by Nora James
There was a pause, an incomprehensible word or two over the speaker from Alan, then Martin shook his head. “Overseas for a conference and a bit of personal travel, I think. At least two weeks.”
A longer pause, then a sigh. “It’s. . .hmm. . .complex. We’d like to catch the flight out tonight and brief you in person, since the Minister’s not going to be here anyway. We can come back to Negala as soon as he sends word he’s available.” He looked at his colleagues. “We’re all happy to travel back.”
“Yes,” said Lara and Jack in unison, hoping Alan would hear them. Lara propped herself up against the desk. She’d been standing until now and her legs felt heavy, swollen, probably from the excessive heat when they’d been outside. Without looking behind her, she leaned forward, trying to make out Alan’s reply. As she bent at the waist her foot slid backwards a little and came to rest against Jack’s body.
She jumped up again, turning to him to apologise, but he must have leaned forward, probably struggling to hear the phone conversation, too. Her face came so close to his that it brushed against his cheek. The muskiness of his scent, the warmth of his skin, sent her into a panic. She wished she hadn’t noticed how delicious this man seemed to be.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted, feeling her cheeks turn crimson.
“No, it’s me. I didn’t mean—”
Martin, now seemingly in despair, raised his left arm to the ceiling. “I understand perfectly.” The line went dead and he slammed down the phone.
From Martin’s quickened breathing, his pursed lips and the way he stared into nothingness, Lara knew exactly what had happened. She held onto the desk, feeling weak in the legs and dizzied by the very thought of it. They were not going home.
Alan had told them to stay.
XI
Lara looked around for a clue that what she thought was reality was yet another nightmare. Alan simply could not insist on them staying indefinitely in Zakra. To her dismay, everything—from the business clothes they were wearing to the clock ticking away on the wall—seemed absolutely normal.
Well, she wouldn’t let Mr Smiles do this to her. She had a mortgage to pay, a credit card bill and a few more car repayments, but that didn’t make her a slave. She and Tim could sell the house if they needed to and move to a more modest suburb.
She bit her lip. The truth was, she and Tim might have to sell the house, only not for simpler life, a life with a child of their own to love, nurture and watch grow, a more meaningful existence. No, she and Tim would probably have to sell the house if they divorced.
Was that really what awaited her? Was there no other way? There was. She would quit her job.
Yes, that was the answer. She would quit and fly home. She would turn things around in her marriage. But what if Tim didn’t want that? If he loved another woman, if it was already too late, Lara would find herself divorced and out of work. She knew how long a property settlement could take when marriages broke down.
If she resigned now, leaving the Negala problems unresolved, reneging on her notice period, neither Alan nor anyone wanting to keep their job at Global Oil would find it in their heart to give her a reference. It may have been a boom time in resources, but the legal fraternity was relatively small. If it got out that she had done that—and it undoubtedly would—no one else would hire her in Western Australia.
A sound of exasperation escaped her throat. No, she simply could not act in haste, even though she ached to throw in the towel.
“Why didn’t you discuss the Minister’s proposal in more detail?” Lara asked Martin, her head pounding from the stress of knowing she might be stuck in Zakra. “After all, it’ll be the Minister’s men that are spying on us. They’ll know he’s corrupt.” He wasn’t able to discuss strategy, what they planned to do about the Minister’s proposal, any ways around it. What he could have mentioned was the proposal itself. It might have been enough for Alan to understand.
“Am I mistaken or did we not agree on what I’d say to Alan?” Martin was snappy, even though she hadn’t meant to challenge him. She was simply trying to make some sort of progress, looking for a way forward.
“Sorry, Martin. I didn’t mean to criticise. You’re right. You said exactly what we had discussed. I just didn’t think Alan would be so inflexible. I really need to find a way out of this.”
Martin shrugged. “None of us want to be here any longer than we need to.”
Lara nodded. “Maybe we should call him again?”
“No.” The answer was categorical, blunt, but the faint smile on Martin’s lips and the way he tilted his head, looking at her with a softness in his gaze that wasn’t usually there, told her he wasn’t being his usual difficult self. He just wasn’t free to speak his mind in a house that was under constant surveillance.
They had to go somewhere no one was listening to their conversation, they had to talk things over without worrying about who was spying on them. They needed to get hold of a phone that wasn’t tapped. That would allow them to speak freely, as freely as you ever could to a CEO.
“Would now be a good time to call into the office, run over a couple of things with Maine?” Jack had come to the rescue.
“We may as well,” said Martin.
After grabbing a few things, a notebook, a pen, they were ready.
“Could you drop us off as close as you can to the roundabout, please?” Jack asked the driver. Lara frowned, and he seemed to understand that he needed to give an explanation. “My back is hurting.” He was quick to add, “I need to walk a little before sitting at the office.”
The driver set off down the road to the city centre. At the roundabout he braked suddenly, and although their seat belts were fastened, Jack, Lara and Martin were all jolted forward enough to scare them as the car came to a halt.
“What on earth?” Martin stared at the driver. He drew a breath, visibly trying to calm his nerves, before re-phrasing his question. “What happened?”
The driver smiled politely. “Mr Jack said as close as possible to the roundabout.”
Martin shook his head, eyes rounded in obvious disbelief. “All that meant was. . .never mind.”
As they climbed out of the four-wheel drive, a re-constructed Mercedes, built from the spare parts of a number of other cars and still sporting the original colours—a silver boot, one red and three green doors—repeatedly sounded its horn. They were blocking its way.
They scurried to the side of the road, the sand miraculously working its way into their closed shoes, and Martin waved off the driver. “Jack, you really need to be more careful how you express yourself. I don’t want to die. Especially not with you.”
Jack laughed it off. “Don’t worry, neither do I. You have to admit it was him, not me. Any one of us could have instructed him the way I did.”
As Martin opened his mouth, probably to utter more harsh words, Lara took over. “Well, there are no bugs here.” She looked at her feet, noticing ants the size of her thumb. “Except the living kind. So let’s talk. What are we going to do? I say we need to get Alan on a phone that isn’t tapped so we can tell him everything, not just what’s happened, but our strategy and what we think of the government’s.”
Martin pursed his lips. “I hate to break this to you, but corruption or no corruption, Alan isn’t going to change his mind. He told us when we left not to come back until we fixed this thing. He said the same again to me today.”
Lara felt her temperature soar. She wasn’t sure how much of it was due to the anger in her and how much to the unrelenting sun. “He has no idea our phones are tapped, the house is bugged, the Minister is asking for a brown paper bag and is using delay tactics to wear us down. And no idea their twisted ways are starting to work on us! Surely you have to agree he’s missing some essential facts.”
Jack rubbed his chin. “Not wanting to side with anyone here but I think Lara has a point.”
Martin raised his arms to a sky that was nearly white with heat. “And how are we going to
tell him? The satellite phone at the office will be tapped, too.”
“We can check that,” Jack said. “You never know. And if it is, we’ll think of something.”
Lara crossed her arms as a man in a blue dwana walked by, staring at the trio of white-skinned foreigners. At least it was indiscriminate this time as he didn’t seem to have singled her out. “We’d better keep moving. We’re arousing suspicion.”
They started towards the office, which was a few hundred metres away. “What about the local mobiles we have?” she asked, trying to think of a solution. “Could we get international with them?”
Jack shrugged. “They’re just like any other phone here. The service is so unreliable you could be dialling the whole day before you get a line out. And then when—sorry, if—you get a line out you’re likely to be cut off before the conversation is over. That’s why we installed the satellite. Anyway, the mobiles could be tapped, too.”
“Anyone else have a satellite phone?” asked Lara, refusing to be beaten.
Martin shook his head. “It’s hopeless. There are a few sats, but all in government offices, or companies with a clear link to the government. It wouldn’t be safe to talk there.”
Lara looked around at the grey, box-like buildings, the never-ending, constantly advancing dunes, and the goat eating the rubbish in a nearby ditch. The emptiness of the street echoed in her heart. How long would she be stuck here? How long before she could sort things out with Tim? How long before she hugged her mother, her possibly very ill mother?
“Listen,” Jack said, “when we get to the office I’ll stay outside. You tell Dave I’ve got a bad back and am having trouble walking. Get him to come out to me. That way, we can talk before we go in.”
At the office they did just that. Dave, somewhat puzzled, came out to find Jack smiling.
“What’s going on?” Dave asked, his brow furrowing.
“We’re not sure it’s safe to talk inside.” Lara wondered if she seemed convincing. She still had the feeling this couldn’t be happening, not in the real world.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Dave’s gaze shifted to Martin. “Because if it is, I don’t have time for it.”
Martin pursed his lips while Jack explained. “Our phone’s tapped, the house is under surveillance. We discovered it this morning.”
When he understood the words, the clear words that were not difficult to comprehend, but took time to process, when he realised the ramifications of it all, Dave’s jaw dropped. He rubbed his forehead so vigorously it turned red.
“Let’s go into my office. You can check it. I wouldn’t know what to look for.”
Dave led the way through the simple, functional, but clean premises. It was very early days as far as the office was concerned. There wasn’t much there, a few filing cabinets, a few desks and chairs, and the initial team required for start-up: twenty people maximum, some in procurement, some in health and safety, others in management. They buzzed around like bees collecting honey.
They were all there to set up systems and processes, to get the project organised for when they reached production, when it would expand to a few thousand people, attracting worldwide attention as the first oil producer in Negala and, they hoped, the biggest producer in Africa.
Dave closed the door to his office and pulled down the blind over the huge pane of glass next to it. Lara noticed the subtle interest of other employees, how they glanced over at them ever so quickly, then swiftly looked away, eyebrows slightly raised, mouths twisted into a question. There was an open door policy at Global Oil. Closing Dave’s office to all eyes and ears was sure to start a rumour and whet people’s appetites for gossip.
Jack pulled the phone apart. He followed the wiring and nodded. He showed Dave the little black box clipped onto the phone line, then pointed to the ceiling. He climbed onto the desk, checked the light fitting, and ran his finger along the carved edge of the bookcase and the door lintel.
In the meantime, Lara chatted away. She talked about the colour of the walls, the size of the office, how she’d found the people of Negala friendly, how she missed eating salad. Dave quietly agreed, making conversation to cover up the search for surveillance devices. He kept his voice stable and warm, but the paleness of his face and his fidgeting fingers belied his nerves.
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” Dave said, once he’d been given the nod by Jack who was becoming adept at sign language. Dave opened the door for his visitors. Lara stepped out, heading straight for the outdoors without further prompting.
Back outside, Dave held his head. “I had no idea. They’ve been listening to every word we say. How did they get in? The security guards must be involved.”
“Or employees,” Lara added.
Dave exhaled loudly, the force of his exasperation emptying his lungs. “Now what?”
Lara clasped her hands. “We have to find a way to talk to Alan. It’s the only solution. Once he knows everything he’ll tell us to go home, get the rest of the team working on this.”
Martin raised his eyebrows. “Good luck with that.”
Lara shrugged it off. “We have to find another mobile. One that we are sure isn’t under surveillance. Then I’ll sit outside and call him all day if I have to. Surely I’ll get a line out at some stage.”
The gloomy expressions on the men’s faces, and above all their silence, told her there was nothing sure about it at all.
“Could one of you stay here with me, help me figure out how to manage all this?” Dave asked. “Martin, would you mind? I need to bounce ideas off someone.”
Martin looked at Lara. “You’ll be all right?”
“Of course, I will. Thank you.” Lara felt like telling him she was a big girl, she could look after herself, but she let it go. After all, Martin was concerned for her. He meant well.
Jack sighed. “She’ll be fine. I won’t let her out of my sight.”
Lara caught the look of disdain Martin gave Jack. It reminded her once again of their intriguing history, of the earlier mention of Ange. Perhaps she would get a chance to ask Jack about her. Then again, perhaps she shouldn’t.
Jack turned to Lara. “We’ll get another mobile and go as close as possible to the tower, without being too conspicuous. That’ll give us the best shot at getting a line out.” He smiled, searching her face as if trying to work out whether she agreed. “If that’s all right with you.”
“Sounds like we have a plan.” She smiled back, but only briefly, a polite, professional smile. She didn’t want either Martin or Jack to read anything into it. More than that, she didn’t want to look into Jack’s eyes and feel something. She had to protect herself.
“Ring me if you need me.” Martin stared at Jack, but Lara knew he was addressing her. “Get one of the drivers or even Bengali to find me if you can’t get me by phone.”
Jack crossed his arms, turning away. Lara noticed Dave frowning inquisitively. She knew he’d be asking questions soon and she could easily have felt uncomfortable about that. But she had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide. She had been working hard at that. She followed Jack outside with her head high.
Out in the sandy street they stood for a minute in the shade of a small tree, the only one in sight. It was pretty, with dainty leaves and a sweet scent. She’d never seen one like that before, and, with virtually no other vegetation in sight, she guessed it had been planted there for decoration. In any case, it offered protection from the burning heat, for which she was grateful.
A boy of eight or nine came running up to the tree and playfully broke off a small branch. Discarding the leaves, he chewed on the twig, his face glowing with pride as he turned to his friends on the other side of the road and held up the stick as a symbol of victory.
The children giggled and cheered, waving to the brave one who had separated from the pack. Lara realised they must have challenged him to approach the Australians.
“What does it taste like?” she asked in Negalese.
&n
bsp; The young boy coughed with surprise. “You don’t look Negalese!”
“I learned the language from a friend.”
The boy smiled, revealing teeth whiter than snow. “It tastes good. Here, you chew. It makes a good toothbrush.”
Lara thanked him by offering him the packet of caramels she’d had in her bag since the airport in Paris. “Remember to chew some bark after you eat these, or they’ll spoil your beautiful teeth.”
His eyes lit up and he yelled his thanks. He ran across the road to his friends, brandishing the sweets like a trophy.
Lara chuckled. It was one of the most heart-warming moments she’d had so far in Negala. She thought of the young boys she’d seen back home, the good ones glued to their computer games, the ones who had lost their way becoming graffiti artists or worse, petty criminals starting a long association with the law. She envied the innocence of the games of the children in Zakra.
“You’re good with kids.” Jack’s voice was warm, and Lara thought she saw admiration in his eyes. “Thinking of having any?”
She caught her breath, taken aback for an instant by his openness. It must have shown for he immediately held up his hand and apologised. “I’m sorry, it’s personal. I shouldn’t have asked. Out here it’s easy to feel close to the people you work with. You eat together, share a house. You’re with each other just about twenty four hours a day. Again, I’m sorry.” He looked away.
“It’s fine Jack. It’s been a bit of a sore point at home for a while, that’s all. But to answer your question, I’d love to have kids.”
She smiled graciously, wanting to reassure him she had not taken it the wrong way. As he smiled back her heart thumped in her chest. There was an undeniable connection between them, and on a purely intuitive level she knew they could be close. Very close, if they wanted. She also knew that if she hadn’t been married, if she had been free, she would have wanted that. She would have wanted Jack.