call center in the BDO building in Makati, a warehouse outside of town where shipments from Jon Wall had ended up. They had in- formation on his cars, boats, planes, and shell companies. They had tied him to a gun store, Red White & Blue Arms, operated by a man named Michael Lontoc—who also happened to be a mem- ber of the Philippine national target shooting team. It was the kind of intelligence law enforcement agents typically salivate over. But the PDEA commander offered only vague assurances that they would follow up.

A couple of weeks later, after Bailey was back in the States, a PDEA liaison called to report that they'd obtained a search war- rant and raided one of Le Roux's call centers, confiscating comput- ers and detaining several Israelis. Bailey was elated, ready to hop back on a plane to the Philippines and help comb through the evi- dence. But the liaison told him that they hadn't found any wrong- doing, so they had returned the computers and released the men. Bailey was incredulous. “They were like, ‘Okay, yeah yeah, we're close friends, we're allies,’ ” he said. “So it comes time to get down to the search and say, ‘Oh, we gave all that stuff back.’ Really?”

Undaunted, Bailey redoubled his efforts, hopping from country to country to ferret out information or lean on local authorities. Eventually his world tour would come to include destinations as disparate as Ottawa, The Hague, Dubai, Accra, and London.

Le Roux's tentacles seemed to extend to every corner of the world, often in mystifying ways. Six months before Bailey's trip to Manila, British authorities had arrested a former British soldier turned military contractor—who'd fought in Chechnya after leav- ing the service—on suspicion of money laundering. He had been wired £150,000 from an account in Hong Kong belonging to Le Roux. After determining that Le Roux had Australian citizenship, the Brits contacted Australian authorities, who sent them to Bai- ley.

The mercenary told the British police that he'd met Le Roux through Robert McGowan, the Zimbabwean, and that Le Roux had expressed interest in funding a hunting lodge. Both Bailey and