Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (118 page)

The colour darkened and the skin surrounding them puckered. His own flesh responded even more dramatically, and she stared at him shamelessly and chuckled as she unbuckled her own belt. Her jeans were tight and she wriggled and squirmed to get them down.

“Exodus,” he said, “chapter three.”

“That’s not original.” She glanced down at herself complacently. “I’ve had the quotation applied to myself before — the burning bush.” She combed her fingernails lingeringly through the thick mop of flaming curls at the base of her flat white belly. It was so crisp and dense that it rustled. It was one of the most excruciatingly erotic gestures he had ever watched. “Come on,” she encouraged him. “You’re falling behind.”

“He dropped his own trousers around his ankles.”

“Who have we here?” She studied him frankly. “Standing to attention and positively aching to sacrifice himself in the burning bush?” And she reached out to capture him expertly. “Come along, my little mannikin,” she murmured throatily, grinning that sly tomboy grin and led him to bed.

Chapter 18

BOSS’s head office was at Blackfriars in the City, just opposite the pub that stood on the site of the old monastery that gave the area its name. Daniel and Bonny came out of the entrance of the tube station and paused to stare at the building.

“Shit!” said Bonny sweetly. “It’s imperial Roman rococo, with just a touch of Barnum and Bailey.”

BOSS House made the Unilever building down the street look insubstantial. For each of Unilever’s Greek columns it had four, for each of Unilever’s statues of the Olympian gods, it had a dozen. Where Unilever had used granite, BOSS had built in marble.

“If I’d seen this first I’d have held out for five thousand a week.” Bonny squeezed his arm. “I think I’ve been done in more ways than one.”

They climbed the steps to the main entrance, while the statues of the gods frowned down at them from the pediment, and went in through the revolving glass doors. The floor of the entrance lobby was in a chessboard pattern of black and white marble. The roof was vaulted and gilded, with panels in the rococo style depicting either the Last judgement or the Ten Commandments. It wasn’t easy to tell which, but there was a great deal of action in progress between the nymphs and cherubs and seraphim.

“Bless us, Father, for we have sinned.” Bonny rolled her eyes at the ceiling cheerfully.

“Yes, but wasn’t it fun!” Daniel murmured.

The senior public relations officer was waiting for them at the reception counter. He wore a dark three-piece suit and projected the BOSS image of the young executive. “Hello, I’m Pickering,” he greeted them. “You must be Doctor Armstrong and Miss Mahon.” He took Bonny’s hand and eyed her quickly from the top of her flaming coiffure to her cowboy boots, clearly torn between disapproval of her denims and beaded leather waistcoat and hearty approval of her bosom. “I’m supposed to set up a Ubomo briefing for you.”

“Fine. Let’s get on with it then.” Daniel managed to divert his attention from Bonny’s cleavage, and Pickering led them up the sweeping opera house staircase, giving them his tourist-guide patter as they went.

He pointed out the mirrored panels. “French, of course, from Versailles after the Revolution. And those two are Gainsboroughs; the tapestry is Aubusson; that’s a Constable…”

They left behind them the splendours of the public rooms and plunged into labyrinthine corridors in the upper rear of the building, passing scores of tiny offices divided by prefabricated partitions in which the BOSS battalions laboured under the humming air-conditioning units. Very few people raised their heads as the three of them passed.

“Cattle.” Bonny nudged Daniel. “How can they stand life in this abattoir of the spirit?”

Eventually Pickering ushered them into a conference room. Clearly it was the venue of the lower and middle-ranking executives. The floors were covered with industrial stud-rubber tiles and the partition walls displayed charts of the company’s administrative Organization and departmental structures. The furniture was laminate and chrome, with plastic upholstery.

Daniel smiled as he imagined how this room would probably contrast with the magnificence of the main boardroom that must be situated somewhere in the front of the building, close to Tug Harrison’s personal office.

There were four men waiting for them, clustered around the table of snacks and refreshments in the corner. Pickering introduced them. “This is George Anderson, one of our senior geologists; he is in charge of the Ubomo mineral developments. This is his assistant Jeff Aitkens. And this is Sidney Green who coordinates the timber and fishing concessions in Ubomo, and this is Neville Lawrence from our legal section. He will also be able to answer any questions you may have on the financial projections.

“Now, may I offer you a sherry?” Bonny Mahon’s presence did more than the cheap sherry to relax the atmosphere. Pickering allowed them ten minutes, then he shepherded them to their plastic-covered chairs at the imitation-walnut veneered conference table.

“Well, now. I’m not going to stand too much on ceremony here. This is enfamille. My instructions are that this is to be a totally frank and open briefing. You must feel free, Doctor Armstrong, to ask whatever questions occur to you, and we will try our best to answer them. First of all just let me say how delighted and excited we are that BOSS is to be associated with this enormous project to uplift the Ubomo economy and to develop the rich natural resources of that beautiful little country for the good of all its citizens.”

He allowed himself a sanctimonious smirk and then adopted a more businesslike tone. “BOSS’s concessions fall into four categories. Firstly, there are the mining and mineral deposits. Secondly, the timber and agricultural developments. Thirdly, the fishing and aquaculture projects, and lastly, the hotel, casino and tourist industry. We hope that the development of all these resources will eventually lead to Ubomo becoming one of the most prosperous little countries on the African continent. Before I ask our experts to discuss the economic potential of Ubomo in detail, I’m going to give you some background figures and facts. Let’s put the map of Ubomo up on the screen.”

Pickering turned to the console of the audio-visual equipment and adjusted the overhead lighting. “All right. Here we go.” The map of Ubomo appeared on the screen on the end wall. “The People’s Democratic Republic of Ubomo,” he intoned, “is situated between Lakes Albert and Edward on the escarpment of the Great Rift Valley in eastern central Africa. It is-bounded on the west by Zaire, the former Belgian Congo, and on the east by Uganda …” Pickering pointed out the boundaries and the main features. “The capital, Kabati, lies on the lakeshore below the foothills of the Ruwenzori range or, as they are more romantically known, the Mountains of the Moon. The first European explorer to chronicle the existence of these mountains was Captain John Hanning Speke who travelled in this area in 1862.”

Pickering changed the display on the screen. “The total population of Ubomo is estimated at four million, although there has never been a census. You can see the breakdown into tribes. The largest tribe is the Ubali. However, the new President Taffari and most of his military council are Hita. In all a total of eleven tribal groups are represented in Ubomo, the smallest of which is the Bambuti, commonly known as the pygmies. About twenty-five thousand of these diminutive people live in the northern equatorial rain forests of the country. This is where BOSS’s major mineral concessions are situated.”

Pickering was good at his job. He had assembled his information carefully and presented it in a lively and interesting fashion. However, there was very little he had to tell them that Daniel did not already know.

Bonny asked a few questions and Pickering addressed his replies to her bosom. Daniel found that Pickering’s inability to take his eyes off those protuberances was beginning to irritate him. Daniel had conceived a proprietary interest of his own in this area.

After Pickering, the other company experts rose in succession to elaborate on BOSS’s plans. Sidney Green showed them architect’s impressions of the resorts and casinos that they would build upon the lakeshore. “We anticipate the main tourist trade would come from southern Europe, particularly Italy and France. Flying time from Rome under eight hours. We are looking at an eventual half-million visitors a year. Apart from tourism we are planning a major aquaculture industry…” He went on to explain how the Lake waters would be pumped into shallow dams in which freshwater shrimp and other exotic aquatic life would be cultured. “We are aiming for an eventual annual harvest of a million tons of dried protein from aquaculture, together with another million tons of dried and frozen fish from the lakes themselves. We are considering the possibility of introducing high-yield fish populations to the lakes to augment the indigenous species.”

“What about the effect of these enterprises on the ecology of the lake itself?” Daniel asked diffidently. “Particularly the construction of the marinas and yacht harbours and the introduction of exotic species such as carp and Asian shrimp to the lake waters.”

Green smiled like a second-hand car salesman. “These are at present being fully investigated by a team of experts. We expect their report to be ready by the middle of the year. However, we do not anticipate any problems in that area.”

“Quite right,” Daniel thought. “They aren’t going to make waves if my new and good friend Tug is hiring and firing.”

Sidney Green swept forward, still smiling, to discuss the agricultural potential. “In the low-lying wooded savannah that covers the eastern half of the country the tsetse fly,
glossina morsitans
, closes a great deal of prime country to cattle-ranching. At the earliest opportunity we, in cooperation with the Ubomo government, will undertake a programme of aerial spraying to eradicate this insect menace. Once this is done, beef production will be of great importance to the economy.”

“Aerial spraying?” Daniel asked. “What chemicals will be used?”

“I am pleased to say that BOSS has acquired several thousand tons of Selfrin at most favourable prices.”

“Would the favourable price have anything to do with the fact that Selfrin has been banned in the continental United States and in the European Common Market countries?”

“I assure you, Doctor Armstrong,” Green smiled blandly, “that the use of Selfrin has not been banned in Ubomo.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Daniel nodded, and returned his smile. He had smelled Selfrin in the Okavango swamps and the Zambezi valley. He had seen the devastation of entire insect species and the birds and small mammals that fed upon them. “As long as it’s legal, nobody can have any objection, can they?”

“Quite so, Doctor Armstrong.” Sidney Green changed the display on the lecture screen. “Those areas of the savannah that are unsuitable for cattlebreeding will be planted with cotton and sugar cane. Irrigation water will be pumped from the lakes. The swamps and wetlands in the north will be drained, but these, of course, are long-term projects. Our immediate cash flow will be assured by logging operations in the timber-rich forests of the western mountain range.

“The ‘Tall Trees’”,Daniel murmured.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, nothing of importance. Please continue. I’m finding this fascinating.”

“Of course, the logging operation will be carried out in concert with the mining operations. Neither project on its own would be profitable, but carried out in unison each becomes highly lucrative. In fact the timber will cover the direct cost of the development and the mineral recovery will be almost entirely profit. However, I will leave George Anderson, our senior geologist, to explain all this to you.”

Anderson’s expression was as stony as one of his geological samples. His style was terse and dry. “The only viable mineral deposits so far discovered in Ubomo lie in the north-western quadrant, below the forests that cover the lower northern slopes of the mountain range and lie within the basin of the Ubomo River.” He moved the cursor on the map display in a slow northern sweep. “This forest cover consists of almost fifty varieties of economically significant trees, amongst which are the African oak, the African mahogany, the African walnut, the red cedar and the silk-cotton tree. I will not weary you with their botanical names, but suffice it to say that their existence holds out major economic advantages, as my colleague has pointed out.” He nodded wearily at Green, who flashed his bright salesman smile in return.

“The forest soils are for the most part leached laterites, the colour of which gives the Ubomo River its name, the Red River, and indeed the country itself, the Land of Red Earth. Fortunately, these soils are very thin, generally less than fifty feet in depth, and below them lies a folded pre-Cambrian formation.” He gave a dry and weary little smile. “Again, I will not tax you with the technicalities, but these soils contain significant quantities of the rare earth, monazite, together with viable deposits of platinum almost evenly distributed in the upper levels. This series is unique. There is no other known formation that comprises this particular spectrum of minerals. Each of these individual minerals occurs in low concentrates, in some cases they are mere traces. Separately none of these would be profitable, but taken together they will be highly lucrative, and their profitability will be enhanced by the valuable stands of timber harvested in the process of exposing the ore body.”

Excuse me, Mr. Anderson,” Daniel interrupted. “Are you considering strip-mining the Ubomo river basin?” George Anderson looked as though he had experienced a sudden stomach cramp.

“Doctor Armstrong, the term ‘strip-mining’ is an emotionally charged one, filled with negative undertones. BOSS has never undertaken strip-mining operations anywhere in the world. I must be very firm on that issue.”

“I beg your pardon, I thought that the company’s copper mines at Quantra in Chile were strip-mines.”

Anderson looked affronted. “Open-cast mines, Doctor Armstrong, not strip-mines.”

“Is there a difference?”