by Andy Lucas
The Brazilian authorities, to their credit, had become aware of the importance of the rainforests to the entire world and the felling of trees had slowed. The truth was that they couldn’t afford to do it alone. After all, hard woods from the forests still fetched a high price on the world market and their industries, although booming, were in dire need of continual modernisation if growth was to continue.
Hence the race.
The Global Wildlife Trust was a massive charitable body, totally committed to highlighting the plight of the natural world and raising enough money to try and repair whatever damage it could. It had been formed for over a decade and was well respected as a global voice.
Like any charity the reality was that everything came down to money in the end and the need to always raise more.
Doyle McEntire was its largest single donor but it still wasn’t enough. There needed to be increased exposure of the problems to the media and regular international investment geared to providing people living in the danger areas with jobs that wouldn’t necessitate them destroying the forests or poaching endangered species to survive.
By staging such a well-publicised race in Brazil, with the sheer wealth of world media attention that it attracted, Doyle McEntire was more than doing his bit for world conservation. Even Pace knew somewhere like the Amazon needed to be protected, the difference being he wouldn’t know where to start. Fortunately other people did.
The race itself was to be staged in the remote heart of the rain forest, in an area known as the Amazon basin. There would be sections on foot, mountain bikes, and also on water. At certain points there would be challenges for the teams to overcome, above and beyond coping with the elements and terrain. Three teams, as McEntire had told him, would start. They would set off several hours apart and the team that got through the entire course in the quickest time would win.
Each team was to be comprised of five people, including the camera operator. Out of those five at least one had to be a doctor, one a linguist fluent in at least a couple of local languages, and another an experienced adventurer. Those were statutory conditions and Pace felt a buzz of excitement course through him as he thought about the things a person might see and do on such a trip.
If he caught some moments of triumph, despair, frustration and anger on film, it might lead to something really big for him. It could even give him a foot in the door with one of the large television networks.
Pace telephoned for a pizza delivery at about eight o’clock. By ten-thirty it was gone, together with his confidence. From every angle something jumped out at him in the resoundingly negative, mainly linked to his own dubious fitness level. Add that to a general fear of doing something so wildly different just because he’d been unlucky enough to get himself shot by a child and he picked up the telephone knowing what his answer had to be.
The voice on the other end of the line did not belong to Sarah, or to her father. The lawyer on the other end introduced himself as Max Hammond and began by telling Pace how pleased he was that staying late in the office, waiting for his call, had proved worthwhile.
He also asked whether the information supplied was enough.
‘The information was very thorough,’ Pace agreed, ‘but I think it would be fairer for everybody if Mr McEntire looks for somebody better qualified, or at least somebody healthier.’
‘We’ve had your medical files checked by several top doctors, if that’s what’s worrying you. The consensus of medical opinion is that you’d be capable of tackling the course, subject to passing a rigorous medical before the start.’
Pace could hardly believe his own ears. McEntire had already spotted a weakness and so flouted every rule in the book, not to mention the law of the land, in illegally obtaining his medical notes. When he spoke again his voice was forced and level.
‘That’s very good of them to offer such words of wisdom, Mr Hammond but it’s not their life is it? If I could I would, believe me. As it is I’m still happy to offer myself as a publicity tool for the race if Mr McEntire can see any value in it.’
‘I’m sure we could find an angle,’ Hammond said slowly, doodling strange stick creatures on an expensive legal pad as he sat alone in his cavernous, dimly lit London office. ‘I will admit to being a little surprised you can afford to turn down such a lucrative offer but then that’s your business, not mine.’ And he was surprised, it was true.
‘Sorry?’
‘As I said, not my concern but I thought you’d have jumped at the chance to earn so much money.’
Money? There’d been mention of flights and accommodation being paid for, and a guaranteed hold on your job for the duration of the race but that was all. By all accounts people were paying large sums of their own cash just to be accepted as one of the competitors. Pace said this to Hammond, who laughed aloud but stopped doodling abruptly at the turn of events.
‘They didn’t tell you about the offer?’ He was incredulous but quickly regained his composure. ‘Mr McEntire,’ he stated officiously, ‘has offered to pay you the sum of five hundred thousand pounds sterling. You just have to agree to run in the race and promote the ecological message behind it, of course.’
‘Half a million pounds?’ Pace heard his voice waver with uncertainty. ‘That’s ridiculous. Why would anybody want to pay me so much when nobody else is getting anything but expenses?’
‘Simple. You aren’t like everybody else.’
‘How?’
‘The other competitors are all superbly fit, intelligent people but they don’t have the media value you do. In terms of sponsorship and extra media coverage in Britain alone that your involvement would bring, you more than justify the cost. And,’ he added softly, ‘because you’ve already donated all the money from your hospital fund to the hospital itself, the public won’t begrudge you a single penny of any race fee.’
Pace wasn’t worth that much money to anybody. He needed a little more convincing that this wasn’t an elaborate hoax, though for the life of him he couldn’t see why anybody of McEntire’s standing would go to all the trouble. ‘Why so much?’ He wanted something concrete and was about to get a lesson in raw economics.
‘There really is no secret to it.’ Hammond’s tone was tinged with mild annoyance. He wasn’t used to explaining himself to strangers but he, like Sarah before him, was doing what he was told. ‘Your situation has made you a household name thanks to the frenzy against a failing society the press has seen fit to whip up. The story’s been picked up by numerous countries and used to either praise or beat the government, depending on their view. At the moment your name is a very valuable commodity in the constant battle to secure press and media coverage without having to pay through the nose for it.’
Pace said nothing, just listened.
‘You’ve been marked as a hero and the donation of cash to the hospital has shored up that image. Getting you involved in a race such as this, especially so soon after leaving hospital, would guarantee us enough extra publicity to convince some of the more sceptical corporations to dip into their pockets. Having their name linked with conservation, and with you, will be good for their business.’
‘So they invest more, or for the first time, I get it. Who gets the money?’ Pace was actually beginning to believe he might be worth something.
‘That’s the beauty of it.’ Hammond could hear the man’s reservations fading and he moved in for the kill. ‘It still goes into the pot and the split is the same. Twenty-five percent goes to the Brazilian government, to help them retain control over their environment. The remaining seventy-five percent goes directly to the Fund, to finance its many conservation projects around the globe. More publicity means more investment.’
‘I understand,’ Pace countered lightly. ‘But it’s a very large sum of money to throw at someone like me. It’s a bit of a shock.’
‘To a man like McEntire it’s peanuts,’ Hammond said dismissively, ‘and he won’t be paying for it anyway. The increased investment in h
aving you involved with the project has already been projected at well over six million pounds. Take off your fee and the kitty still overflows with an extra five and a half million.’
Working for a huge corporation, Hammond was well used to speaking in large figures. Frankly, Pace was not.
‘Look,’ soothed Hammond down the line, ‘Mr McEntire has a passion for staging events like this one and there’ll be more of them in the future. He can be ruthless in getting what he wants in business but he is a fair man. You should trust him. There aren’t any catches and nobody is trying to trick you. All we want is for you to throw in with us.’ The voice paused dramatically and drew a breath. ‘Everybody wins.’
‘It seems if I go I make for myself and do something for the greater good. Okay. You’ve got me, Mr Hammond. Let’s hope that everybody does win.’
‘That’s great news. Mr McEntire will be delighted.’
‘I hope so.’ Maybe this is just the sort of life altering break you’ve been waiting for, Pace told himself.
‘I’ll have all necessary paperwork regarding your medical checks, insurance, travel arrangements, background on other team members and such couriered over to your home by noon tomorrow. Is that acceptable?’
‘That’s fine,’ said Pace. After all, he hardly had any plans to go out. ‘I look forward to meeting you some day, Mr Hammond.’ It was just something to say. Pace didn’t care if they ever met or not. Hammond’s reply was yet another surprise.
‘Oh, you’ll be meeting me all right,’ he answered brightly. ‘I may be a lawyer by profession but I also hold masters in tropical botany. I’m actually assigned to your team for the race, so we’ll be slugging this thing out together.’
Pace hung up his phone and poured himself the dregs of brandy from a bottle in the kitchen cupboard. Then he crossed over to the window. It was still raining softly outside and the evening was dark and starless.
Looking down absently, he stared at the many puddles of water held captive by the uneven surface of the car park. Each pool reflected the golden light of overhead sodium streetlamps to varying degrees and each was agitated by falling raindrops. He swallowed a mouthful of the burning liquid and thought about the enormity of the decision he’d just made.
‘James Pace, adventurer and ecological crusader.’ The words tasted as stupid as they sounded. Still, it would definitely be a challenge. Farewell Essex, hello the Amazon.
A second swallow of brandy did little to quell the churning mix of excitement and trepidation but it did at least chase away the shivers.
Hammond’s office lay in near darkness once he’d left, save for the small pool of warm light cast by a desktop lamp. It shone down onto the desk, illuminating the legal pad still open at the page holding the lawyer’s aimless drawings.
A stick-man, dangling lifelessly beneath a gallows, sprawled ominously across the paper.
4
Hammond’s office occupied a corner on the eighth floor of the fourteen-storey McEntire International building; nestled in a prime spot barely five minutes walk from London’s Liverpool Street Station.
The site had previously been occupied by a venerable set of shops. Real estate being as it was in any capital city, the owners finally gave in to a ludicrously extortionate figure and sold to McEntire. The building was already planned and approved before the demolition even began.
Twelve months later McEntire had his own building. Tinted glass panels on the outside blended seamlessly with the sandstone masonry of the structure that rose twelve floors straight up before being capped with a pure glass, two-floor pyramid.
Pace stepped into the elaborately refined lobby through silently obedient sliding doors. It was filled with an almost reverential hush compared to the bustling streets outside.
He was immediately escorted by a burly security guard across the buffed stone floor to a marble reception desk. The young lady sitting behind the desk checked his credentials on the countersunk computer screen in front of her, nodded to the guard and waved across the floor in the direction of the lifts.
The guard had already resumed his post behind the glass entrance doors as Pace thanked her and crossed to the lifts.
The lifts too were constructed of glass and both rode on the outside of the building. Pace called both and they arrived together. The ride up was faster than expected and the glass panels all around him lent a sense of frailty to the car he hoped wasn’t there. It rose as silently as it did quickly, depositing him on the eighth floor with a muted ring and an electronic voice relating the floor number.
He stepped out into an open-plan floor crammed with bodies dutifully working away at their assigned desks and jealously guarding their space with an elaborate network of beige, cloth-trimmed partitions that sought to create corridors and offices where none existed.
Hammond obviously headed up the floor because Pace felt a hundred pairs of eyes curiously boring into his back as he walked around the perimeter until he came to the only corner possessed of a permanently built-in office.
It was a simple square office, built directly into the corner, windowed twice on each of the two internal walls with large, tinted panes that allowed a clear view both in and out. A single wooden door, highly burnished and with a brass plaque that he was sure bore Hammond’s name, stood wide open in the manner of a modern manager. A vacant desk guarded the entrance so Pace walked straight up and rapped his knuckles once upon the exposed inside of the door.
A man seated behind the huge desk at the back of the office looked up from one of three computer screens. He rose to greet his visitor, beckoning him inside with one hand. As Pace stepped onto exactly the same carpet as everywhere else on the floor, he caught a glimpse of the plaque. It read Max P. Hammond in finely engraved letters. Underneath were the words Corporate Legal Services Manager. He was suitably impressed.
‘Mr Pace.’ The voice was friendly. ‘I’m glad you could make it today.’
For half a million pounds he would had have made it any day he was asked. He’d been out of hospital for three days and was already bordering on a mental state akin to suicidal boredom.
‘Please, grab a seat.’ The man motioned to a pair of large leather armchairs in front of his desk. He noted that Hammond was quite a diminutive figure, no more than five-feet six.
Pace leaned over the desk to shake hands before sitting down. The chair instantly grabbed him and did its best to swallow him with comfort. Hammond’s chair; Pace assumed the man was Hammond, in contrast was a standard office chair, albeit leather and high backed. By the way he rolled back from the desk to eye him speculatively, it was also on castors.
As the office was set into the corner of the building, the two external walls were also the outer windows; glass from ceiling to carpet. When added to the windows set into the two internal walls, Pace had a feeling strangely like being resident inside a goldfish bowl. The only other furniture in the room was a long wooden table. Resting on its centre sat a freshly percolating coffee pot and a silver tray of cups, saucers, cream jug and a plate of sweet biscuits.
‘I was glad to come,’ Pace admitted. ‘I want to sort everything out, starting with the fine detail of the race; the real nitty gritty.’
‘Exactly what needs to be done to iron out any remaining reservations you might have,’ agreed the lawyer, smiling. ‘It also needs to be done so I can release your details to the other members of your team. As an unknown,’ he added, ‘they’re going to have a great deal more concern about you than you should have about them.’
‘In your opinion,’ Pace smiled. He wasn’t going to let anyone dictate anything to him.
‘Fair enough’, Hammond said, without a trace of sarcasm or mockery in his tone. He seemed to be telling it straight. In itself that hardly fitted the popular image of a city lawyer. But then Hammond looked far from a suited, faceless bureaucrat.
There was no suit for starters. He wore a smart white shirt, faintly striped with red, and a pair of dark cotton trousers. The shirt
was worn open at the neck, without a tie.
The most striking feature of the man was the total absence of visible body hair. There was none on his head; he had no eyebrows and there wasn’t even a hint of a beard, the skin on his jaw being smooth and light. In truth he was utterly bald but his features were those of a young man. He was certainly no older than Pace and possibly a year or two his junior.
Although he’d heard of it before, this was the first time he had come across somebody with alopecia. He made a conscious effort not to stare.
‘Would you like some coffee before we get on, James? It is okay if I call you that?’
‘James will do fine,’ Pace said. ‘As for coffee, great. Self-service?’
Hammond nodded. ‘Jenny’s got the day off today and she becomes unbearable if I get somebody to sit in for her. Says they mess up her systems and routine. Tried it twice, got fed up with the grief and now look after myself whenever she isn’t here.’
Pace stood up with reluctance from the comfortable chair and poured himself a cup; black, no sugar. Hammond seemed pleased when offered one. He took his white with three.
Once settled again they discussed the early summer weather; today it was pushing into the eighties beneath a flawless blue sky. Tomorrow it would probably be falling with rain and sixty degrees if they were lucky. Pace made a few polite comments about the building and his easy train journey into town. It was just general chit chat while they drank their coffee. After five minutes of banter Pace drained his cup and they got down to the matter at hand.
Hammond pushed his own empty cup aside and slid a closed folder across the desk towards the new recruit. Inside was a single sheet agreement. It stated that he agreed to take part in the race and act as camera operator for one of the teams. It also stated he agreed to undertake promotional work before the race and for four weeks thereafter, in any area unless it conflicted with pre-declared moral or religious belief.