Aqua

by Jonathan Dakin

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Diane Saunders, forty eight years old, originally from France. She has been working for the Elementus Populas for the last ten years, in the communications department.”

  Sigwald slammed a large wad of paper files down onto the desk, and then slid them over to us to share one between two. I sat next to Visola, opposite Aura, who I kept glancing at. She was very attractive.

  I flipped opened the file. Inside was an image of an older woman with black and grey peppered hair. She had a round fat face and large thick glasses. Her hair was long and straight, and she had sunken features and dark rings around her eyes.

  “This isn’t Diane,” Shasa informed Sigwald.

  “This is the real Diane,” Sigwald answered angrily, “the Diane you know seems to be an imposter.”

  “Then who is she?” Shasa’s voice was fraught.

  Sigwald shrugged. “We’re not sure. But one thing we do know is that she was a spy for the Inimicus.”

  Shasa threw her head into her hands, and then slowly allowed her forehead to hit the top of the metal table. All of us, including Babajide, Chinwe, the head of Aqua Communications, Ngozi, our fighting trainer, and the Ventus’ personal bodyguards, sat around the long steel table. We were in the slightly smaller meeting room, the one that only the Heads of Department would usually use to discuss us. The room was bleak, barren and cold, and on one side sat the Aqua Team, and on the other sat the Ventus and their pit bulls. Sigwald and Babajide were at the head of the table, to my left. Babajide was sitting down, rubbing his right fist with his left hand furiously, and Sigwald stood, trying to keep our attention.

  “After your… discovery this afternoon, a group of forensic specialists searched the hut and found evidence of electrical equipment that was being used to transmit information, undetected, off the island.”

  “But don’t forget that Valeska lived there first!” Visola defended.

  “She shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” Sigwald’s stupid smile was now a disappointed frown, and he looked down at Babajide in dissatisfaction. “There’s a reason why the Elementus Populas insist that everyone lives under one roof…”

  “You had a mole living under yours!” Babajide argued defensively.

  “And clearly, so did you. Look, I’m not trying to blame anyone. It’s not about that. What I’m concerned with is what this lady, masquerading as Diane, knows and what she plans to do with any information she has.”

  “What about the blood?” Sefarina enquired sadly.

  “We’re still waiting for the results of the DNA test,” Babajide told her.

  “Whoever this woman was, she was a friend of Valeska, and so…”

  “Was?” Niyol interrupted, “So she’s dead?”

  Sigwald nodded and Shasa gasped. “Probably. This woman may well have been Valeska’s friend from another part of her life. I’ve already spoken to Assistant Director Ayres, and she seems to think that Valeska gave Diane Saunder’s identity to this friend of hers so that she could infiltrate the base and continue to monitor the Aqua Elementals. She might not have even known who she was working for, or what she was really doing. She could have been a pawn. An expendable one.”

  “But what about the real Diane Saunders?” Madzimoyo pondered.

  “We have no idea. Because the imposter had posed as Ms Saunders so successfully for so long, it’s hard to know exactly where the real Diane is…”

  Sigwald’s words lingered on long after he said them, and we all knew what he was implying. She was dead.

  “The note, See you in Malabo… who left that for us?” Aura’s voice cracked slightly, and her tightly controlled composure was beginning to slip.

  “It’s clear to me, at least, that the Inimicus seem to be directly targeting the Ventus Trio,” Sigwald answered. He didn’t seem happy about it in the slightest.

  “You don’t know that,” Babajide disagreed, rather animatedly, “You don’t know that at all!”

  “So you think that all of this happening today is just some sort of coincidence?”

  “It could well be! Team Aqua is just as important as Team Ventus…”

  “I’m not disputing that, I’m just saying that they need more protection. They’ve been attacked several times before, I won’t let them…”

  “Is this really necessary?” Niyol’s voice was loud, and cut through the mentors’ conversation, bringing it to an abrupt end.

  Babajide stared at Niyol in disbelief, and Sigwald brushed his hand through his hair and exhaled.

  “Your disciplinary standards are very different to mine, Sigwald. Ayres will be hearing about this…”

  “Trust me; she’s met the Ventus before. She knows exactly what they’re like…” Sigwald retorted, and Aura snorted as she tried to hold her laughter in. “Anyway, for now, let us put this matter to bed until we know more. I want us to remember that the Ventus are here for an entirely different reason, one we haven’t even begun to discuss yet! So let us begin…”

  Sigwald indicated that we turn the page of our documents over, and then he began.

  “Several weeks ago, agents in the Supernus unearthed what they thought to be a plot to dump toxic waste off or on the coast of the Equatorial Guinea. It wouldn’t be the first time that huge corporations have offloaded their unwanted remains in Africa…”

  “What do you mean?” Niyol asked.

  “There are lots of companies that both legally, and illegally, create waste tips in the middle of countries. Some are ‘bought’ by less ethical companies, some appear overnight. Items like unused electronic equipment, hazardous substances and out of date pesticides are just tipped into a hole in the ground, or in some cases, left in the middle of streets.”

  “That’s terrible!” Sefarina exclaimed.

  “No one cares about the consequences, and not many people in the West care about where their waste ends up…”

  “What are the consequences?” Aura enquired. The Ventus Trio had clearly never been educated on what happens in the wonderful world of ‘waste management’.

  “Well, for one it destroys the environment as the sites cause pollution. Some of them, usually the electronic ones, become a wasteland for scavengers. Young children pick old equipment clean to sell any parts that they can. And sometimes, people die because of what the chemicals do to them. It infects their water sources, and destroys their crops… Hundreds of people suffer…”

  “That’s horrible!” Sefarina acknowledged, and I agreed with her.

  “Yes it is, and that is why the Elementus Populas do their best to stop these things from happening. So, when we received several different pieces of chatter, all alluding to the same event, we knew that something must be going on, and so seized the opportunity to not only prevent the pollution damaging this country, but also unite two of the Elemental groups…”

  “So what exactly is going on then?” Shasa queried.

  Sigwald swallowed, and then exhaled. “The man you see in front of you is Mr ‘Chewy’ Chuck Price, the CEO and founder of Price International, a large multinational corporation that has many different subsidiary companies, most of them involved in energy supply.”

  I looked down at the headshot of an obese man, probably in his fifties, with sandy blonde hair and a callous grin. His dark brown eyes were fat and round, like his thick head and square shoulders.

  “Mr Price is an American oil tycoon, who started his company when he struck black gold a few decades ago. Now he has branched out into many other avenues, one of them being paid to dump toxic waste in more… obscure places. So not only does he ‘dispose’ of his own corporate waste, he also makes a profit out of getting rid of other people’s. At least, that’s what we think.”

  “It hasn’t yet been proven,” Babajide chimed in. “But you might remember that incident several years ago in Togo…?”

  I nodded, as did my siblings. Babajide had given us an extensive education on these types of ‘even
ts’ that happened in our continent. A few years ago a large corporation drove into the middle of a city in Togo during the night and dumped waste on the streets. Several people died, but hundreds more were seriously ill from the toxic fumes that contaminated them. It was horrible, and no one did anything about it. No one cared.

  “Why is he called ‘Chewy’?” Madzimoyo contemplated.

  “Apparently his laugh sounds like Chewbacca from Star Wars.” Sigwald replied. Madzimoyo raised his eyebrow in confusion.

  “Please tell me you know what Star Wars is?” Sigwald seemed upset, as if this was something incredibly serious. “The sci-fi film series? One of the most popular movie franchises of all time…?”

  Madzimoyo shrugged indifferently. I didn’t know what he was talking about either. We rarely got to watch television or see movies. We spent most of our time learning about the world, the people and languages in it, and taking part in physical training. We didn’t have time for fantasy.

  Sigwald turned to Babajide.

  “I thought you were supposed to be educating them!”

  “I have done, but only about important things!”

  “How can you say that Star Wars isn’t important??”

  “Because it isn’t!!”

  Niyol cleared his throat loudly, interrupting the argument, again.

  “Can’t you have this conversation over lunch?”

  “Yes, I think it is important that we do.” Sigwald was indignant, and clearly hurt. I shook my head. How could someone be upset about the fact that other people hadn’t seen their favourite movie? Did it really matter that much to him?

  “So…” Sigwald began again, brushing his suit jacket and straightening his tie, “Where were we again?”

  “Price International,” Shasa reminded him.

  “Oh yes! Mr ‘Chewy’ Chuck Price… Someone who clearly loves Star Wars so much that he named himself after one of the characters in it… Because most of us would see it as an honour to be named after one of the greatest fictional characters ever written…”

  “Just get on with it!” Babajide bellowed at him.

  “Fine. As I was saying, the Elementus Populas was tipped off by various independent sources that Mr Price is planning to bring a large container ship to Malabo, the capital of the Equatorial Guinea, and dump its contents somewhere off, or on, the mainland. And of course, we want to stop this from happening. Not only because it is Team Aqua’s homeland, but also because it is morally and ethically wrong, and is contributing to the destruction of the planet. Any questions?”

  Madzimoyo shot his hand straight up in the air, like he was a five year old child. Sigwald pointed at him as I shrunk into my seat in shame.

  “Yes?”

  “I have a question. If you knew about this weeks ago, why did you only arrive here today?”

  “That’s an excellent question young man, and I can give an answer, that comes in two parts. One is that one… some… of the members of Team Ventus were still recovering from… a certain incident, and the other is that the container ship is going to arrive tomorrow night, which is quite convenient, isn’t it?”

  “That doesn’t give us any time to train together,” Visola stated seriously.

  Sigwald considered this, and then grinned at her stupidly.

  “That’s a very good point…”

  “We have looked at the Malabo port manifesto, and a large shipper container owned by Price Industries arrives in the capital tomorrow.” Babajide stood to his feet, clearly deciding that it was his turn to take the lead. “It may or may not contain anything important to us, so we shall inspect it and find out.”

  “But what about Diane, and the note left in her cabin?” Visola asked in desperation, “Is it connected to Mr Price and his ship?”

  Babajide laughed. “I highly doubt it. I’m pretty sure that the Inimicus are in no way connected to this at all. Let’s not forget that the Inimicus say they want to save the planet, not destroy it.”

  “But what if they want to destroy Mr Price?” Madzimoyo’s question was perfectly poignant, and Babajide didn’t know how to react. Neither did Sigwald.

  I stopped slumping in my seat and sat up straight. Maybe my brother was alright after all. It was almost certainly a good thing to have someone as intelligent as him on our team, and I finally realised that I was happy that he was.

  “If the Inimicus are involved…” Sigwald muttered, “Then…”

  “Then…” Babajide stumbled over his words, and looked to Sigwald to assist him in finishing his sentence.

  “We’re going to have to fight them,” Niyol informed us all, “Again.”