Free American Warlord by Johnny Dwyer

sub-Saharan Africa for the Pentagon, where he had covered more than forty-three countries. He had a good idea what had transpired in Liberia before his arrival.
    When McMullen picked up his phone, the caller asked for Major Butler, the former attaché.
    “This is Chucky Taylor, Jr.,” the caller said. The major knew who Chucky was, but he wasn’t clear on why the former president’s son would be calling. McMullen explained that he was the new attaché and asked what he could do for him.
    Chucky launched into a meandering proposal. He explained that he wanted to join the U.S. Marine Corps. His experience in the ATU and the skills he’d acquired as a commander, he reasoned, would be of use to the Marines. Moreover, he said, he was an American citizen. He simply needed a new passport so that he could return to the United States to enlist. He then asked McMullen whether his name remained on the UN travel ban for Liberia.
    McMullen wasn’t entirely surprised by the call—Chucky had been in touch with the post prior to the major’s arrival. But his expectation that the embassy would assist him was strange. The ATU, after all, had antagonized embassy personnel from the outset. Nor did Chucky’s reputation comport with the Marines Corps values. McMullen saw the request as a pretense. Chucky was clamoring for a way—any way—back into the United States.
    Chucky continued calling for the next several months. The major showed no interest in his offer, but Chucky had few options at that moment. He explained his situation to McMullen: he was running low on money, he needed a change of scenery, and he wanted to travel to Iraq to work as a contractor for the U.S. government. McMullen asked him to put his request in an e-mail.
    Two months later McMullen received an e-mail from “Charlie Tango,” an online alias Chucky used. The note revisited the request to return to the United States. “Legally I have all the right to go back home if I want to,” Chucky wrote. “I will say again I am an American first before anything.”
    Chucky was correct—nothing was preventing him from applying for a U.S. passport. But he did have reason to be concerned about the blowback from his connections to the Taylor government, so what he sought was to open a channel to the federal government to pave the way for his return home.
    Other members of Taylor’s inner circle—Gen. John Tarnue and Cindor Reeves—had successfully converted their willingness to talk about Charles Taylor into temporary immigration status in the United States and elsewhere. 14 (While Chucky was aware that both men had disappeared, he unlikely knew the extent of their cooperation.) His knowledge of his father’s activities was far more intimate, and in the e-mail he made an offer to speak to the government about what had gone on in Liberia. The remainder of the e-mail remains classified, so it isn’t clear what level of cooperation Chucky was offering.
    But after reading the contents of the e-mail, Major McMullen printed it out and jotted a note at the top of the paper.
    “He wants to talk,” it read.
    What went wrong? Why am I in this situation?
15 In early 2005 these were the questions that dogged Chucky. He’d been in Trinidad for nearly two years since he’d left Monrovia, but the collapse of his father’s regime remained raw in his mind. The memories were reinforced by his isolation. He was marooned on the island, cut off not only from family and friends but also from his identity.
    Lynn had visited him once, but by the time she arrived in Trinidad, there was nothing left of their marriage. 16 In June 2005, she filed for divorce, seeking full custody of their son, indicating in court papers that the “Father has no relationship with the minor child of the marriage.… It is in the child’s best interest that the Husband / Father, who is a fugitive from justice, have no access” to him. 17
    Trinidad remained foreign to him, but he began to make connections