oil they’re bringing up makes it Africa’s strongest economy, stronger even than South Africa. Oil is forty percent of Nigeria’s GDP, eighty percent of what the government takes in. But it’s also corrupt as hell. Damn near everyone in the government has his hand out.”

  “This has been quite an education,” Smith said as they left the restaurant. “I appreciate it.”

  “Any time. One last word about Mr. Agu Gwantam. He comes off like a hail-fellow-well-met, million-dollar smile, give you the shirt off his back if he likes you.”

  “And if he doesn’t like you?” Smith asked.

  “He’ll kill you. By the way, Mac, Bright Horizons is into more than bilking millions from suckers. They can get physical when told to. Thanks for the drink.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his suit jacket and handed it to Smith. “Here’s a copy of a letter someone recently received. Her daughter intercepted it and sent it to us.” He laughed. “See how it’s all in capital letters? They seem to think that gives it more clout. Give a yell if you want to know more.”

  Smith went directly home and sat with his wife, Annabel, on their terrace at the Watergate apartment. He’d read the letter given him by Cleland; now Annabel read it.

  It started with: DEAR SIR: CONFIDENTIAL AND BUSINESS PROPOSITION.

  “I thought you said this was sent to a woman,” Annabel said.

  “It was. The Nigerian who sent it obviously didn’t know who his intended sucker was.”

  I HAVE THE EXTREME PRIVILEGE TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE TO TRANSFER $25,000,000.00 (TWENTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS UNITED STATES CURRENCY) INTO YOUR ACCOUNT. THE ABOVE SUM IS THE RESULT OF AN OVER-INVOICED CONTRACT, EXECUTED, COMMISSIONED, AND PAID FOR APPROXIMATELY FOUR YEARS AGO BY A FOREIGN CONTRACTOR. THIS ACTION WAS HOWEVER INTENTIONAL AND THE FUNDS HAVE BEEN IN A SUSPENDED ACCOUNT AT THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA APEX BANK.

  “What’s an ‘over-invoiced contract’?” Annabel asked.

  “Beats me,” said Mac. “Go on. It gets even better.”

  WE ARE READY TO TRANSFER THE FUNDS OVERSEAS AND THAT IS WHERE WE NEED YOUR MOST ABLE ASSISTANCE. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE INFORM YOU THAT AS CIVIL SERVANTS WE ARE FORBIDDEN BY LAW TO OPERATE A FOREIGN ACCOUNT. WITH YOUR GRACIOUS HELP THE TOTAL SUM WILL BE SHARED AS FOLLOWS: 70 PERCENT FOR US, 25 PERCENT FOR YOU, AND 5 PERCENT FOR LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL EXPENSES INCIDENTAL TO THE TRANSFER.

  Annabel continued reading. The letter went on with increasingly flowery language to request the recipient’s bank account information and account number, private telephone and fax numbers, and Social Security and other personal information.

  She handed it back to Mac.

  “Amazing,” she said.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “How could anyone be stupid enough to fall for it?”

  “According to your Mr. Cleland, people fall for it all the time.”

  “Including Tony Borilli’s father.”

  “You said that Mr. Cleland personally knew this warlord who runs such a scheme in Nigeria.”

  “Yeah. He sounds like quite a character, and not a very nice one.”

  “I think I’ll get dinner ready,” she said, standing.

  “Good. I’m hungry. While you’re busy in the kitchen I’ll respond to this letter, give them the information they want, and send them whatever we have in our savings account.”

  “Not funny, Mac.”

  Later that night as they sat reading, Mac mentioned that he’d asked Brixton to contact Ammon Dimka in Virginia again to see whether he’d be willing to go public about his knowledge of how the Nigerian charity Bright Horizons fits into the scam that caused Borilli’s father to commit suicide.

  Annabel’s attorney training kicked in. “Are you sure you want to pursue this, Mac? Suing a foreign government, especially one like Nigeria, is usually a waste of everyone’s time. Its Bright Horizons might be U.S. based, but I’m sure it’s wrapped in many layers of diplomatic immunity.”

  He started to respond, but she continued.

  “I might also mention that the people who run these scams are not gentle, loving types.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Mac said, thinking of what Cleland had said about Agu Gwantam killing people.

  “I get your point, Annie,” Smith said, “and you’re undoubtedly right. But maybe if a suit is brought—even if it has little chance of succeeding—it will raise awareness and spare some other poor man or woman from turning over their life savings to these crooks.”

  The subject was dropped for the rest of the evening, but neither Mac nor Annabel stopped thinking about it before going to bed and falling asleep.

  CHAPTER

  25

  PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA

  Agu Gwantam was in a festive mood as he oversaw preparations for that evening’s dinner party. He entertained often in his large, expensively furnished gated home in an upscale neighborhood on the fringe of the city, and looked forward to that evening’s guest list—government officials, wealthy neighbors, executives from XCAL Oil, a budding Nigerian actress and her entourage, a visiting British journalist who’d arrived in Port Harcourt a week earlier to write articles about the Nigerian oil boom, and a few Nigerian courtesans whom Agu liked to keep on tap in case one of the men felt sexually frisky after imbibing his top-shelf liquor. Alain Fournier, head of SureSafe’s Niger Delta security force, a frequent guest at Agu’s home, would also be attending. Two members of SureSafe’s armed militia stood guard at the front gate, Russian-made AK-47s slung across their chests. Another SureSafe armed guard had followed Fournier’s car in his own and waited outside the compound for him to emerge.

  Inside the sprawling home the kitchen staff was busy preparing that evening’s fare, the centerpiece a large goat that would be roasted over an open flame on the patio. There were platters of king prawns, scallops, and mussels, freshly baked bread, and a special banana dessert from a recipe that Agu’s wife had imported from a South African friend. Two bars had been set up, one inside, the other on the patio, from which Champagne would flow freely, as well as more potent alcoholic beverages. Members of a popular four-piece Nigerian band, known for its melding of traditional Nigerian music with jazz and funk, laughed while setting up their instruments and amplification equipment on a raised wooden platform.

  Agu showered in anticipation of his guests’ arrival. Naked, he observed his large physique in the mirror and approved what he saw. He was a vain man. Although he was married, his sexual dalliances were numerous and ranged far and wide in Port Harcourt and beyond. His wife, Fayola, was well aware of her husband’s extracurricular sex life but didn’t complain. He treated her well; he was rich and made sure that she had every modern convenience and a room-size closet filled with the latest fashions. Too, her husband’s status in the community rubbed off on her;
she was a popular figure in town and at the Episcopal church that she and Agu regularly attended.

  It wasn’t any secret in Port Harcourt that the primary source of Agu Gwantam’s money was generated by the financial frauds he oversaw, and he wasn’t reluctant to brag how so many stupid people around the world fell easy victim to them. While the United States had been especially fertile ground, Agu had more recently found gold in the Soviet Union and other countries where the lure of easy money was equally enticing.

  He personally greeted his guests as they arrived, most in fancy rented cars driven by Nigerians. Jaguars, Rolls-Royces, and high-end Mercedes were allowed to enter through the gates and park in front. The drivers of lesser vehicles were allowed to drop their passengers inside the compound but were required to park outside the high fence bordered along the top with razor wire.

  Alain Fournier arrived with a paid escort, Carla, a strikingly beautiful brunette whose stunning figure was shown to its fullest by a tight red silk dress with a plunging neckline, and spike heels. She was slightly taller than Fournier, a dapper, slender man with a black pencil mustache and brown hair pasted to his head with some sort of gel. His beige three-piece suit was custom-made by Port Harcourt’s leading tailor. His tan shoes came from London.

  Agu greeted them warmly. “Things are good with you?” he asked in his British-tinged accent.

  “Things are very good,” Fournier said. “And you?”

  Agu flashed a wide smile, his teeth a dazzling white against his dark skin. He indicated his house with a sweep of his hand. “Everything is wonderful, as you can see. Come, have a drink and enjoy yourselves.” He added, “As usual we are declaring surplus,” a familiar Nigerian term for enjoying the excesses of life.