Doing Dangerously Well

by Carole Enahoro

  She emailed one of the journalists who had reported on Femi’s successes in Abuja, then turned her attention to President Ogbe Kolo. After much searching in the hidden bowels of the virtual vault that tenaciously hoarded histories, she struck gold. Here is where the tragedy of Kolo’s early life was laid bare. Barbara tilted back in her chair, sensitive to the prevailing winds of providence and the momentum gifted to her through this information. Kolo must have an indelible impression of the devastation wrought by the power of water. It had accidentally killed his twin. His relationship with it would doubtless be defined by reverence. This could only work in her favour.

  Barbara flipped her cellphone open to get information on the last remaining item.

  “Mary Glass.”

  “Hi. It’s Barbara.”

  “What do you want?”

  Barbara waited a moment before responding. “Just phoning to see how you are. You asked me to call you when I found out who I report to.”

  “Uh-huh. Really, Barbie? I can hardly remember, since it was so long ago.”

  “Well, I had to tour key sites, of course. I can hardly do my job sitting at a desk! Just a moment. Someone’s at the door.” She put Mary on hold for a minute, then casually resumed the conversation. “You were right: it’s … hold on.” She put Mary back on hold. After looking at her nails for a further minute, she picked up the receiver again. “Mary? Oh, are you still there? What was I saying again?”

  “You were telling me,” Mary’s voice resonated with restraint, “who your new boss is at UNEP.”

  “Ah, yes. Yes, yes, yes. That’s right. My new boss. At UNEP. His name is, um …” Barbara checked her notes, “… Herman Meyer. Does that sound familiar to you?”

  Mary took Barbara off speakerphone. “You’re kidding!”

  “No—is that such a big deal?”

  “With his support, the World Bank will spring for funds needed by the Nigerian government for dam construction.”

  Barbara had a sense that even more was at stake. Her sister sounded too excited. She spoke as slowly as she could. “Surely,” she dragged out the word, “surely the World Bank will approve of anything Nigeria needs right n—”

  “Not necessarily. The World Bank hardly funds any large dam projects anymore.”

  Barbara yawned. “How big is the dam?”

  “It’s going to be the biggest in the world. Over twenty thousand megawatts. And it’s got support from the top.”

  The pride in Mary’s voice forced Barbara to deploy even more aggressive tactics. Such as indifference. “Twenty thousand megawatts? I think they’ve built a bigger one in Brazil, haven’t they?” Then, before Mary could respond, “So you say you have support from the president?”

  “Yep. And in return, we get rights to the Niger River. Actually, you’re lucky you caught me. Contract’s just been signed. I’ve literally just returned. By limo.”

  “Well, I’ll see what we can do to help speed things up. Oooh. Sandwiches are here. Must go.” She hung up.

  Barbara now had her three pieces of information. Astro had been right-build from the ground up. With this information, she could draw others to her cause.

  At 4 p.m., or to be exact, at ten minutes past, Barbara entered the boardroom.

  “Welcome!” Not one muscle on the monolith’s face moved. “I hope you’ve all been introduced.”

  Barbara had no idea why Jane had invited support staff to such a critical meeting, nor why Dahlia had considered this ramshackle group of outcasts radical.

  “So, Barbara,” Jane continued, “tell us your ideas.”

  Barbara shuffled some papers into a pile and launched into a powerful introduction. “TransAqua is a psychopathic monster, a rampant egomaniac, in the most florid stages of its madness. To date, no individual, no organization, no government, has challenged its ascendancy.”

  The room plunged into an immobilized awe.

  Her voice assumed a perilously muted tone. “A no-doubt beleaguered President Kolo just signed a contract yesterday with TransAqua to build a twenty-thousand-megawatt dam, and they have forced him to relinquish the rights to the Niger River.”

  A collective intake of breath as her audience plummeted into hideous regions of disbelief.

  “We need to expose culpability at all levels within the corporate structure. Not just the CEO, but every VP, every sales guy, every secretary; it’s time for each member of the corporate family to be called to account. Whether corner office or cubicle, no one should be afforded protection. Drop of Life needs to combat a monster at the height of its lunatic powers. With such disclosures, Kolo’s regime will topple.”

  Gums was awestruck by the new note of adventure that had landed there. Mimi looked outclassed, her overly white teeth gleaming like a plaster cast embedded in her face. Barbara could not discern Brad’s reaction.

  Jane’s wrinkles shifted in approval. “Sounds innovative. How do you propose to do this?”

  “Facts! Details!” Barbara slapped the table twice, inadvertently stinging her hand. “That’s all I deal in. We need someone in the organization to record the route of one piece of paper. From mailroom to manager to meeting to media to …” she couldn’t think of another “m” word, “… to recycl—,” then found one, “to mulch.”

  “Do companies use paper anymore?” Mimi battled with a nail.

  Barbara lifted a stern index finger into the air. “It’s only those obscure scraps of paper that contain the truth. The first jottings of a to-do list. For example, a list of villages to be evacuated. As it moves around and outside the corporation, it goes, as they say, from prose to poetry.”

  “What an awesome saying!” Gums twinkled.

  “Let’s not be seduced, Krystal. It’s our job to put a stop to all poetry. If any crumpled bit of paper mentions anything covert, any financials, anything that would implicate the people who process it, we need to follow it.”

  They all turned to Mimi, who straightened in her chair. “Can do, hon.”

  Brad may have added something. Whatever it was, Barbara cut in. “I’ll fly to Abuja to meet Femi Jegee-dee. I’ll explain how to organize a resistance movement. And I’ll arrange a meeting with President Kolo; given how he is being taken advantage of, he should be very sympathetic to our cause.” She dropped to a tone of deepest empathy. “You may not know, but his identical twin accidentally drowned in the family’s swimming pool, and that’s why he, and he alone, continually tried to warn the former government about the dangers of Kainji Dam. But no one would listen. Well, I intend to listen to everything his heart wishes to pour out.”

  Jane nodded, took her cane and swayed to a standing position. Her gravitational pull stirred the energies of the others, and they swirled up in gentle eddies as she departed.

  FOURTEEN

  Lube Job

  Slowly creeping its way to the team meeting was the creak of sneakers. Not boots. Sneakers, in the depths of winter. Cheeseman must have had to cut short a golf trip to Hawaii for this. He would be at his most unforgiving. Mary’s leg doubled the tempo of its jittering. The entire team cracked open their water bottles.

  “So, what have you fuckers been up to now?” Cheeseman had brought his putting iron.

  “Good morning, Mr. Cheeseman.” Sinclair displayed his house of marble. “I hope your game—”

  “Sinclair, wipe that idiotic grin off yer face.” Cheeseman leaned over and put an ashtray and golf ball on the carpet.

  Sinclair’s smile snapped shut. Mary’s spirits rose for a nanosecond.

  “Glass?”

  “Yes.”

  “Report.” He wiggled his ass as he readied for the putt.

  “Well, Kolo has signed the agreement—”

  “What?” Sinclair jumped, his gelled hair glinting in the glare of halogen lamps.

  Cheeseman beamed. “Good work, Glass.”

  “Signed, Glass?” Sinclair asked. “I doubt it. I’ve got the signed agreement.” Sinclair drew a file out of his briefcase; his m
anicured hand slid it towards Cheeseman. “Here it is.” Sinclair dispatched a sparkling flossed smile.

  Mary almost vomited the tiny morsels to which her system clung so desperately.

  “Check mine if you want.” Mary placed her own papers in a neat pile in front of Cheeseman.

  He grabbed both piles. “Let’s see the signatures.”

  He checked them both over and then broke out in a smile. Mary could feel a vein pulsing in her neck.

  “What is it, Mr. Cheeseman?” Sinclair ventured.

  “Same signature. And on the 8th of March. In London.” He chuckled as he tightened his grip on the putter. He looked as if he intended to swing it at both their skulls. “You each signed a different contract with the same guy?” His merriment morphed into fury. “What the hell have you been doing, Sinclair? First you back some dust-kissing loser with the lifespan of a cicada, then you sign a contract with some hobo—don’t interrupt. I won’t even ask what you were doing, Glass, but I sure hope it felt good, ’cause it’s gonna cost you your job if you don’t get something on my desk by 8 a.m. Monday. Do you understand?”

  He scanned the documents more closely. “Okay, Glass, you’ve managed a 70 percent return on investment … Whoa, Sinclair—well done!” A burning sensation ripped through Mary’s lower abdomen, joining a network of other internal spasms that riddled her panicking body. “It seems you’ve actually managed 30 percent!” The pains subsided. “P’raps one day,” he addressed Sinclair as if telling a nursery story, “you can ask Glass how to negotiate.” He kept scanning down. “Glass-cut the construction burden down. It seems Kolo’s willing to assume 80 percent of the burden. You’ve got him at 40 percent. He’ll get the money from the World Bank. If you don’t know how to do this,” he peered up from the paper, “ask Sinclair. Glass, get to it. Report on my desk Monday. As for you, Sinclair—”

  “Sir, please.” Sinclair’s bronze tan could not hide his deathly pallor. “I have another plan.”

  “Another plan?” Cheeseman turned away from Sinclair to include his audience. “I can’t believe the creativity of this guy.”

  “I would need to discuss the full details with you in private. Please, sir. Kolo is hardly someone we can do business with.”

  Mary’s heart thumped so hard, she could swear the others could see her ribs twitch. She wanted to wipe the drip off her nose, but like an animal whose only defence is camouflage, she dared not make a move.

  Cheeseman continued staring, not allowing a single blink to soften his features.

  Then he looked down at his fingers.

  “Phone me tomorrow at 6 a.m.,” he finally said to Sinclair. He turned to the rest of them. “I don’t want one word-nothing-about this disaster to leave this room, unnerstand? If anything leaks out, you’re fired. Hell, we’re all fired.”

  He slammed the door as he left.

  Sinclair polished off an entire litre of water without coming up for air.

  As Cheeseman’s footsteps faded down the corridor, Sinclair stalked towards the door. Beano just managed to catch up with him. “Anything I can do to help? I may have friends in Sewage—”

  “That bitch. I’d ask her to go to hell, but I know she’d just grab a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of suntan lotion.”

  “What happened?”

  “Can’t you remember anything, Beano? She said she was signing at the end of the month, not the 8th.”

  “You’re kidding! She lied?” Beano flushed with shock.

  On the subject of complexions, Sinclair’s tan aged him, not in terms of wrinkles, just in style. It gave Beano the psychological advantage he needed. “If it helps, and it probably doesn’t, Dad said he’s met with Brigadier … hold on …” Beano felt inside a pocket of his unironed jeans for a scrap of paper, smoothed out the crumples, then flipped it right side up. “No, Major General Wosu, who fully supports the minister for the environment. He said our government’s willing to do so as well, if I … uh … if we need his support, when the time’s right.”

  Mary rushed to her office and with trembling spider fingers dialled Kolo’s residence. She had dangerously underestimated him. He had taken their operating principles—firm, robust, made of steel—and twisted them like rubber bands. She had heard of forged signatures, corrupt accounting methods, ruthless lawyers. But she had never even conceived of the president of a country signing two different contracts with the same company on the same day. Kolo had sniffed out the company’s ethos of internal rivalry, sensed that her department hid information from itself and gambled on his intuition. It had been four months since she had boasted to her parents about her plans for Nigerian water rights, and she had come no closer to completion.

  After a great fertility of dead ends, she finally tracked Kolo down to the Mandela compound in South Africa, where he was staying as a guest.

  “Ah, good evening, Ms. Glass.” Kolo’s voice revealed no unease. “How may I help you?”

  Mary kept her cool. Control and composure were her watchwords. Irritable bowel syndrome was her most pressing medical condition.

  She straightened the items on her desk to calm herself down. “Good evening, President Kolo,” Mary began tartly. “Something very odd has occurred. You appear to have signed two contracts with us for the construction of the dam.”

  “Oh, my Lord!” Kolo was sucking again, a tone of deep concern overlaid with a soupçon of utter indifference. “Is this true?” She remained silent.

  “That is a serious concern,” he continued, unperturbed by her lack of participation in the charade. “How did it happen? I signed two separate contracts with TransAqua? That’s impossible! Does your company not communicate internally?”

  “With respect, sir, it’s a complex situation. Perhaps we could arrange to nullify the contracts and re-sign.”

  “I have heard a most disturbing rumour,” Kolo replied, off topic. “I understand that Mr. Sinclair has been dealing with other parties. Before I sign, I would obviously need the names of his contacts.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Who else has been dealing with Mr. Sinclair, Ms. Glass?”

  Mary picked up a pen and began to doodle, lines drawn on top of other lines, straight and unforgiving. No circles, no curves or arcs.

  “Ms. Glass?” Kolo prodded.

  She looked down at her doodle. She had unwittingly drawn an organogram. It triggered a thought. Who in TransAqua would have leaked this information to Kolo? Who was the spy? Her mind flitted through the alternatives until she rested on one name.

  Her own.

  She remembered the words she had uttered in London: My colleague has been dealing with so many different parties in Nigeria.

  Mary felt her chest implode. She knew if she provided the information Kolo wanted, all those listed would die; yet if she did not supply the names, she would lose her job. He had given her no budge room. With IT’s help, she would have to log on to Sinclair’s computer to find the names. She considered the dangers of politics in a country as complex as Nigeria. It must be like playing three-dimensional chess blindfolded while sitting in a pit of snakes.

  “If you agree to sign a new contract, without delay, I’ll get the names,” she said.

  “Of course I’ll sign. By the end of April. On my word of honour.”

  Aso Rock surged out of the landscape—a mighty granite mound, hard and worthless—as surprising a sight as a vast verruca overlaying a field. This oversized boulder loomed over Abuja, a conceit that claimed ownership of the capital. Tourists visited it; locals praised it; politicians posed in front of it. Even the presidential palace nestled underneath it.

  Kolo loved the permanence of the fossilized wart. No matter the political changes the capital faced, whether the city spread to cover the whole of West Africa or was annihilated by some terrible tragedy, it would always have to contend with this monstrous hump. It was, as local journalists liked to point out, the Ayres Rock of Nigeria.

  Kolo snorted to himself. Who would even want to visit
Ayres Rock?

  Yet Aso Rock had a hidden purpose. To his fellow Nigerians it symbolized victory conferred by gods, which is why they had built the presidential complex underneath this pagan site, despite the pleading of its Modernist architect.

  The giant pebble reminded him of the farce within all things; the fact that you could get away with anything in Nigeria. Eventually even an obstruction like Aso Rock could become a site of pilgrimage. Kolo had no doubt that over time the site would draw disciples to worship quite another deity-one that took human form.

  He loved the grandeur of the presidential villa, its colossal rooms and European elegance, the crème soufflé feel of it and the surrounding fortifications that offered so much protection; it fit him like his own skin. He was loath to give it up and had no plans so to do. Yet Kolo had served as president for a mere three months and had accomplished very little, although on a personal level he had profited handsomely from the catastrophe at Kainji.

  He buzzed his intercom.

  “Yes, sir?” The voice of the minister of information crackled through.

  “Here. Bring pictures.”

  The minister arrived, carrying bundles of photographs, canvases and designs, looking disgruntled. “How goes it?” Kolo surveyed him.

  “Well. And yourself?”

  “As well as can be expected.”

  “Things will change.”

  Kolo studied the minister more intently, trying to excavate any meaning behind that remark, his unease increasing as his confidant plopped the designs on Kolo’s desk from a fair height. Annoyed by this breach of etiquette, Kolo flicked an upward-pointing finger at a chandelier.

  The minister of information slowly strutted to the light switch, which gave Kolo time to note the expression of disdain on his haughty features. He flicked his finger again, indicating a chair.

  “Sit.”

  “Sir.” The minister lingered on his way to the chair, sat, crossed his legs, and watched his president through arrogant eyelids.