by Tony Park
Miriam looked embarrassed by the attention paid to her, but smiled and nodded greetings to the rest of the team.
‘I’d like now to hand over to Global Resources’ head of health, safety, environment and community, Dr Kylie Hamilton.’
Cameron sat and Kylie stood. In front of her was a picture frame glass-side down.
‘Thanks Cameron, and thanks everyone for making time to join us here for what is a very sad, but also happy moment for Eureka. Sadly, Luis met with Cameron yesterday and, quite unexpectedly, tendered his letter of resignation from the company as chief metallurgist at Eureka.’
Cameron saw Miriam’s eyes widen as she turned to her husband. Luis put a hand on her arm to quieten her for the time being.
‘While this was a sad moment for us, Luis’s reason for leaving touched our hearts. I hope I’m not embarrassing you, Luis, when I explain to the rest of the team that your prime reason for leaving was your love for your wife and son. Many miners spend long periods away from their families and sometimes those relationships suffer. No one will begrudge you wanting to go back to Mozambique and I am sure you’ll be very happy being back home on the coast at Inhambane.’
Miriam was grinning. Cameron had wondered if she would be angry to see her husband lose his supposedly well-paid job at Eureka. Cameron had no idea how much Luis had made from Wellington’s illegal underground mine, but he guessed it had not been a fortune.
‘As you’re all aware,’ Kylie continued, ‘Luis was injured by a gunshot during the rescue of our colleague Chris, just a week ago. He put his life on the line to protect others who were taking part in the rescue operation. As Luis hasn’t been with us long enough to claim any retirement benefits, and is leaving us of his own volition, he isn’t strictly entitled to much more than some accrued holiday leave, but in recognition of his bravery and the injury he’s suffered, I’d like to, on behalf of the company, offer him a small token of Global Resources’ esteem and a certificate of appreciation for his bravery underground. Please step forward, Luis.’
Luis winced as he stood, clasped his wife’s hand, then let go of it. Kylie shook his hand as she handed over the framed certificate and then an envelope.
Cameron saw Luis was too embarrassed to say anything. He opened the envelope when he sat down, and passed it to Miriam. His wife put her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp when she read the amount on the cash cheque. Cameron looked at Kylie and winked at her. She smiled at him.
17
‘Wellington’s buyer is an Arab named Mohammed,’ Luis said.
Kylie sat back in the boardroom chair and folded her arms. Miriam was in Luis’s ‘office’ reading a magazine and drinking a cup of tea. It was time for her husband to live up to his end of the bargain. ‘Come on, Luis. You’ve got to be kidding. You have to give us more than that. An Arab named Mohammed?’
He nodded. ‘I am sorry. I know they meet sometimes in Malelane.’
‘Where?’ Kylie asked.
Cameron explained: ‘It’s a small town north of here, on the N4, not far from the Mozambican border. It’s based around cane farming and it’s a shopping stopover for people coming from Mozambique to South Africa or vice versa. But Kylie’s right, Luis, we need more than that.’
Luis nodded and sipped from a glass of water. ‘I think this Mohammed comes from Mozambique, or takes the gold there. Wellington has also sometimes been there to meet him; I’ve heard Wellington bragging about … well, bragging about being with people and having fun in Maputo.’
Kylie was touched by his modesty. If Luis had been present at some of the conversations she’d had with miners in Australia – mostly started with the aim of embarrassing her as the only woman present – his toes would curl. ‘What sort of people does he like to “be” with?’
Luis shifted in his chair and looked to Cameron, who gave a slight nod of his head. Luis took a deep breath, then finally looked at her. ‘He rules by fear and he enforces this fear by taking what he wants, who he wants. He will “be” with whomever he wants at that moment – the women the miners would sometimes smuggle down, even young ones, even men if he wishes. I heard things, terrible things down there.’ He closed his eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Luis,’ Kylie said.
He opened his eyes and looked into hers. ‘Please tell me, Dr Hamilton, that you are not thinking of going after him.’
Kylie chewed her lower lip. Her gut instinct was that Luis was a decent man who was genuinely trying to repent for his life of crime, but there was no way she was going to tell him what she intended to do, partly because she didn’t know. She was beginning to understand what had made Cameron defy her orders and Jan’s and set off on his one-man vigilante mission. The police here were useless, his own bosses were sitting on their hands, and this bastard Wellington had killed one of his men, kidnapped another and was laughing at him. ‘That would be a matter for the relevant authorities,’ she said.
Luis interlaced the fingers of his hands and studied them for a few moments. He seemed to be deciding, Kylie thought, whether to continue telling them what he knew. She thought it would be best to say nothing, and let him fill the void. She glanced at Cameron whose rough-hewn face was immobile. He was quite a good-looking man, in a craggy sort of way. Luis exhaled. ‘You were right about how he transports the gold. There are crossing points between Swaziland and Mozambique where the gold is moved by one vehicle, then carried through or under the fence, and then loaded onto another.’
‘How does he get it across the border from South Africa to Swaziland?’ Kylie asked.
‘Underground?’ Cameron ventured. Luis nodded his assent, so Cameron continued, for her benefit. ‘There are old tunnels that date back decades, perhaps a hundred years even, linking mines in South Africa and Swaziland.’
‘Yes,’ Luis confirmed. ‘But do not ask me where they are, because I was never shown. Wellington compartmentalised the operation and only he and Ncube knew how all the pieces fitted together. Originally the Lion would use men to carry the gold part of the way to Swaziland, then others would meet them there. The ones on the South African side would never be able to find the escape holes on the Swazi side, and those on the Swazi side would likewise not be able to find their way into the heart of the operation at Eureka without Ncube or one of the porters. Lately, though, he has been carrying the gold himself.’
‘What are you going to do now?’ Cameron asked Luis.
He shrugged. ‘I cannot stay here, I must leave as soon as I can.’
‘Will you go back to Mozambique?’ Kylie asked.
Luis put his glasses back on. ‘I think that is best. Your gift – please do not think I am ungrateful – will only go so far here in South Africa. In Mozambique my family has land. It is not much, but perhaps I can buy some seed and some tools and go back to doing what my ancestors did, living off the land, or fishing.’
He wasn’t playing them, Kylie thought, just telling it as it was. He had broken the law and was in South Africa as an illegal immigrant. In her country he would be scooped up and put in a detention centre before being deported. At least this way he was going home with something in his pocket. Still, she thought, it was a shame that they couldn’t use his knowledge and experience. If it leaked out that Global Resources was employing ex-zama zamas with no work papers they would be in even hotter water with the unions and the government than they were over the air quality results. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us about Wellington?’
‘Yes, Dr Hamilton. I will tell you to be careful.’
*
Two doors down from the boardroom, Chris checked his computer clock for the tenth time in three minutes. There was a sound like a bubble popping up on the surface of water and he felt a corresponding surge of adrenaline.
Safarigirl43 is online, said the small pop-up on the screen. He maximised the chat window and saw she had written Hi and nothing else.
Just got here myself, he lied to her. He didn’t want her to think he had been sitting here, li
ke Pavlov’s dog, waiting for her permission to drool.
Ja, right, lol, she typed. You’ve been waiting for me, haven’t you?
She had his measure, and more. He was sure she was as addicted to him, and to all this running around, as he was to her. He just didn’t want to show it. He couldn’t let it become so encompassing that he would make a mistake.
Are you hard for me, lover?
He was. Just thinking about how hard I fucked you on your desk.
Lol. It was the way they were. She liked him to be forceful with her when they met in the flesh, but she pulled the strings the rest of the time. Did you get a snotklap from your lady boss, my poor baby, when I rejected your offer?
She was OK about it with me, but I’m sure she was pissed off.
Where’s the info you were going to send to me, about your past air quality monitoring results?
I haven’t got it all together yet. It was the type of information any shareholder or analyst could ask for. They were required to submit regular reports on air quality monitoring to the government’s Department of Mineral Resources, so technically he wasn’t leaking information to Tertia, just facilitating her getting it.
Get it for me, baby. I need it.
OK. The deception went against his grain, yet excited him at the same time. It was like his relationship with her. She was eight years older than he, and though she was an attractive woman he could have had his pick of the twenty year olds in town. She was experienced, and they had done things that most of the girls closer to his age would have blushed at. She was the enemy of Global Resources, but he was desperately, completely in love with her.
When is her press conference?
Half an hour, he typed. It was public knowledge, the details available on the Global Resources media alert that had been emailed that morning and posted on half-a-dozen news and mining websites, and the company’s.
He clicked on the folder that contained the air pollution monitoring reports and returns to the government. It was all there, the mine’s history of compliance over the past ten years. It would make for dry reading. He went back to the chat window and hovered his cursor over the file-sharing icon.
Unzip your trousers for me. In your office, she typed.
She had never told him to do that. Not at work, at least. When he had tried it with her once she had said no, flat out. She would not risk one of her staff catching her. Yet she’d been quite happy for him to fuck her on her desk. The limits of this thing were being pushed all the time. He ran a hand through his hair. He thought of her grunting as he thrust in and out of her.
‘No,’ he whispered. He put his hands on the edge of his desk and pushed his office chair back.
Are you there, baby?
She knew he was. She knew the turmoil in him; the guilt; what he was going through for her. She was using him. And he loved it. He tried to be strong, and to hold off replying. He wanted to close down his computer now, to be done with her forever. I’m sending you the file you want now.
She ignored his message. Do it. For me.
He reached for his zipper.
*
Cameron knocked once on Chris’s door then opened it. Loubser looked up, startled, and rolled his chair closer under his desk.
‘Surfing porn at work? That’s in contravention of the Global Resources internet protocols and a punishable offence.’
‘No, boss. I … sheesh, you just gave me a fright is all, man.’
Cameron scoffed. ‘No problem either way.’
Chris’s face flushed even redder. Cameron wondered if he’d cut too close to the bone. In any case it didn’t matter; there was work to be done. ‘Kylie’s going to front the press in twenty minutes. She says you’re going to as well.’
‘But boss, hell, I don’t want to face those vultures. I thought head office said it was going to be Kylie and Hein talking about the review.’
Cameron knew he had to be patient, despite Chris’s whining. ‘They did, but I suggested to her it would be good to have our expert in air quality monitoring there to back her up and to answer any technical questions the jackals might have. She’s ignoring head office and I agree with her. Hein’s relieved. Besides, this is your area of the business that we’re being slandered over, so it’s only fair that you get up there and tell them what we do in terms of monitoring, and how good our results have been so far.’
Chris scratched his head, and used his mouse to click something closed on his computer. ‘All the same, I’d rather be underground again with those bastard zama zamas than facing that lot.’
There were parts of Cameron’s job that he didn’t like – most particularly dismissing people. However, he took responsibility for his decisions and stood by them. Chris was the man in the firing line over air quality monitoring. It might not have been his fault that something had gone wrong somewhere, leading to an off-the-scale reading, but he was the best man to explain to the media how seriously they took pollution control and monitoring at Eureka, and how best they could prove that this had all been a mistake. Or, if it wasn’t a mistake, how they would find the problem, fix it and ensure it didn’t happen again. ‘I understand, but we need you now, Chris.’
Reluctantly, Chris rolled back his chair and stood.
They went to the boardroom and Cameron opened the door. Kylie was leaning forward on the table, talking into a hands-free unit used for teleconferences. She nodded to them. ‘Musa, Chris and Cameron are here now.’
‘Hi guys,’ Musa Mabunda said from the tinny speaker as they took their chairs. They greeted him back.
‘Musa, it’s Chris here. Can you please tell me how I explain what went wrong when we don’t know?’
‘That’s why we’re having the investigation,’ Kylie interjected. ‘Basically what we’re going to do is a complete environmental audit which will prove that these results couldn’t have come from Eureka. Unless, of course, there’s something going on I don’t know about.’ She looked at Cameron, Chris and Hein Coetzee in turn. None of them said a thing.
‘Kylie’s right,’ said Musa. ‘Stick to the facts and explain how we test, what we test for, and state that we’ll fix any problem the audit finds.’
Kylie ran them through the order of the media conference; she would give a prepared statement and then take questions. She then asked Cameron, Hein and Musa to play the parts of hostile journalists and bombard her and Chris with questions.
At the end of the rehearsal she said, ‘Right, is everybody ready?’
‘No,’ said Chris.
*
Wellington lay on the bed and used the remote to switch on the television in his room in the Cardoso Hotel in Maputo. The hotel overlooked the harbour. It was new enough to be comfortably modern, and old enough not to be out of place in Maputo’s European-feeling architecture.
The girl was in the shower.
He flicked through the channels to the SABC live news channel. The woman he had seen underground appeared on the screen, behind a cluster of microphones bearing the logos of South African radio and television stations. He had only caught glimpses of her underground, and she had been wearing sexless overalls and a helmet. She was in something corporate for the media conference, a white blouse with the top two buttons undone, and a blue jacket. He couldn’t see her from the waist down, except in his mind’s eye. He knew from his sources that she was a senior executive with Global Resources, from Australia.
The whore emerged from the bathroom, the snowy white towel knotted just above her breasts, setting off her milk-coffee coloured skin nicely. She was almost white, this one. He’d specified her to feed one of his many fantasies, but now she was blocking his view.
‘Get out of the way, bitch.’
She pouted, paused, then stepped to one side and looked at the television.
‘Come here, baby,’ he said, his voice silky, as though he hadn’t just abused her. He moved to the end of the bed so he was sitting on the edge, his feet on the floor. He had his shirt off. ‘
Kneel down.’
She did as he told her and she undid the knot of the towel, letting it fall around her. He returned his gaze to the television.
The woman on the television was wrapping up her prepared statement. ‘Are there any questions?’
Wellington unzipped his jeans. The girl took her cue and freed his shaft. She ran her hand up and down it. He leaned back and placed his hands on the bed behind him.
A male reporter asked the woman what comment Global Resources had about the mining union calling a strike at Eureka and boycotting involvement in the monitoring review.
‘You’d have to ask the union that. The fact is that we have suspended operations at the mine pending the outcome of our investigation and review. We don’t want our workers going underground until we can get to the bottom of this, so the strike is irrelevant.’
Wellington smiled as he grew hard under the woman’s ministrations. She rolled a condom over him and lowered her mouth to him. There would be no rubber between him and Kylie Hamilton if he ever got hold of her. He let the fantasy flit at the corner of his mind as he forced himself to concentrate on the screen and not the woman between his legs.
A woman from the press pack spoke up. ‘Annelien Oberholzer from Beeld, Dr Hamilton. How often in the past have air pollution monitoring results exceeded the mandated maximum?’
Kylie nodded, as if she had been expecting the question. ‘Global Resources has never been prosecuted for exceeding the maximum allowable levels in dust samples.’
‘That’s not what I asked. My question was, how many times have results exceeded the mandated maximum levels?’
The Australian woman’s confidence started to crack. She looked to her left and the camera panned to the handsome face of the white man, Chris Loubser. Wellington’s pulse quickened. He reached for the prostitute and wound his hand in her braided hair. She moaned on him.
‘Chris? Perhaps you could confirm this,’ Kylie Hamilton said.