Shell Game — Douglas Clark

While on assignment in Africa, New York investigative journalist Mark Reynolds learns of a disaster in Nigeria. He is the first foreign journalist to arrive at the site of an industrial chemical leak that has killed hundreds. Digging through a cover of foreign subsidiaries, Reynolds learns that the principal shareholder of the industrial chemical plant is a large U.S.-based corporation, Martinelli Global, Inc. MGI fits perfectly as the poster child for Reynolds' series of articles on the negative consequences of globalization. But the low profile MGI is much more than just another aggressive multinational corporation doing business in developing countries. MGI has for decades invested in operations in some of the world's riskiest places to do business using corruption as their business model. To mask their illegal activities from Western regulatory scrutiny, they have structured a Byzantine web of foreign subsidiary corporations and offshore tax-haven shell companies. Parallel to these illicit business dealings is the real possibility that MGI-affiliated operations may be involved in a nuclear weapons proliferation scheme involving Iran. As Reynolds probes deeper, MGI retaliates with its considerable power and influence. The intimidation and violence ratchet up- ward, threatening Reynolds and those helping him.