The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  Hatim Ackerman had arrived as the doctor was finishing the examination, and he’d been allowed five minutes with him to give his account of the night’s events.

  Leo’s first question was, ‘Have you spoken to Angela?’

  ‘We’re not allowed to speak to her until the hearing, and I doubt she’ll be there. They’ll have a signed statement from her and the doctor will say she’s too distraught to appear. Meanwhile, we just have to wait.’

  ‘You know this is a stitch-up don’t you? She invited me to her place and we had sex twice, and she enjoyed it as much as I did. She even played my favourite Led Zeppelin number for me while we made out. If anybody got raped last night, it wasn’t her, it was me. You’ve got to find out why she’s done it and get her to withdraw the charge. It’s probably to blackmail money out of me and I can raise some through my family, but you need to see her as quickly as you can. I’ve got responsibilities at XPC and I can’t afford to spend any more time in this shithole of a prison.’

  ‘I’ll try to contact her, but I don’t think she’ll agree to see me, especially if it’s a false accusation.’

  ‘Then you’ve got to get Tom or someone from the office to see her. There must be a way to convince her to see reason.’

  The lawyer agreed to this, then said, ‘I have a strategy to maybe get you released as quickly as possible. You’ll appear in front of the public prosecutor this afternoon to make your not guilty plea and sign a written statement. It’s in Arabic, but I’ll make sure it’s correct. I’m going to ask for bail but it’ll be refused, so I’ll propose house arrest with a corporate assurance until the trial. They’re very wary of upsetting foreign investors, especially Russia and China, so I think they might consider it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘They’ll either agree to house arrest, or more likely keep you in Bur Dubai Station instead of moving you to one of the other prisons. If they send you there, you’ll be forgotten for a very long time, so I’m trying my best to keep you here where we can keep tabs on you until the trial.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘It’s impossible to say, but with some pressure from XPC it might be within a month.’

  Leo was incredulous. ‘You mean, even in the best of circumstances I might be stuck in this stinking dung heap for a month?’

  ‘I’ll do my best, but things here aren’t like the UK or the US, and we just have to work with the system as best we can.’ Hatim went on to explain the house rules to Leo, the only ones he registered being: ‘Stay up here on the ground level and don’t go down to the basement area, that’s where the druggies and serious criminals are housed. Assert your authority quickly but don’t get into fights, it doesn’t matter how tough you are, they can be fatal. They’ve got some very nasty ways of hurting you, like gang rapes and with HIV-infected blood.’

  The guard came to take him to the cells, and Leo asked, ‘Has anyone called my mother? They won’t let me use the phone. Can you make sure someone calls her?’ The lawyer assured him that Tom Connor would call Emma that afternoon. ‘Please ask him to be gentle with her, she’ll be horrified to hear I’m in jail. It’ll be the worst thing she’s ever heard.’

  Ackerman left, promising to keep the CEO informed of everything and to be back for the hearing in the afternoon.

  Leo pushed the few items he’d brought under one of the bunks and sat on the end of a bed near the door, sizing up the situation, working out how he could assert his authority. The first problem was that he was the only African, which he knew probably spelled trouble. There were two Asian men and two who looked like Europeans, so he addressed them all.

  ‘Hi, I’m Leo. What’re your names?’

  A blond guy in a vest with spectacles, an earring and tattoos covering his arms and neck said, ‘Phil. You got any cigarettes?’ He was sitting on an upper bunk and spoke with an American accent. A bloody gash ran across his forehead as if he’d been hit hard with a sharp instrument.

  ‘Sorry, don’t smoke. You guys?’

  One of the Asians answered, ‘He’s Tony, and I’m Rafa. We’re from Karachi. What’s it to you, anyway?’

  ‘Just getting to know my neighbours. How come you’re in here?’

  ‘We just got here this morning to look for work. Fucking cops put drugs in our bags at the customs and arrested us. They beat the shit out of us and now they want $200 to let us out, and we don’t have it. You?’

  Leo wasn’t convinced the drugs had been planted, but he replied, ‘I was in a street fight, somebody got hurt so they blamed me. I’ve got to go up for trial, maybe then I can pay a fine and get out.’

  The fourth man stood up, looked European, about five-ten with a ragged scar running around his throat. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, quizzing everybody like you own the place?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ Leo asked, standing up to his full height of six-four.

  The man stood his ground, looking up at Leo. ‘Fighter, eh? Marquis of Queensbury rules? You’ll need to be careful here, there’s some real vicious brawlers around.’ He spoke excellent English with an Eastern European accent.

  ‘Du bist Deutsch, oder? You’re German, right?’ Leo dredged up a few words from his college language studies.

  ‘Good try. Polish, Gdańsk. Oskar Novak.’ He leaned over and shook hands. ‘Good to meet someone with an education in this shitty country.’

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  ‘You don’t know Leo very well, do you?’ Ed Muire was speaking to Daniel Oberhart.

  The Swiss man was immediately on the defensive. ‘I’m not sure what you mean. I hardly know him at all, why?’

  ‘Is that why your first reaction was to worry about the reputation of the company, and not about his shitty situation?’

  Oberhart was quiet for a moment, thinking about his role in Leo’s appointment. ‘You’re right, Ed and I’m sorry, I got my priorities completely wrong. I apologise, and I hope you won’t mention it to Leo, it was just thoughtlessness.’

  ‘OK, no harm done. I suppose you don’t know about his family life, not that there’s much to know, but he hasn’t had it easy.’

  ‘I was talking with him the other day. He told me he’d never known his father, but that’s all he said.’

  ‘As far as I know, Leo’s family is his mother and her sister, his aunt Jenny. They’re the only relatives I’ve heard him mention. He’s never had a father, so his mum’s going to be blown away when Tom calls her. And there’s nothing she or his aunt can do, they’ll be completely whacked by this fake accusation. So, forget about the company’s reputation, and let’s try to help get Leo back from that shithole prison and finish the job he’s been doing really well.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much I can do, but if there is, just ask and I’ll be happy to help.’ The two men shook hands, and Ed went out. Oberhart took out his mobile and called the Zurich number. His father answered, and he said, ‘We’ve got another problem.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Friday, 9 July 2017

  Hatim Ackerman arrived at one o’clock and was shown up to Tom’s office. Shen and Ed Muire were already there. Tom hadn’t invited Daniel or Sharif, but he felt that Ed should attend since he’d been the first to be contacted by Leo.

  ‘Before we go any further, Hatim, this whole business must be kept completely under wraps. We can’t afford anything to get into the public domain and cause a scandal for XPC or Lee-Win. Can that be managed?’

  ‘Actually, Tom, nobody’s really interested in a case like this, they’re pretty common. We’re not talking about a murder here. I’m sure the woman doesn’t want any publicity either, it would only weaken her position, make her vulnerable. If you can keep it quiet on your side, there’s no reason why it should be known outside of the people in this room.’

  ‘Great, thanks Hatim, that’s quite a relief. Now, what’s the latest situation with Leo?’

  The lawyer repeated
everything he’d explained on the phone, adding, ‘Leo seemed in pretty good form, despite the circumstances. I gave him a few tips on surviving Bur Dubai, but that place is an accident waiting to happen. If he steps out of line, he’ll pay for it, and possibly with his life.’

  Ed was struggling to contain himself. ‘I hope you agree that this is all bullshit, that there’s no way he could have raped that woman?’

  ‘Unfortunately, what I think is of no importance whatsoever. My job is to try to get Leo out of jail and back into XPC, that’s what I’m paid for. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it’s likely that he actually raped Angela, he seemed too calm and collected about it, like remembering she put on his favourite album before they had sex. She’s having a complete medical examination right now, which might shed more light on what happened, but I wouldn’t count on it. If she’s smart, she’ll know how to fake the evidence and we can’t argue.’

  ‘So, this afternoon Leo pleads not guilty, and if she doesn’t change her story, he stays in jail until whenever the trial is held, then he’s found guilty and shipped off to die in some godforsaken pigsty of a prison.’

  ‘It’s not exactly like that. There’s a chance he’ll be bailed with house arrest under a corporate assurance. But that would still probably take a week.’

  ‘And in the meantime, he might get gang-raped or beaten to a pulp or even killed. I don’t fucking believe this country.’

  ‘OK, Ed, we know you and Leo are good friends, but you’re not helping right now.’ Tom tried to assert some authority. ‘Hatim, when and how can we get in touch with Angela to talk turkey? There must be a number, an amount that will compensate her for whatever reason she had to put Leo in jail.’

  ‘She won’t want to talk to me, since I’m representing him and XPC, so it’ll have to be a friend or acquaintance, someone she knows and maybe trusts. A contact could be made tonight or tomorrow, there’s no law against that.’

  ‘Right. Shen, you said she’s a good friend. Go see her and find out what it would take for her to withdraw her accusation and drop the whole business. I’ll get approval for the payment, if it’s not too outrageous. It seems like it’s the only way we’ll get Leo out of there, for his own safety, and back in here to tie things up before we run out of time.’

  The Chinaman didn’t seem too keen on the proposal, but he agreed to try to meet Angela and do what he could. Ed wasn’t convinced that he’d succeed, or even try. He started thinking about what he might be able to do, if anything.

  Bur Dubai Police Station

  ‘What happened to you?’ Leo was getting to know Oskar Novak. The Pole had an interesting educational background, having graduated from Gdańsk University of Technology then obtained a Masters in Finance at the London School of Economics, before working at Rolls Royce for ten years. He had been in the cell for a week and was awaiting sentencing for forgery. A small matter of a cheque for $10,000 made payable to himself, which of course was merely a misunderstanding with the account holder. It seemed the LSE’s motto, ‘to Know the Causes of Things’, hadn’t quite been understood by Oskar.

  ‘You mean this?’ He indicated the scar around his neck. ‘I slept with a guy’s wife and he slit my throat. Didn’t do a very good job, missed the carotid and just left me with an interesting scar. The thing is, I did him a favour. His wife was actually screwing a friend of mine, and I kind of slipped in one night and got caught. But then he hired a private dick to watch her and found out she was doing him wrong, so he saved a fortune on the divorce. And before you ask, I didn’t get a commission.’

  Leo laughed. Oskar was a villain, no doubt, but he was a likeable villain. ‘You know,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a great theory about how sex is responsible for everything that’s wrong in the world.’

  ‘OK, let’s hear Leo’s theory of sex.’

  ‘Simple. It’s because it’s enjoyable. If it wasn’t, there’d be fewer people having sex, because they didn’t like it. They’d only have sex when they wanted a child, so they’d have fewer children and the world population would be manageable, there’d be no sex crimes, no two-timing, no pornography and so on.’

  ‘And there’d be no fun.’

  ‘Yep. There’s a defect in every theory, and that’s it.’

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Sharif was talking to Shen Fu Liáng in his office. ‘It’s a strange coincidence, Leo being arrested.’ The Pakistani sounded worried.

  ‘How do you mean, a coincidence?’

  ‘I think he found out about the redundancy test on cell S470C887,999 that was commissioned by Shanghai. I’d been testing it the previous night, and he must have noticed it on my log. That’s what he said when he called me in Sharjah. I don’t think he ran a test, or he’d have said so, but he wanted to know what it was.’

  ‘I guessed as much, he called Tom about it, but I wanted to explain it to you anyway.’

  ‘Shen, you asked me not to tell Leo about those tests, and you’ve never told me why. That’s the coincidence, because you asked me not to tell Scotty when you gave me the codes on the flash drive. I told you Scotty saw it and asked me what it was. Then the next thing is, he dies of poisoning, and now Leo’s in jail. I’m really wondering what’s going on around here.’

  Shen went and closed the door. ‘Well, the first thing that’s not going on is anybody poisoning Scotty or getting Leo arrested. That’s so far-fetched it’s too ludicrous to even consider. There’s absolutely no connection between that cell and those unfortunate events.’

  Sharif looked dubious. ‘The cell’s not on my design spec. It’s something they’ve added in the manufacturing process in Shanghai, and I’ve got no idea what it’s for. And all the redundancy test seems to do is to temporarily close down the network. I don’t see the point. I mean, what exactly is that test for?’

  ‘It’s not exactly what it says on the box, but it has nothing to do with anything in current production. It’s for a highly confidential development I’m not supposed to talk to anyone about, and I wouldn’t tell Tom, or Leo, because I don’t know them, and in my book you don’t trust people you don’t know. You and I have worked together for five years and I trust you, but you’ve got to promise me it won’t go any further.’

  ‘You know I never talk about things. That’s one of the reasons you hired me.’

  ‘OK, here’s the heads-up, and it stays with you. Over the last three years, Shanghai has been developing another innovation to introduce after ACRE, something just as world-shattering. That cell was added only to test the concept, and the codes I gave you are for that and nothing else. It’s simply to ensure that we can put the system on hold for a moment when we’re ready to launch the next development. Don’t worry, it won’t be included in the package you send to Shanghai, it’s only for your testing here.

  ‘I’m not permitted to tell you exactly what it is, but right after the upcoming launch, we’ll receive the specs from Shanghai to write the new firmware and build the next design. And you’ll be leading one of the teams that brought Mark VII, ACRE and this new technology to the world. That’s why I came down to Dubai and why I chose you and your team, to give you a chance to make history with us.’

  Shen was watching Sharif’s reaction to his speech. He saw the Pakistani’s eyes shine and his chest swell at the thought of achieving greatness. He went on, to try to seal the deal. ‘Tell me something, quite honestly. Could you, without Leo and with or without Ed, bring the project to a successful completion by the end of the month? Naturally, the increased responsibility would come with extra remuneration, I’d make sure that you’re very well rewarded, you know you can count on me.’

  Sharif took his time to answer. He still resented the way Leo had been brought in above him. Instead of getting the top job as he wanted, he’d been demoted. Now Shen was offering him that chance. He knew that if Leo didn’t return, Ed might jump the boat, and he’d be the only man with the experience and knowledge to take over. The last tests he’d run showed tha
t all the new software was working perfectly. As he’d just confirmed to Tom Connor, his design work was almost finished, and that was something he was uniquely capable of executing.

  ‘Honestly, Shen, I could do it. I’d prefer to do it together with the others, but if I have to, I can do it alone and it will be before the end of the month, I can promise you that.’

  ‘That’s great, Sharif, I was sure of it. I’m going to try my best to get Leo back, but I doubt it’ll work. I think he’s going to be stuck at least until the trial, and we have no idea how long that will be. Now I know we can manage without him, I feel confident we can fulfil our obligations to Shanghai. At the end of the day, that’s what really matters. And just as important, you’re going to get the credit you deserve for the great job you’ve done.’

  Sharif left the office walking on air. He was going to be the leader of the team which built the two most innovative and valuable Internet developments of the decade. His family would be proud of him, and so would everyone who knew him.

  Public Prosecution Office, Dubai

  ‘Not guilty, sir.’

  The Public Prosecutor rattled off something in Arabic, and Hatim translated for Leo, ‘State your version of what happened last night concerning the woman, Angela da Souza.’

  Leo summarised the events of the evening as succinctly as possible, while a male secretary typed up his statement in Arabic. Hatim read it over and nodded for him to sign it. He asked for bail, which as expected was refused, then he proposed house arrest with the corporate assurance of XPC; a billion-dollar Dubai company, subsidiary of a multibillion Chinese enterprise, where Leo was a highly valued executive.

  The prosecutor called over another official and they talked for a few minutes, then he answered Hatim. He relayed their answer to Leo. ‘Remanded in custody in Bur Dubai until trial. Date to be set in due course.’

  Back at the station, they walked to the cell block. The lawyer saw the disappointment on Leo’s face. ‘We didn’t get house arrest, but there’s no mention of the other prisons, so you’ll stay here until the trial’s called and I’m sure it won’t be long. The discussion with the other official was about the damage XPC could do with media reports in China. They don’t want to cause an incident, and I think that will weigh in our favour to some extent.’