Chasing Black Gold

In 1970, runaway 15-year-old Robert Stone showed up in the Bahamas. Turning diver and pot-smuggler in a Miami Vice world, he made a million before he was 18, then went legit as a pioneer saturation diver in the North Sea. At 30, after seeing friends die and surviving several close calls, he went to work for himself, mostly on the wrong side of the law: in the Niger Delta, where he conducted midnight oil deals with armed bandits; in the South China Seas, where he bribed the Vietnamese Navy and slipped away with $100 million worth of prime marijuana; and in the Arctic, where he unloaded the illicit cargo under the nose of the U.S. Vice President. When his closest friend turned government informant, Stone was thrown into a Nigerian jail. Stone bribed his way to freedom, and became the quarry in an international manhunt led by a U.S.. Organized Crime task force. After a couple of years on the run, he was arrested and jailed in Switzerland and sent to a Federal Penitentiary following extradition. This is a story about the power of money to draw a man into ever-bolder adventures, to bribe his way to the very top of business and government, and, ultimately, to buy his freedom.