Candleburn

by Jack Hayes

  “This week, I’m going to cover the seven dissidents who were detained by Qatar,” Alice said. “I’ll look at what affect this might have on scaring away foreign investment from the country as the government looks to present it as a tolerant place to do business.”

  Blake said nothing.

  “Alice’s story...” he thought.

  Blake had presented the same idea at a meeting three weeks ago, when it had actually been news, on the day the dissidents were arrested. Alice shot him down in flames (‘it isn’t business related’, ‘you’re just trying to be controversial’, ‘why would anyone care about seven random people in Qatar’).

  Blake took a gulp of his saliva.

  His head still reeled from the deletion of all his material from the main server. He’d been in enough meetings with Alice to know that bringing up that she was stealing his story was a bad idea.

  “Next is Duncan,” she continued. “He’s going to do a piece on water shortages in Jordan.”

  Blake watched her as she nervously ran her fingers down the computer screen. She barely seemed able to look up and face Blake. Duncan was grinning inanely, his ears flopping back and forth like a particularly pleased elephant trying to cool itself, lest his ego overheat.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Blake thought. “It’s Jordan. The country’s had freshwater issues for decades. The first studies into the collapse of the Dead Sea were carried out in the 1960s.”

  He said nothing.

  “It’s a great idea for a story,” Alice crowed. “A really nice spot, Duncan.”

  “What’s the hook for the story?” Blake asked politely.

  “Hook?” Alice asked. “Duncan?”

  Duncan shuffled in his seat. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk.

  “It doesn’t really have one for this week. I just thought it was time to cover the topic. We’ve not done it in a while. Why? What’s your issue, Blake?”

  He placed emphasis on Blake’s name, as if that alone somehow negated the validity of whatever was going to be said.

  “I don’t have an objection. I just thought that the time to do Jordan’s water issue was six months ago, when they drilled a well to hit a groundwater flow and were disappointed because instead they struck oil. It’s not often a country finds a new oilfield and is frustrated.”

  “Yes,” Alice replied. “That was one time to do the story. But Duncan wants to do it now. And New York has agreed, so that’s an end to it.”

  And there it was: confirmation for the first time of what he’d suspected for months.

  Alice and Duncan had privately discussed before the editorial meeting everything they would cover with their bosses in the United States.

  It was a standard tactic in political circles in DC that decisions should never be taken in meetings and that you used private briefings beforehand to isolate whomever you wanted to freeze out. Blake was familiar with the tactic from his life before journalism. It made all meetings a total waste of time – except for one aspect; destroying the person you wanted to cut off.

  “So, Blake, what are you scraping from your barrel to offer us?”

  Blake pulled an A4 page of notes from his pocket. Duncan looked at Alice and whispered.

  “Paper and pen? Join the 21st century already.”

  Blake withdrew a biro from his pocket.

  “My first idea was based on the failed mango harvest in Fujairah,” Blake began.

  Quiet chuckles across the table.

  “A contact of mine in the Ministry of Agriculture says 96% of the crop has failed due to a virulent new fungus that’s proving totally resistant to everything they throw at it. With nothing to sell, the farmers face starvation unless they get government aid. The effect on the sector will be huge, not to mention the economy...”

  “What makes you think the wider world will care about the economy of one of the smallest emirates in the UAE – frankly, one that nobody outside the country has heard of?”

  Blake sat back.

  “Well, unless we cover it,” Blake replied, “that’ll never change – but more than that, this is the first time this fungus has emerged. World-wide mangoes are worth around $12 billion – that’s just the trade, mind; many countries consume almost all the crop they produce so it never makes it to international markets.”

  Alice began staring at the ceiling. Duncan seemed intently interested in playing a game on his iPad.

  “If this fungus isn’t controlled,” Blake continued, “it would be devastating for farmers from Spain to Africa to the world’s largest producer, India, which is likely to be hit next given the strong trade routes between the port in Fujairah and Goa.”

  “No-one cares,” Alice said bluntly. “If it’s just small scale farmers, with no multinationals involved, readers of the Journal can’t make money trading off the shares. That story’s dead. Next?”

  “Hang on a second,” Blake said. “There is a multinational angle. My contact says the government is in talks with Monsanto to open a biotech plant in Fujairah to study the issue. They want a genetically modified mango capable of resisting the disease. In return Monsanto will train up locals in bio-engineering. This is win-win. It ticks all the boxes: the Emirates moving away from oil dependence, a major world crop, youth employment – everything.”

  Alice drummed her fingertips. Her lips tightened. Duncan drew himself to his full height.

  “No,” she said. “Next?”

  Blake looked from one to the other. He said nothing, simply running a line of pen diagonally through the portion of his notes.

  “Next,” he said, “is a piece on Ras Al Khaimah airport...”

  Duncan returned to his tablet as he played his game. He simply mumbled: “Jesus-fucking-wept.”

  Alice reached out a hand and placed it on his arm to calm him.

  “I thought I just said that I don’t want a story on smaller emirates in the UAE that no-one outside the country has ever heard of before?”

  “You just said that, yes,” Blake said slowly, “but this is the first time you’ve mentioned that and I also think this story stands on its own merits.”

  Alice folded her arms and huffed loudly as though the conversation were draining every ounce of her patience.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “As you know the three biggest emirates, Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, have built their airports to be major flight hubs. That’s left the smaller northern emirate of Ras Al Khaimah looking for a way to boost its own airport. Now, a fourth hub for international passengers based in RAK would be unfeasible in a country this size...”

  “No-one cares,” Alice interrupted. “What don’t you get about that?”

  She waved her arms over her head, as if crying for help while drowning at sea.

  “Please, let me finish,” Blake replied. “They’ve hired out the tarmac to the United Nations and because the airport is small but ex-military, it has a runway long enough to take any plane. The UN likes RAK because the runway means they can land what they want there, yet because of the airport’s small size, they can also pin down the perimeter with a small number of troops.”

  “This isn’t economics!” Alice shouted across the table. “By definition, it’s the UN. Not economics – that’s politics. It’s outside our remit!”

  Alice and Duncan were both shaking their heads.

  “Of course it’s economics. Think ahead!” Blake said. “RAK’s going to become the airport of choice for flying things – all things – in and out of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is land locked. It has no sea ports. You can’t simply drive goods in and out – the country borders Iran to the south, so that’s out because of the sanctions. Elsewhere, whether it’s the lawless border with Pakistan or the mountainous one with Turkmenistan, it’s completely unfeasible. That means everything – everything – will be flown in and out of through the airport in Ras Al Khaimah. Right now those goods are military but soon it’ll be cars, TVs, video games. My sources there tell me...”
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  “For God’s sake, Blake. Who is the manager here?” Alice slapped her palm on the table. “Who’s the boss? I am! And I’m telling you ‘no’. Got that? No! You’re not covering bullshit no-one cares about.”

  Blake went silent.

  He looked at the third story on his page. What was the point? If he said it, they’d shoot it down in flames, then wait three months and represent the idea as though it was theirs in the beginning.

  “And your third brilliant suggestion?” she asked, rolling her eyes at Duncan.

  Blake was quiet for a few seconds.

  Did he tell them? If he didn’t, he knew what would happen: an hour from now he’d get a phone call or an email from Nasty Rick, the boss in New York who was mentoring Alice as a protégé. Rick would claim Blake was dodging his work responsibilities.

  “Well?” Duncan asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve been slacking again?”

  “It’s a piece from another airport – Al Bateen in Abu Dhabi,” Blake said slowly.

  Alice gasped and slapped her hand on the table again, shaking the pens and coffee cups.

  “I knew it,” she said. “You are shirking – or taking bribes to cover the same companies. You did a story from there already – what just three months ago?”

  “A year ago,” Blake replied. “I covered the introduction of RPX AeroJet – a new business that is operating an emergency medical insurance programme with a rescue Lear jet. Their business plan is to provide emergency flights out of the region for workers who need to be hospitalized in a country that provides better medical care than, say, Yemen or Afghanistan or Syria.”

  “You see?” she opened her palms out to Duncan who murmured in agreeing tones.

  “This story is one year on and completely different,” Blake replied. “RPX have bought a Chinook helicopter – a twin bladed super giant that can carry up to 14 tonnes in weight, which they’re planning to use to fight oil-rig fires using some kind of thermal expansion smothering foam.”

  “Ridiculous suggestion,” Duncan breathed.

  “It’s an excellent story,” Blake disagreed. “This will be the biggest fire-fighting operation in the entire Middle East, a true one-of-a-kind that fills an important gap – allowing any explosion on an off-shore rig to be put out before it gets out of hand.”

  Alice sucked on the inside of her cheek.

  “Are you quite finished?” she said, her eyes expanding wider to show closeted anger.

  Blake could see Duncan and Alice again shaking their heads in unison. He wondered if they practiced that while he was out of the office.

  “My apologies,” Blake said huskily. “Please, what story do you have planned for me? I presume you already have something you want covered?”

  Duncan and Alice looked at one another and grinned.

  10

  Blake punched the side of the elevator in frustration.

  A dull clang of metal reverberated through the shaft and the lift shook violently, grating against the sides as it lowered.

  “Cock suckers,” he grunted.

  He took several sharp breaths.

  Shanghaied again.

  “I would say I couldn’t believe it, except with these wankers...”

  When he pulled his fist back, the steel wall retained the indentation. His knuckles glowed red and warm from the impact. He blew across them to cool the skin.

  Every day he entered that office and he knew she would try to screw him. But each new trick she used, each new ploy, became harder to shrug off. He loved being a journalist, he enjoyed the hunt for a good story, the research and the piecing together of puzzles others wanted hidden.

  He couldn’t go on like this.

  Just shy of 41, he had been a reporter for a little over a decade. Never had he encountered such a viperous den of backstabbing and double-dealing.

  And there was nothing he could do. Complain to New York and they’d just see him as telling tales. They’d ask for proof his data files had been deleted maliciously and chalk up his broken equipment to mistakes or carelessness. They’d back her editorial judgement on his stories. They couldn’t whip the rug from underneath a woman they’d appointed. They’d also ignore the theft of his ideas, branding him a malcontent.

  The pulse in his neck thudded from the stress. The back of his skull felt too tight, as if the blood-flow to his brain were being slowly restricted by a wire tourniquet.

  A cigarette.

  He needed a smoke.

  He tapped down his pockets.

  “Damn it!” he swore, as he fumbled.

  The lift opened and Blake marched through the doors and outside. He found the packet and brought a single stick to his mouth. His hand shook as he tried to light it. He clicked the small metal wheel on his Zippo and missed, sending a faint orange spark into the air. He clicked again.

  A long, wavering flame flickered higher. He steadied himself and brought a faint glow to the tobacco.

  He sucked deeply until his lungs ached.

  He tilted his neck back.

  For an instant he felt himself gasping, drowning in emotion. He had no control of his body. As the flame of the lighter guttered and died, he felt some giant, invisible hand punch through his chest and grip his heart, tightening its clasp, squeezing until he choked.

  Blake exhaled.

  His head filled with nothing – a radio dial twisted to static – his vision vanished in a wall of snow.

  He leaned on the wall of the building to steady himself. Thirty seconds passed.

  His hearing was the first to return. His brain, computer rebooting, came online. His vision began to clear, first grey and white, then colours returned.

  “You’re so weak,” he jeered. “Pull it together.”

  He found his head had been twitching, almost seizure like, as he finally came fully back to consciousness. He straightened himself, stood tall, and nervously looked around to see if anyone was staring.

  No-one was.

  Life rolled on fine, with or without him, as he took a breather from this world and floated away.

  “And now to handle another bullshit story,” he said, taking another deep tug on the cigarette.

  He could still see Alice’s smiling face as she outlined the story he was to cover.

  India and the UK were having trade talks in Dubai because it was halfway between the countries. It was a fine story – doubtless with many noble quotable sources for a British newspaper, or even one in Bangalore. But for all of the Journal’s global pretentions, in its heart and soul it was an American news organisation.

  No-one in New York would care about Indian trade talks with Britain. He’d be lucky if his piece was picked up by anyone but a small group of devoted news junkies who read everything published online. Certainly, it would never make the paper. And as for filming it for the Web episodes...

  “Who wants to watch two minutes of dull grey men in suits?”

  He rubbed the back of his head in frustration and stared at his well-lined leather shoes as they began to tighten around his feet in the heat.

  He’d find something. Some way to make it interesting and work. He always did.

  He lifted his head, gazing off into the car park in front of the building, and sucked down hard on the cigarette one more time.

  Then he saw it.

  He scowled.

  There: parked in the first row, barely one hundred yards away.

  At first he wasn’t sure what his instincts, honed sharp long ago and now atrophied, had seen.

  A Toyota. Two men.

  East European in appearance, they were staring up at the Journal’s office window. One had a laser pointer in his hand and headphones lopsidedly straddling his head.

  The other was watching the revolving door – not Blake – the door.

  Blake edged across to the fountain. Partly obscured from the car park by the palms and leaves, he sat, his head still spinning, his leg jibbing as blood returned to his toes.

  His eyes were fixed on
the Toyota.

  It had to be a listening device. There was no other call for two Europeans to be bouncing a laser off the window of the Journal’s office.

  Blake began massaging his own neck to boost the blood flow to his head.

  Was he seeing things?

  No.

  He stared at his feet. His brain began working at full speed again.

  “Not local intelligence. They don’t use Europeans – and they’ve got the Journal’s office bugged to within an inch of its life anyway... after all, I would if I were them. So, they’re outsiders. Freelancers? Not with that kind of kit.”

  Laser listening devices, which heard conversations in a room by measuring the reverberations of the glass in the windows caused by voices, were a technology around twenty years old – yet they weren’t freely available in a country like the Emirates. Even elsewhere they were a pricey piece of kit that tended to arouse questions.

  Blake opened his packet of menthols and withdrew another cigarette.

  He smoked it slowly, his blood pressure equalising as he watched intently.

  The Europeans didn’t leave the car. The engine was running. No-one sat in a car in Dubai unless they had no choice – even with the air-conditioning on full blast – it wasn’t a comfortable prospect.

  “That implies they’ve had no time to set anything up. They’ve put together this mission in hurry and so they have to be sitting exactly there, in an obvious place because they have no other alternative. So, are they spies? Or someone else? And what are they listening to the Journal’s office for – unless they want the inside scoop on what stories were big weeks ago and missed by my moronic boss?”

  There was only one thing to do.

  Blake stood and pulled his aviators from his pocket to shield his eyes from the harsh UV light.

  He smiled.

  Just like the old days.

  He’d go and politely ask them.

  11

  Blake circled around the parked vehicles and approached the car from its blind spot.

  He needn’t have bothered. The two occupants were firmly focused, one listening intently, the other staring so hard that phaser beams might be expected to light up from behind his sunglasses and streak towards the office.