Ambassador 6: The Enemy Within

by Patty Jansen

  The woman who sat next to Veyada gave a little squeal when Idda ran in front of her, balancing on the banister with her tail waving in the air. The man next to her gave an outraged shout.

  Idda squealed and jumped down on the other side of the banister. There was about a metre drop between our level and the courtroom floor.

  The judge noticed her then. Her eyes widened. “Whatever is that? Get that animal out of here, please.”

  Abri had also noticed Idda. She said something in Pengali.

  Idda looked sharply at her grandmother, ran across the floor in the other direction, looked again.

  One of the clerks had risen from his desk and came for Idda.

  She jumped up the next banister—which was the one surrounding Robert Davidson’s box.

  “Hey!” one of the guards tried to grab her. At first it looked like he was successful, but Idda wriggled from his hands, fell on the carpet and ran, squealing, to where we sat. She tried to claw her way up the wood panelling that separated the gallery from the floor, but her little hands found no purchase on the smooth surface. I leaned over, but couldn’t reach her, and then, because she was still squealing, I jumped over. I picked her up and handed her to Kita. Then I found myself surrounded by guards.

  “You can’t come in here, Mr Wilson.”

  “I’m just getting—” What the hell did they think they were doing?

  Someone grabbed me under the arms—Veyada—and hoisted me up into the gallery. The seriousness in his eyes chilled me. Something was about to happen, something that I had not planned and had no control over.

  A commotion broke out near the door to the hall, which opened, and a group of people came in: Sheydu, Deyu and Reida, Thayu, Evi and Telaris, all of them in gamra security gear and visibly armed.

  Chapter 20

  * * *

  REIDA PUSHED the hotel trolley with the irrka drum into the middle of the floor.

  Judge Hermans yelled at the guards to get these people out of the room, but the security guards hesitated, which probably had something to do with the guns on my team’s arm brackets.

  Then she yelled at me to control them. I had no inclination to do as she said.

  I stood at the front row of the public gallery, a position from which I could see over the floor. A lot of other people had come into the courtroom after my team had let the door open and distracted the security. They were some of the people who had been waiting in the foyer, a lot of colourful Africans, journalists of minor and unapproved news services and anti-Execo activists.

  Ynggi slipped from his seat next to me and jumped over the banister, followed by Kita.

  I presumed the courtroom’s cameras were still broadcasting this to the screens in the foyer. All around us in the public gallery were journalists. There were more reporters in the foyer, and in the tents outside.

  Here was our chance to inform the masses.

  Ynggi undid the strap to the bundle of irrka pipes and inserted the large bottom pipes into the central drum.

  People had noticed him, and a relative hush came over the courtroom.

  I spoke up, raising my voice. “These are the Pengali of the Thousand Islands tribe. When I first spoke to prosecutor Conrad Martens about Abri being a witness in this trial, I was given the understanding that there would be space for her to air the tribe’s grievances against Robert Davidson. With the changes to the prosecutor and other people from the court working with us, that agreement appears to have been forgotten. We remind you of it. The Pengali will now perform a betanka: the official ceremony that they use for formal negotiations. Our translator will tell you their story in Isla. He is a certified translator, approved by Nations of Earth, so you can faithfully report it to your news services.”

  Jemiro looked at me wide-eyed. His face had gone pale. I guessed that doing defiant things was not in his orders.

  Reida and Deyu now lifted the completed drum off the trolley. As it turned out, there had been something underneath: a package wrapped in a colourful cloth.

  Abri climbed onto the railing surrounding the witness box, and, under protest of the uniformed Nations of Earth guard, jumped to the floor.

  She picked up the object from the trolley and carried it to the judges’ table. She set it down in front of Judge Hermans, and stepped back.

  The judge frowned at me. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “It’s a gift from the tribe to you,” I said.

  “What sort of gift?”

  “I don’t know. Open it.” I hoped it was not another seagull or some other creature.

  Judge Hermans unwrapped the cloth and unveiled . . . an African-style statue, cut from ebony wood. It depicted the statue in the fountain outside, with the hands. The fingers on each of the hands bore rings made from colourful African beads that depicted national flags. The meaning might be lost on the Pengali, but these flags represented all the countries that the cartel had bought: Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, a whole bunch of other central African countries, as well as the Vietnams, Burma and other sections of Asia. Also Bolivia, Venezuela and South American countries. In the middle of the circle of hands stood a colourful fish fashioned from beads. It stood propped up on its tail, its wide-open mouth gasping at the judge.

  Abri had no doubt been attracted to the statue because of the fish, but as a gift, it was perfect. The fish with its open mouth symbolised the people outside, trapped by the private ownership of their countries by companies that supposedly conformed with Nations of Earth’s rules.

  The Pengali did not know this, but everyone else in the room knew. Including Judge Hermans.

  Her cheeks went red. She licked her lips, opened her mouth and licked her lips again. Then she looked at me. “Mr Wilson, will you kindly remove these people from the court? They are disturbing the course of justice.”

  I had no intention of doing so. The guards could not “remove” my team either, due to their impressive weaponry, but I had no doubt that backup had been called, and we only had a short period to make our mark.

  I gestured to Ynggi.

  He put his foot on the step on the side of the drum and pulled himself up until he perched on the footrests that came off the side just underneath the rim.

  The people grew quiet; the African drums in the hall fell silent. Everyone watched us. They listened.

  Ynggi took the sticks and tapped the betanka rhythm, hitting one of the big low booming pipes every third and fifth beat.

  Sung betanka was slower and resembled droning a lot more than the instrumental variety. The song represented a statement of importance or an argument and needed to be understood by all.

  While Ynggi was getting ready, Reida reached over one of the unoccupied desks next to the judges’ table. He pulled out an earpiece and tossed it across the courtroom to me.

  Abri started to chant to the slow and heavy five-beat rhythm.

  I turned towards Jemiro, who looked petrified. I tossed him the earpiece. “Translate what she says.”

  He shook his head vehemently. The colour of his face suggested that he was going to either faint or vomit soon.

  “Translate! Make yourself useful for once.”

  “I can’t. I can’t! People are watching me.”

  “Of course they are watching you. I’ve had enough of this rubbish. Who are you? Why are you using Jemiro Pakiru’s name, when he’s dead?”

  “Please.” He clamped his hands over his ears. “Please. I don’t know.”

  “What are you? Who are you?”

  “Please, please. I don’t know anything.”

  “What do you know? How did you even end up with Jasper Carlson?”

  But Jemiro could only give incoherent replies. His eyes were unfocused, and Abri was chanting and someone needed to get on with the translation.

  So I shouted to Ynggi to translate into Coldi for us, which he did while drumming. I retrieved the earpiece and put it on.

  And to Veyada, I said, “Record it.” Which he was probably
already doing, as were a lot of other people.

  It wasn’t easy to hear Ynggi’s voice over the racket, but I translated his—and through him, Abri’s—words as faithfully as I could.

  Abri sang about how Robert came to the tribe for the first time, how he promised the young people shiny things but didn’t deliver on his promises, how he had rebuked protests delivered to him by tribe elders and how he had refused to leave the tribe’s territory. Also how he stole artefacts from the tribe and threatened tribe members if he felt he could intimidate them. She sang how he lured the young tribe members away to work in his caves to clean and polish the blue diamonds and how he would chain them to their seats. She sang how he would not allow them to speak to others and would not allow them to leave their work spots, instead bringing their food to them and forcing them to sleep under their work benches on the filthy floor full of dust.

  At this point a loud cheer broke out from the crowd at the door of the courtroom. A lot of the people there were Africans and a man with a very loud voice yelled, “Down with Execo. Take them to court!”

  People cheered.

  “Do they want us to stop?” Ynggi asked me.

  “No, they’re saying that the business owned by Robert has done the same thing to them as he did to the Pengali.”

  A look of comprehension went over his face. He hit the drum with increased intensity.

  Abri continued singing and Ynggi translated.

  The atmosphere in the room and adjacent hall was tense. People crowded around the screens and the door. Every now and then, someone would shout a slogan.

  The Nations of Earth guards were alert and talking on their devices.

  My team was alert, highly armed. Sheydu carried lots of pockets on her belt. Normally, the guns went on the arm brackets and the explosives in the pockets.

  I had no idea how this standoff was going to end. Not well, probably. I wished Thayu were not here. I wished she—and Nicha, with Ayshada—were somewhere out of harm’s way, with Eirani and Karana. Preferably somewhere in a vehicle that we might use to quickly get out of here. If we could get to the front door before a riot broke out, or before the guards took control of our movements “for our own safety”, because if they did that, I might need to involve gamra security and it would get ugly.

  Like, really ugly.

  Abri continued. She sang about how Melissa had come to the island to look for Robert and how he had imprisoned her and killed her Pengali trackers, putting the blame on the Thousand Island tribe. The tribes might not get along, but it had been a long time since anyone had been killed for trespassing on another tribe’s land.

  “They gave us the blame for killing our president!” another man shouted.

  “They put Johnny Moko in jail. He’s done nothing!”

  “Down with Execo! Justice to the people!”

  Several people took up the chant in time with the betanka rhythm. Within moments, the courtroom vibrated with the voices of hundreds chanting. The guards were starting to look really nervous. More people wanted to come in. About five or six guards stood there, inadequate numbers in case that crowd decided to push.

  A man behind in the gallery yelled through a microphone, “Please calm down. Please leave the building in orderly fashion. Please let’s keep this civilised.” He had to crank up the volume to ear-splitting levels in order to be heard.

  “It might be a good idea to start packing up now,” I said to Ynggi in a low voice, keeping one eye on the crowd that the line of guards in front of us was struggling to contain. The betanka stopped.

  Then Dharma came out of the crowd. He smiled at me and simply said, “Thank you.”

  The words carried a hint of the meaning that he couldn’t mention in public. I guessed Margarethe had contacted him and had informed him of her plans.

  He said, “People, friends.” He wore a small, high-tech earpiece and someone in the crowd must have amplifiers that projected his voice through the hall.

  There was a lot of cheering and clapping.

  He held a reader above his head.

  “I have here on this reader a document I’m going to present to the Nations of Earth assembly. I will read something from it.” He lowered the reader and looked at the screen. “We demand a fair inquiry into the conduct of Execo and its executive, Robert Davidson, in all parts of the world and elsewhere, and of affiliated companies and people. We demand that the inquiry be conducted by people who are judged independent by acceptable standards. We demand that affected people be paid compensation for injury or loss of income to ease our pain or our grief for missing family members.”

  A huge cheer broke out in the courtroom and a bit later, in the hall.

  “We demand justice for the poor as well as the rich. Justice that includes the miners of Africa like Charlie Awaba and his missing brother, that includes the people who were evicted from their homes because of building developments. Justice that includes the people who are ill because of their experiments, and the widows and widowers and the children left orphaned. Justice that includes all the people who have been denied justice.”

  People cheered. Someone hit the African drum with big thumps.

  “But right now, I want all of you to calm down. We will fight our fight and we will get our justice. If, however, we fight with our fists, we will give them a reason to call the riot police on us, label us law-breaking protesters and beat us down harder. Whatever weapons we have, they will have more powerful ones, and because we’re poor and because we’re Blue, they will beat us and put us in jail and no one will care or stand up for us. But give us some time, and we will forge stronger connections that will make us grow, not through scheming and fear, but through knowledge and honesty.”

  And oh, he came so close to mentioning the referendum and joining gamra, yet he didn’t, and no one who didn’t recognize what his words were about would suspect. No one knew of the referendum. He did, I did. The planning had begun.

  “Now kindly leave the building before these armed guards here become too nervous. The evidence has been given. Whether or not Robert Davidson goes to jail is up to the judges. They want us to forget him and his company, but we will not. Over the past days, you have given me lots of information to continue the fight. Now let’s take the fight to the places where we can win: the media, the campaigns and your local governments. I will keep all of you updated. Thank you and be well.”

  A great cheer went up.

  The mass of people started moving towards the doors, both on the ground floor and at the back of the public gallery. Things were peaceful, for now.

  A commotion had broken out in the middle of the hall, where several uniformed officers knelt over someone on the floor.

  Damn, that was Jemiro, curled into a ball. He was yelling at the carpet.

  “Let me speak to him,” I said.

  Guards moved aside, and one of them pulled Jemiro up. His face was red and tears were running down his cheeks.

  “I don’t understand,” he sobbed, in keihu. “What have I done?”

  There was something different about him. He looked confused, but the emotionless mask he’d worn ever since he joined us was gone. “I don’t know any of these people. I can’t understand them. Please, tell me what I’m doing here. Please!” The raw tone in his voice made me shiver. Something had broken in him.

  “What do you remember?”

  “Nothing. What am I doing here?” His dialect was of the type spoken by workers in Barresh, like the builders or the warehouse workers, or the maintenance crew at the airport.

  Veyada, who had some medical skills, sat next to him and examined his pulse and his eyes.

  I asked Jemiro, “Do you know your name? Do you understand anything of what people are saying?”

  He shook his head. His face shone with sweat. “Please, tell me what I’m doing here.”

  Veyada looked at me. He said, in Coldi, which Jemiro was unlikely to understand, “I have no idea what’s going on or who he is, but his t
emperature is high, his heartbeat is irregular, and he needs care now.”

  The Pengali had packed up the drum and put it back on the trolley. There was a little bit of room at the front, and Veyada and Nicha lifted Jemiro up there. He was swaying so much that I was afraid he would fall off, but he managed to steady himself.

  I was getting a really awful feeling about him. Was he some poor keihu young man picked up off the street by Jasper and given a false identity, who’d had his brain infused with language knowledge when I advertised for a translator? Was that how Jasper created people for jobs on demand? Obviously, the system wasn’t working very well, and the changes became unstuck.

  The Nations of Earth guards had managed to get a lot of the protester-gate-crashers out of the courtroom, leaving only the people who had already been there in some semblance of order, although the crowd had left debris of leaves, rubbish and the occasional pamphlet, which Idda was running around collecting.

  A bell rang and a female voice said, “Everyone, sit down and return to your positions. Our interpreter is all right, I see. Now that everyone has calmed down and intruders have left, we will resume our proceedings.”

  I met the judge’s eyes. “He is not all right. He is unfit to continue his work.”

  “Then have him taken to the hospital. We will continue the court session. Also can I ask these people to please remove the animal from the courtroom.”

  At that moment, something snapped in me. Idda was not an animal and Jemiro was not all right. I was supposed to protect them and I had failed. It was my task to make sure that the Pengali were heard fairly and I had agreed to come under those conditions, which were now not being met. I was through with dancing to their tunes.

  I jumped over the banister, strode across the floor and scooped up Idda. She let out a protesting squeal. “Come.” I gestured to Abri. “Come, everyone. We’re leaving.”

  People gave us wide-eyed looks. I’d spoken Coldi, so they had no idea what was going on.

  Judge Hermans asked, “What is the purpose of this, Mr Wilson?”