The Shadow List

by Todd Moss

  Jessica put her hands on her hips.

  “Find the threads,” she repeated, gritting her teeth. “And pull.”

  4

  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  MONDAY, 10:15 A.M. EST

  Judd Ryker calling me? Dios mío, this can’t be good news,” Isabella Espinosa giggled.

  “I know. I owe you lunch, Special Agent,” Judd said into the speakerphone, suddenly feeling guilty for not staying in closer touch with the Department of Justice investigator who had helped him on past missions. “How’s my favorite monster hunter?”

  Isabella Espinosa had midnight-black hair, fierce eyes, and a chip on her shoulder. She’d grown up in the worst barrios of East Los Angeles. Her mother, Florita, born in Chihuahua not far off the main highway into Ciudad Juárez, had made her way to California to raise her only daughter. Isabella had scrapped her way through overcrowded LA public schools, a training ground more for street gangs than the workforce, but with a firm mother’s hand she had not only survived but thrived. Next was community college, a minimum-wage internship with a public defender, a transfer to UC Irvine, and eventually a full ride at UCLA law school.

  “I’m keeping busy,” she said.

  After graduation, Isabella had been lavished with generous offers from California’s most prominent law firms, and a bidding war had ignited for the Hispanic woman who’d come in top of her class. In the end, with the full support of her mother, she’d turned them all down for an entry-level civil service job in Washington, D.C., chasing down the worst that humanity had to offer. Isabella Espinosa had dedicated her life, not to money or prestige, but to justice.

  “I’ve rotated off war crimes for a few months,” she said. “They’ve got me chasing other ghosts now.”

  “Any news from Zimbabwe?” Judd asked.

  “Nothing yet,” she said. “The new government is still deciding whether to prosecute the general for war crimes or let him confess in exchange for immunity. Just like South Africa did after apartheid.”

  “After everything that happened? After all the suffering? All those people slaughtered? Are they seriously considering . . . forgiving him?”

  “If Zimbabwe chooses truth and reconciliation—if the general admits in open court what he did—then, yes, they’ll let him off,” Isabella said. “They call it healing.”

  “I don’t get it,” Judd said. “I don’t think I could forgive someone after all of that. If someone did that to my family—”

  “It’s not up to us,” she said curtly.

  “After we worked so hard to take the old man down and put his henchman in prison? After finally getting a decent election? After all we did together? That doesn’t bother you if they let him off?”

  “It’s not about us.”

  “You’re right, Isabella,” Judd acknowledged. “That’s not why I’m calling.”

  “So, qué pasa, Professor?”

  “You know anything about advance fee scam letters? You know, the ones offering a big payout if you send money or your bank account details?”

  “Claro,” she chuckled. “Don’t tell me our Dr. Ryker fell for one of those?”

  “No. Not me. I just need to know more about them.”

  “Law enforcement calls them 419, after the fraud section of the Nigerian criminal code. The bait, as you know, is any false promise, like a cut of a long-lost bank account or an unclaimed court settlement.”

  “Do you know how many people fall for it?”

  “Thousands. Back in the 1990s, the FBI was getting dozens of reports every week. People kept calling for help getting their money back. But it’s gotten a lot more sophisticated since. It began with simple letters, then graduated to email. Now the scammers deploy modern marketing software and big data. They use all kinds of lures to convince people to send money. Promises of jobs, fame, even marriage. And it’s moved from a few con artists in an Internet café to a sophisticated international criminal operation. Don’t think of some poor street kid. Think of Pablo Escobar. Or a modern business run by the Sopranos.”

  “A Nigerian Tony Soprano? Isn’t that a bit dramatic, Isabella?”

  “Nigeria has its mob bosses, its peces gordos, just like everyone else. But these networks have spread way beyond West Africa. Everyone loves to blame the Nigerians, but we’re now seeing scams run out of Brazil, Russia, Madrid, Dubai. Ground zero for fraud today is London.”

  “London?” Judd’s ears perked up. “That’s a coincidence. That’s exactly why I’m calling. I’m looking for a civilian who’s gone missing in London.”

  “And you think he’s caught up in a scam?”

  “It’s possible. Some business deal that was too good to be true, and now he’s disappeared.”

  “Since when does S/CRU hunt for missing persons?”

  “That’s an excellent question, Special Agent Espinosa.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me,” she said.

  “What’s DOJ doing about all of this? Don’t you have an antifraud task force or something?”

  “We don’t. But Nigeria does.”

  “Nigeria?”

  “The Justice Department works with local authorities wherever we can. We can’t police the whole world. We can’t even respond to specific cases where American citizens have been taken in. So we’ve worked closely in the past with the Nigerian Crime and Corruption Task Force and they clamped down on the 419ers. They did a pretty good job. Executed raids, confiscated computers, blocked bank accounts, even put a few of the big bosses in jail. But it’s whack-a-mole, Judd. The government moved on to other problems and the scammers came back.”

  “What about rumors in the press that senior Nigerian government officials are involved? I read a Nigerian state governor was arrested when one of his staff was running a hustle using official email and stationery.”

  “Yes, I remember that case in Oyo. They never proved the governor was aware. But the Nigerian government has much bigger problems these days. The price of oil is low. They’ve got terrorists in the north and militants in the south. If government officials are involved with organized crime, we don’t know how high it goes. Just like in Mexico. We’ll probably never know. There’s a certain level of tolerance, if not outright complicity. All politics is local.”

  “If you believe that the Nigerian government is harboring organized crime bosses, how are you not running stings? Can’t you beef up that task force again? Kick in some doors?”

  “I can’t talk about DOJ operations, Judd. You know that.”

  “Sure, but it seems wrong to just give up.”

  “Fraud is just way too low on the Christmas list these days. We’re tracking terrorist finance. If we have time, we look into high-level political corruption. That leaves no resources for the little stuff.”

  “You just said it was organized criminal networks.” Judd leaned forward in his chair. “Isabella, you said Pablo Escobar. You said Tony Soprano.”

  “If the crazies in Boko Haram were getting money from 419 letters, we’d take a different view. If we saw al-Qaeda making money off these scams, believe me, we’d have bodies on it. But as long as it’s a naïve old lady in Oklahoma, we can’t do much.”

  “Or a missing kid in London?”

  “Sorry, Judd. You know how it is.”

  “What about . . . kidnapping?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Or murder? What if the kid I’m searching for turns up dead? Would that make any difference?”

  “Look, Judd. Let’s not speculate. Go ahead and send over the missing person’s details and I’ll look into it for you. I promise I will. But don’t expect me to find much. If he was sucked into a confidence game, this kind of thing has been going on since money was invented. Dios mío, they’ve found scam letters from the French Revolution. There’s not much we can do to prot
ect people from themselves. Cons work best on people who just want to believe.”

  “They want to believe,” Judd repeated. “Right. Special Agent Espinosa, how about I buy you that lunch?”

  5

  RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  MONDAY, 10:42 A.M. EST

  The world is going to hell in a handbasket,” the Congressman snorted as he threw the New York Times down on the coffee table. Every time he opened the newspaper, Shepard Truman, the three-term Representative for the Tenth District of New York, winced at more bad news. Russian aggression. Looming financial meltdown in southern Europe. American soldiers dying in Afghanistan. The Chinese navy saber rattling in the Pacific. It just never went away. Worst of all, the New York Stock Exchange was spooked again. That made him especially anxious.

  “Sir?” asked a young staffer, the pretty twenty-something daughter of a banking scion in his district.

  “Going to hell,” he repeated, taking a sip of weak black coffee. “And what is the State Department doing about it? They’re looking into it. They’re always looking into it. They’re never solving any goddamn problems.”

  “You could call for a hearing?” the staffer suggested. “The National Security Oversight Subcommittee hasn’t held any hearings on State Department operations for at least a year.”

  “Excellent idea. Our government should be creating jobs and keeping Americans safe. Instead, the State Department is running a goddamn travel agency. Everyone flying around, making speeches, having a grand old time. Do you know how much the State Department spends on airline tickets?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, maybe you should go find out?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll . . . I’ll make some calls,” she said.

  “Give me the lineup.”

  “You’ve got the Cuba policy hearing at eleven, a call with the SEC Chairman at eleven-thirty, and a drop-in by Senator McCall at eleven forty-five. Then your private lunch at The Palm.”

  “Very good. What else?”

  “You’ve got a group of pharmacists squatting in the lobby. They want to talk to you about drug pricing. And Mr. Holden is on hold on line three.”

  “Harvey’s on the phone? Again?”

  The aide nodded.

  “It never ends, does it?”

  The aide, unsure of the correct answer, smiled awkwardly.

  “I’ll need the room,” he grunted. The staffer backed out of the Congressman’s office and closed the door.

  “Harvey! Good to hear from you,” he said cheerily. “I see Brooklyn won big over the Lakers last night.”

  “It’s all going to hell, Shep,” said the man on the other end of the line.

  “That’s just what I was telling my staff. The world is a mess. I haven’t heard anything yet from the State Department yet about your man missing in London. They assure me they are looking into it. I’ve been promised that they have their best man on it. We’ll find him. Don’t you worry, Harvey.”

  “I’m calling about another problem, Shep.”

  “You haven’t lost someone else, have you? Good God, Harvey, maybe you should put GPS trackers on your employees?”

  “Listen up, Shep. I just learned that Wildcat got beat on another oil license.”

  “Geez, I’m sorry. Where is it this time?”

  “Block 24A offshore Sulawesi. That’s part of Indonesia. Fucking Chinese swooped in and took it right out from under our noses.”

  “Gosh, how did that happen?”

  “Fuck if I know, Shep. It’s the third time this year. Do you know how much HHQ spent on Wildcat’s seismic and preproduction in Sulawesi this quarter? More than what one of your fuckwit campaigns cost me!”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Harvey.”

  “It’s not just the Chinese. Wildcat lost two contractors to a pirate attack in January. You want to guess what that does to our insurance? And now this. You can hardly run an oil business anymore without getting shot at from all sides.”

  “Pirates, wow. I know it’s tough out there.”

  “It’s a war out there, Shep. A goddamn war. And what is our government doing about it? What do I pay my taxes for? Can’t we get the Navy to patrol the Celebes Sea? Or the Gulf of Aden? Can’t you get the FBI to investigate these Chinese oil contracts stolen right out from under American companies? What about raising this with the State Department? Isn’t that why we have ambassadors in the first place?”

  “Yes, Harvey.”

  “Isn’t that why Congress responds to the needs of its constituents?”

  “I always appreciate your support, Harvey. You know that.”

  “I mean, what the fuck are we doing here, Shep? Can’t an American businessman get some goddamn help from the goddamn government these days?”

  “I promise you, Harvey”—the Congressman cleared his throat—“I’m looking into it.”

  6

  GULF OF GUINEA, 18 MILES OFFSHORE NIGERIA

  MONDAY, 6:35 P.M. WEST AFRICA TIME (1:35 P.M. EST)

  Jerry took a sip of the bitter instant coffee and thought again of Louisiana. When he got home, he’d hug his two beautiful daughters, eat a heaping bowl of his favorite crawfish étouffée, and sleep in his own warm bed for at least twelve hours, cuddled next to his wife.

  Jerry was nineteen days into his current 20/20. The oil company’s engineering teams worked on the platforms for twenty days straight in twelve-hour shifts. One more day and he’d be on a helicopter to Port Harcourt on the Nigerian mainland, a chartered airplane to Houston, and then a commercial flight to Baton Rouge. For twenty days off. The job was exhausting and often tedious. But it paid well enough to support his family back home. He’d worked like this in Brazil for Petrobras, in Indonesia for Total, in Kuwait for Chevron, and now in Nigeria’s Mega Millennium Field for the Chinese oil giant Sinopec. And after eighteen years in the offshore oil rig business, Jerry had gotten used to being a petroleum nomad. An engineering mercenary. It was his life.

  Jerry refilled his coffee mug from the canteen and scanned the Quaker Oats instant oatmeal boxes for his favorite flavor. Still none. He made a sour face. If he had to endure eating breakfast at dinnertime, they could at least give him the oatmeal he wanted.

  “Hey, Abdul, where’s my apple cinnamon?” he called out.

  “No supply boat today” came the reply from the back room.

  “Aw, come on. It’s already after six o’clock. I’m back in the box in, like, twenty minutes.”

  “Aaay, oh,” said the impatient voice. “No boat.”

  Jerry snatched a packet of strawberry Pop-Tarts and brushed past the other workers, an eclectic mix of Germans, Scots, the occasional American, and a growing number of Chinese sent from company headquarters.

  Jerry headed outside with his coffee to catch the West African sunset one more time. He pushed the heavy door open and felt the pressured air woosh as he stepped onto the steel deck, sixty feet high over the open water. All the operational and residential cabins on the oil platform were kept at a pressure slightly above the atmosphere. This ensured any toxic gases that might have leaked would be quickly expelled rather than silently kill the crew. It was just one of the safety features of the high-tech offshore complex, which had been prefabricated in Shenzhen and hauled by ship for reassembly here offshore Nigeria at the recently discovered but highly productive Mega Millennium Field.

  Jerry squinted at the orange fireball touching down on the horizon and drank his coffee, watching the sky turn from yellow to pink. As the last of the sun dropped out of sight, he spotted off in the distance a single bobbing light approaching the platform. His mood brightened. Maybe he would get his breakfast after all. He downed the last of his coffee and did a quick mental calculation of the time required for the boat to land, the supplies to be off-loaded and brought upstairs to the canteen. The oncoming bo
at was getting closer. Cooking time for his instant oatmeal was just two minutes. He noticed the boat was approaching more quickly than usual. Maybe they were running late, so they used a faster vessel? That might be good news.

  Or maybe not. Jerry’s pulse quickened. It wasn’t one ship oncoming but three smaller boats in a triangular formation. And instead of the bulky shape of the usual cargo boat, these were low, sleek, and open-bow, with huge dual outboard engines. His spine tingled as he realized the lead boat had a tripod with a mounted weapon. The outlines of the shadows were unmistakable: Each boat bristled with heavily armed men.

  Jerry spun and rushed inside. “Pirates!” he shouted. “Fucking pirates!”

  A shrill alarm sounded, along with a monotone voice blasted over the loudspeakers: “Emergency procedures. Emergency procedures. Execute immediate lockdown. All crew report to secure room in sixty seconds. . . .”

  Jerry raced down the corridor, where men were coming out of their cabins, one man hopping on one leg as he pulled on his pants. The seconds ticked by quickly.

  “Safe room lockdown in fifty seconds. . . .”

  As he scurried down a flight of stairs, Jerry wished he had his old Colt .45. He knew no weapons were ever allowed on an offshore oil platform. That would be suicide.

  “Safe room lockdown in forty seconds. . . .”

  Rat-tat-tat-tat! echoed loudly through the complex. “What the . . . !” Jerry yelled to himself. Live automatic-weapons fire? This was new. Not like last year, when a payment was quietly negotiated and the pirates never even came aboard the rig. This was serious. Don’t those bastards know live fire could blow us all up?

  “Safe room lockdown in thirty seconds. . . .”