Sooley(94)

“No. He had not even seen the contract. His agent said it would take about a month after the draft. That’s all history now.”

“Too bad.”

“Everything about it is tragic. You used the word ‘extricate.’ Can we talk about that?”

“Sure. We were putting together a plan and Sooley was excited about it.”

“How was it going to work?”

The salads arrived and they began eating. Gaston said, “First, we were to arrange paperwork for his mother and brothers. Ugandan passports, visas, applications for entry into the U.S., basic stuff. We’d make arrangements with certain people in the Ugandan government to sort of look the other way. Not surprisingly, they’re not at all hesitant to get rid of some refugees. They’re trying to feed a million and the number keeps growing. We’d facilitate their removal from the camp, take them to Kampala, give them nicer clothes and new identities, and put them on a plane bound for the U.S.”

“Easy enough.”

“Easy enough if there’s plenty of money. The most expensive part is the air transportation. Commercial flights won’t work because there are no nonstop flights between Kampala and here. You have to stop and change planes. Stops mean more nosy people in customs asking for paperwork. We had a failure last year that has turned into a mess.”

Murray took a bite and waited for more. “Care to talk about that?”

“Briefly. We had a project involving a Somalian family living in a refugee settlement in Kenya. Their relatives here scraped together some money and we decided to try it. It was a mistake. The family could not afford a private jet. No one can, unless, of course, someone in the family happens to sign a big NBA contract. Anyway, we got the family out of the camp, got them on a commercial flight from Nairobi to London. British immigration can be tough and they stopped them at Heathrow. Their phony paperwork was discovered, all hell broke loose. The family is now stuck somewhere in the U.K., in custody, and will probably be sent back to Somalia, where they will not be safe. Needless to say, that was our last project involving commercial air travel.”

“How does the private jet work?”

“Well, it’s a seven-thousand-mile trip that takes between thirteen and fifteen hours, depending on wind, weather, stuff like that. There is only one jet with that range. A Gulfstream G650.”

“I’ve been on a Gulfstream, thanks to Sooley, of course.”

“Most Gulfstreams don’t have the range. It has to be a G650.”

“How much does the flight cost?”

“Three fifty.”

“Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

“Yep. Roughly thirty hours in the air, terminal to terminal, at ten thousand bucks an hour. Plus four pilots, expenses, profit, it adds up quickly. The entire trip takes four to five days, if everything goes smoothly. And few charter companies want to go to Africa.”

“Would the charter company know the real story?”

“No. Our documents are really good, that other story notwithstanding. Their pilots would have copies of the passports and ID cards, but once Sooley’s family was cleared by Uganda customs, then they’d have been home free. Until they arrived here.”

“What would happen here?”

“Well, Murray, that’s where Miss Ida would step in.”

Murray almost laughed. He shook his head in disbelief and asked, “How do you know my mother?”

“Sooley thought of everything. He knew that she could handle U.S. Immigration. When the plane landed in Raleigh, the family would surrender to Immigration, same as hundreds do each day at the borders. They’d be detained and taken into custody. She would immediately seek asylum, get an expedited hearing, and get them released and placed in a nice house pending their trial, which could take months.”

Murray was still shaking his head. “What would happen to the charter company? I mean, surely they would get in trouble.”

“Probably, but we were counting on a small fine. Again, we were hoping Miss Ida could deal with Immigration. Since the amount of the fine is unknown, it was the one figure we weren’t sure of.”

“So how much was the entire operation?”

“Half a mil. As I said, virtually no one can afford it. We’re talking about refugees and their families, folks who have nothing.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“It is. It takes some cash to grease the skids in Uganda. There are other expenses and my time is valuable. I have to make the trip to guarantee everything works well.”

“Might I ask if your company has pulled off any of these extractions?”

“Two, but I can’t go into details. Let’s just say they involved wealthy Syrian families here who wanted their people out of the camps.”

“So, this is not your primary line of work.”

“Oh no. We deal mainly with hostages and kidnappings. We rescue people and get them out. Unfortunately, kidnapping is big business in the developing world and we have some expertise.”

Murray shoved his salad away and said, “It sounds as if this extricating business requires a fair amount of criminal activity.”

Gaston smiled and took a sip of ice tea. “Depends on how you define it. If you want a laugh, go online and search ‘fake passports.’ You’ll see a hundred sites brazenly advertising the preparation and sale of fake passports. That’s a crime. We buy them all the time, so, yes, in one sense we’re breaking the law. But there’s little harm and almost no enforcement. And, I’m sure that somewhere in Uganda there’s a law on the books that prohibits the bribing of customs officials. Or maybe there’s not. At any rate, it’s a way of life in the Third World. It’s simply how business is done. Sooley understood this and was willing to take his chances. His hands wouldn’t get dirty. He would pay our fee and we would take care of the rest.”