An evil dictator, secret lists containing the names of important people, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars - and a Hong Kong connection. This could well be the plot of another blockbuster novel in the John Le Carre vein.
Doubtless a Hollywood executive is already pouring over a script just like it.
But this is not fiction. For governments and bureaucrats, political parties and corporations, and for dozens of individuals, the scandal of the United Nations oil-for-food programme could evolve into something more akin to a Stephen King horror movie.
American politicians have called it one of the world's worst cases of corruption, claiming that the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had illicitly made US$21 billion in kickbacks - twice as much as previously estimated - as a result of UN mismanagement.
The Republican Party senator heading one of six United States congressional committees investigating the programme, Norm Coleman, has called for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resign because 'the most extensive fraud in the history of the UN occurred on his watch'.
'In addition, and perhaps more importantly,' he wrote in a column in the Wall Street Journal, 'as long as Mr Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the UN's collective nose.'
He pointed out that Mr Annan's involvement went as deep as his family. On Monday, the secretary-general announced he was 'very disappointed' in his son, Kojo, whom he admitted had received payments for five years from a Swiss company involved in the oil-for-food programme.
