Blood Is Dirt by Robert Wilson Page B

up.
    â€˜I’ve got to go,’ said Bagado, slapping my back.
    â€˜Hang on. There’s somebody for you to meet.’
    I knocked on Selina’s door. No answer. I pushed the door open. The room was empty. I told Bagado about Selina Aguia and we opened up the OTE/Chemiclean file which had been left on the table. The telexes and letters had been filed in chronological order. This whole big bad problem started with the simplest inquiry you could imagine:
    Â 
380 mts Chemicals
Ex Leghorn
IMMY
    Â 
    â€˜No destination but immediate shipment,’ said Bagado. ‘Is that usual?’
    â€˜Very unusual for this kind of business. They might fix crude oil from the Persian Gulf with no destination or just Med or Western Europe, but chemicals are products you don’t ship without a buyer. They’re too specific, especially only three hundred and eighty tons of the stuff. It’s not as if it’s three thousand tons of benzene or toluene. It also says “chemicals”, which would normally mean a number of parcels. Even more specific.’
    â€˜So he should have known it was wrong from the start.’
    Selina had photocopied notes from Napier’s day book. There was an Italian phone number, then OTE and scribbled alongside ‘ready-treated industrial waste’ and the name Fabrizzio Franconelli. Underneath the name Napier had written, ‘45 X 20 ft containers. Chemical products in drums’. There was a line and the workings of some cargoes for a North Sea contract for BP Chemicals. On the next sheet was a massive doodle of what could have been the left flank of an armadillo and underneath a circle with OTE and Chemiclean in it. Then there was a fax from Chemiclean.
    Â 
CHEMICLEAN INTERNATIONAL LIMITED
    Â 
Postal Address:
Office Address:
PO Box 735 Lagos.
28, Campbell Street
Lagos Island
Lagos. Nigeria.

Napier Briggs
CIL LAGOS W. AFRICA.
Napier Briggs Associates
Dealer in Chemical Materials
204, Old Street
Disposition of Chemical Waste
London ECI
Oil Materials. Company
representation
Import/Export services.
Phone (234) 01-441 441
Fax (234) 01-441 442
    Â 
30th August
FAX MESSAGE
Dear Mr Briggs,
We have been informed by the International Chamber of Commerce that your company specializes in the transportation of hazardous chemicals.
I am writing to introduce our company to you with the hope that you might be of our need or help in scouting out some industries in Europe in need of evacuating waste products emanating from their company’s productive activities.
My name is Daniel Emanalo (Operations Manager). My father is a tradition ruler in the Western State of Nigeria. We own a vast tract of land close to the border with the Republic of Benin. On this land we have built a reinforced concrete bunker 60 ft below the surface for the storage of industrial waste.
Please note that we are only able to accept pretreated industrial waste. We are not having the facilities or know-how to treat waste products. We cannot accept any radioactive material as this is a serious offence under our nation’s penal code and punishable by death.
Our handling, transportation and storage charge is fixed at $30,000 per ton of chemical products as a one-off payment for life.
If you would in anyway assist in scouting out for some industries in Europe who need our services we would pay a commission on all trade of 5 per cent. Please don’t hesitate to contact us immediately to enable us to furnish you with our operative modalities.
Looking forward to hearing from you and doing business with you.
Yours sincerely,
    Â 
Daniel Emanalo (Operations Manager)
    Â 
PS. All communications will be in strictest confidence.
    Â 
    After this fax Selina had filed a permit from the Office of the Pharmacist’s Board of Nigeria allowing Chemiclean to import pretreated industrial waste and a notice from the Federal Ministry of Health, Environmental Protection Agency confirming that the Chemiclean