by Moulton, CD
Clint looked thoughtful, then asked if there was any pipe around. Long sections.
They had hundreds of feet of PVC. Clint said it was too flexible for what he wanted.
“You want to see how deep the sand is. It will do it. You will see!” Keno said. “Come! We will waste a few lengths of the government’s plastic pipe!”
“How far does the soft part extend out there?” Clint asked.
“How far? Oh! You mean is there a way around it,” Miguel replied. “I got used to the way city people talk at University.
“This whole valley, from the mountains to the north until the mountains to the south. Probably two and a half kilometers and all the way from the trees to the west to past the pass where there are trees to the east. Six or seven kilometers. Our village is in the hills where the ground is solid and the other is in the hills to the south. There is nothing in the valley and only the one path that is only used when there is need to move things without going to the road and back on the other side. It is for visiting and emergencies. We do not carry much because you will sink and it is very difficult to go any distance if you are too heavy.”
Three men and seven children went out into the mucky field nearby with a rock and mud path across it with several twenty foot lengths of 3/4" PVC, off into the muck (where they sank almost to their knees more than a few feet from the path) and started twisting a length of the pipe into the mud. Just pushing and twisting by hand made it sink with little resistance. They attached a second piece and it went in, going even faster.
“It is below the top crust of harder and drier sand,” Miguel lectured. “It will now go very quickly. This top part is floating because of the pressure of the water from much higher lifting it. You will see.”
They pushed two more lengths in and were starting on a third when Clint said to just pull it all back out. That was more than eighty feet and it would go in as fast as they pushed it with no resistance to speak of, so it was an underground lake. Like Mexico City. The water was probably fairly pure down there. If they did massive pumping the whole area would start sinking.
They pulled the pipe back out and went back to the puebla, a happy bunch sharing a joke. Clint played and teased the children, they kicked a soccer ball around a bit, then he had to go. He said he hated to leave – and meant it! He hugged everyone and promised to return. They knew they were welcome in his home in Bocas anytime.
He was thinking as he rode the bus back toward the main road. He decided to go back to Panamá City to see if he could find the exact route under discussion. Rolf would probably cooperate.
This was rich! A couple of Indios and some government PVC pipe proved the idea was totally unworkable! A project several dozens of top engineers worked on over a period of some years (the project was first proposed in 1994) was shot out of the saddle by some Indios and some PVC pipe! Clint couldn’t stop himself from giggling like a fool at times. Ten million dollars for those experts and equipment wasted when all it took was six dollars worth of plastic and an hour to push it into the muck.
“Greetings! I had to come back to see if you could show me the route the engineers suggested for the road.”
Rolf looked a question and showed some curiosity in it.
“I had some experts and equipment to check on a piece that seems to me to be the only place in the whole schmeer where a flat road could go. We both know moving that much size and weight over mountains is beyond ridiculous.”
“Six or eight different firms have used fifty or sixty engineers and even satellite views to prove the route would be feasible and would work. They just didn’t have a way to figure the ultimate cost,” he replied. “I doubt your engineers could add anything important.
“Who? That German-Danish group who say the problem would be getting the equipment to do the work into the particular area is as much as using it would cost, thus doubling the cost?”
“Nope! A wad of Indio children!”
“I was told you went to the comarca. You’re not seriously going to say a bunch of Indios proved the world’s top engineers are wrong?
“I mean, they probably are in some details, but not enough to stop the project that won’t happen anyway.”
“Do they plan to make a floating bridge seven kilometers long in those engineering plans?”
Rolf let a big grin escape. “So. You’ve proven what the Indios say is true and what the engineers say is bullshit?”
“Engineers who had soundings of the close area and high resolution pictures from the satellites. Ten minutes going out there and making the simplest tests would have ended this silly fiasco before it started. I guess none of them wanted to get their fancy shoes wet and they would have had to walk almost a whole kilometer through muck. Not in the job description.
“Hell! If a surveyor had gone out there he wouldn’t have been able to set up his tripods! They would’ve slowly sunk into the mud with those pointed legs! The guy holding the stick couldn’t be focused on because he would be sinking if he wasn’t on the path. Maybe on it in places. That whole valley’s like Mexico City. Floating on a lake. Mexico City has a more solid base than there is out there. The satellites didn’t show any trees because there aren’t any. In a rain forest area there aren’t any trees? Really?”
“They felt it was solid hardpan.”
“With that marsh grass covering it? A hardpan would have made it a shallow lake.”
“How deep did you test? Accurate?”
“We only used four lengths of PVC. Eighty feet. Nothing solid or semi-solid past a layer of maybe eight or ten feet of what was peat or something that allowed the sand and muck to build on top. It was just water after thirty four or five feet. I could read the soundings to see how deep it is. Probably a couple of hundred feet.”
He roared with laughter. There were tears rolling down his face from it. “We spent four million dollars for engineers and you spent four dollars for some Indio kids – and the four dollars was for the bus to get there! I love it!”
“Actually, six fifty. I bought sodas and cookies for the kids.”
He finally stopped laughing enough to say, “Clint, don’t let a hint out that might reach Ahmad, Okay?”
Clint nodded and said he had to get back to Bocas. “Oh! I meant to ask! Why are they still in Bocas? Why is Ahmad?”
“I wonder about that myself. It doesn’t seem logical now that they’re rid of Benton. I don’t know.”
“There’s someone else pulling strings somewhere. Be careful!” Clint warned.
Passports
Clint got back to Bocas Town just at dark. He got off the water taxi and was just getting to the road when he saw Lyle Friendly’s back as he stepped out of the Lemon Grass and headed toward the ferry dock.
Clint went upstairs and asked if he was there.
“Friendly? That gringo who doesn’t talk to other people?” Serena asked. “He sits on the deck all the time and drinks Coke. He just left.”
Clint went to the deck. From the little table there he could see the water taxi approach very clearly.
He went on home to check everything out. No one had sprung any traps, but they would know that it would be useless to try to find anything there. He’d made that clear enough!
Friendly was sitting in the Lemon Grass to be where he could see the water taxis come in. They would know he hadn’t taken his boat so would probably come in by water taxi or plane.
It was time to find out who they each were working for. Oil and Rolf’s statement about the closest one meant, most likely, Venezuela for Friendly. Mexico was probably out of it. They could easily deliver oil to either coast – then again! Maybe they wanted a poker in the fire.
The remarks about Benton knowing too much about their secret organizations meant ... Syria? That was mentioned. Syria and Libya.
He didn’t have enough. He went to the police station and asked Sergio to find what other countries were on the fives’ passports. He had checked on them and should know.
“The US, all of them. Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, Friendly (he had that one right!). The D’Angelos, Italy, Yemen, Iran, France, Australia, Canada, Brazil, here. Aumond, Canada, England, Hong Kong, Romania, Poland, Israel, here. Carter, Mexico, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam,” he said after a few minutes for getting the files.
Okay. A few working assumption: Friendly, Mexico and Venezuela: D’Angelos, Iran: Aumond, Israel: Carter, Mexico – which meant Friendly was only Venezuela. Probably. How did Ahmad fit this collection? Where? How? Other than being someone who was being suckered into spending a few hundred million on a scam, he didn’t quite fit anywhere. Clint wished he’d had a closer look at him, but what he saw definitely didn’t look like mid-sixties. He looked mid-forties from a distance.
Clint called Sergio back into the room and asked about Ahmad Abdul Musefa. There was no one using that passport here. The one on the yacht? Ali Marefalla. He was a president of some kind of engineering company owned by Ahmad.
Clint grinned to himself. The scammers were being conned! Big time! Ahmad was playing them against each other! He called Rolf after a few minutes thinking. He wasn’t at all sure Rolf had been straight with him, but would give him a certain benefit of the doubt.
“Want some news that’ll make you laugh out of one side of your face and cry out of the other?”
“What? This has to be good if you’re calling me. Friendly and Aumond meet you when you got back? I didn’t think you’d mind if I told them you were coming.”
“He’d been watching the water taxis and she was watching the airport. I should have come over in Paul’s boat with him and gone directly to my dock.
“Ahmad isn’t Ahmad.”
There was a long growing silence.
“You still there or did you faint?”
“I ain’t much the fainting type. Who’s there who’s supposed to be Ahmad?”
“Ali Marefalla. An engineer. Was he the same one who came here for you to set this up?”
“Uh-huh. An engineer. He probably went out there and found what you found and decided to use it. He was the one who suggested we fund the project and rake off a few billion in the next ten years.”
“He was going to put a hundred million or so up front?”
“You know the routine. He puts up ten million, which is nothing to him, we each come up with ten million. Venezuela, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Brazil, Iran, North Korea, four or five more. I have to check. I’ll as much as bet Ahmad controls the dispersion of funds. He’d take all of us for ten million apiece. How do we work him?”
“Why, I’m going to figure it out. He’ll know fairly soon that I checked on Ahmad. I’ll cut myself in.”
“Careful! You’ll get cut, but not in!”
“How many of you have already put up funds?”
“We have ninety four million in the account right now. It’s offshore here.”
“Let me think about it. I may have an angle they haven’t considered.”
“Such as?”
“To have an account like that you must have a Panamanian in the corporation, if just in name.”
“I’m Panamanian. I was born in Penonomé. Pops was English and made a quick getaway when I was less than a year old.”
“Then we have to show Ahmad isn’t the one who set the account up. He can’t have control if his part was done by proxy. That means that the Panamanian members of the board control the account until he makes a declaration, which will take someone like him a day or less. You’ll have about six hours to do something.”
“Like get a Panamanian who isn’t involved in the business deals to secure the funds until it’s resolved? I think that’s the way we can handle it legally. The only problem will be in getting a Panamanian we can trust that much. Too bad you’re a gringo.”
“I’m Panamanian. Declared and decreed by Basilio Rangero Bonitas, chief of the comarca at Cusapín and the chief at Rambala. I even have a passport that says I’m Panamanian.”
“I heard they can do that. Some doctor was declared Ngobe Bugle, the government fought it and lost. Big time! I’ll have a Cessna at the Bocas airport for you at six in the morning. I’ll be the pilot. We’ll go directly to the islands with the proof you’ll supply that Ahmad wasn’t Ahmad and may be running some kind of game.
“You will have the proof?”
“Did Ali sign anything with Ahmad’s name?”
“Everything. He probably has a PA.”
“That would work if he told you in writing that he was there with that PA to represent Ahmad. If you weren’t so informed the PA is a piece of paper that you can use to wipe your ass.”
“See you at six.”
Clint hung up and grinned. He called Sergio and asked that he very quietly get copies of the entry papers for Ali. He could come pick them up anytime he liked.
“Half an hour.”
Reverse the Scam
“Mr. Faraday, I’ll have to check with Panamá City before I can do anything with this. I can freeze the transfer of funds, but that’s all,”
“Horse manure!” Rolf snarled. “I’m in charge of this end, as it says in those contracts right there, and am not about to let some crook scam these people out of their money – even if they probably every one deserve it. I’ve shown you the contracts for these people’s funds were garnered through misrepresentation by a person not the one who signed the name of Ahmad Abdul Musefka. If this bank enters into complicity with that crook I’ll see that there’s not one person in this world who doesn’t know you did so!
“If I wanted the money in my name I’d expect a very intense investigation. I don’t. I want it in the name of a person whose reputation is very clear and very positive. A man who is so deeply concerned with stopping this kind of thing that he was made a Panamanian in only the second time in the history of Panamá such a declaration was made. He is Panamanian and Ngobe Bugle! I want this man, whose honesty is declared and proven a thousand times over, to hold these funds and see that those deserving don’t lose it.”
Sardina made a call and a lawyer for the bank came in, listened to the story and said the bank had no choice under the law but to transfer the funds to a neutral party. Clinton Forrest Faraday was such a person. Why call him? The law was clear enough that no lawyer was needed except to get the signatures of the interested parties on the form. He was there. The forms were on the desk. Both the legal representative of the funds and the neutral recipient were there. Sign the contracts and forms and go get some lunch. The funds would be in Faraday’s account within the hour.
So they did that. They were eating a delicious mariscos mix when Rolf’s phone buzzed. He answered and put it on speaker.
“Yes? Rolf here.”
“This is Ahmad Musefka.”
“What do you want, Ali Marefalla?”
“I am Ahmad’s legal representative and have a full power of attorney to act in his name!”
“You didn’t bother to state so or to get an agreement from the others that would allow you to sign contracts with them. You didn’t even present the PA to the bank. You signed a false name, in law. I repeat. what do you want?”
He hung up. Rolf grinned and giggled. “I think Ahmad’s going to be a bit upset over this one.”
“Watch your back!” Clint warned.
“Oh, I will!
“What are you going to do with the money? None of us can legally touch it now. We timed it just right. A single hour more and he would have thought of an out of some kind.”
“I’ll see it returned to everyone, minus my ten percent handling fee. You each get nine million back. The comarca there could use a school and clinic. Ten million donation from Ahmad. Tell him I said thanks.”
Rolf grinned and gave Clint a high five.
Rolf even flew Clint back to Bocas. When they landed at four o’clock the five and Ahmad ran out toward the plane, but the guard made them go back into the terminal. Clint waved and went toward the private gate. They cam
e running out toward him as Rolf took off for Panamá City. He said he was hungry. They could talk over a snack.
He called Judi. She and Sergio would want to be in this and would join him at the new Mexican place Gary had opened.
It was almost funny how Clint knew exactly what they wanted to say, but couldn’t find a way to start it.
“The money’s gone. Ali here was running a scam on all of you for Ahmad. Each country will get their money back minus ten percent. Ahmad and his companies will get out of Panamá and not return. He has two branches he has thirty days to divest himself of. He gets nothing from this but an international reputation that’s about what it already was. I’ll try to get it spread a little better. That’s about it.”
Friendly laughed. “It’s better than any of them deserve. The way I look at it you saved them each nine million up front and a hundred million in the long run.”
“That’s not how it’ll be seen by ... back in my sponsor’s home,” Carter said. “They have a different slant on things.”
“They would rather have Ahmad con them out of a hundred million than spend one million to find out what was going on?” Judi asked. “What other slant can you have on this kind of thing?”
“I think my sponsor won’t hold it against you, Faraday,” Aumond said. “I can make them see they saved a hell of a lot more than the puny couple of million they put out.
“Present it as, ‘I was paid to investigate. I did. It was a scam. You would have lost your asses if we hadn’t conned Faraday into finding out what was really going on. If you were in Faraday’s shoes you would keep the whole ten million and tell the bunch of you to stick it up your asses!’ point out that Clint doesn’t have to return a centavo. They got out of this cheap!”
