by P. G. Abeles
Moreover, Malinga was running on a seriously—some said virulently—anti-American platform. The current Nigerian government had been extremely cooperative in extraditing suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists involved in the embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and was working with the U.S. to neutralize local Al-Qaeda organizations in the country. Malinga promised the Nigerians if he became president, the cooperation with the Americans would end. In language that would be difficult to misinterpret, Malinga promised his supporters: “Our government will not be held at ransom to extradite Muslims to foreign lands.” No mention was made of refusing the $496 million Nigeria was receiving in U.S. aid.
All of this would have been controversial enough, but in the aftermath of the election only a few months before, things had gone from bad to worse. Most observers conceded the election was probably rigged (although which party was more responsible remained unclear). When the government was returned by a slender margin, opposition leader Malinga called on his followers to take to the streets, where they initiated a program of what the U.S. envoy called “ethnic cleansing” against the majority Nibuyu tribe. Eventually the U.N. stepped in and brokered a power-sharing arrangement to end the violence, but not before more than 1,000 people were killed and 600,000 were displaced.
Killing people of any religion ought to be considered a bad thing. However, in the context of a U.S. election, supporting a Muslim leader who is exterminating Christians—is probably not on most strategists’ recommended list. When Malinga’s followers (who called themselves “the Taliban”) torched a Christian church with fifty women and children inside, Okono’s ties to Malinga became a public relations problem that was hard to overestimate.
When Lacey first started to read about Malinga in the blogosphere, she was frankly skeptical. But the story was fascinating, so she did more research. And as she did research, she documented everything. But since all of this information was in the public domain and from mainstream U.S. news sources, it wasn’t hard to start pulling it all together.
The picture that started to emerge was damning. Whether Okono encouraged Obongo Malinga and they were good friends (as Malinga claimed) or Malinga had simply traded on the enormous appeal and naiveté of the American—was hard to know, but in one sense it didn’t matter. The relationship was sufficiently controversial that Okono could not fail to be damaged by it. Either Okono was manipulated by Malinga, or Okono was complicit in Malinga’s misdeeds—neither augured well for making a case to the American people that as commander-in-chief, Okono would be “ready on day one.”
Lastly, belying the claim that Okono had little real relationship to Malinga—were the amazing similarities between the two campaigns—or at least amazing if they were coincidental. Malinga’s campaign in Nigeria emphasized the use of social networking, small cash donations and even utilized the same campaign slogan—“Change We Need”—all months before Okono’s campaign got started in the United States.
At first, no one believed Lacey. She wasn’t offended. The claims were outrageous; if she hadn’t done the research herself she wouldn’t have believed it either. Muddying the water was the fact that TruthChecker.org had supposedly investigated the story and found it untrue. The problem was that they had only investigated one aspect of the allegations—that the Okono campaign had made a $1 million campaign contribution to Malinga. There was no verifiable evidence for that claim, as TruthChecker.org pointed out.
However, the underlying and more important issues about Okono’s relationship to the African strongman were demonstrably true.
So with assiduous care, Lacey wrote a four-page synopsis appended to thirteen pages of footnotes from reputable news sources (and not blogs, either: print media, the big boys). She sent it to a big media guy; a “friend of a friend,” thinking he’d want the scoop. He read it, thanked her, but identifying Okono’s relationship with the strongman as “too tangential,” declined to print it. With urging from Connor and her bloggers, Lacey identified 35 of the most prominent journalists in the U.S. At her own expense, she sent the report to them FedEx—figuring that at least they wouldn’t think she was living in D.C.’s Lafayette Square with tin foil on her head. And the bloggers all waited, feeling sure that someone would cover it. But there was no response. No story. No coverage of Okono’s only foreign policy experience, or his close ties to the man who had fomented the epic violence that had been in the news for weeks— the new President of Nigeria, Obongo Malinga.
Chapter Thirty
Chicago, Illinois
AS HARRISON AND JOHNSON APPROACHED, they passed two truculent Guards of Jehovah seated in the outer office. Entering The Minister’s office, the first thing Harrison noticed was that The Minister’s recent media trials had aged him. The second thing he noticed were the packing boxes. Harrison had heard that when the tapes became a cause célèbre, The Minister had been pressured to step into retirement more quickly than originally planned in an effort to contain the fallout for Okono. But for a man as notoriously thin-skinned as The Minister, a magnificent house on the edge of a golf course in a gated, mostly white community, and an enormous pension from the church, had obviously not lessened the sting of Okono’s repudiation. He appeared crumpled, aggrieved, bitter. He did not rise to greet them or ask them to sit. They informed him they were still trying to establish if there was any connection between the church and Antwone Green’s murder.
“Gentlemen.” He waved his arms theatrically in front of them like a magician—only to twist his wrist and open his hand, to reveal his empty palm.
“There’s nothing there.”
Harrison and Johnson looked at each other, perplexed. The Minister continued: “Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. Antwone lived in a—” he passed his hand over his forehead as if the idea pained him, “neighborhood in transition. The police…you..” he pointed at the two detectives accusingly, “ignore the area. The Ministry tries to provide the residents with some security, of course—” he paused modestly, “and yet…sometimes there is crime. Random crime.”
Harrison spoke.
“And you’re convinced that that’s what this was?”
“What else?” There was no mistaking the hostility in The Minister’s voice. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. It was a direct challenge; a threat: What have you got? his eyes said. Make your accusation or get out of my face.
But they didn’t have anything, and The Minister knew it. Lots of guesses, lots of circumstantial pieces of information that might, with the most phenomenal luck, make a case; but nothing substantive enough to challenge one of the most powerful men in Chicago.
In one sense, Harrison and Johnson’s experience working in Area 2 was the defining aspect of the case for two reasons. First, if they hadn’t worked in Area 2, they might still have been idealistic (or naïve) enough to be tempted to try to make a case with what they had—phone records showing Kevin DuShane’s last calls were to The Minister’s unpublished cell phone number. Witnesses who claimed The Minister told them first-hand he’d arranged DuShane’s ‘vacation’. Witnesses who claimed to have overheard Green pressing The Minister about DuShane and his relationship to another man they both referred to as “our friend.” But both knew: knew first-hand what went on, how evidence disappears when it becomes inconvenient, and frightened witnesses change their stories. With no hard evidence of a motive or connection, and The Minister denying everything, none of it was enough. In fact, it wasn’t anything, and all three of them knew it.
If the first problem was the difficulty of making the circumstantial case against a powerful and influential figure, the second problem was making it stick. Anyone taking on The Minister would have to have unimpeachable credibility. Through no fault of their own, Harrison and Johnson were linked to the most discredited, most corrupt cops in Chicago—maybe even in the United States— cops who had become notorious for framing African American defendants.
All The Minister had to do was to mention that the cops bringing charges
against him had been members of the infamous “Midnight Crew from Area 2”—and even people within the department would question their integrity. The fact that they’d both worked with internal affairs to bring the bad guys down, that they’d never accepted as much as a free beer, that they were African American themselves—none of that would matter. No one would hear it above the PR din of allegations of racism and corruption The Minister would create to protect himself.
Harrison and Johnson talked softly as they walked to the car.
“Je-sus,” Johnson almost spat the word. “What was that Jedi mind-control shit?” he asked Harrison.
Harrison smiled, but didn’t answer. He wasn’t surprised that Johnson was pissed off at The Minister’s patronizing high-handedness.
Johnson continued, “I hate that shit.” Johnson again waved his arms, imitating The Minister.
“Does that shit work for that motherfucker? he demanded. “That’s what I want to know. Does that shit work on anybody? Je-sus—he must think we’re all feebleminded.” Johnson continued his pantomime:
“Gen-tle-men,” Johnson intoned—mimicking The Minister’s stentorian tones, and waving his arms around in the air like a ninja master in a Jackie Chan movie. “There…is…NOTHING…THERE.” Johnson paused. “I’d like to tell that calypso-singing motherfucker—We’re the police. We decide what’s there.”
Harrison started to laugh. “What? What did you call him?”
Johnson looked slightly abashed. “Motherfucker?”
“No. The singing thing? What was that? Did you make that up?”
Johnson hooted, “You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Our minister, there…” Johnson hooked his thumb behind him to indicate where the Guards of Jehovah were still watching, “was a Baptist preacher before he converted to his whacked-out version of Islamo-Christianity.”
“I knew that,” Harrison replied.
“But before he was a minister, he made his money as a Calypso singer.”
“No!” Harrison couldn’t hide his surprise.
“Truth. Also, do you know that the Guard of Jehovah believe some crazy black scientist named Yakub created white people six thousand years ago by breeding them in the Aegean ocean?”
“Why the Aegean, particularly?” asked Harrison, curiously.
Johnson looked at him steadily, frowning.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. But it explains one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“If you believe shit about aliens, maybe thinking you can do some freaky Yoda mind-control thing wouldn’t seem that crazy to you.”
Harrison unlocked their car. Johnson leaned against the door, obviously taking some satisfaction from the fact that their continued presence in the parking lot was causing consternation to the two members (now four members!) of the Guard, who had them under surveillance from across the parking lot.
“I got one question,” Johnson asked.
“Okay,” Harrison said, still laughing.
“Who gets the Ferrari?”
Harrison immediately stopped laughing. “What?”
Johnson continued by way of explanation. “Guy got axed, right?”
Harrison replied evenly. “I guess…took early retirement.”
Johnson shrugged.
“Whatever.” He wasn’t interested in the semantics. He continued.
“So. My question is, who gets the Ferrari?” he demanded.
“What Ferrari are you talking about?” Harrison asked.
Johnson pointed across the parking lot. “That Ferrari.”
Parked near the rectory door was a gorgeous, bright red, late- model Ferrari. Harrison shrugged his shoulders. He still wasn’t following. Johnson was practically hopping with irritation.
“Brah, that’s The Minister’s Ferrari.”
Harrison couldn’t believe it. His mouth dropped open.
Johnson nodded, pleased with his partner’s stunned reaction. “So I’d like to know how a guy who’s got it so bad in America comes to be driving a $300,000 car.”
“Fair point,” Harrison conceded.
“I mean,” Johnson continued, “that car sure could buy a whole lot of religion for somebody. In fact, for some people that car might be its own kind of religion.”
Harrison laughed and rolled his eyes.
“Jay?” he said to his partner.
“Yeah?”
“Get in the car.”
Chapter Thirty-one
May 2008
Menlo Park, California
THE CALLS FROM THE OKONO CAMPAIGN for fundraising help were weekly, now, but Paul Johannsen was happy to help. Campaigns were expensive, people had to put their money where their mouths were. Johannsen joked to his friends that raising money for the Okono campaign had almost become a full-time job. Who cared? He loved it! Democracy in action! And he was really getting the kids involved, taking them to rallies, buying the Okono gear: hats, shirts, the whole thing. Even his preternaturally skeptical wife Joan was on board. She’d even condescended to allow him to put an Okono bumper sticker on the Mercedes station wagon. Livin’ large!
So, when it came time for the primary in his home state of Nebraska on Tuesday, May 13th—he decided to take the kids. Why not? See the grandparents and get a little civics lesson. They’d love it! Joan worried about their schoolwork. But the teachers at the kids’ private school in Palo Alto were all for Okono, too. They loved the idea!
Now, of course, Nebraska was one of those complicated states where the primary didn’t actually count. The caucus in February had already allocated the delegates for the national convention. But tell that to Nebraskans! This was the most exciting primary contest in decades, and suddenly it seemed like everyone who was anyone on cable TV was coming to Nebraska. And in Nebraska, they watch plenty of cable TV. For a modest, well-meaning state not used to the national spotlight, it was all a little intoxicating.
Kids being kids, Johannsen would have hesitated to get their hopes up unless he was pretty sure Okono was going to win. But he knew a little secret. Okono had trounced McCracken 68% to 32% in the caucus! Well, you don’t get more decisive than that! Woo-hoo! What a blow-out!
Now, of course, the polls in February had shown the race as dead-even, even then, which made a bunch of sour-grapes McCracken people start hollering about fraud in the caucuses. So Johannsen was looking forward to a re-match! The polls were still showing the race almost too close to call, but Okono had picked up momentum since February. Johannsen expected an even bigger Nebraska primary win than the caucus rout.
Inexplicably, his parents were supporting McCracken. Well, you know, Johannsen reminded himself, they were elderly. Whatever. Her demographic. But he had to admit his mother’s opinion of Okono concerned him. Both his parents had participated in the caucuses—along with 38,000 residents of the state. Of course, they’d participated, Johannsen mused. His parents were both from good Swedish farming stock, and they took their civic responsibilities seriously.
Johannsen’s great great grandparents had immigrated separately to the U.S. around 1865, which according to family lore coincided with the first year there was a dramatic drop in the cost of the transatlantic fare. Both families were peasants, literate, but desperately poor—trying to eke out a living, farming tiny plots of lands in an unforgiving climate on hardscrabble soil.
Johannsen knew the story: peasants in Sweden were virtual serfs—with no civil rights. Sweden’s stratified class system made it almost impossible for the lower classes to improve either their social or financial circumstances. Until the 1830s, it was illegal for them to leave, the upper class wasn’t simply going to allow its agricultural workers to wander off in search of a better opportunity elsewhere. However, after a number of crop failures coincided with a population boom, the ruling class started to suspect the Malthusian model might be right after all. All those hungry mouths might be better off in America.
Peasants like Johannsen’s great great gran
dparents were eager to go. The U.S. Homestead Act of 1862 granted each immigrant/applicant title to 160 acres, providing the applicant agreed to improve the land. Swedish pioneers collected their supplies in Chicago, and went off to do just that.
Johannsen’s family had settled in Nebraska, where there was a growing Swedish community, but life had not been easy. Carving farms from the wilderness was backbreaking physical labor. And with so little civilization nearby, if they wanted something, they either made it themselves or did without. But the fates, or the weather, favored them. For almost sixty years, the high plains of the 100th meridian had record rainfall. With enough rain, the uberous soil yielded copious harvests, the kind of bounty the new immigrants had only dreamed of in Scandinavia. But as more and more farmers came west to till the soil (eventually the government privatized 270,000,000 acres), the native prairie grasses were plowed under. When the first serious drought occurred in 1930, there was nothing to hold the soil. Over the next few years, the farmers watched as the soil and their prosperity blew away in a great black cloud, heading east. It stopped on its way to drop dirt pellets like snow on some East Coast cities—and then it was lost, useless to anyone—drowned in the Atlantic.
The drought and the dust storms lingered for six years. With no way to make the land pay, the farmers piled up debt. The banks foreclosed. The plight of the “Okies” was perhaps the most famous, but the devastation ranged across six states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Nobody knows how many died from malnutrition and dust pneumonia from the “Black Rollers” — the choking, all-enveloping dust storms that infiltrated and obscured everything in their paths. The storms were so catastrophic, more than 2.5 million people had left the plains states by 1940. Johannsen’s grandparents were not among them. His grandfather had obtained his teaching license and sold insurance on the side. His grandmother somehow scraped enough food from a little garden to feed the family and raise a few hogs. Johannsen’s parents both remembered a childhood of poverty and want. They both remembered going to bed quietly hungry, so as not to increase their parents’ anguish over something they couldn’t change.