Pascal

Hello Dear Friend,

My name is Mr Pascal Yembiline the Branch manager, (ADB) AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; I am married with three children. I am writing this letter to ask for your support and co-operation to carry out this business opportunity in my department. After annual audit Last month in my branch I discover documents of a late client (Mr. Andreas Schranner) A German business magnate who made a numbered fixed deposit with this branch valued $30M (Thirty Million United State Dollars,) and I was lucky to have the scan documents of the funds and Gold with me in save position. Please take note; the deceased customer of the bank Mr. Andreas Schranner is a German business magnate who deals with most Petroleum Corporations here in Africa. He made a fixed deposit of the huge sum of $30 Million US Dollars. And also the deposited Gold one trunk with the purity security and finance company worth 0ver $250 Million US Dollars.

I discovered from his contract employers, the Petroleum Corporation that Mr. Andreas Schranner, died in the plane crash Monday, 31 July 2000, (an air France jet liner) with his entire family and other passengers on board as you can confirm it yourself via the website below for (BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/859479.stm

Note that you will have 40% of the above mentioned sum if you agree to handle this business with me while 0.6 will be for me then after you confirm this fund into your account i will come over to you country for the sharing of the fund. Please I would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret and delete it if you are not interesting.

Am looking forward hearing from you for more details information
Thanks with my best regards

Mr Pascal Yembiline

Dear Mr. Yembiline,

apologies for the late reply. Your email has taken quite a toll on my emotional state for reasons I shall elaborate upon below. I wished to regain some measure of composure before I scribed my reply. Dear me, to think nigh two decades had already passed!

Your email adds yet more fuel to the fire of the old adage that the world is indeed much smaller than we realize. You see, I am - or was, I should say - well acquainted with Mr. Schranner. The miserable bastard still haunts my sleepless nights.

I understand you may find it wrong of me to speak ill of the dead. Yet it is a vice I am quite unable to cast aside, particularly in this circumstance.

Indulge me, if you please, as I weave you a tale of treachery, melancholy, and finally - vengeance.

I remember that faithful day like it was yesterday. The year was 1999. A scorching summer sun tormented Mr. Schranner and myself as we sat down in a small café in Lagos. We had moments ago received word from the company whose premises we had departed not half an hour earlier. The business arrangement we had been pursuing for what seemed like a lifetime had finally received endorsement. We were overjoyed! Yet our bustling lives at the time denied us an chance to indulge in a substantive celebration. Having had planes to catch, sobriety regrettably had to take precedence and we settled on a pair of espressos. We did not mind. We had been given an unprecedented opportunity and this inconvenience seemed like a small price to pay. Or so I thought...

After a few moments of polite conversation Mr. Schranner checked his BlackBerry and suddenly stood up as though propelled from his chair. He realized he had misremembered his flight departure time and had no choice but to rush to the airport posthaste. He apologized profusely for cutting our impromptu celebration short. I laughed it off and told him no excuses were necessary, that I had likewise found myself in similar situations previously. He was grateful for my understanding and speedily withdrew. I thus resigned myself to spending some time reading the daily newspaper.

When I finished my coffee I signaled the waiter to bring me the receipt. To my astonishment it listed two espressos. "Did the gentleman with whom I arrived not settle his debts before he left," I asked the waiter, perturbed. "No, sir," came the reply.

A cold, piercing pain ran through my spine. As if I had been pierced by Brutus' dagger. I hazily remember paying the bill and trudging vaguely toward my hotel, as if entranced by some malevolent spell. I made my way to my room and spent hours sitting on the bed, staring in what seemed like the abyss but was probably a wall. It was an experience hitherto unknown to me. I had been betrayed.

My life was never the same. I withdrew from my professional responsibilities, from my social obligations, even from my family. Slowly but surely my life fell into disrepair. The company I worked for let me go, my fortune slowly dwindled, and my friends began to avoid me. Finally, unable to bear my newfound apathetic and bitter disposition my wife of six years decided to abscond with my son and daughters.

This was the final straw. The gloomy and dispiriting thoughts I had wallowed in for months began to slowly morph into anger, hatred, and most importantly, determination. I knew the life I had may have been beyond my ability to mend. But perhaps I could derive some sense of satisfaction from taking revenge on the principal cause of my ignominious downfall: Mr. Schranner.

With my newfound purpose as well as a masterful surveillance operation and brilliant scheming I found myself in a bar in Paris on a warm, early summer night. Sitting two tables across from me was Chief engineer of the Air France's Concorde programme. Feigning graciousness I offered - much to everyone's elated approval - to buy a round of drinks for those present. Naturally, I made sure that the bartender included... shall we say, "something extra" for our chief engineer.

What happened the next day... well... a terrible tragedy indeed.

But as faith would have it, things would not be as simple as I naively imagined. Mr. Schranner stocked away the majority of his fortunes in accounts I was never able to locate, in spite of years of infuriating failed attempts. Finally I came to the conclusion that this is perhaps a chapter of my journey destined to remain unwritten.

Until today.

So, to cut a very long story short, Mr. Yembiline: it is as if God himself delivered you to my doorstep. Whatever it is you require of me, I shall provide without reservation.

With warmest regards,
Charles Francis Claiborne

[Awaiting reply]