Джон Гришэм - The Rooster Bar

Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, the three were glued to their laptops as they searched the Internet for anything relevant to the Swift settlement. Nothing. Their chunk of the attorneys’ fees did not arrive at Citibank in Brooklyn, a rather clear indication that something was wrong. Finally, on Thursday morning, a financial site reported a slight snag in the Swift matter. A federal judge in Miami had halted further disbursements pending an investigation into allegations of fraud. A federal judge in Houston did the same. Nationwide, Swift had already paid almost $3 billion of the $4.2 billion settlement, but problems were popping up.

Although the fraud was not described, the three partners knew precisely what the investigators were finding.

Mark’s idea was to leave the country, and to do so without bothering with customs and passport control at the airport. They had the money to do anything, so his plan was to hire a car and a driver and hit the road. They could meander south through West Africa, take their time and enjoy the trip, and eventually make it to South Africa. He’d read that Cape Town was the most beautiful city in the world, plus they spoke English there. Todd was lukewarm to the idea. He wasn’t keen on spending a month bouncing along the outback and holding his breath every time some border guard with an assault rifle and an itchy finger studied his passport. He didn’t say no, because such an escape might one day become necessary, but he didn’t approve of it either.

Zola, however, said no. She was not leaving her family after what they had been through.

The investigation continued, though there was virtually no news about it. And so they waited. Zola felt far safer in Dakar, but once again she was living with the fear that someone might knock on the door.

The resort city of Saint-Louis sits on the Atlantic, two hundred miles north of Dakar. With 175,000 residents, it is much smaller and quieter, but still large enough to get lost in. It had once been the capital of the country, and the French had built fine homes that had been well preserved. The city was known for its colonial architecture, laid-back lifestyle, pretty beaches, and the most important jazz festival in Africa.

Zola organized the trip. She paid a driver with an air-conditioned SUV, and she and Bo and her two partners left for a few days in Saint-Louis. Her parents were not invited. She and Bo were feeling suffocated by Abdou and needed a break. What they really needed was another place to live, with some distance between themselves and their parents. She had a hunch Saint-Louis might be just the spot.

Leaving Dakar, they realized their driver spoke little English, and as the time passed they talked more openly about the past six months. Bo had questions, some rather pointed at times. He couldn’t believe they had actually done the things they’d done, and Mark and Todd struggled to justify them. Bo was irritated that they had dragged his little sister into their schemes and scams. Mark and Todd were quick to take responsibility, but Zola stood her ground. She had a mind of her own and was capable of making her own decisions. Sure, they had made mistakes, but she was a part of every one of them. She blamed no one but herself.

Bo knew there was money in the bank, but had no idea how much. He was struggling to accept a future away from the U.S., the only home he’d ever known. He left a girlfriend behind and was heartbroken. He left a lot of friends there, kids from school, guys from the neighborhoods. He left a good job.

As the hours passed he lost his edge. He knew he would still be in jail if not for the money Mark and Todd had entrusted to Zola. He could not ignore the adoration those two had for his sister.

After six hours on the road, they crossed the Senegal River on the Faidherbe Bridge, designed by Gustave Eiffel, he of the tower fame. The old town was on N’Dar Island, a narrow strip of land with the ocean on both sides. They passed through blocks of beautiful old buildings and finally stopped at the Hôtel Mermoz near the beach. After a long dinner on the terrace, with the ocean below them, they went to bed early.

Real estate listings for the area were not as detailed as any place in the States, or in Dakar for that matter, but with a little effort Zola found what she was looking for. The house was built in 1890 by a French merchant and had changed hands many times. It was a three-story villa that looked nicer from the street than from behind its doors and windows, but it was charming and spacious. The wooden floors sagged here and there. The furniture was ancient, covered with dust, and mismatched. The shelves were filled with pots and urns and old books in French. Some of the plumbing worked; some did not. The round refrigerator was from the 1950s. The courtyard and balcony were shaded by thick bougainvillea and designed for the tropics. There was a small television in the living room. The listing promised Internet service, but the agent said it was slow.

They separated and drifted through the house, which would take hours to fully inspect. On a second-floor balcony, just off a bedroom suite that Todd was already claiming, he bumped into Mark. “They’ll never find us here,” Todd said.

“Maybe, but can you believe we’re actually here?”

“No. This is surreal.”

Regardless of their feelings, Zola loved the house and signed a six-month lease that equaled about $1,000 U.S. per month. Two days later, they moved in, with Todd and Mark taking the top floor — three bedrooms, two baths, and not a single working shower — while Zola took the master suite on the ground floor. Bo was stuck somewhere in between with more square footage than anyone. They stayed two more days and nights, buying supplies, changing lightbulbs and fuses, and trying to learn as much as possible about the house. It came with a gardener, Pierre something, who didn’t speak a word of English but was proficient at pointing and grunting.

The island was like Venice, a self-contained city surrounded by water, except it had beautiful beaches. The sand brought the tourists, and there were dozens of quaint, pretty hotels near the water. When they were not in the house doing chores for Zola, Mark and Todd were at the beach, drinking rum cocktails and looking for girls.

When Zola and Bo left in the SUV, Mark and Todd hugged them good-bye and said hurry back. They planned to be gone about a week, enough time to pack a few things and get disentangled from their parents.

That night, in the semi-lit living room of an old mansion built by Europeans in another century, another time, the two worked on a bottle of scotch and tried to put their lives in perspective. It was an impossible chore.

On Sunday, June 22, the Washington Post ran a front-page story under the headline “For-Profit Law School Scam Linked to New York Fund Manager.” Beneath the fold there was a large photo of Hinds Rackley. The story was basically a better-written version of what Gordy had plastered to his den wall, with dozens of companies and fronts and shells and law schools. Swift Bank, though, received little attention. It was obvious, at least to Mark and Todd, that the journalist had been unable to penetrate Rackley’s offshore companies that allegedly owned stock.

But the story was vindication, at some level. Gordy’s work had been validated. The Great Satan would now endure a PR nightmare, and though the story did not imply it, there was a good chance Rackley was now on the FBI’s radar.

They reveled in the story for a couple of days, then abruptly forgot about it.

Two days later, on June 24, Mark Frazier, Todd Lucero, and Zola Maal were indicted on federal racketeering charges by a grand jury in Miami. The charges were part of an ongoing investigation into numerous allegations of class action fraud in the Swift Bank settlement. More indictments were likely, according to the first report on Bloomberg. As Mark and Todd watched, the story spread throughout the web, but never achieved headline status. In the world of major business news, it wasn’t much of an event.