The Marco Effect

2

Autumn 2008

There weren’t many people to whom William Stark could turn for a piece of professional advice.

In the gray world of the civil service, he was in charge of but a small island to which few wished to sail. If he felt unable to approach his head of office, the only other person available to him seemed to be the head of the department, but who would go to the head of the department with a suspicion of this nature-and, more particularly, of this magnitude-without first having secured tangible evidence? Not him, that was for sure.

To any superior in the upper echelons of the government services who happened to be reasonably kindly disposed, an underling who sounded the alarm on suspicion of abuse of office or other irregularities in the execution of government business was called a whistle-blower. Ostensibly this was laudable, like a siren warning of impending ambush, but if one were to press the point with these civil service officers, one would invariably find that such a person was considered to be a snitch, and snitches seldom fared well. In modern-day Denmark there were examples aplenty. One recent instance was that of an agent of the Danish military’s intelligence service who was handed a prison sentence for having demonstrated that the country’s prime minister had withheld vital information from parliament in order to lead his country into war in Iraq. Not exactly the kind of attitude that encourages candor.

Besides, William was not one hundred percent certain. Though the thought had played on his mind for some time, it was all still little more than an inkling.

After having briefed his head of office, René E. Eriksen, about Louis Fon’s text message he had made at least ten calls to various individuals in Cameroon, people he knew the loyal Bantu activist was in regular contact with, and in each case he had encountered bewilderment at the fact that this untiring spirit should have been silent even for a few days.

Thus it was that just this morning William had finally gotten through to Fon’s home in Sarki Mata and spoken to his wife, whom Fon had always made a point of keeping updated as to his whereabouts and how long he was planning to be away.

It was obvious his wife was anxious. The woman kept bursting into tears and was convinced her husband had fallen foul of poachers. What they might have done to him was something she could not yet bring herself to think about. The jungle was so vast and contained so many secrets. Louis had told her so on countless occasions. Things happened there, as she said. William, too, knew this to be true.

Of course, there could be any number of reasons for Fon not having been in touch. Temptations abounded in Cameroon and who could guess as to what a handsome man in the prime of his life might succumb to? The girls in that part of Africa were not exactly known to be timid or lacking in initiative, so the possibility that Fon was simply shagging his brains out in a grass hut and allowing the world to revolve as it saw fit was certainly not to be discounted. William almost found himself smiling at the idea.

But then he thought about what had happened before this situation arose, about how the first phase of the Baka project had proceeded. That fifty million kroner had been rushed through the ministry to ensure the continued existence of the pygmy population in such a far-flung corner as the Dja jungle was odd enough in itself. And why specifically the Baka, as opposed to any other people? Why such a generous sum?

Yes, William had wondered right from the start.

Two hundred and fifty million kroner over five years wasn’t much in a total development budget of some fifteen billion a year, but still, when was the last time such a limited project had received such massive funding? Had they targeted the entire pygmy population of the Congo jungle, the second-largest primeval forest in the world, he might have been able to understand. But they hadn’t.

And when the funding was approved, even an idiot with half an eye could have seen that normal procedure had been ignored on several issues. It was at this point that William’s instincts had been activated. In essence, development aid in this case merely meant the transfer of funds to government officials in Yaoundé, leaving it up to the locals to take things from there. And this in a country generally considered to be one of the world’s most corrupt.

For William Stark, a public servant in every sense of the word-and yet not without his own history of error-this was a worrisome situation. Therefore, in light of the turns the case had taken during the last few days, he now looked upon the role of his superior in these proceedings with new eyes.

When had René E. Eriksen ever taken such a personal interest before? When had he last flown out to oversee the commencement of a project? It had been years, surely.

Granted, that fact in itself might conceivably serve to guarantee that everything about the project was aboveboard and subject to the appropriate controls, but it could also indicate the opposite was true. God forbid. Eriksen of all people could foresee the consequences: years of the department’s work being upended and scrutinized. It simply mustn’t happen.

“Ruminating, eh, Stark?” came a voice, sneaking up from behind.

It had been months since he had heard that voice in his own office, and William looked up with surprise at his superior’s unpleasant smile. The man’s face looked all wrong beneath his chalk-white hair.

“I’ve just spoken to our contacts in Yaoundé and they feel the same as you,” said Eriksen. “There is something wrong, they say, so your assumptions are probably right. According to them, Louis Fon may have done a bunk with some of the funding and now they want someone from the ministry to get down there and audit their payouts to the project from day one. Most likely they reckon it’ll cover their asses in the event of anyone pointing a finger at them in the case of irregularities. If you should find any, that is.”

“Me?” Was Eriksen intending to send him down there? William was confused. This was a development he hadn’t seen coming and certainly one he didn’t care for. “Do they know how much he might have ripped them off for?” he added.

Eriksen shook his head. “No one seems to have a clear idea as yet, but Fon has about two million euros at his disposal for the period. Maybe he’s just out making purchases and is clean. Maybe he found out that the seeds and plants are cheaper or better quality somewhere other than where he usually buys. At any rate we need to pursue the matter. After all, it’s what we’re here for.”

“True…,” said William. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on this one.”

Eriksen’s smile vanished. “I see. And on what grounds, if I might ask?”

“My partner’s child is in the hospital at the moment.”

“I see. Again? And what bearing does that have?”

“Well, I support them both as best I can. They live with me.”

Eriksen nodded. “It’s highly commendable of you to put them first, Stark, but we’re talking two or three days at most. I’m sure you’ll be able to work it out. We’ve already booked you on a flight to Brussels and onward. After all, it’s part of your job, you know. There were no seats left to Yaoundé, I’m afraid, so you’ll be flying to Douala instead. Mbomo will pick you up at the airport and drive you to the capital from there. It only takes about two hours.”

William pictured his stepdaughter lying in her hospital bed. He wasn’t pleased at this new prospect.

“Are you sending me because I was the one who received Louis Fon’s text?” he asked.

“No, Stark. I’m sending you because you’re our best man.”

–

The word on Mbomo Ziem was that he was a man of action. This he demonstrated outside Douala International Airport, where half a dozen aggressive men squabbled over the rights to carry William’s luggage.

“Your taxi is waiting, sir! This way, come on!” they implored, yanking at the suitcase wherever they could get a grip.

But Mbomo shoved them away, indicating with a brutal glare that he was not afraid to take on the whole pack of bearers to save his boss a couple of thousand francs.

He was a big man, this Mbomo. William had seen photos of him, but he had been standing next to diminutive Bakas, who made any non-pygmy look like a giant. Here in real life he realized that not only the Baka appeared small in Mbomo’s presence, for the man towered like a cliff above the human landscape, and for that reason it seemed only natural that the word “security” should be applied to him amid this mad spectacle of frenzied men, each fighting for the privilege of lugging his suitcase and thereby perhaps earning the chance of a small meal.

“You’ll be staying at the Aurelia Palace,” Mbomo informed him as their taxi finally pulled away from the bearers and a couple of men hawking cheap jewelry who ran on behind, hopeful until the last second. “Your meeting at the ministry is tomorrow morning. I’ll come by personally and pick you up. Unlike Douala here, Yaoundé is a fairly safe place, but you never know.” He laughed, his whole upper body quaking, though no sound passed his lips.

William’s gaze turned to the glowing sun as it sank beneath the treetops and to clusters of laborers idling along by the side of the road, machetes hanging limply from tired hands.

Apart from the packed minicabs, the speedy 4x4s, and the clattering pickups constantly passing them and putting everyone’s lives at risk in the process, only battered, heavily laden trucks with broken headlights were on the road. It was no wonder that much of the wreckage that lined the dusty highway had a close resemblance to the vehicles upon it.

William was a long way from home.

–

Having carefully chosen his menu, William sat down in a corner of the lounge where there was a chair; a sofa with thick, patterned covers reminiscent of the seventies; and a timeworn coffee table on which a pair of dewy glasses of beer had already been placed.

“I always get two in at a time whenever I’m down here,” said the corpulent man seated next to him, speaking in English. “The beer’s so thin it trickles out of the pores again as quickly as you can get it inside you.” He chuckled.

He pointed at the necklace that William was wearing, with the small masks hanging from it. “I can tell you’ve just arrived in Africa. You must have run into some of those jewelry bandits out at the airport.”

“Yes and no.” William fingered the necklace. “I’ve just got here, yes, but I’ve had this for a number of years. It is African, though. I found it once when I was inspecting a project in Kampala.”

“Ah, Kampala. One of Uganda’s more interesting cities.” He raised his glass to William. Judging by the diplomatic-looking bag, he too was a civil servant.

William produced his portfolio from his leather briefcase and placed it on the table. To begin with there was the specific issue of fifty million kroner and how to channel it on to the Baka project. Then there were a number of documents to be skimmed and a series of questions to be prepared. He opened the manila folder and arranged its entire contents in three piles in front of him. One containing spreadsheets, a second comprising project descriptions, and a third of memos, e-mails, and other correspondence. Even the yellow Post-it note was there, with Louis Fon’s text message jotted down on it.

“Do you mind if I sit and do some work here? There seems to be no desk in my room.”

The man replied with a friendly nod.

“Danish?” the man asked, indicating the logo of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the head of the documents.

“Yes, and you?”

“Stockholm.” The man extended his hand and switched to Swedish. “First time in Cameroon?”

William nodded.

“In that case, welcome,” the man said, shoving his extra glass of beer across the table toward him. “Cameroon isn’t a place a person ever gets completely used to, you know. Skål.”

They raised their glasses, the Swede downing his in one gulp and then gesturing toward the waiter for a refill, all in one seamless movement. Alcoholic public officials like him were a regular feature in equatorial regions, as William well knew. He had seen a number of their own people return home firing on less than all cylinders after a stationing abroad.

“You might think I’m given to drink, but you’d be wrong,” said the Swede, as though having read William’s thoughts. “Truth is, I just pretend to be.”

He pointed discreetly toward a sofa arrangement at which were seated two black men in light-colored suits.

“They’re from the company I’m negotiating with tomorrow. At the moment they’re checking me out and in an hour or so they’ll report back to their boss on what they’ve seen.” He smiled. “No skin off my nose if they think I’ll be turning up the worse for wear.”

“You’re in business, then?”

“You could say. I close contracts for Sweden. I’m a controller, and a good one at that.” He nodded to the waiter who appeared with his next two beers and raised one to William. “Skål, then!”

William tried in vain to keep up with the Swede’s liquid intake. A good thing he wasn’t playing the same game. His stomach wasn’t geared to it.

“I see you’ve got a coded message.” The Swede indicated the yellow Post-it note in front of William.

“Well, I’m not sure, to be honest. It’s a text message that came in from a partner of ours who disappeared down here a week ago.”

“A text message?” The man laughed. “A beer says I can decode it in less than ten.”

William frowned. Decode it? What did he mean?

The Swede took the note, placed a blank sheet of paper in front of him, pulled out his Nokia mobile from his pocket and put it down on the table.

“It’s not likely to be a code, if that’s what you think,” William said. “That wouldn’t really be how we operate in the ministry. Frankly, though, we’ve no idea what it’s all about, or why it should look like that.”

“OK. Written under difficult circumstances, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. We can’t ask the man. Like I said, he’s disappeared.”

The Swede put pen to paper and began to write:

Cfqquptiondae(s+l)la(i+l)ddddddvdlogdmdntdja.

Beneath each letter he wrote another, all the while glancing at his mobile.

After a couple of minutes he looked up at William.

“Let’s assume the message was indeed written under difficult circumstances, like I said. In the dark, maybe. I suppose you know that when the mobile’s predictive text is turned off each key still represents several characters. Key number three, for instance, is D, E, and F. Press once and you’ve got D. Twice for E, three times for F. Then you can get other characters altogether. Add to that the eventuality of pressing the wrong key, usually the one just above or below the one you want, and all in all you’ve got any number of possible combinations. I’ve done this before, though, and it’s fun. You can start my ten minutes now.”

William frowned again and nodded for the sake of appearance. He couldn’t care less how much time the Swede took. If he could solve the riddle, even partially, the drinks would be on him regardless.

It didn’t look easy by any means, but when the first sequence, Cfqquption, turned out possibly to be a word beginning with “C,” then a typo produced by incorrectly pressing key number three instead of six below it, then twice “Q,” that should have been twice “R,” followed by the correctly typed “uption,” they suddenly had the word Corruption.

William sensed the furrows in his brow deepen.

Corruption. Not exactly a word with the most positive connotations.

After a quarter of an hour, and William having bought two more rounds, the Swede had solved the puzzle.

“Well, it seems plausible to me,” he said, studying his notes.

He handed the sheet to William.

“Can you see what it says? ‘Corruption dans l’aide de development Dja.’” The Swede nodded to himself. “The French isn’t entirely correct, but still. ‘Swindle with development funds in Dja,’ give or take. Simple as that.”

William felt a chill run down his spine.

He glanced around. Was it him or the Swede that the black men in the corner were watching with such interest? Could there be others?

He looked again at the note in front of him, the Swede once more raising his hand in the direction of the waiter.

Corruption dans l’aide de development Dja was what Louis Fon had texted, and then he’d disappeared. Knowing this was not a pleasant feeling. Not pleasant at all.

William gazed out the window and tried to shield himself against the endless expanse of black beyond the pane.

The thought had occurred to him before, and now it returned.

He was truly a long way from home.

Far too long a way indeed.

–

“What is it you’re saying, Mbomo?”

René E. Eriksen felt the perspiration gathering in his armpits as he tried to concentrate on the crackling voice.

“I’m telling you that William Stark was not at the hotel this morning when I went to pick him up, and now I have been told he has taken a plane home.”

“For Christ’s sake, Mbomo, how could that happen? He was your responsibility.” René tried to gather his thoughts. The agreement had been that Mbomo or one of his gorillas would pick up Stark at the hotel that same morning and that would be the end of it. Where and how Stark disappeared didn’t matter, as long as it couldn’t be traced back to them. And now he was being told that Stark was on his way home to Denmark. What the hell was going on down there? Had Stark got a whiff of something that might incriminate them?

If he had, it was a disaster.

“What the hell could have happened since last night, Mbomo? Can you answer me that? I thought you had everything under control. Stark must have got wind of something.”

“I don’t know,” Mbomo replied, oblivious to the fact that during the past couple of days René E. Eriksen had been through sheer hell at the thought of having sent a man to his death, and as things now stood was more than willing to go along with anything that might stop this juggernaut nightmare from developing any further.

To René’s mind there was no doubt at all as to what should happen now. Not only must Mbomo Ziem be removed from the Baka project, he had to be removed permanently. No one who was involved in the project had anything to gain from having a man like him charging around and messing things up. A man who knew as much as he did and at the same time was so fucking inefficient and heavy-handed.

“I’ll get back to you, Mbomo. In the meantime I want you to just take things easy. Go home, and stay there. Later today we’ll send someone over who can brief you on what’s going to happen next.”

And then René hung up the phone.

Mbomo would be briefed all right. More than he could ever imagine.

–

The boardroom of Karrebæk Bank wasn’t humble by any stretch of the imagination. Both the furnishings and the location suggested the headquarters of one of the country’s leading financial institutions, and nothing in the countenance of its managing director, Teis Snap, seemed to suggest otherwise. All that met the eye was extravagant: furniture, fittings, the works. Within these walls overspending had long been par for the course.

“Our chairman, Jens Brage-Schmidt, is listening in on this, René. As you know, he’s in the same boat as us.”

Snap turned toward a walnut speaker cabinet on the imposing desk.

“Can you hear us all right, Jens?” he said.

The answer was affirmative, the voice rather squeaky but still replete with authority.

“Then we’ll begin the meeting.” He faced René. “I’m sorry to have to be so frank, René,” Snap said, “but following your conversation with Mbomo earlier today, Jens and I have come to the conclusion that the only solution to our problem is to do everything in our power to stop William Stark, and that in the future you personally are to make sure that no one with Stark’s zeal ever comes anywhere near the Baka project.”

“Stop William Stark?” René repeated the words softly. “And this is to happen in Denmark, is that what you mean?” he added after a pause. It was mostly here his reservations lay.

“In Denmark, yes. It has to be,” Teis Snap went on. “We’re disarming time bombs here, stopping Louis Fon, and soon Mbomo Ziem and William Stark, too. Once they’re out of the way we’ll be back on track. Officials at the ministry in Yaoundé will stay tight-lipped, of course, since they’re in on this themselves. And if you continue to receive regular reports from some public servant in situ who is willing to call himself Louis Fon for a while and spread the word to your ministry about how magnificently the project is running, then we shall have little to worry about. It’s the way of all African projects. A bit of encouraging news once in a while, that’s all anyone expects, dammit.”

René heard Brage-Schmidt grunt over the speaker, and though he had never met the man there seemed to be an underlying tone to his voice that made René envisage a man who for all too many years had been used to bossing people around in places far beyond the borders of his home country. There was a harshness about the way he began a sentence, as if everything he said was an order not to be disobeyed. The image of a British imperialist or shipping magnate with unfettered powers was easy to conjure up. René had heard that every butler Brage-Schmidt had employed through the years he had addressed as “boy,” and that if anyone knew Africa, it was him: consul for a handful of southern African states for as long as anyone cared to remember and successful businessman in Central Africa even longer, though not always accompanied by the best of reputations.

No, as far as René could make out there seemed little doubt that Brage-Schmidt was the architect of the scam. Teis Snap had told him that after some time as a successful importer of timber from equatorial Africa, Brage-Schmidt had gathered all his assets in Karrebæk Bank and had in the years that followed become the bank’s largest shareholder by far. As such it was hardly surprising that he had been elected chairman, or that he should now guard his fortune so fiercely. René understood this completely, and yet besides their fraud they had now condemned three men to death. So why did René not hear himself protesting?

He shook his head. The fact of the matter was that unfortunately he understood this gray eminence a little too well.

What else could they do?

“Yes,” said the chairman. “Taking such radical steps is certainly no easy decision, but think of the jobs that will be lost, the small savers who will lose their money if we fail to act in time. It is regrettable, of course, that this William Stark should have to pay the price as well, but that’s how it goes sometimes. The few must be sacrificed for the many, as they say, and in a few years everything will be good again. The bank will be safeguarded and consolidated, society will go on as before, investments will continue, jobs will be retained and shareholders will suffer no losses. And who in the meantime, Mr. Eriksen, do you think might bother to check up on how the pygmies of Dja are progressing in agricultural matters? Who would bother to investigate whether schools and health conditions have improved since the project was initiated? Who would even have the means to do so when those who launched the project to begin with are no longer of this world? I ask you.”

Who, indeed, but me? René thought to himself, his eyes wandering to the tall casement windows of the room. Did that mean he, too, was in the danger zone?

But they weren’t going to put one over on him, that much was for sure. He knew where he had them and thankfully could still look over his shoulder on the rare occasion he ventured out.

“I only hope you know what you’re doing and keep it to yourselves, that’s all. I don’t want to know any more, are you with me?” he said after a moment. “And let’s pray that William Stark hasn’t left documentation in some bank box explaining how the fraud came about-as I’ve done.”

He looked at Teis Snap and listened intently to the background noise from the speaker on the desk. Were they shocked? Suspicious?

Seemingly not.

“OK,” he went on. “What you say is true. Maybe no one will notice that Louis Fon’s reports are coming from someone else, but what about William Stark’s disappearance? It’ll be all over the news, surely?”

“That’s right. And…?” Brage-Schmidt’s voice sounded deeper all of a sudden. “As long as nothing can be traced back to us, Stark going missing doesn’t matter much, does it? As I see it, he goes to Africa, fails to turn up for his appointment, flies home without a word, and disappears. Wouldn’t that indicate a certain degree of instability? Would one not be inclined to consider that his disappearance might be of his own volition? I would, certainly.”

Snap and René exchanged glances. Karrebæk Bank’s chairman of the board had chosen to ignore René’s bank-box insurance scheme, so apparently their mutual trust remained intact, albeit perhaps a bit tarnished.

“Listen, Eriksen,” Brage-Schmidt went on. “From here on, everything proceeds exactly according to our agreement. You will continue to ensure that fifty million per annum is dispatched to Cameroon. And once a year on the basis of Louis Fon’s fabricated reports you will draw up a nice summary of how excellently things are progressing down there.”

Then Snap picked up the thread. “Some weeks later, by way of a group of ‘investors’ in Curaçao”-Snap formed quotes in the air-“our friends in Yaoundé will as usual transfer the requisite funds to Karrebæk Bank. The rest we place in private equity in our custody account in Curaçao as a buffer against unexpected developments in the bank sector. In that way, Karrebæk Bank’s equity portfolio gradually changes hands, all the while expanding, and yet in reality we maintain total control. Our portfolios grow larger by the year. Which means the three of us have every good reason to be cheerful. Am I right?”

“Indeed. We’re ‘all’ happy.” This time the air quotes were René’s. “All of us, perhaps, apart from Louis Fon, Mbomo, and William…”

Teis Snap broke in. “Look, René, don’t waste your time worrying about Mbomo and Fon. Once things have settled down a bit we’ll donate some cash to their widows so they can get on. The authorities there are used to people disappearing all the time, so no one’s going to make an issue of it. As for Stark, he has no family, does he?”

René shook his head. “No, but he does have a partner and a stepdaughter who’s ill.” He stared intensely into Snap’s eyes, as though expecting some display of sympathy, but they were cold as ice.

“Good,” was Snap’s brief response. “No family, then, just a couple of loosely associated individuals. They’ll mourn a while, no doubt, and then life will go on. After all, he was hardly the sort you’d miss much, was he, René?”

René exhaled with a sigh. What was he supposed to say? Since they were already referring to the man in the past tense, what did it matter how interesting a person Stark had been?

But still…

The loudspeaker interrupted his thoughts. Brage-Schmidt didn’t bother to comment on the last statement, but then why should he?

“As far as the two hundred and fifty million is concerned, we can with some justification claim it to be a form of camouflaged state subsidy from the Baka project to our continued banking activities. Is it not reasonable that the state be protective of Denmark’s lucrative private companies, like Karrebæk Bank? Enterprises that create jobs, enhance the balance of payments and raise living standards. One way or another the wheels would grind to a halt if reputable banks such as ours were allowed to crash. Hardly what we or the government wish to see now, is it?”

René’s thoughts were somewhere else entirely. If anything went wrong, Snap and Brage-Schmidt would distance themselves in no time at all, that much was certain. And he would be left behind alone, with both the responsibility and a prison sentence. He wasn’t going to let it happen.

“I’ll say it again: what you do from now on is without my knowledge, OK? I don’t want to know. But if you do take such drastic measures, make sure I get Stark’s laptop immediately. Who knows what he might have tucked away on it concerning our little project.”

“Sure, of course you’ll get it. And yes, we understand how difficult it is for you to take all this in, René. After all, I know you. You’re an upstanding and decent man. But think of your family, OK?” Snap urged. “Just let Jens and me take care of this, and you stop worrying. We’ll contact someone proficient at dealing with this sort of problem, who can arrange for Stark to be intercepted at the airport. In the meantime you can take pleasure in the thought of your stock rising by the day. The future remains bright, René.”