Co-workers marvelled at her ability to maintain composure—serenity, even—as she presided alone and in all secrecy over matters of life and death. Mary could feel the change as her peers began to crave a similar power. Beano pointed a finger gun greeting at her. The associate directors looked at her with pride in their eyes, as if she were an extension of their own egos.
She heard heels clacking in the distance, a hurried, irregular pace. He must be under considerable stress, Mary thought. He’s probably had to take over all of the Slug’s files—both pages of them. Her mouth stretched into a wry slash.
Cheeseman bounded in and slammed the door, sniffing.
Cocaine.
He sat down, resting his ankle on his opposite knee in alphamale position.
“Well, y’all’ve heard of Mr. Sinclair’s unfortunate demise …” he began.
“Tragedy,” Beano said. “Terrible tragedy.”
“Great pity,” Cheeseman acknowledged the sentiment. “We’ve sent flowers. The bigger tragedy is lack of succession planning. It’s impossible to make head nor tail of his files. We need to appoint someone to his spot immediately.”
Butterflies struggled for space in Mary’s meagre stomach.
“Glass,” Cheeseman pronounced, sending Mary’s heart knocking against her ribs, “I’ve decided to give you the position. You seem tough enough for the job. Let’s congratulate Ms. Glass for a reward long overdue.”
The room erupted into cheers and loud applause.
The feeling of acceptance was momentary. Mary only had to scan the table to return to her state of heightened anxiety. There were no friends here, only competitors.
Within two days, after positive media reports began to emerge expressing shock at the actions of a rogue operator, Mary moved to a bigger fish tank and Beano moved into hers, without even a slight delay for convention’s sake. His boxes had been packed even before the emergency meeting. She then realized who else had known about Sinclair’s visit to Nigeria, a child perhaps persuaded by the president to divulge lethal information about his colleague—a ploy Kolo had not been reticent to use with Mary.
More vulnerable than her peers could imagine, Mary spent the next few days recovering from the shock of near dismissal. She developed a sore on her lip as she bit the skin off it constantly.
After another restless night, Mary returned to the Acquisitions floor at 6 a.m. exhausted, passing her former office, now occupied by a man with hair flopping over his blue eyes and a plastic smile as irksome as Sinclair’s. She hated Beano as much as his mentor. Worse still, she knew that, lacking Sinclair’s oversized ego, he was twice as dangerous, charming people with his carefree, laid-back manner. While Sinclair swam around like a parading shark, Beano lurked in camouflaged silence like the venomous and deadly stonefish.
In preparation for the team meeting, Mary phoned Kolo to negotiate further rights to the Niger River. It took over an hour to get through, as different levels of security vetted her call.
“Ms. Glass?” Kolo answered at last, his voice quivering with emotion. “I’m sure you’ve heard the tragic news.”
“Yes, sir,” Mary yawned silently. “Terrible news.”
“Are you taping this conversation, Ms. Glass?” Kolo’s voice had changed to a steelier tone.
“No.”
“Well, I can hear a tape.”
“I’m not taping. I have an interest, as you do, in keeping our conversations private. And since I didn’t know Sinclair was coming to visit you, I’d hardly have the time to—”
“Mr. Sinclair dropped in of his own accord, Ms. Glass. Apparently, he had an allergy to peanuts.” His voice reverted again, carrying more pathos and sorrow. “Ms. Glass—it’s a mainstay of Nigerian food!”
“Well, you weren’t to know, sir.”
“But the cook knew, Ms. Glass. He just didn’t know groundnuts and peanuts were the same thing.” He blew his nose so loudly, Mary almost dropped the phone.
“You sound devastated,” Mary said in a monotone.
“I am,” Kolo whimpered. “I am. So,” he revived, “how can I help you?”
“To meet our original targets of servicing all your fresh water needs, we’ll need to acquire rights to the Benue River as well. It’s cleaner water and flows into the Niger, so it’s basically,” she thought of a term to minimize the damage, “an offshoot.”
“An offshoot? The Benue? That’s like saying the Atlantic is an offshoot of the Pacific! Impossible! You’d have the whole country in a stranglehold! You’d have, well, effectively you’d have our entire water supply.”
“Well, sir, the Benue is technically a tributary. And it would be wonderful to name a river after your brother, President Kolo. Twinned rivers nourishing your great country.”
Silence.
“You drive a hard bargain, Ms. Glass.” Kolo sounded weary. “Okay. Let’s go ahead.”
Since she now had the upper hand, Mary felt she could broach a subject of even greater importance. “We also need to discuss embezzlement, fraud, water rackets. It seems a lot of our revenue is disappearing.”
“That’s not fraud, Ms Glass. Our people are working with an American company, so it’s simply the local way of achieving wage parity. There’s little I can do about that. Unfortunately, you have laws on minimum wage. Local officials are merely ensuring compliance.”
Mary had a hunch that more questions would only suck her further into Nigeria’s deviant ethos. “And our water is also disappearing. Our pipes are being cut.”
“Certainly not! Not in Nigeria! It’s a hot country, Ms. Glass. You must expect some evaporation.”
“And your bureaucracy seems unable to deal with pilfering on either issue.” Defeated, she waited for another warped rationalization.
“Pilfering! In Nigeria? This is not something we tolerate, Ms. Glass. And as soon as we can afford to pay our police force, it will be dealt with. Meanwhile, we rely on these individual water collection agents and other such entrepreneurs.”
“President Kolo, we cannot—”
“Did you hear that?” Kolo sounded anxious.
“No. What was it?”
“Dripping. I think something’s leaking. They’re trying to flood this place.”
“They? Who is they?”
“You know. They,” he whispered. “Don’t worry, Ms. Glass, I only sleep an hour at a time, so there’s absolutely no way they can get me. Absolutely no way.”
It took several weeks for Mary to read through all the emails in Sinclair’s inbox: he had little method and didn’t seem to know the function of the delete key. The slime had made deals with multiple territories in Niger that would divert a sizeable portion of the Niger River before it flowed onto Nigerian soil. She as yet had no specific idea how to revoke these contracts, so she sent them off to a language specialist. Knowing Sinclair, there would be loopholes created in the interstices between English and French.
Sinclair’s emails and chats with the minister of finance were of particular interest; this name she would not forward to Kolo. She would deal with him herself, as a separate, perhaps more resilient, candidate. A few emails mentioned a connection between the minister of finance and the Inspector General of Police. The latter had personally selected Lance Omeke to assassinate Jegede. Mary, unable to eat for days, grew dizzy. Sinclair had been within a tentacle’s width of discovering her collusion with the African Water Warriors and the explosions at TransAqua’s dam site.
She clicked back into her own email inbox and scrolled down until she alighted on another item of interest. The private investigator she had hired had written back. She opened the email.
He had unearthed the mystery of the woman at the bar to whom Janet had divulged so much confidential and damaging information. Her name was Mimi Minto, and she was not a journalist-she worked for Drop of Life.
In a fit of anger, Mary’s small muscles and thin bones tried to overturn her desk. Even in her fury, she noticed her new secretary observing her with the eyes
of a birdwatcher, and she surreptitiously let her desk drop back into place.
An invoice from a friend of her father’s slipped to the ground. She snatched it up. Her company had been billed over $10,000 for a report interpreting the blueprints for the dam—no doubt for Drop of Life.
How could someone as mercurial as that imbecilic mess of a sister have organized anything, let alone seen it through? Not one cell in her entire overfleshed body contained any element of predictability, reliability or focus.
Then three words from her MBA popped into her mind: flexible, fast, futured. They described the advantages of small companies over behemoths such as TransAqua—a motorboat versus an ocean liner.
Mary focused on the only avenue available to her: retribution. Surely she could find a way to get back at Barbara.
An idea surfaced. A great idea.
Mary called her sister on computer phone—she wanted to see her face.
“Barbie! It’s Mary. I’m on camera.”
“Ooh! Just a minute.” After an incessant wait, the half-witted lunatic figured out how to work this basic technology. One day she might even be able to flush the toilet without any assistance. “Hey, Mary! Can you see me?”
What the hell was that material satelliting out from her head? Did the toddlers’ shop not carry her size of shirt? How many bangles, mathematically speaking, could be fitted onto the human arm? “Yeah. I can see you.”
“What’s up? Find a new job?”
This embodiment of ineptitude dared to condescend to her! Rage lashed through Mary’s body. “No, actually. I just got promoted to—”
“Well done! Congratulations! Miracles happen, huh?”
Mary grabbed the edge of her desk, the only anchor for a rage that threatened to grow violent, caring little for telltale fingerprints. “I don’t know why, but you’ve been out to get me. I’ve never done anything to deserve that, but hey, water under the bridge. And anyway, you messed that up, as expected. But you know what? You’ve inspired me. It’ll be my new hobby to annihilate every last thing that means anything to you. And I mean from your work—”
“I’m leaving.”
“—to your house—”
“I’m moving!”
“—to every element of your lifestyle—”
“It’s changing!”
Each utterance seemed to cheer Barbara, as if these neutralizations merely conjured up new adventures.
“—to your relationship.”
“I’ve tried that myself-didn’t work. Astro’s pretty needy.”
Barbara stared at the screen eagerly, awaiting more suggestions. Mary decided to drop the big one. “I’ll hold you responsible for Jegede’s death. You, Barbie. Apparently Lance Omeke’s work with the AWW was financed by a Ms. Glass-probably someone like yourself with a preference for armed insurrection.”
Barbara’s smile collapsed. “I wouldn’t try that, Mary. It’s cruel, it’s wrong, and I simply won’t let you.”
“You won’t let me?” Mary snickered. “Someone tells you to get the blueprints. Woohoo! Mission accomplished. So now you actually believe you’re heading up the FBI or something?”
“But, Mary—”
Mary cut the call dead, even more enraged. She seethed, wishing to smash her body against the glass panels, just to see them shatter. She could smash them, because they didn’t move. Debris like Barbara, too immature to invest in those things precious to others—status, wealth, power—would be harder to obliterate. How do you trash garbage?
Realizing the degree to which this calamity had distracted her, she raced to a team meeting seven minutes early, where she found Cheeseman already seated. He seemed under an inordinate amount of stress.
“Ms. Glass,” he said in his most sarcastic tone. “Thanks for dropping by.”
“Mr. Cheeseman. Sorry I’m late.”
“Siddown. Update.”
A muscle on Mary’s neck bulged with apprehension. “Well, uh, as you know, I uh, I’ve uh—”
“What the hell do you think this is?” Cheeseman yelled. “A support group? I’m not interested in sharing an emotional experience with you, Glass. I want facts.” A stalactite of spit stuck stubbornly to the centre of his mouth as he spoke. “So spill.”
Beano and two other members of the team entered the room.
“Kolo has agreed to the sale of rights to the Benue River in the east. It’s a huge acquisition. The details will be on your desk tomorrow.”
Cheeseman stared at her, threw his head back and laughed. “Whoa!” He issued another volley of spitty laughter, wiping non-existent tears from his eyes as more team members entered the room and scuttled to their chairs. “Promoted a few weeks and …” he leaned forward, screaming, “… you’ve only made one goddam phone call! What the hell do you think we’re paying you for? Get your act together, sister, or you’re outta here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nigeria isn’t the only country in Africa and the Middle East. Buy a map.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ve handed you the deserts of the world on a silver platter, and this is all you can do?”
“I’ll get right on it, sir.”
“You bet yer skinny ass you will. By Friday next week.”
Beano smirked.
Mary could see only one solution to her predicament: oust Cheeseman. His position was evidently exposed, isolated, precarious.
On returning to her office, Mary closed her eyes, trying to quell her fury. Barbara invaded every thought, distracting her. She had to deal with her sister first. She opened her eyes, clicked on to Drop of Life’s website and picked up the phone, determined to execute Barbara’s downfall. “Hey, Krystal! It’s Barbie.”
“Oh, hi there! I didn’t know you weren’t using your full name anymore.”
“Only to close, close friends, Krystal. I’m trying to wrap up here on TransAqua, but I can’t remember how to log on.”
“Oh, Barbie!” Krystal tinkled into accepting laughter. “You’re at home, right? Okay, here’re your passwords. And you’ll also need remote access, so you’ll need this information …”
Mary wrote down a long string of codes. “Thanks. Could you put me on to Brad?”
“Sure, hon.”
Barbara could never have obtained all that information on the deal–secured within a password-protected environment-and she certainly had nothing to do with forensic accounting; the muttonhead could not even do her own taxes! Responsibility rested with someone higher up in her organization, perhaps that sari woman.
After a microsecond, a man picked up the call. “Brad Chambers speaking.” An efficient, intelligent voice saturated with discretion flowed through her earpiece. Her arms prickled with goosebumps. His website picture made him look like quite a catch.
“Hey, Brad. It’s Barbara.”
Cheeseman clopped past her office in his cowboy boots, their spurs ringing a persistent message of menace. This would have to wait, in case he spotted any incriminating information. She would give the whole thing a week—tops. “Will call later,” she said and hung up. He would be used to this unpredictability from her sister.
Mary wondered if she could engineer a meeting with Brad after Drop of Life’s crash.
Beano sniffed his new office, realizing that Mary had not even left behind her scent! He watched the silent film in her new office with interest, giggling when she was unable to turn over her desk, wondering what conversation could have provoked such a facial expression, pinched with increasing vexation as she spoke into her camera phone. He particularly admired the impassivity with which she received the blistering attacks that turned Cheeseman’s countenance towards the blue end of the spectrum. Studying Mary was more intellectually stimulating than watching Sinclair, whose emotions he had had no difficulty reading.
At the end of Act I, Beano picked up his phone. “Hey, Dad!”
“Beano.” His father sounded weary, absolutely spent. “It’s chaos. Anarchy. The apocalypse.”
<
br /> “So, nothing new, huh?” Beano snorted a “gotcha” laugh before his father could detonate. “Time for Major General Wosu P. Wosu? I’ve got this feeling I’ll be promoted again very soon.” He thought of little else but the corner office, with its great view of the mountains. Perhaps in unconscious anticipation, he had worn his mountain boots to work.
“Kolo’s so weak, we no longer need a military man from the east to placate him. Besides which, we miscalculated. That Wosu is already having clandestine meetings. I reckon we’ve got another Kolo on our hands, kid.”
“Dad-you gotta be kidding, right?” Alarmed, Beano mentally logged out of the corner office. Without his own candidate in power, Mary might ultimately connect Jegede’s positive press coverage to him.
“Should have figured that out-that’s how someone with his undesirable ethnic background got so high in the army in the first place: slimy, sly, calculating.”
“Who has Wosu been visiting?”
“The usuals. The paramount leaders, politicos, embassies, you name it. So in answer to your next question, no, we can’t get any religious mileage out of this. He’s done too much groundwork. No one you can trust over here, son. And I mean no one.”
“Jeez, Dad. That must be tough.” All his work, flushed down the toilet. But what might be salvaged if he pulled the lever first? His day brightened and he gazed once again at the corner office. “I’ve heard-it’s just a rumour now, sir-that Wosu will try to get his Igbo cronies into power and secure oil from the Delta for the east. To me-and I’m no, like, politician-that seems potentially divisive. Is that right?”
His father pondered. After some time, he replied, “Yep, I’ll work on it.”
“So the country probably needs firm leadership from the Middle Belt.”
“Military?”
“It’ll wash the stench of Kolo away.”
“I don’t even think your Sewage pals could do that.” The ambassador choked at his own joke.
From his bottom drawer, Beano pulled out a binder entitled “Wastewater: Pathogenic Organisms.” Within it, a list of contenders for presidency. “Okey-dokey. Here we go. Ever heard of Brigadier Jamal Abdullah?”
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