Margaret Truman's Allied in Danger Read online

  “How so?” Brixton asked.

  “I’ve been led to believe that Bright Horizons has been known to function as an extension of SureSafe here in the United States.”

  Brixton thought back to what Sayers had told him about the agency possibly functioning as an enforcer for Nigerian interests. He asked Dimka about that but received a reply similar to what Sayers had said, that it was only an unsubstantiated rumor.

  The men talked for another half hour before Brixton sensed that he might be outliving his welcome and decided to call it a night. Dimka walked him to his car in the driveway.

  “I really appreciate your time, sir,” Brixton said.

  “I’m happy to share what I know,” the Nigerian said.

  “You have a nice house,” Brixton said.

  “Thank you. We’re fortunate people, Mr. Brixton.”

  And nice, Brixton thought. “Please say hello to your wife,” he said.

  “I’ll be happy to do that, and give my best to Mr. Sayers.”

  Brixton got behind the wheel and drove away. He’d enjoyed the conversation with the proud Nigerian and hoped that his relocation to the United States would be all that he and his family hoped for. He also understood why Dimka was gun-shy about exposing Bright Horizon’s role in Nigerian money scams, especially if the agency was capable of playing rough, and was determined to honor his pledge to keep Dimka’s name out of whatever steps Mac Smith might take for his client Anthony Borilli.

  CHAPTER

  17

  As he drove home, two men sat at a small desk in a cramped office tucked away at the rear of Bright Horizons’ suite of offices in downtown D.C. One of them rewound the digital recorder to a predetermined spot on the recording and listened.

  “Mr. Dimka?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Robert Brixton. I believe that a mutual friend, Will Sayers, mentioned me to you.”

  “Yes, he did, Mr. Brixton.”

  “Will told me that you’d be willing to speak with me—strictly off the record—about how money scams originating in Nigeria are conducted, and to what extent an organization like Bright Horizons might be involved.”

  “Mr. Sayers said that you are a private investigator, Mr. Brixton.”

  “That’s right. I work with a leading attorney in Washington, Mackensie Smith. He has a client whose father was caught up in one of these schemes, and took his own life as a result after having sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to Nigeria, some of it through Bright Horizons.”

  “I suppose it will be all right for us to get together, but you do understand that I’m in a delicate position.”

  “I certainly do understand, Mr. Dimka, and I can only hope that you believe me when I say that whatever you tell me will be strictly off the record to help me and Mr. Smith get a handle on how these things work. There’s no reason for your name to ever be raised.”

  “When would you like to meet?”

  “Would tonight work for you? I’ll be happy to come to your house. I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but—”

  “When can you be here?”

  “In an hour?”

  “That will be fine. You have directions?”

  The man turned off the recorder.

  “First the reporter Sayers, and now this investigator,” the other man, a Nigerian in charge of security at Bright Horizons, muttered. “Dimka has a bigger mouth than we thought.”

  The man operating the recorder stood to leave.

  “There is no way that Dimka can become aware that his telephone has been tapped into?” the Nigerian asked.

  The white man shook his head.

  “And the recorder will record every conversation made on his phone?”

  “Right again,” the other man said as he slipped on a leather jacket with a patch on the sleeve that read: SureSafe.

  “I want to be kept informed of other calls this investigator Brixton might make or receive regarding this matter—with anyone!”

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER

  18

  LONDON

  Portland went directly from Heathrow Airport in the UK to his flat, where he stripped off the clothing he’d worn on the flight, stood under a hot shower, and put on a pair of shorts to wear while pedaling his exercise bike. The flight had tired him, but he felt that a brief workout would alleviate his fatigue better than a nap.

  He sat at his desk and opened the package of Trevor’s belongings that Elizabeth’s mother had FedExed to him in Washington, which had arrived just prior to his leaving for London. He spread out the contents on the desk and stared at the artifacts that represented what was left of his son’s life—a small notebook computer with a label with Trevor’s name printed on it, two thumb drives, a wallet, his high school graduation ring, his passport, some loose change and a twenty-dollar bill, and a diary with handwritten entries. Portland sat silently, images of Trevor’s face flashing through his mind like an out-of-control slide show.

  “Enough of this,” he muttered, and placed the items on a shelf in an open bookcase.

  After checking e-mails on his laptop he dressed in a blue sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers, and safari jacket and went for dinner in the same pub where he’d encountered the big Nigerian wearing Trevor’s bracelet. The owner greeted him as Portland took what had become his usual spot at the bar and ordered a glass of Chardonnay, and steamed cockles and leeks for openers. Business was slow; he was one of only a half-dozen customers.

  “The last time I was here,” he told the owner, who was busy drying glasses, “there were three Nigerians who had a pretty good snootful of booze.”

  The owner, a gruff but not unpleasant man, laughed. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he said, tossing his towel on the bar and leaning closer.

  “Me? What did I do?” Portland said playfully.

  “Beat that big black bloke up in the men’s room, that’s what you did. My God, he came down the stairs from the loo all bloody and sputtering about how somebody had mugged him and broke his arm and stole a bracelet from him. He threatened to call the coppers, but his pals talked him out of it and they left, didn’t pay their goddamn tab.”

  “Sorry,” Portland said. “I owe you.”

  “Forget it, mate,” the owner said. “They were looking for trouble, that’s for certain. Glad they took a walk without breaking up the place. Had a hell of a time, though, cleaning his blood off the tiles.”

  “Adds character to the loo,” Portland quipped.

  The owner laughed and walked away.

  As Portland finished his wine and meal, fatigue caught up with him. He paid, apologized to the owner for the problems he’d caused during his last visit, and went directly to his flat where he took from the shelf Trevor’s handwritten diary. He idly thumbed through the pages, some of which contained humorous comments about things that Trevor had experienced while working in the Niger Delta. But other pages were angrier in tone. He railed in those entries against the plight of native Nigerians who lived in squalor in the midst of the oil companies’ immense and visible wealth. In some of the entries he was especially upset at the rampant pollution the companies had inflicted on the land and water: “They poison the Nigerians who live and work there,” he wrote, “and don’t give a damn about their impact on individual lives. I’m embarrassed to be part of it.”

  He devoted one page to having been introduced to a few members of MEND, the movement dedicated to driving the oil companies from the Niger Delta, by a Nigerian he’d befriended, Barke Chukwu. According to Trevor’s notes, Chukwu managed to make a living in Port Harcourt as a guide for visitors to the city. “Barke is a good man like most average Nigerians,” Trevor wrote. “He’s dedicated to seeing that the fortune in oil being brought up from the swamps benefits his people instead of making the oil company executives and corrupt Nigerian politicians rich.”

  His son’s concern for the residents of the delta brought tears to Portland’s eyes. He closed the diary, replaced it on the
shelf with the other items, and climbed into bed, wondering whether he would be able to sleep. His snoring minutes later answered the question.

  CHAPTER

  19

  He felt refreshed the following morning. He bounded from bed and went to the window. Everything was gray outside, typical of London in winter. He showered, dressed in the dark blue suit he’d brought with him—his only suit—and left the flat. After a quick breakfast at a local eatery he hailed a taxi and was transported to the location of his scheduled meeting at the headquarters of SIS on Albert Embankment in Vauxhall, in London’s southwest corner. He went through a security checkpoint and waited until a woman arrived to escort him.

  “Ah, Mr. Portland,” a man seated at a conference table said, getting up and extending his hand. “So pleased that you were able to join us. I’m Fred Tompkins. MI6. Please call me Freddie.” Tompkins was a short, barrel-chested man with a ready smile.

  Portland took in the other two people at the table, a middle-aged man and woman who sat close to each other. The man, nondescript personally, balding, and with a paunch, but wearing an expensive Savile Row suit, stood and shook Portland’s hand as he was introduced. His name was Brian Leicaster, who Tompkins explained was an executive with Shell-BP. His wife, Agnes, managed a smile and said to Portland, “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Tompkins took the lead. He said to Portland, “As I’m sure you’re aware, Mr. and Mrs. Leicaster have recently suffered a terrible tragedy. Their son, Nigel, was murdered in Nigeria.”

  Portland said, “Yes, I’ve been told about your loss. My condolences.”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Leicaster said. His wife sniffled; he handed her a tissue.

  “And, of course,” Tompkins continued, “Mr. Portland’s son met a similar fate in the same place.”

  “How terrible,” Mrs. Leicaster said. “How old was your son?”

  “Early twenties,” said Portland, who wasn’t eager to talk about Trevor’s death.

  “Mr. Portland works in security at our embassy in Washington, D.C.,” Tompkins said. “Because he also has some experience with the situation in Nigeria I’ve asked him to aid in our investigation of situations such as the one you’ve experienced. Perhaps you would be so good as to fill him in on the circumstances of your son’s demise.”

  Mr. Leicaster cleared his throat and adjusted his posture in the chair. “Well,” he said, “Nigel went to work for the oil company XCAL as a geologist. He’d obtained his degree in geology from the Imperial College of London and—”

  “He was such a bright boy,” Mrs. Leicaster said.

  “Yes, he was a bright young chap,” her husband agreed. “When he decided to go to Nigeria to work for XCAL his mother and I were firmly against it. XCAL is a Yank company and I’m sure he could have gone to work for them in the States, or here in the UK. But Nigel was always headstrong, wanting adventure. Young people are like that.”

  “I urged Brian to find him a post with his company, Shell-BP, in a more civilized place, but—” Agnes said.

  “But Nigel overruled that,” said her husband. “He wasn’t about to take a post where his daddy works.”

  “What do you do with Shell-BP?” Portland asked.

  “Finance. I’ve been with them for more than thirty years.”

  “How did you learn that your son had died?” Portland asked.

  The Leicasters looked at each other before he answered. “A phone call, a bloody cold phone call from someone who works for the security firm that’s supposed to keep people safe in that godforsaken place.” Anger had crept into his otherwise soft voice.

  “Who called you?” Portland asked.

  “A man. I forget his name. I’ve probably deliberately done so.”

  “Someone from SureSafe?” Portland asked.

  “Yes, that’s it,” Leicaster replied. He snickered. “They certainly don’t live up to their name, do they?”

  “Was it a Frenchman?” asked Portland.

  “Frenchman? No. At least he didn’t sound French. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. I assume that he told you that your son had been killed by members of MEND, the renegade group that’s waging a war with the oil companies.”

  “Precisely.”

  “That’s the way you learned of your son’s death, isn’t it, Mr. Portland?” Tompkins said.

  Portland nodded.

  The meeting lasted another half hour. Portland had become antsy and wanted to leave but knew that he couldn’t just walk out. Eventually Mr. and Mrs. Leicaster said their good-byes. As they were leaving, Mr. Leicaster said, “I hope you get to the bottom of how our son died, Mr. Tompkins. I don’t believe for a moment that this MEND organization, whatever it is, singled out Nigel as a victim, and I trust that whatever investigation you undertake will find the answer.”

  “We’ll do our best, Mr. Leicaster. Thank you for sparing us time during the grieving that you and the missus are going through. My deepest sympathies.”

  With the Leicasters gone, Tompkins’s demeanor became less cordial. “Tell me what you know about this SureSafe organization, Mr. Portland. Tell me everything.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  Portland spent the better part of the day at SIS, most of it with Fred “Freddie” Tompkins. Portland liked him, appreciated his straightforwardness, a welcome respite from the usual banal banter of government servants and politicians. They were now on a first-name basis.

  Tompkins explored with Portland the possibility of leading a small task force to Nigeria, the mission to garner evidence about SureSafe’s activities there.

  “I know that SureSafe is a controversial company,” Portland told Tompkins, but I’m not sure why SIS would be interested in them. As far as I know, they aren’t involved in anything that threatens national security.”

  Tompkins leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “It depends, David, on how you define national security,” he said. “SureSafe might not be involved with threats to the extent of the sort posed by ISIS, Al Qaeda, or Boko Haram, but the killing of British citizens in a foreign nation certainly qualifies as a national security threat. I might also mention that two British citizens working for Shell-BP were recently kidnapped by MEND, which we’ve kept under wraps. They want a high ransom for their release. Shell-BP is vitally important to the UK, David. It provides us with a major presence in Nigeria, and I might add that the economic ramifications are substantial.”

  Portland digested what Tompkins said. He was sure that the SIS officer was right in his assessment of the situation with British oil interests in Nigeria. It had political and economic ramifications for the UK. Besides, an active government couldn’t stand by while its citizens were slaughtered while working in a foreign nation.

  But Portland’s focus was on SIS’s decision to probe the workings of SureSafe in Nigeria. Did they know something that he didn’t? Like Leicaster, he’d been told that Trevor had been murdered by members of MEND. He, Portland, had accepted that reason for his son’s death until encountering the Nigerian security worker in the pub and coming into possession of the treasured bracelet given to Trevor by his grandmother. It had been lost in a card game by the head of SureSafe’s Nigerian operations, the Frenchman Alain Fournier. That had dramatically changed Portland’s analysis of what really had happened.

  Leicaster hadn’t offered such a concrete reason for not buying that his son, Nigel, had fallen at the hands of MEND, but he was skeptical nonetheless.

  All eyes were now on SureSafe, and Portland wanted to know what evidence SIS had to point in its direction. He probed Tompkins without success until, at the end of the day, Tompkins opened up.

  “There is a chap who once worked for SureSafe. He’s a Brit, spent the majority of his adult life working for various security firms overseas, most recently SureSafe in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.”

  “What’s his name?” Portland asked. “Maybe I ran across him when I worked for them.”

  “Matt
hew Kelsey.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “Rather a sad case, I’m afraid. He was part of a security team charged with protecting one of the oil fields and was badly injured by MEND during an attack.”

  “You’ve been in contact with him?”

  “Yes, in a manner of speaking. I’ve spoken with Mr. Kelsey on the phone, but he’s refused to meet with us. Frankly, I think he was in his cups when we talked. He’s a bitter man, quite unpleasant. I also sense that he’s afraid that if he talks about his experiences in Nigeria with SureSafe it will put his life in danger.”

  “Maybe he’s right,” Portland said. “I’d like to take a shot at getting him to talk.”

  “Of course, and I wish you the best.” He wrote Kelsey’s number and address on a slip of paper.

  “Anything else?” Portland asked.

  “No, except that I appreciate you taking time to meet with us. We’ll be gathering again tomorrow at ten for further discussion. You’ll be expected to join us.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Portland said. “You’ve left me with a lot to think about between now and then. Have a good night, Freddie.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  It was a day of meetings.

  While Portland conferred with SIS in London, Brixton was huddled with attorney Mackensie Smith in Smith’s office. Brixton had made notes from his visit with Ammon Dimka in order to brief Smith.

  “He’s a nice guy,” Brixton began, “a real gentleman.”

  “I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for him and his family to assimilate to his new life here in the States.”

  “They’ll always be some bigoted clown who’ll give him a hard time because he’s black,” Brixton said, “but I’m sure he and his wife have learned to deal with it.”