Chapter 18

Chad finished his last of several phone calls. He had called his driver to come and pick him up and leaned back in his desk chair. The view of the New York skyline was amazing from where he was sitting in his home office. He did go into the office downtown, but did much of his work from home. “A stockbroker can make many personal connections with evening calls,” or so his father had often told him. A call from a quiet room to a man or woman’s home can often lead to a great personal relationship unhurried by the pressure of office politics or sales quotas. Chad was as content as any man could be or deserved, or so he thought at the moment.

The driver arrived in twenty minutes after crawling through the endless traffic that always seemed to tie the city’s streets into tight knots and long delays. The city was always a decade behind the curve when it came to the magic solution for better traffic. Most of the professional drivers had plenty of time to stew over that issue and others. The price of a taxi license being another hot topic.

The city fathers were close to throwing their collective hands up in the air and just leaving the traffic engineers out in the cold after blaming them for the city’s traffic woes over and over again. “Our local politicians are like all the others since cities were created,” the driver thought as he sat still for what seemed like hours, not minutes.

Chad took the elevator down after the front desk called him and told him that his driver had arrived. The regular driver, Jack, was good at his job and loved it most of the time. Tonight was an exception.

Chad waved at Jack as he passed through the lobby and walked toward the glass front doors of his building to the long black car.

The rain had been falling intermittently and the highly waxed car was covered in millions of sparkling water droplets shimmering under the the streetlights, or so it seemed. The car was perfectly clean as always. There had been a few sprinkles in the last hour. Chad held his briefcase in his hand but his luggage had been brought down by Hector, the building’s Puerto Rican porter, as always.

“This was going to be his one and only honeymoon and a great vacation,” he thought as he approached the car. Africa and all her hidden mysteries at his feet.

“Mark the calendar dad, no work the last half of the month of the wedding dad,” he had said to his father months before the wedding. His dad wasn’t happy but tried to understand. It had been a long time since his honeymoon some forty five years ago. He had spent the last four decades creating an empire and at some great personal cost. That time lost with family and friends would never be recovered but the money was some consolation to everyone.

Chad wasn’t used to time off but his father was able to shift some of his work responsibilities to others as asked. His father didn’t like it but it had to be done this one time. He had ample time to move assignments to others with little difficulty.

Chad wasn’t used to having time off. This business took all of your time and attention if you were doing it right and expected to make any money at it. This was going to be Chad’s first real vacation in years.

“What good is all this money if we can’t take the time off to enjoy it,” Chad often stated to his father in his large office at the end of a long day.

“His office was well known in town as one of the most opulent of any CEO. It was filled with the finest art and antiques that money could by. It didn’t hurt that he owned the building, as well.

“I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I’m dead Chad, my work is my mistress,” his father would respond when pressed by his sons about his work habits. “You can ask your mother about that if you like. She has finally stopped complaining after around thirty years into our marriage.

We’re on the verge of a big push that will set us all up for the rest of our lives and the lives of generations of our family, Chad. You know that as well as I do. This time in my life is the cumulation of a long term strategy. You’ve been a great son and employee for several years and especially on this project. Now isn’t the time for cold feet, son.”

Chad wasn’t down with this plan of his father’s at first, but after it was all explained to him he could see the merit in it as well as the pitfalls.

The risks were there but if all went as planned the payoff would be worth it. “Besides,” his father would always say, “we have the largest banks in the country willing to go along with us. They wouldn’t do that if they thought this endeavor might raise any legitimate legal issues.”

Todd Jacob flipped on his computer and tapped his fingers on his desk while waiting for it to boot up. He found the page with the email addresses of the proper authorities in Rwanda. Todd had worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission for several years. He had never seen anything like this before.

He had been given the green light by his boss to contact Interpol in London and Rwanda. He had finally been given permission to set up a surveillance team on Chad and Suzan while they were in Africa. To go along with the one now running in New York state.

It would take some time and effort on their part in Rwanda.

The meeting that finally got Todd’s team’s plan into action was heated and covered a very wide scope. Things were complicated, or so one of his superiors had argued.

“It’s not New York, Todd. Things move at a different pace and are very different down there.”

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What the heck?

Is Chad and his family up to no good?

Why are they going to be under the watchful eyes of Rwanda’s finest?

Time will tell.