CHAPTER 5
Edwin from Enugu was of course quite right. The Airport Hotel wasn't the best place to stay in Lagos but it suited Dobson.
Two hours before he'd been woken by the sudden silence from the rattling air-conditioner. The power was off again, but some sort of emergency system was bound to kick in sooner or later. While he waited and as the heat grew by the minute, Dobson's mind went back to London and a meeting two days before with Gabriel and Solomon. The venue that time had been a mid-terrace house obscured by scaffolding in a traffic congested side street of Hammersmith.
There had been no doorbell so Dobson had knocked, loudly. Solomon, just back from Nigeria, had opened it and led him up a flight of bare, wooden stairs to a room that featured peeling blue paint, bare floor boards and nothing to sit on except a sagging, black, plastic sofa and two upright wooden chairs. It had smelled damp and unused, but a Dell laptop stood open on a small table that, judged by the stains, had once been a coffee-table. A dusty-looking Ethiopian Airlines flight bag lay on the floor and Gabriel appeared in red boxer shorts, a tee shirt and a damp, threadbare pink towel on his head, his hair dripping.
It was straight down to business. Sol said: "The insurance company paid up."
He'd been referring to a medicines contract that had turned sour - the reason for his trip back to Lagos - and had been the usual Nigerian shenanigans over paperwork and a bunch of Letters of Credit. There had been no need for Dobson's involvement.
"But still a big loss for you," Dobson had said.
"Live and learn. We become better people by learning from the bad nature of others." It was not a saying Dobson had often heard in commercial circles, especially from a Nigerian.
Solomon pointed to the dilapidated sofa. "Please....sit."
Dobson thought his own flat in Queensway was dismal enough but this place was worse. Gabriel and Solomon ignored surroundings. It was something to do with being brought up in a slum, Dobson had previously concluded.
Then they'd started but, as always, it was a news item that distracted Gabriel. He rubbed the pink towel through his hair and dropped it on the floor. It was another abduction by the COK. Mali this time. Gabriel's chair creaked and rocked.
"Who cares a fuck about ordinary African folk?" he'd said. "You get thirty wealthy white tourists shot as they lie sunbathing with Martini cocktails on a Tunisian beach and the whole world knows. Next day you get a hundred African children massacred and no-one ever hears about it. Even if they know, they quickly forget. They don't really care. They shrug. Fucking black Africans.
Poor beggars. It's as if they deserve it. Then they carry on loading food carts sky high at the fucking supermarket. It's nothing to do with them. It's far away. Black lives are less important than white. You know that?"
Dobson agreed, but Gabriel had just made him feel sorry he'd spent all night watching more of Gabriel's You Tube clips and not the news.
They'd moved on.
"That arrest warrant. It's to do with a perfectly legitimate commercial contract to supply security equipment for the Federal Airports Authority," Sol said.
Dobson already knew that.
"They say it was awarded to Solomon Trading because of bribes, that it is all to do with money laundering and that we'll never deliver on our obligations."
Dobson knew that, too. The Asher & Asher system was very efficient with that sort of enquiry.
"If there is one thing to be said for Solomon Trading," Solomon went on, "it's that we go out of our way to make our business open, transparent, fair and legitimate."
Gabriel chipped in: "You'd be hard pressed to find another company with that sort of record in Nigeria.......no, in Africa. How much time do you have? There's a lot to discuss."
Just as before they'd hardly started when Dobson's phone buzzed. "There's been a fire above a Polish and African grocery shop in Croydon," said Colin Asher.
It only took Dobson a second. "God's office?"
"Heaven's been fire bombed."
"Anyone injured?"
"Apparently not. Someone saw smoke but it looks like another warning shot to me. Where are you?"
"With God himself."
So, Dobson had broken this latest piece of bad news, waited for things to settle and then mentioned the man called Osman Olande and tried linking Olande to the office fire. He took a deep breath and ended: "Things aren't looking good but, as your appointed consultant, I'm going to be frank. OK?"
Gabriel and Solomon had fallen silent like a couple of patients waiting for a diagnosis from a surgeon. "I feel I'm being short changed on information," Dobson said. Then his phone had gone again. "Bloody hell."
"The arrest warrant has found its way to Interpol but I've got a copy. It's on its way."
Dobson had opened his laptop and fired it up.
"It's total shit, man," Gabriel had said as they waited. "Am I the only person not to have seen the fucking warrant? Look out the window, Sol. Are the police outside? See any blue flashing lights?"
When Gabriel finished, Dobson was looking at a colour scan of a single sheet with an official looking spread eagle at the top: A warrant issued by a court in Abuja for the arrest of one Femi Akintola on charges of bribery, corruption, money laundering and false representation linked to a government contract with the Federal Aviation Authority, the FAA. To Dobson it looked like someone had typed in gaps on a blank form, liberally covered it in stamps and then finished it off at the bottom with a scrawl of a signature. But it looked official enough to have made its way to the UK Home Office and then into the police network because that was where Colin Asher had found it.
Dobson read it three times, Solomon twice and Gabriel once before lying on his back, head almost in the kitchen, feet against the sofa. "What is this fucking nonsense?"
"They spelled your name wrong, Femi." Solomon pointed out. "It's Akindele not Akintola."
Gabriel sprang up. "That ain't all they got wrong, Sol. This is crazy. This is a put up. This is a product of someone's desperation, a frightened mouse, a pygmy."
Somehow, Gabriel's accent had changed to slightly American, as if he was performing on a stage somewhere. "This don't scare Gabriel Joshua. This, my man, is a piece of shit. It is an invention, a forgery, a piece of paper found in a trash bin in a corrupt lawyers' office and they filled in the blank spaces."
Gabriel had then started jigging about, a man clearly blessed with many talents worthy of a stage career. One talent was for dreaming up outrageous, attention-getting speeches about world problems that never failed to drive home blunt, indisputable and often unpopular truths that many people didn't like. Another talent was an inability to recognise danger.
He'd looked down at Solomon and Dobson on the floor. "You think your British Home Office will take a blind bit of notice of this piece of crap, man? Will the US Department of Homeland Security arrest me at Dulles on the basis of this piece of stupidity?"
Trying to solve a client's problems meant trying to understand the client.
With Gabriel, Solomon and Solomon Trading there were huge chunks of mystery to be unravelled. It had taken most of the day at the Hammersmith house.
"This is a copy of your contract with the Federal Airports Authority, the FAA," Mark Dobson had said pointing to the screen of his laptop. "It poses a few questions."
He got answers to the simple ones first. Then:
"OK, I understand your partner on this FAA contract was Scantex Technologie from Germany. No problems. A good company. Owned by Fischer Investments in the USA. Richard Fischer is a multibillionaire and on a list of candidates for Governor of Massachusetts."
A few more clicks on his laptop and up came many more names of people with connections to Gabriel: big business owners, New York lawyers, a State governor and a few Senators including a black Senator, Daniel Bakare, currently on the US Committee on Armed Service, a member of the UK House of Lords with strong opinions on military strategy and defence spending and links to big business in Germany, Fran
ce, Italy, Australia.
"You know all these guys, personally, Gabriel? Is any of this relevant?"
Gabriel said nothing, just stared up from the floor as Dobson continued clicking away.
"You see, at first I thought this was yet another commercial deal gone wrong. I thought to myself: Jesus, Solomon Trading needs to learn a few tricks of the trade. They're either too naive or too bloody inept. Getting caught twice, three times, it's happening too often. But, business is business, so I carry on. And, anyway, despite everything, I still like Nigeria so it gets personal.
"So, I delved a bit more and things looked even more complicated. than at first sight. But perseverance is a characteristic of mine as you've noticed and so I go to Nigeria hoping to ask the questions I'm asking right now. But someone was tipped off. They knew I was coming and a few thugs turned up to warn me off. Frankly, I thought I had had my chips, that the game was up and it was time to meet my maker. But why was I being warned off?
"I've decided it was because I was coming to see you. Perseverance nearly got me killed."
"Sorry," said Solomon.
"This is not just about a single deal gone wrong," Dobson had continued. "You've been around a few years now. You, Gabriel, are a man led by Christian beliefs, an understanding of right and wrong. You're a natural orator. I've heard you speak. Watched the videos. It's stirring stuff. But to me you look and sound more like a rich international politician than a parish priest. And now, here you are sitting in this fucking, dismal flat in Hammersmith owned by a friend of yours who's just been murdered and with an arrest warrant hanging over your head.
"So, what the hell's going on, man? What the fuck are you up to that makes you and probably Sol and me a target for annihilation? If you think I can help, then loosen up and tell me more. Otherwise we'll forget about it, I'll return your cheque and start another job.
This lucid flow of Dobson's was spoiled again by his phone. "Bloody hell......... Colin. What now?"
"TV breaking news," he said. "Burkina Faso. Reports of hundreds of dead beside the roads. The airport at Ouagadougou closed due to an 'incident'. Terrorists belonging to the COK said to have moved in under cover of a night lit only by headlights from brand new Toyota trucks..........."
Colin Asher's description lasted a minute or so and Dobson had switched his phone to loudspeaker so Gabriel and Solomon could hear.
When he'd finished, Gabriel stood up.
"It was expected," he said, prowling around the room. "And where were the French? Where were the Pan African joint action troops? Where were the Americans, the British, the Chinese, the Russians who go there to dig for whatever precious commodity lies beneath African soil? Where was the protection for ordinary people?"
Gabriel, Dobson knew, didn't expect a reply. When he was in a mood like that he could speak for hours. This time, however, he stopped and sat down.
"We've never properly described the Project to you, Mark," he said quietly.
Dobson nodded. "True." Then he looked at Gabriel. No longer the bouncing, confident, firebrand speaker he'd watched on videos. The tall, black man with the smart suit, white shirt, bow tie and sparkling ear studs was gone, replaced by an unshaven man leaning in the doorway of a dirty kitchen in crumpled trousers, a dirty shirt, bare feet and the pink towel now hanging around his neck.
"What exactly are you up to, Gabriel? What's going on?"
Gabriel looked at Solomon as if asking for permission to explain something. Dobson didn't give him a chance. ""One minute you're a hell raising preacher, next minute a fucking politician," he said. "Which is it, Gabriel? Why not become a bone fide Presbyterian preacher?"
Gabriel smiled. "Only God is sufficiently qualified to hand out that sort of diploma. And if you were to ask him I suspect he'd say he hates titles."
Dobson liked that. Gabriel had just proved one of his own long held opinions about it being impossible to train someone to become a good, free-lance international commercial crime investigator. It was so good a reply Dobson decided that's how he'd reply to Colin Asher next time he was accused of being a self-taught, eavesdropping dickhead. "But you exploit the title of Pastor Gabriel Joshua," he said.
"It has marketing advantages."
"And you call your organisation the Household of God's Miracles Church?"
"Blame Sol. He invented it. The name stuck. It was a thirteen year olds' joke. He said it was a miracle anyone turned up to our meetings."
"It's a trade name," Solomon added.
"Do you believe in miracles?"
"Only one," Gabriel replied.
"And what's that?"
"That we got where we are with a name like 'Household of God's Miracles Church'."
"So, are you a businessman, a man of God or a politician?"
Gabriel gave his loud, Nigerian laugh and pointed his finger as if awarding Dobson first prize for something.
"I like your questions, Mark. I suppose I'm all three. Mostly I'm a man who wants to change things so perhaps I'm mostly a politician. But change costs money and being a politician costs money and money requires a source. So, I'm a businessman. And I read the Bible which says many things about right and wrong, about the rich and poor. But then so do other religions."
"But you charge people to listen to you."
"The income, less the overheads, go towards the Project. You need to understand the business model, Mark. But you are suggesting I am a preacher. I am not a preacher. A preacher only delivers sermons on religious topics. I am a motivational speaker."
"But you imply you are a devout Christian."
"That is because I talk about fairness, rights, respect, opportunities for all and compliance with basic laws - laws that are best encapsulated in the Christian ten commandments. I could probably perform just as well as a Buddhist. But it's the Christian West that has the problem. Buddhists still believe in something. Moslems still believe in something. The West has lost its belief in anything."
"So, for the sake of simplicity, I'll put you down as a Christian. That leads to..... "
Gabriel interrupted: "It's what I'm not that you need to understand."
"So, what are you not?"
"I am not a man who will use violence to achieve his aims. I will defend vigorously but if I cannot persuade by word of mouth it means I have not yet found the right words. Terrorists like the ones you just watched on TV, do not even try to engage in rational debate because they know they will lose the argument. That is why they hide away and only emerge with guns to terrorise. They are inhuman. They are criminals who exploit the biggest problem facing mankind - the anger and envy caused by lack of opportunity. joblessness, overpopulation and the disparity between rich and poor - problems that are still growing. But where is the leadership?"
"So, you are a politician - an unelected one."
"True. But with millions who would vote for me if I ever stood."
"So why not stand?"
"The system needs to change but it can only be changed by pressure from outside. Once you are inside it is hard not to become like the others. Power is like a drug, like alcohol, like smoking. Once you have tasted it, you struggle to give it up. African politicians are amongst the worst. They love themselves more than the people they rule. It is a remnant of the days when the tribal chief was the one with the best feathers and sat in a big chair covered in a tiger skin while the plebs sat on the ground looking up at him, awestruck." Gabriel laughed at his joke "Have you finished your questions?"
"No," Dobson had said because he wanted to change tack, to draw out the reasons for the arrest warrant and the commercial problems. Then he'd come back to the politics. "I still don't understand the Project," he said. "What the fuck is it? Fact is you both come from poor backgrounds and you're now wealthy. Some might say rich. To get there have you ever had to use criminal methods? Bribery for instance? Is not bribery, fraud and corruption a way of life in Nigeria and the only way to become rich?"
"On the scale that you re
fer to, it has been necessary twice," Gabriel replied. "A sincere regret."
"Do you ever tell lies, Gabriel?"
"Who doesn't?"
"Do you tell lies during your.... your motivational speeches?"
"I talk in order to open minds, to stimulate deeper thoughts, to pose questions, to highlight wrongdoing and suggest ways to put them right. I admit I sometimes exaggerate things to make a point. But exaggeration is not lying."
Gabriel stood up, stroked his neat moustache. "The world has been devoid of inspirational leaders for too long," he went on using the back of the chair like a lectern. "And I'm not talking about all those business gurus who talk bullshit to crowds of would be salesmen. I'm talking about inspiring ordinary people by building optimism, painting a realistic picture of how their lives could and should be and then driving them to achieving that. The lack of spiritual leadership explains many problems in the West. Americans and Europeans are lost in a vacuum of uncertainty and consumerism. They lack the spiritual leadership necessary for the modern world they have created. They do not question life itself other than to demand a long life free of sickness. They are trapped in ambiguity and mixed messages and ruined further by political correctness and fear of speaking the truth.
"Political correctness is destroying frankness and honesty. It encourages dishonesty. Despite TV and the internet, they remain ignorant of what life is really like for most of their fellow humans because to understand properly they need to experience it for themselves. So, all the while, we see a growing gulf between those that have everything and those that have nothing.
"That is why I speak of the reasons behind the conflicts that plague Africa and the Middle East and are spread through terrorism. And I talk about the weakness of modern leadership that could plunge the whole of the world into a major catastrophe. I talk about too much democracy stifling radical decision-making and how dictatorships can sometimes be far better at changing society for the good."
Gabriel paused. "I am not always popular. But I talk about unemployment, underemployment, the destruction of the natural environment and the problems of uncontrolled population growth. And, being African, of course I talk about corruption and the increasing economic desperation that leads to mass migration, not just of Africans.
"But I do not lie, Mark. I offer opinion backed up by fact, but such is modern scepticism that one person's fact is another person's untruth. What I try to offer are sensible opinions straight from my heart. That they are rarely disputed suggests they are widely shared although It's a pity that politicians are too frightened to acknowledge them. That my audiences have grown year by year suggests that what I say is seen as plain, common sense. They understand me."
It had been interesting stuff but Dobson was still wondering where all this was going, what he was doing in that rundown house and whether or not he could achieve anything by staying.
And the Project itself? Still there was nothing.
"You speak extremely well, Gabriel," Dobson had said. "Your accent gives you away as Lagos born and bred although I notice you add in a bit of American from somewhere. But, and forgive me for saying this, it is as if you had a far better education than a boy from the slums. Can you explain that?"
"You think I'm also lying about my background? Let me tell you. From age ten Sol and I worked the streets close to the Holiday Inn Hotel. The cleaners would give me old English and American newspapers from hotel guests in return for cigarettes that I rolled from what the English call dog ends. When Sol got to read the papers, they were in tatters because I read every damned page from front to back and tore out sections I found interesting. That was my education." He had paused and grinned. "It also explains why I don't smoke."
They laughed for a moment until Dobson decided he'd had enough of skirting the big question. "So," he said. "Explain the Project."
Mark Dobson, still waiting for the power to return at the Airport Hotel, went to the window, opened it and stared out into the darkness. There was another hour to go before Edwin from Enugu turned up.
"Explain the Project."
Well, there was this area of land in the north east that crossed the border into Niger, that Solomon Trading owned it. It was about twenty miles across with scattered small villages and one small town thirty miles away.
That had been the start, but then he'd got another long lecture about the world economic model - the one based on constant growth, about it not working for ordinary people, about Nigeria and Niger being good examples of how it didn't work, about wealth not flowing down to ordinary folk like it should, why continued growth had limits and why some in the West were starting to realise this.
"So, the Project is about a new economic system - in the area you own?" Dobson had asked.
"That's why we need funds."
"Why not ask charities? There are hundreds of them."
They'd tried. No success. Compassion fatigue. Niger was out of bounds. Aid workers were shit scared to go there.
"What about the land? You got permission for all that? From the State Governor? The Government?"
They had papers. Certificates of Occupancy.
Were they sound papers? Would they stand up in Court? Might someone tear them up as worthless? After all, Nigeria's land ownership laws were somewhat vague.
"I got to know the President of Niger, Mark. Hausa man, Hama Dosso. French speaker. We get on well."
"Christ almighty," Dobson had said because Gabriel had made it sound like his land was some sort of small, independent country. "What sort of new economic system have you got in mind?"
And that's when he'd started to learn about the Spanish Co-Operativa Integral Catalana, the CIC. It had taken a while. "A co-operative where everyone has a stake," Gabriel had explained. "Self-sufficiency, everyone self-employed."
Dobson had tried to imagine how it might work. Yes, a few small places in Europe or America might give it a try it but Africa? Either way, it was mind boggling, although Solomon provided a touch of reality. "It won't be easy," he'd said.
What about the timescale?
They'd already started and had a man in charge of the economic side.
"His name is Benjamin Simisola. He's black, Ghanaian, with a post graduate degree in tropical agriculture with a special interest in peanuts, sesame, chillies, small scale manufacturing and solar energy."
"OK."
"But because it's in an area where the COK operates we have a man in charge of defending it."
"Jesus. Go on."
"His name's Bill Larsen, an ex, British soldier, SAS. Bill Larsen runs a private defence force called Specialised Tasks Africa, STA. We allow him to use our land."
"A private, bloody army?"
"We allow him to lose our land and contribute to his expenses. We can't rely on the Nigerian government or anyone else."
Dobson's scepticism had reached its peak.
"It's long term," Sol had added to Dobson's eternal gratitude. "Bill's building up STA to operate in other areas where there is trouble."
And who employs Benjamin?
"We do."
To Dobson it sounded like Benjamin was head of the civil service, like the Mayor of London or New York.
"Let me get it clear," he'd said. "All your profits are going towards creating some sort of co-operative economy in an area of land you own."
Gabriel had nodded. "You think we're mad?"
"Yes. But my admiration is tempered with a feeling you won't get away with it. That someone will take offence and try to stop it. Maybe they've already started. Arrest warrants. Shootings. That sort of thing. You share my feelings?"
Gabriel and Solomon had both shrugged. "Yes," they said in unison.
"But there's no way your business profits can cover those sorts of expenses," Dobson had pointed out. "How do you cover it?"
"Donations, Mark. Like-minded entrepreneurs, friends."
"Well, as your adviser, and if it's not so confidential give me an example. Wh
o is willing to stump up millions for a project like that."
Gabriel had smiled. "You think it's impossible? That they think I'm crazy?"
"I also think you're crazy so give me an example just to prove I'm wrong."
"Albatross."
"Albatross? Steve Kendrick? Yachts to airlines? Shoes to electronics?"
"That Steve."
For Dobson that really was an eye opener. Everyone knew Steve Kendrick and Dobson had met him once in Nairobi. Kendrick was a self-made billionaire who'd started out selling counterfeit perfumes from a suitcase in Oxford Street in London. Albatross was his corporate name, the image of an albatross on everything from his designer clothing to the fleet of Boeings belonging to Albatross Pacific. Kendrick now ran his empire from a yacht called Albatross moored off Monaco."
"Albatross who've just opened a route to Abuja?"
"That Albatross."
"Any other crazy donors?"
"Yes, but they don't all like the publicity. Steve's an exception."
Dobson thought for a moment. "So, is there anything in particular you want funds for at present?" He'd made it sound like he had a few friends tucked away with spare cash but the answer made him wish he'd never asked.
"Yeh," Gabriel had said pushing lunch, now just an empty pizza box, towards Sol. "We lack certain pieces of technology - one in particular."
"And what's that?".
"An MQ-9 Aerial Surveillance drone. We could purchase one from the US for about five million dollars. We're working on a deal to buy one."
At that point, Solomon had stood up with all the empty pizza boxes and was carrying them to the kitchen. Dobson had watched him go, but as Gabriel mentioned the drone a look of dismay had spread across Solomon's face.
"Does the US know about this?" Dobson asked.
"We're not the ones negotiating the purchase."
"I see. Who is?"
"A Russian partner, Aron Kaplan, through their Paris office."
Dobson knew the name. Kaplan was one of the older oligarchs - Kaplan Oil, Kaplan Gas, Kaplan Properties.
Solomon was shoving the empty boxes into a plastic bag but stopped, momentarily and Dobson's eye instantly logged a problem, a difference of opinion. He ignored it for the moment.
"Aron Kaplan. And the French connection?"
"Uranium. Niger is a big producer of Uranium. The French depend on it. They would run out of electricity if they couldn't get it. It's a political quagmire."
Fifteen years in the international investigation business and Dobson often realised how little he knew or understood. But then he'd been subjected to another Gabriel lecture.
"It's why Africans stay poor, Mark. Why Nigerians stay poor even with vast oil reserves. It's the multinationals like Aviva, the French mining company supported by foreign governments, it's big bribes. big corruption. Wealth should filter down to the people but it doesn't. Instead, a few get rich and foreign politician do nothing because they'd lose votes if they intervened. It's wrong. A nation's resources should belong to the nation's people."
"And your so-called Project is all about showing there's a way to change this?"
Gabriel nodded.
"How many people know about the Project?"
Solomon this time. "Very few. And it's behind schedule because we needed to solve security problems. With Bill Larsen in place we can start to move forward again."
Dobson changed tack.
"Let me get this clear," he said. "Solomon Trading has grown from a small local trading business trading honestly and corruption free because honesty is right and honesty pays. Right?"
They both nodded.
"But in the last few years it has taken on distributorships and agencies for big international companies - like Albatross and Scantex Technologie but still by trading honestly."
"Albatross and Scantex chose us for that very reason," said Solomon.
"And you've worked with Albatross and Scantex for several years."
"Albatross for five years. Scantex for four."
"So why, after all that time, is someone trying to put you out of business?"
Gabriel shrugged. Solomon shook his head.
"Is it something to do with the Project. With Bill Larsen?"
Solomon looked at Gabriel and Gabriel sniffed loudly. "Maybe," he said.
"Why?" Dobson asked and Gabriel sniffed again. For a man with Gabriel's self-confidence sniffing nervously was unusual. Had Dobson hit a nerve? He watched Gabriel.
"It could be that the COK is not what it seems, that it......." Gabriel stalled. Solomon looked at him and Dobson waited. "......that the COK is not like Boko Haram."
"What do you mean?" Dobson asked.
"It seems more organised."
"How do you know?"
"Steve Kendrick, Albatross. He met President Azazi soon after he was elected. The President likes Steve's approach to business. He also likes ours. I know that because we met him once before he was elected. Right, Sol?"
Solomon nodded. "A good man."
"The President asked Steve if he'd considered long term security and stability," Gabriel went on.
"Nothing unusual in a warning like that is there?"
"Except that the President took Steve aside and said to him that he thought the COK was not being taken seriously enough by the outside world. That the US and others still thought it was small scale terrorism under a new name and that it wouldn't last long."
"What do you think?"
"I don't know," Gabriel had admitted. "But when you asked if our problems might be linked to Bill Larsen, you got me thinking."