Excerpt: You've got mail.

Emmanuelle Danjoule was going to die, of that he was certain.
Dispite the fact that he was not in very good shape, he was running thru the streets like a man possessed.
Like his life depended on it. Maybe it did.
The men who wanted to kill him were out there, he could feel them.
He had hidden in the dirty basement for five days, not daring to go out for fear that they would find him.
He had been a party to many bad things thru out his career as a lawyer.
He had been the first of his family to go to college. Prior to that, his family had, for generations, tried to eck out a living from the unfriendly, dry soil of Ghana that had been just as frustrating to his great grandfather as it had been to Emmanuelle’s father.
At his graduation from the most prestigious law school in Ghana, his father had been so proud of him, loudly predicting that the fortunes of the family would change from that day forward.
And it had. The next day, Emmanuelle accepted a position as a Barrister for the Department of Public Works. A well paid government job.
And it that was where it had all started.
The amount of graft and fraud that were daily occurances in what he discovered was an incredibly corrupt government was shocking at first. Then it just seemed routine.
As his career progressed, he rose thru the ranks of the government agency on the strength of his intelligence and his ability to understand people.
His appointment to the personal staff of the President.
More publicly known as the warlord of Ghana.
That was when the true atrocities began. Over the next ten years, he had arranged for many evils at the request of a truly evil man. From the drug trade, to child prostitution, to illegal executions. The crimes were many, possibly too many to remember in one sitting. If he ever decided to write them all down on paper, he would have to do so over the course of many days.
He had finally reached a point where he could go no further.
He had an idea. A really bad idea.
The warlord’s government ran on money, as was true of any government. Taxes, foreign aid, tariff’s, bribes . . .etc. All moneys flowed into various incoming accounts, only to be filtered into thousands of outgoing accounts. While he understood the structure, he was no accountant.
He was the man in charge of those incoming funds. In a moment of drunken desolation, he had a moment of clarity. He would strike a blow, a devastating blow, against the corrupt thing that the warlord had created and ruled over.
He would hit the money.
The account was easy to set up. One main account, easily inserted in front of the outgoing accounts. All funds accumulated at the end of the month would just sit for a 48 hour period, prior to being filtered into the outgoing accounts.
And he would steal it from the warlord. An entire month’s accumulated wealth of the entire country of Ghana would be gone, depriving the warlord of his government’s lifeblood.
So he devised a plan. He needed an outside agent, someone totally unknown in Ghana. The internet provided the means. Anything could be found on the internet. A few days of searching found a program that would send out an email to thousands of randomly generated email on the hour. Any emails that replied to his would be filtered as they came back in. To transfer the money out of Ghana, he needed an account, one not linked to anything in his part of the world. Only certain banks allowed the size of transaction he would be making, in certain time zones, and a few other particular bits of criteria that would make the transfer of funds possible.
He had been found out 5 days ago. He had managed to flee his home moments before the police kicked in his front door.
The funds had been in the account for over 40 hours now. Once they dispersed into the outgoing accounts, the collection account could be shut down, but not before. There was nothing the government could do until then.
He arrived at the apartment he had set up months ago slightly out of breath.
It was a cramped little apartment, two small rooms without a bathroom.
But it had internet access. That was all he needed.
He unlocked the door and stood there, shaking. If they knew all of his plans, they would be waiting for him.
He opened the door.
The room was dark, and empty.
Emmanuelle went to the small computer sitting on the desk in the corner. The screen flickered to life as the system booted up. It was the only light in the room.
He quickly connected to the internet and began checking emails, his heart racing in a way that had nothing to do with his running moments ago.
Of the several hundred replies to his email, only one fit the profile enough to have finally filtered into the accepted folder. An American.
So be it. Beggers cannot be chosers. He quickly entered several quick commands and finally sat, stearing at the blinking button on the screen.
Transfer funds.
With this one blow, he would cause the theft of the largest accumulation of funds of the entire year. The theft would cause loans to default, trade unions to go unpaid and force an investigation by forces outside of Ghana. The warlord would find himself powerless to stop the inevitable as foreign powers became involved in his sordid affairs.
Emmanuelle Donjoule could bring down the government of the warlord and possibly, right some of the wrongs he had been a party to.
He maneuvered the mouse over the button and pushed down with his right index finger. A soft click and it was done.
“Hello Emmanuelle.” A soft voice sounded like a megaphone in the dark room.
Emmanuelle spun around in his chair.
A dark figure stood in the door of the bedroom. He couldn’t see the face of the man in front of him, but that didn’t matter now.
This was his killer.
“Someone has paid for your death, Emmanuelle Donjoule.” The figure walked towards him, slowly, deliberately. “Do you believe in fate?” The words seemed almost like a ritual, like a phrase the killer said at the beginning of his task.
He thought briefly about running, trying to get away, and realized that fleeing would be futile. He couldn’t escape the things he had done, the crimes he had commited, any more than he could escape his assassin.
So be it.

The apartment was still dark an hour later. The computer sat on the desk, its files irretrievably erased. In the middle of the desk was a suicide note, written ina neat, legible hand. Handwriting analysis would later show that it was written by the hand of Emmanuelle Donjoule.
The ceiling fan was not turning, and hung six inches out of its anchor in the ceiling, pulled by the weight of the body that hung by the neck underneath.
Emmanuelle Donjoule was dead, seemingly by his own hand.