As an ambitious rising young lawyer with several years of experience, I was accustomed to doing the grunt files. One day my boss summoned me to his office:

“You have a new case. The file is on your desk with all the info you need. You have to be in New York in five hours. You’ve a meeting with the FBI about some guy our client is chasing. Turns out, he is a criminal sort whom the FBI has been hunting for a few years. The New York cops grabbed him last night and apparently, they have a whole slew of legal evidence against him. This evidence can help our client recover some of the monies stolen from them. The Feds will not release them to anyone but another lawyer, and that is you. Talk lawyer to lawyer with the Feebees and maybe they will understand you.

Humph, I grumble to myself. Tell my secretary, Maria; I would be out of town for a couple of days, grab my travel kit and I’m off to the Big Apple.

Elation, that is the only word to describe my mood as I lounge in the first-class seat on my way to the Big Apple, the Big Apple in September. Do I mind a free trip to New York? I have a travel allowance, unlimited! Wow – off to New York, meet with the FBI – visions of slim, beautiful female FBI agents, husky hulks of male Feebees, dance before my eyes – I love the old Efrem Zimbalist Jr. TV shows, then Criminal Minds. All expenses paid, interrogating a real-life criminal, whoever he was. Anticipation is a wonderful feeling. The lush airplane seats, the puffy clouds, blue sky, these overcame any sluggishness my body was experiencing because of my early rise and shine. One question remains: would I or would I not get an overnight stay in a luxury New York hotel and (OK, two questions) maybe even a Broadway show?

Complacently off I doze sinking into a plush first-class pillow; no law against dreaming.

Two giant Feebees meet me at La Guardia, ready to usher me through customs and security with VIP treatment. One is a sullen, curvaceous young woman with a wild red Afro hair cut. Think her purse must hold an AK-47, it is so big. Leather, biker jacket with large yellow ‘F B I’ letters emblazoned on its back. Cool image and she looks tough.

The other is a grumpy, dour, overweight, cigar-smoking, balding man, with a two-day greying growth and a pointy nose, obviously near retirement, in disheveled faded blue suit, tie half tied, with scuffed brown shoes. Presumably he was an undercover FBI agent. How did he ever get a law degree? What happened to the male hulks we see on TV?

“You the attorney?” growls the male.

“Sure am,” I reply.

Gesturing with his left arm in a ‘traffic cop’ signal, he shouts at me, “Hurry up, follow us closely.”

Smiling in as friendly a manner as I can, I volunteer,

“My name is Bob. What are yours?

Grumpy does not look at me as he pushes his way through the crowd.

“Agent Brown,” he tosses out without turning his head as he strides away.

“Agent Courceau,” smiles the female agent. “We are here to protect you. We’ve got to hurry.”

I digest Courceau’s words. What did she mean ‘to protect me’? From whom? What had my boss not told me?”

With Brown in front of me and Courceau trailing like a shadow, we make a hasty exit from the terminal. A car is waiting for us, red lights flashing ominously, at the front entrance. Two NYPD patrol cars are lined up in front of us and two more in the rear. What an escort to Midtown, lights flashing and sirens screaming! A thrill, fun, exhilarating! Straight out of a TV show!

Courceau briefs me on the trip to the city. Seems I was to interview some terrorist from a Caribbean Island and to take back some documentation to my office and then ensure it was filed in the Island’s courthouse. Turns out the NYPD had caught the guy – Yvon Leblanc – and had handed him over to the FBI. Agent Courceau shares her info about Mr. Yvon Leblanc,

“Leblanc’s led various political riots and causes both in his home country and in Canada. He defrauded your client of millions of dollars before returning to his country. Now for some reason he’s in the United States where he is facing numerous federal charges, including terrorism charges. He is reputedly alleged to be the leader of an armed group of revolutionaries and he is very dangerous, very dangerous. That is why we are here with you.”

My insides start their game of roiling and grumbling at this news. I thought I was a simple gopher, not a target. Not so sure I am going to enjoy this visit.

The interrogation is to take place at FBI headquarters. Plopped down in a hard, cushion less chair with a rigid hard back, I try to settle in for hopefully, a short wait, especially since the suffocating stench of body odor engulfed the room. Use the time to review the file, again and again as the hours drag by but no one comes to collect me. Around 3 p.m. an officer ushers me in to see Leblanc. Immediately I know the origin of the body odor. I gag and avoid taking a deep breath. Dressed in a business suit, with questionable hygiene, Mr. Leblanc, just glares at me, his deep black eyes fixated on me, memorizing my features, following every move I make. His hands appear small and slimy as he holds them together in front of him on his lap. A skinny, little bald headed, guy, with pale ashen skin, hard set jaw, maybe five six in stocking feet: how could he scare anyone? Like a panther poised to leap, he stares at me. His stare is, so intense, it unnerves me. He spits out one word, only one word, “Lawyer.”

Brown enters the room, looks at me.

“Come on,” she motions to me, “Leblanc had promised he would talk with you without a lawyer. He lied. You have the documents to be filed in court. Your plane leaves in two hours.”

The ride to the airport is swift and silent. Brown sulks all the way and Courceau ignores me totally. As we pull up to the terminal entrance, Agent Courceau’s phone rings. She answers it and explodes in a torrent of foul, unladylike language. Seething, she forces herself to calm down. “Brown,” she said “we’ve got to get this guy on the plane immediately. Leblanc has escaped and we can’t find him anywhere. No one can explain how he got away. He just disappeared from the courthouse after we left. Once our lawyer friend here’s on the plane, our job’s done. Nice meeting you, Counsellor, good luck. Stay safe.”

*****

Early the next morning, tired and jet-lagged, back at the office, I am savouring my new importance. Suddenly my office phone shatters the silence with its shrill sound, jerks me out of my early morning reverie. Sluggishly I pick up the receiver. The night had been a long one because I had arrived back from New York late the night before, or was it early this morning?

Before I can gather my wits to say a word, a male voice snarls so loudly I think he’s in my office.

“You will not come to my country. If you do you will die.”

A nameless voice on the telephone. Huh? I know it’s early in the morning, but I had no travel plans. What country was he talking about?

“What number are you calling please? Whom do you wish to speak to?” (Where was Maria when I needed her?)

“Don’t act stupid, Counselor. We met in New York yesterday and I refused to talk to you. Hope you had a pleasant trip back home – Ha, ha. Now I am warning you. Do not come to my country; we have your flight number and your arrival time. We will meet you at the airport if you do; you will not leave alive. You will die!”

The line goes dead.

Flabbergasted – it has to have been Leblanc! He knew me by name, and he had found my office number! Sputtering into a dead line, I shout into the receiver,

“Is this a joke? Who is this? Are you a wacko?”

The Caribbean lilt to his voice had not disguised the ominous hatred in his voice. This message had been clear: stay home or I’m dead. He had repeated the dying part just in case I was slow. He did not sound as though he was kidding.

Well, I mumble out loud to an empty office, the joke is on him. I‘m not travelling anywhere. He’s threatening the wrong person.

Some joke. In barges my boss, grinning,

“Welcome back. Pack your bags. You’re on an evening flight to the Caribbean tonight. Those documents you brought back from New York have to be filed in court on the Island by tomorrow at 5 p.m. This guy, Leblanc, has hidden away over twenty million of our client’s dollars in a secret account of a bank on the Island. That’s the easy part. Your job is also to get that money from him. Get the court to freeze it or transfer it to us. That is why you have to file the documents you brought from New York. Good luck. Bon voyage. Be safe.”

Slumped in my cozy leather chair, numb, I am too stunned to react; disbelief and trepidation flood over me: how did Leblanc know I was travelling even before I knew? He had my flight number; he had the time of my arrival.

All day I spend doing some creative thinking and research. Boy, convincing a court to seize the monies was going to be a long shot. Will need a sympathetic judge and a resourceful local counsel. Then my artistic cells click in and I think there was a way to justify our request to freeze the funds.

Finding a local counsel was more difficult. Not many wish to tackle Mr. LeBlanc. Apparently, he’s a seriously deadly dude.

*****

The air hangs heavy with its tropical odor of rotting trees, greenness and stench of wasting foliage, damp, clinging clothes dragging me down. Peering around, even in the darkness of the night, sweating in the stifling tropical heat, I could taste the green, like a combination of dry brussels sprouts and broccoli. Behind me was the airport, nestled in the darkness of the jungle and the mountains. I could see only blackness surrounding the airport,, no lights, nothing but the end of civilization, not even a hundred yards away, but the hair on the back of my neck tingled with dire anticipation of danger; a frisson of fear tickled my spine. Danger awaits in the darkness.

‘Well,’ I grumble aloud, as though to comfort myself, ‘No one ever said it would be a large airport on this rocky island.’ Rocky, it surely is, although ‘rocky’ might have been an understatement. On the flight the pilot had warned us the plane would be making a sudden dive straight down in order to land between four mountain ridges. He relished the adventure of a dive landing. In one ear and out the other at the time, but now it made sense to me – menacing dark green surging out of the thick blackness enveloped me and nary a sound of animals or birds. All around are huge walls of mountains and I was at the bottom of a deep valley buried in silence.

There are ALWAYS some sounds except when a dangerous powerful predator is present. As a city boy, little did I know that there should have been the sound of birds or animals. The smell of the predator, the sound of its breathing alerts the prey. All the smaller wildlife wisely go mute. In silence there is safety in the face of danger. They could smell, sense even, the more dangerous wildlife, but I, oblivious to the danger, did not have their survival skills. I should have known better. The tingling on the back of my neck surely should have alerted me. Figured I should have gone to the washroom prior to leaving the terminal. My hands, my armpits, every part of my body was sweating in the heat, or was it with fear?

So, what is a ‘city’ guy, an up-and-coming corporate lawyer all spiffy in sleek, pin striped, grey suit, Gucci shoes, Samsonite briefcase (full of law stuff), with all the trappings of financial success, doing in the midst of a jungle whose only refuge lies in a rundown, ramshackle airport?

Here I am, jungle and all, full of bravado and keen to do my job, I now regret not following the mysterious voice’s advice. It is one thing to be sitting comfortably on your own turf in your own office, cushy chair with your morning venti – but finding myself, for real, a hundred feet from the airport lights, facing the jungle where civilization seems to end. Surely, I think, there has to be a taxi somewhere so I can get to the city. Right behind me is the airport, the end of civilization, not even a hundred yards away, but the hair on the back of my neck tingles with dire anticipation of danger; an eerie chill of fear tickles my spine. A breeze ripples through the leaves. The silence ends.

“Hey Mon,” shouts a gravely male voice from the darkness. The shattering of the silence jolts me like an electric shock.

“Thought you was told to stay home, Mon. You gonna wish you had stayed home and left us alone!”

Unable to see the speaker, I simply stare into the darkness, a pit forming in my stomach.

The threatening voice teases, “Over here Mon. You was told to stay home, Mon. You smart ass lawyers never do what you are told. You gonna wish you had listened to our boss.”

“You got no answer Mon? – now you gonna learn to stay home and leave us alone!”

Where the heck is that voice coming from? Futilely I search the blackness but only slowly does it register that the voice had said ‘our boss’. That means there is more than one person concealed in the darkness. Shame I had not listened to the silence. Fear grips my intestines and I look for a place to run. My karate and judo classes were not designed to handle a gun or knife fight in the jungle.

My eyes now strain desperately to see the person who was talking. At least it seems as though they were only on one side of me but how many were there? Some questions, in hindsight, are better left unanswered as slowly out of the dark green foliage, saunters a very large man, with an extremely large nose, a granite chin. big shoulders and what appeared to be bright red hair in a 60’s Afro. Tap dancing beside him bounces his slightly smaller buddy with long bright orange hair. Neither really looks as though he was going to give me a lift into town.

On my tip toes perhaps, I rise to five feet eight inches – always claimed it was five eight and a half just to impress people. At most I weigh a hundred and fifty pounds of some muscle but not all that much. Especially when guy number one, with the flaming red hair, starts to laugh and flex his biceps. But it’s the little guy who dances up to me. Did I say little? If six two and at least two hundred pounds mean ‘little’, then he is little.

No time to be afraid. There is nowhere to run. I had searched for an escape route as soon as I saw them but could find none. There’s no way out of this rather awkward predicament. Quickly I pull out my Swiss Army Knife. The little guy with the orange hair approaches, the strong odor of the unwashed telegraphing his arrival. He does move rather fast. I never take my eyes off him. Our eyes meet. He makes his move. His right hand strikes out at me like a snake’s tongue but he had not seen my knife. I stick my knife’s blade straight into his hand. He howls in pain.

“Hey Mon, NOW you is in big trouble. You hurt my friend. I gonna hurt you real bad,” growls Red as he approaches, much more slowly and cautiously than his orange hair buddy had. One foot creeps ahead as his other foot slides along. Once again, no escape for me.

Out of the darkness behind me, a deep male voice booms out in a beautiful American accent,

“Yo, Bro, y’all having a problem?”

Red freezes at the sound of this voice. From the dim light behind me, nonchalantly swagger two of the biggest, blackest, most beautiful GI’s I had ever been blessed to see – I should add that at the time there was no one in this whole world who was more beautiful to my eyes. It was not the time to be picky and to correct the GIs. If they thought I was American, I would go with it. Did not like the alternative.

“Uh, yeah, s-sort of a big one,” I stammer.

“Well, Dude, y’all just walk away and we’ll take care of your ‘sort of’ problem. You can take our cab which is coming now.”

In the reflection of the airport lighting, Red looks a little concerned right about now. Me, with all the bravado I can muster, I walk away, waive my thanks and feel a little sorry for Red.

Coming around the corner out of the jungle were the lights of a car, their taxi. I was looking for a cab.

“Hey, Mon,” I yell back at Red, “say hi to your boss for me.”

Bright and early the next morning the sun rousts me from my king size luxurious bed. I am up and moving. My client had arranged for a limo to pick me up along with the local representative. He owned the only limo on the island as it turned out. Very chubby, balding, middle-aged man with a smile a mile wide, a career employee of my client, John, he never stops smiling. Raising his left arm into the air as a greeting, he pipes up,

“I know everyone on the Island and everyone knows me. They have all done business with me. We can trust him. Now we have the rest of the day to do nothing. You can be the tourist. I give a tour to the best lawyer in the world. Next plane does not leave until midnight. We go on a tour around the island.”

Off we go into the wild, plush, verdant jungle mountains in his limo. The staggering beauty of the forest swallows us up, my nostrils inhaling the verdant odor, my eyes drowning in the omnipresent dampness of the forest.

The time passes and we spend the whole afternoon touring the Island.

As we drive on a jungle road, we hear the echo of a loud explosion from several miles away in the direction of the centre of town. My host’s phone rings almost immediately. He keeps on driving and reaches out for it with his free hand.

“Bad news,” speaks a female voice on the phone. did you hear that explosion? The courthouse is gone. Someone blew it up along with all the evidence against Leblanc. Worse, the Chief Justice was in his office at the time of the explosion. He is now the ‘ex-Chief Justice’. Rescue workers have not found all of him yet.”

“This is sobering news,” my host mutters, “Your plane leaves in four hours. I had better get you back to your hotel.”

As the limo starts its journey to my hotel, another explosion rocks the Island.

“Oh, oh,” he groans. “Sounds like the airport has been attacked. Your plane will not be leaving after all.”

Life could not be more serene and beautiful at the luxurious five-star hotel where the world is oblivious to the fate of the Chief Justice. Curiously the hotel is situated high up on a cliffside overlooking the sea. Walking through the lobby, my skin can feel the opulence of the decor, smell the aroma of affluence. I gawk at the sparkling marble tiled walkway, and then the chandeliers; they would make a French king envious with their sparkling stones assaulting your eyes from all directions. Exhausted, I go to my room for a short nap before dinner and a shower. What a shower stall – flower motived tiles, three faucets each targeting a different

part of your body, five selections of water speed, two pulsating at different beats. Even the toilet paper is extremely plush.

The dining room with its seaside view, smells rich and is as exquisite as the food. I choose the best seat with a view of the beach leading down out to the sea. It is a postcard panoramic sight. Am annoyed I had left my camera in my room.

The most expensive Beaujolais wines are on the wine list so I promptly order one of them. Select escargots as an appetizer and coq au vin for the main course. Fully satisfied with my day, the successful results of my mission to the island, I gaze out to the sea. At first glance it looks as though a small flotilla of fishing boats are anchored quite a way out in the sea. My eyes can barely make them out but there seems to be a lot of activity on them.

Still curious, I go back to my glass of wine to do it justice. A half hour later, since it is far too early to call it a night, I decide to walk off my dinner. Meander through the hotel gardens before returning to my room. The hot sticky evening heat soon becomes too stifling for me, so I go to my air-conditioned room and call it a night. Flop onto the cushy, plush bed and try counting dollar bills to soothe me to sleep; was out instantly.

Just as the morning sky is brightening, the air hangs heavy and lightning threatens to usher in a thunderstorm. The silvery full moon, refusing to leave, peaks out between ominous dark clouds. The deafening roar of jets streaking low over the hotel, not just one, but several of them – blasts me out of bed. Pulse pounding, I stagger over to the window, start to count them: 1, 3, no 5, 3 more, swooping back and forth, crisscrossing in combat formation, dazzling me with their speed so that I can not see their markings. One after another they let loose short blasts at some unseen target; the rising smoke blotting out the horizon and the rising sun.

Now I am awake.

Machine gun fire bursts out in the hotel gardens, beneath my window. Looking out the window I see dozens of rag tag figures running back and forth, shouting something, some tumbling down. Quickly I scramble to dress when the window pane shatters, glass spewing everywhere. I dive for cover under the bed.

The hotel is under attack.

After a few moments, some screams and loud shouts, the firing dies down and an eerie silence descends. Crawling out from under the bed, I run to the door, and arrive there just as a very large female soldier yanks the room door open and steps into my room. Slung around her neck is a very big automatic weapon. She ushers me back into my room, shoving me firmly but gently. Before she pushes me back into the room, several other heavily armed and uniformed soldiers rush by yelling and giving orders in French.

The one who had pushed me back into my room, is a huge burley female soldier who orders me to stay in my room.

I challenge her in French, “Who are you. What is going on?”

“You are now under the protection of the French Foreign Legion. Those are our jets flying overhead and our troops shooting the rebels. We will tell you when it is safe to come out of your room. Until then, we will provide room service for you.”

In the distance there is the raucous sound and whoosh of heavy rocket fire from the jets; the machine gun fire is tapering off.

“Not to worry,” she smiles and gestures to the jets. “They are just blasting the invading boats out of the water.”

“Invading boats!!!?”

“I repeat, do not worry. What would you like for breakfast? Café au lait? croissants, Parisien style? Please do not worry. We are very well armed and vastly outnumber the invaders. They are very few and only have an invasion fleet of a few boats coming to take over the Island,” she chuckles. “The island has only ten members of a police force with no weapons. We, the French Foreign Legion, are here to defeat the invasion. We have many guns, fighter planes, and our navy will destroy the invasion. Do not worry. You are safe with us. We are sending a plane to pick you up and return you to your country.”

It was not my fate to stick around to witness the result of the attack on the Island. Within two hours a convoy of French soldiers escorted me to a waiting airplane for the US Virgin Islands. The rest of the revolution, I was to read about in the paper. As for me, I returned safely to my office with the task of figuring out what to do with the duplicate copies of the evidence which I filed in Court. Not since the English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell’s time, had a courthouse been destroyed. I was sure there had to be some caselaw somewhere which would instruct me what to do with the evidence. Moral of the story? Always make a copy of the evidence for your files.

As a young lawyer a major international financial institution hired to train me as a banker and to practice law. It was a unique innovative position whose goal was to produce an interdisciplinary group of international financial specialists. For me the introduction was to enlist my abilities in the international financial rescheduling LIBOR group of specialists. As the only lawyer in that group, it was my job to handle all legal matters; one of them was the fairly simplistic job of filing documents in a Caribbean country’s courthouse. The documents were in New York and the chain of possession in legal hands had to be maintained. My boss had thought doing so was a very minor job for which I, with my lack of experience, was the natural candidate. After all, any idiot can file documents in court, right? Nobody anticipated the bad guy would threaten to kill the messenger (me), invade the country in a coup attempt of blow up the courthouse! In doing so his rag tag invading force would attack the hotel I was staying in and threaten my life. This is the basis of my first real assignment as an international lawyer. As I later learned, my employer was enemy number one for many groups of insurrectionists i.e. terrorist groups, and the financial supporter of many others. One of the other lawyers in our department was held hostage in a Latin American country for two weeks, another had to face down an AK 47 in loan negotiations, while one banking officer had to hide under a desk while he was the target of a SAM attack in the Middle East, the chief operating officer of my client was kidnapped for several weeks in a Central American country. All in all, I was quite fortunate, but no one had informed me of the dangers of being a gopher in that field of law. After a decade of exciting legal work with that client, I moved on to the sedate, but safe, law practice in Ottawa, Ontario, a smaller Canadian town and have a wife and two children. Presently I am happily retired. I have published one book on Amazon, Four Faces of Satan, which has not sold at all.

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