Mark Dobson's meeting with Mr Graham Parker-Stanley at the British High Commission went on far longer than either had expected perhaps because Dobson had plunged in by naming his client - Pastor Gabriel Joshua.
Had Mr Parker-Stanley heard of him? Yes, although he'd not long been in post in Abuja. Did he know there was an arrest warrant for Gabriel? Vaguely. The Foreign Office had sought some clarifications which staff had dealt with. Did he know Gabriel had been detained in Kenya? That was the responsibility of the Nairobi post. Did he know the arrest warrant was a forgery?
"Oh, dear me, no."
Did he know about an unresolved murder on British soil of a Nigerian, another employee of Gabriel's?
"Good Lord! Another?"
And so it went on, Dobson slowly building interest in a subject that had been hidden in the dust beneath the Commission's carpets because the UK Foreign Office set its policies and priorities.
Parker-Stanley listened patiently throughout although Dobson felt increasingly guilty about him missing his lunch. Then, at one thirty, someone poked their head around his door, mouthed something and Parker-Stanley stood up.
"Excuse me a moment."
Dobson thought he might have slipped out for a quick sandwich, but he returned after a few minutes.
"We've got a Member of Parliament here - an unannounced visit," he said. "Taj Harding, ex Ministry of Defence. Know him?"
"Yes," Dobson said. "He's a friend of Gabriel's."
"What a coincidence."
That evening Mark Dobson tracked down Taj Harding to the Sheraton Hotel. The ex-Minister was sitting alone, in a corner of the Pool bar as if waiting for a friend. Dobson knew he was a lawyer of Ghanaian descent and had been expected to get much higher in UK politics. The first black Prime Minister? Exactly why he'd resigned Dobson didn't fully understand other than Gabriel's explanation. "Taj Harding. A good man overtaken by the system."
How strange, therefore. that Harding's description of Gabriel just a few minutes after Dobson introduced himself was: "Gabriel. A good man overtaken by expectations."
But he'd then added: "I'm here because of Gabriel and I'm not alone in my knowledge of him. Do you know Senator Daniel Bakare from the USA?"
Dobson played it down. "I know the name."
"Are you free to meet him?" We're hoping to do something."
Something was better than nothing, Dobson thought, but what?
"I understand from the High Commission we have a British casualty in Niger?" Harding went on.
The language was too diplomatic for Mark Dobson so he elaborated by saying who Benjamin was, what he'd been doing for Gabriel's project and, after just a short pause, that it was the COK who had first cut his throat and then beheaded him.
Harding almost retched.
"More coffee?" Dobson asked after he'd recovered slightly.
They had moved from the Pool bar to a corner table in the lobby, a plusher spot with comfortable arm chairs and contemporary artwork when another smartly suited black man with an American accent arrived.
"You're working for Craig Donovan I believe," Daniel Bakare said after introductions.
Dobson nodded not wanting to mention that it was he, a Brit, who was employing Donovan, an American.
"Specialising in fraud and corruption, I understand," Bakare went on.
"Investigator of rather than perpetrator of," Dobson said and let it stand there because Harding already knew and was looking visibly keen to break the more sordid news about Benjamin. For a while he let them discuss the atrocity as they sat in their neatly pressed dark suits.
"There's bound to be international reaction," Harding was saying as Dobson completed his silent but in-depth analysis of the two black politicians. He continued to listen and watch but learned nothing until Bakare suddenly mentioned the word 'Aid'.
"Gabriel's been too hung up on defence," Bakare was saying. "It's a minefield for the USA. Aid's a different matter. I reckon if he'd spent the last few years lobbying for economic aid instead of military support we might have got somewhere. Perhaps we've been guilty of paying too much attention to the military support and not enough to what it is he's trying to defend."
"I totally agree," said Harding, "But Gabriel has a hang up about aid. He thinks economic aid is a total waste. He refused to discuss it with me more than once telling me that he had no need for economic help. I think it stems from a childhood spent surviving, standing on his own two feet."
Mark Dobson broke his silence.
"That's it," he said. "Gabriel's view is that defence is what governments should provide for security and stability. Business ideas should come from individuals granted the freedom to express themselves. Economic development, Gabriel says, should come from profits. Kick start funding is something else, but Gabriel feels he's already kick-started something. What dismays him is that the west only talks of resources and the fear of interference. Why not help the millions of unemployed people out there who could be put to better use in defending themselves?"
"Then Nigeria says it can't afford large armies," Bakare replied.
"I'm not surprised," Dobson replied. "If you don't collect enough tax and the country is bleeding to death through fraud and corruption, what do you expect."
"Which is, of course, another of Gabriel's arguments." Harding said.
"To which Gabriel adds that until Africa gets fraud and corruption under control why doesn't the West step in and fund defence forces that use the hundreds of thousands of unemployed Africans," said Dobson. "And so, we go full circle."
They fell quiet for a moment until Taj Harding asked something else that made Mark Dobson sit up.
"What do you know about the girl called Halima?"
"Why do you ask?" Dobson said.
"Because every time I've mentioned Nigeria or Niger in the last few days to people in the charity and aid business they all mention getting emails from her. She's caught the imagination. Who is she?"
"A Nigerian girl who escaped the school bombing by untying the vest she'd been fitted with," said Dobson. "She'd been abducted with other girls by the COK from her village in Borno State but was picked up by one of Bill Larsen's guys. She's lost all her family and asked to stay at Larsen's camp. According to Bill Larsen, she's become almost indispensable around the camp and desperately wants to meet Gabriel. And she would have known Benjamin Simisola of course."
Mark Dobson stopped right there as a sort of realisation hit him. What Gabriel had needed all these years was publicity without the infamy. And the modern world loved a good human story.
The same realisation clearly hit Bakare and Harding at the same time. "Could we get her down here?" said Bakare excitedly.
"Gabriel could meet her here." Harding added.
"Get the press and TV in." Bakare said.
And with that, ideas began to flow. Enthusiasm began to replace the pessimism that Gabriel normally associated with these two guys. If he'd been there, Dobson decided to himself, there was a chance Gabriel might even have been encouraged. It was Dobson who decided to throw in some caution.
"What about.....?"
He was going to mention security but didn't get as far as that for his phone buzzed with a text. Few people ever texted Dobson and only about three people in the world knew this number.
"Go to reception, Mr Hicks. There's a message."
"Excuse me," Dobson said and stood up. Slightly apprehensively, he went to reception. "My name's Hicks. I believe there's a message for me."
"Just a moment, sir......Yes sir. The phone in the lobby."
"Dump your phone. Mark. It's already being tracked," said Martin Abisola. "If I know you're in the Sheraton so do others."
"How?"
"Don't ask. Just leave right now."
The phone went dead and Dobson glanced around. There was no sign of Abisola, just black men and a few white men in suits, some smartly dressed Nigerian ladies at a women's convention, a few big men in boubous sitting and fing
ering beads, a couple of Indians, two Chinese and a scattering of other nationalities in varying shades of black, white and brown. He hadn't sensed being watched, followed or tracked but perhaps he'd not been cautious enough.
He returned to Harding and Bakare. "Something's cropped up," he said, still looking around. "I'm being advised to leave right now and go somewhere more secure."
"You're kidding, Mark." Bakare said.
"I'm not kidding. And when you were discussing bringing Halima here a few minutes ago, I was about to mention security. Think about it. There's more going on here than I think you realise."
Dobson picked up his precious laptop bag ready to go but lingered for a moment longer and looked at Bakare. "What's Steve Barnett's take on Gabriel?"
He was looking at Daniel Bakare but realised Harding may not know who Barnett was. "Barnett runs US intelligence here," he said for Harding's benefit.
Bakare looked surprised. "You know Steve?"
"No, but Craig Donovan does. Craig had Barnett's job once. So, what's the US intelligence take on Gabriel and, for that matter, the COK?"
"Trying not to interfere unless it affects US security," Bakare said. "Watching briefs. Gabriel doesn't bother us and we track COK movements to get a better understanding of them."
"What about COK links with corruption, fraud and money laundering?"
"That too," he said even less convincingly. "We always trying to track money flows."
Dobson knew he should be going but sat down and looked at both of them. "Does the US Embassy and the UK High Commission exchange intelligence? Is Gabriel's name ever mentioned in discussions on security?"
Bakare shrugged and Harding seemed not to know what he was talking about. "What about the COK leadership?" Dobson continued.
"The guy with many names?" said Bakare.
"That's him. Where do his funds come from?"
"All over," Bakare said vaguely. "Steve would probably know."
Dobson was not at all sure Steve Barnett would know and Harding would know even less. "Who's your equivalent to Steve Barnett, Taj?"
"We tend to use private consultancies."
Dobson nodded. He knew all about outsourcing of intelligence gathering. "Undercover work, is it? Infiltration. Murky."
He knew he might be saying things that weren't entirely welcome. He was, after all, just a small-time consultant who worked for the private sector. He should mind his own damned business. But he felt it had become his business to know and he also wanted to make a point. That the Gabriel matter was far bigger than these two seemed to realise. Again, he checked his watch.
"So," he said. "The US and UK see clear connections between terrorism and Nigerian corruption."
"Sure," said Bakare vaguely as if he knew he could get away with false claim to a small time English management consultant. Dobson ignored him.
"What about the possibility the COK is hell bent on causing chaos, the total breakdown in law and order, civil unrest, the creation of no go areas, even more poverty and mass starvation. What if their ultimate ambition is control through a military coup and to challenge the legitimate government and the President?"
"Jesus, what is this?"
"What about the possibility the COK leadership sees, rightly or wrongly, that Gabriel's widespread popularity and his views on defence are a far greater obstacle to its plans than anything the international community or the elected Government or the President could do to stop them?"
"Fuck's sake, Mark. Hold on there. You think Gabriel's that important?"
"I don't know," Dobson said, "It's what Colin Asher and I call grey sky thinking. Thinking the worst. So, you think about and let me know because I've been advised to leave right now for my own safety."
And with that he slung the laptop bag across his shoulder and walked away.
There was a new looking white Toyota waiting outside in the bright night-time lights of the Sheraton's main entrance and a respectable-looking middle aged man wearing a white shirt and grey, trousers stood alongside it, an ear plug cable dangling over his shoulder.
"Mr Hicks? My name's Dickson. Martin Abisola sent me." he said opening the rear door.
Dobson nodded and jumped in. "Grand Ibro, please."
The Grand Ibro Hotel was somewhere off Herbert Macaulay Way and the taxi headed in that direction. It went up Sani Abacha Way and then turned down Ibrahim Babarigida and then speeded up. That was when Dobson saw bright headlights from a car following directly behind. They lit up the taxi's interior and shone directly into the driver's eyes through the mirror.
Dobson's driver braked hard and turned right. There was a screech of brakes from the car behind and the lights danced from side to side as it swerved, but it was still right behind, full beam onto the back of Dickson's head. Then a brighter flash, a loud bang and the rear windscreen behind Dobson shattered, glass showered onto the back seat as Dobson instinctively slid to the floor, still holding the laptop.
Dickson swerved across the road again, cutting the corner into another side road but still the car behind followed. This was now the dark but more modern backstreets of Abuja, not Naples where Dobson had once had a similar experience of a car chase with guns and him sitting inside. On that occasion, a bullet had pierced the driver's headrest, missing his neck but exiting through a neat hole in the front windscreen. This time, more shots sounded from behind and nothing hit but maybe that was because there was no rear windscreen left. Neither were there any street lights here, just pale lights from unseen buildings flashing by, a few cars going the other way and the ghostly figures of people in white gowns on the sidewalk stopping to watch two cars racing by.
Dickson braked again, skidded sideways into another right turn and put some distance from the chasing car. Then it was right again and they were back on Ibrahim Babarigida Way. Immediately he went right again.
Sliding from side to side on the floor behind the front seats Dobson chanced a look out of the side window - a road called Cape Town. Behind them he saw the chasing car brake too late this time and race by still on Ibrahim.
On Cape Town, Dickson turned immediately left into a dark side road, accelerated down it and then stopped, lights off, engine still running.
Dobson looked up. "Are we nearly there yet?"
Dickson, Dobson noticed, now had the earpiece stuck in his right ear. In the darkness, he raised his hand. "One moment, sir," he said calmly and continued to check his mirror, the road in front, behind and to the sides. It was very dark but for a dim light from a building to the left.
"I think you'll find the Ibro Hotel is somewhere off Herbert Macaulay Way," Dobson said from the glass covered rear seat.
"One moment sir." A radio bleeped from somewhere. "Kampala," Dickson said presumably to the radio.
"Uganda already?" Dobson said."I must have fallen asleep."
More headlights shone again from behind and Dobson prepared himself for another wheel spinning start, but the driver pulled his ear piece out and let it fall around the gear stick "Sir," he said, "Get out please."
"Christ," Dobson thought to himself. "Colin will never believe this."
He wrapped the strap of his laptop bag over his head and got out to see a man strolling towards him from the car behind, a silhouette against bright headlights.
"I told you not to waste any time."
Martin Abisola didn't say anything else but spoke to Dickson instead and the Toyota drove off with more glass falling from the rear window. Abisola walked back and opened the front passenger door of the vehicle behind. "Get in."
It was a sliding door and he slid it shut behind Dobson who found himself in the front passenger seat of a dark coloured Toyota Commuter with heavily tinted windows. Some seats behind had been taken out. The two that were left were littered with gadgets and a small TV monitor.
"The Ibro is not a good place for you to stay tonight." Abisola said as he climbed into the driver's seat and restarted the engine. "There's a small welcoming c
ommittee waiting there for you. Someone else was at the Sheraton. Do you have anything at the hotel?"
In the almost total darkness, Dobson pointed at the laptop bag strung around his neck. "Everything is here. I can manage without my toothbrush."
"You should stay somewhere else tonight."
"I didn't want to sleep there anyway," Dobson replied.
Abisola pushed the automatic into drive. "There are other problems with the Ibro?"
"Perhaps," Dobson said. "This morning I overheard a guest complaining the bed sheets were covered in hair and semen stains."
"Was that before or after he'd slept there?"
"He'd only just checked in."
Abisola was staring ahead at the road. "Would Gabriel stay at the Ibro?" he asked doing a U-turn.
"No," Dobson replied. "It's too expensive for him."
Dobson's inbuilt compass usually told him if he was heading north, south, east or west but Martin Abisola drove fast and he was lost by the time they'd turned off the highway, made turns left and right and stopped in a side road next to a solid iron gate. Dobson, peering into the darkness, saw a high concrete wall capped with razor wire.
The heavy gate slowly slid to one side and they entered a driveway marked by builder's rubble on both sides - sand, cement, stone chippings, a cement mixer. But the headlights picked out a rose-coloured house complete with a pair of incongruous Romanesque concrete pillars.
"Your hotel," Abisola said climbing out.
"Nice razor wire," Dobson replied.
"Come and check in. Bring your bag."
Abisola climbed out holding an overfull, brown bum bag. He remotely double locked the mini bus, walked up the steps, hit some buttons on a metal box on one side and the door opened onto a faintly lit tiled corridor. Dobson followed. It was hot inside and smelled of dusty building work but more wall lights came on automatically as they walked towards a door at the end. Abisola pushed the door open with his foot, flicked a light switch, pressed a remote control and a standing air-conditioner unit hummed. The room was windowless and bare except for a long wooden table, six hard, plastic chairs, a small table with a kettle, a few mugs and a refrigerator in one corner.
"How did you know my phone number?" Dobson asked, needing an answer to something that had bothered him even while shots were being fired at the taxi.
"You used it to call Bill Larsen. Larsen's number is known by certain people."
And then Dobson remembered the clicks and the echoes. "So, they listen in to Bill Larsen?"
"Probably. We certainly do, not that he uses it much. Take a seat. I want to show you something."
Abisola, in a yellow shirt, the same or another skewed red tie and more black stubble than last time, placed his bulging bum bag on the table. He unzipped it, pulled out a mini voice recorder, placed it next to the bag and sat back.
"Now then, Mr Hicks - Mark. What I'm about to tell you is only known to a small handful of people, one of whom is President Azazi. First, I'm going to play this recording. For your information, it was recorded right here. Secretly I might add."
Then he played the tape. When it finished, he switched it off and sat back.
"The one with the loud voice," he said, "Is Zainab Azazi, President Azazi's younger brother." He waited a moment to let that sink in. Then:
"The other two are the self-styled pastors you saw in London - Ayo and Lazarus. They are members of a group of similar self-styled preachers who have, out of greed, become entangled in something far bigger than they understand. You already know most of the other names Zainab mentions."
Dobson nodded grimly.
"We are faced with a very serious situation, Mark," Martin Abisola said standing up. He wandered a few paces away, then stopped and looked back. "I understand the COK killed one of Gabriel's guys."
"Doctor Benjamin Simisola. He was, for want of a better description, Gabriel's Project manager. "
Abisola nodded grimly, strolled the length of the table and returned. Then he sat down.
"The COK have learned many things from the mistakes of Boko Haram, Al Qaida, Daesh and others," he said.
"And the COK is not just another Islamic terrorist group led by a fanatic like Abubakar Shekau although the COK has a military leader just as cruel as Shekau. This guy operates like a military commander with at least ten names - Mohamed Idris, Mahmud Amadu, Mahmud Yusuf, Allah Marwa and Yan Tatsine, but you already know that. But he has a boss, a Minister or a Defence Secretary if you like. That man then reports to what we might call a Prime Minister or a President."
He took a deep breath. "The COK is a front for a political machine whose objective is the break-up of Nigeria and the breaking down of its borders with Niger and Benin and anywhere else that falls into their hands - Burkina Faso, Mali, southern Chad, northern Cameroon. Their plans seem to stretch as far west as Ghana."
Another short pause.
"No-one is denying that Nigeria is difficult to manage. So are the other countries I just listed. But progress is being made. What no-one wants is for Nigeria, the biggest, to be destroyed using terrorism as the driving force."
"So, who are the people behind this?" Dobson asked.
"You've just heard one - the President's younger brother, Zainab. That is how high this goes. But Zainab Azazi is only part of it. The real power sits with individuals with huge wealth acquired through criminality and corruption. So............"
Abisola paused.
He was playing with the voice recorder, watching his own hands and not looking at Mark Dobson. Right now, in this bare room deep inside a secure building somewhere in Abuja, Martin Abisola, the head of the Nigerian SSS was trusting Dobson with highly sensitive information and Dobson started to wonder whether even the US's own intelligence man, Steve Barnett, ever got this close. Somehow, he doubted it.
"So" Abisola went on. He was still not looking directly at Dobson, "So, anyone who talks about fairer distribution of wealth and against corruption is their enemy. Normally that wouldn't worry them because they know, from history, that such people come and they go all the time. In politics, fine words and big promises are short lived because people usually get dragged into their corrupt world."
He stopped and looked up.
"And they think President Azazi will soon give up and go the way of others?" Dobson suggested.
"That's right," Abisola said. "But then along comes Pastor Gabriel Joshua." He let that hang there for a moment, got up and walked to the end of the table and back again.
"For most Africans," he continued, "Life's a daily struggle and corruption is a way of life. So, if someone from a poor background suddenly turns up and shows it's possible to drag yourself out of poverty and become rich by openly rejecting dishonesty and corruption and is a brilliant motivational speaker and a hell raiser who talks about bright futures and opportunities, about suns rising and broad horizons and is utterly convincing........you get the point?"
Dobson did.
Abisola sat down.
"Africans love magic, Mark, and Gabriel is like a magician. If he spent more time here instead of criss-crossing the globe more and more people would watch him, listen to him, follow him, believe in him. And the COK don't want that The COK need compliant people and that means poor people, people with no hope, no jobs and no future. The more the better because compliant people will ensure they keep their power."
Abisola then stared at the table, thinking, silent. Dobson did the same.
"So, which of the names on your list is Mr Big?" Dobson eventually asked.
"Festus Fulani might be," Abisola replied, "But there might also be others not on your list or mine."
"Why not arrest Festus?"
"Insufficient sound evidence and the President's view, and mine, is that his arrest would stir others into more precipitate action. Someone else would step up and things would escalate rapidly and uncontrollably, just as it would if they killed the President."
"Is Festus a devout Moslem?"
/>
"Not noticeably."
"So, what motivates him?"
"Power."
"Who would make an arrest?"
"The police, the army and the judiciary are going through big shake ups. It's a task the President set himself but, again, until the shake ups are complete I'm not sure we could guarantee a good outcome."
"Because judges, army people, police are involved?"
Abisola nodded. "Exactly."
"You're a great admirer of the President, yes?"
Abisola nodded and took his time over his next words. "You know something, Mark?" his voice became almost a whisper. "President Azazi would like to see Gabriel as the next President."
That did not shake Dobson as much as Abisola may have hoped.
"Yes, Solomon told me as much."
Abisola smiled. "So, he's talked to the President?"
"Only once I think. But Gabriel says he's not qualified, that he doesn't have the right friends and doesn't rub shoulders with the right people. He then says the right people are as corrupt as everyone else."
"And he's right of course. Nigeria's like a pyramid with those at the top having got there because they play the game. But the man at the top of the pyramid right now is a man who has proved it is possible to rise through the system by doing exactly what Gabriel has done - work hard and be honest.
"The President's chief strength, though, is his military career. That makes Mr Big and others feel nervous. They hesitate because they're not exactly sure which of the President's old military friends would stick by him and bring the whole of the military with them. So, they play for time, wearing the President down, hoping he won't last. Then along comes Pastor Gabriel Joshua."
"So, what's your preferred option?" Dobson asked after another pause.
It was a weak question but Abisola was ready. "To arrest thirty or more key names in one strike and create fear in another hundred that their status, their wealth and their lifestyles were about to be shattered. We'd need to provoke a sense of panic in the hope they'd show themselves. Then more arrests."
To Dobson it sounded reasonable, but was it feasible? It was, at least, a plan, a statement of intent, a strategy. Was it workable? "The President agrees with that strategy?" he asked.
"It's his strategy. Hence the moves to clean up the judiciary, the police, the army. The judge who signed the forged arrest warrant for Gabriel is a good example."
"Do you have any evidence of financial irregularities around Festus Fulani?"
"Rumour and speculation such as the FAA deal but never enough proof."
"Asher & Asher are experts" Dobson said. "Colin Asher calls it breaking into the PLI. I've always told Colin he could make far more money lecturing on PLI, but Colin says lecturing is too fucking boring."
Abisola smiled. "What's PLI?"
"PLI is about breaking into the three stages of laundering - placement, layering and integration. Placing is the arrival of the dirty cash, layering is the hiding of the dirty cash from its source and integration is the process whereby the dirty money gets returned to the criminal."
Abisola sniffed. "But how do you get action?"
"By breaking into the PLI process, particularly the layering. Layering is the clever part. We get action by proving to banks that we have information showing they are party to illegal laundering of proceeds of crime."
"Does it work?"
"It depends. Laundering often uses banks you've never heard of. Their reputations are not at stake as much as the big banks."
"What would you need?"
"Names - we've already got those - some bank account details to start us off and away we go."
He'd made it sound easy and Martin Abisola was not convinced. "We'd still need to make arrests in one, co-ordinated strike."
"But no harm in trying."
"Mmm," Abisola murmured. "Interesting idea." He switched on the voice recorder again, fast forwarded and pressed play.
"This is Pastor Ayo's voice," he said. "He's sitting in his BMW with Lazarus. Listen."
"How much cash do you have, Lazarus?"
"Maybe a quarter of a million dollars."
"We need two million."
"How much do you have, Ayo?"
"It was you who was carrying the cash in London."
"You are blaming me, Ayo?"
The argument continued for a minute or so until Ayo spoke again:
"Do you think it was chance, Lazarus? That a couple of street boys saw two Nigerians with a case and decided it might contain a laptop or a mobile phone? That when they opened it and found it stuffed with hundred-dollar bills they were surprised? Or do you think they already knew it contained two million dollars?"
"It is a good question, Ayo."
"It is not just a good question. Lazarus. It is an observation coming from a man with brain that is, unlike yours, neither a jelly nor a shrivelled old yam. Is it not too much of a coincidence that the bag was stolen as we emerged from the Cumberland hotel? Is it possible that the theft was planned and then carried out by someone who knew everything?"
"By who, Ayo? By the bastard, Gabriel?"
"A foolish suggestion."
"You think the Kaplan boy knows something, Ayo?"
There was a pause at this point as if Ayo had not thought of that.
"A stupid idea."
"Then who, Ayo?"
"Osman Olande could do it.
"And he was in London and we did not see him afterwards and he is a friend of Festus and......."
There was a break in the recording, rustling, fumbling, the car engine, a door slamming.
"Nothing much happens at this point," Abisola said, fast forwarding a little. "It is as if Lazarus has got out of the car. But then, the car engine stops and Ayo phones Zainab Azazi.
"The call lasts several minutes but Ayo agrees they could pay around a million dollars in cash. Lazarus, Ayo says, has an account at the Baroda Bank in London. That's a very unusual bank for a Nigerian. He also reminds Zainab that Lazarus's cousin is State Governor in Warri and owes Lazarus a lot of money. He is trying to persuade Zainab to be patient. That when the money is sorted they will pay it into any bank account in London."
"Is Lazarus aware of all this?" Dobson asked.
"Probably not," Abisola said. "But now listen again. This is a separate recording of Azazi. He's in his car after talking to Ayo and is now speaking to Festus Fulani."
"They are nervous, Babban. It is good." Azazi laughed. "They say they have about one million in London, Babban......,yes, I know it is not enough but we will squeeze them again later. One million is a deposit."
Abisola stopped the recorder. "You know 'babban' in Hausa, Mark? It means big. Mr Babban. Mr Big."
Abisola restarted the recording. "This is Azazi again."
"I'll fix it with one of Osman's fellas, Babban, maybe Osman himself if he can get to London.........yessah......which bank?.......Islamic Bank, so I'll need the number by text......They leave tomorrow."
Abisola switched it off again. "We then hacked the text," he said.
"How long ago was that?" Dobson asked.
"Two days ago."