Doing Dangerously Well (40 page)

She could hear the howl of autumn outside.

Barbara finally responded to a call to action. In movements that appeared mechanical and effortless, she filled up her bathtub with hot water. She then walked into the kitchen, took a knife from a drawer, lay in the bath and cut her wrists.

A
duvet of rich burgundy silk draped over the edges of Kolo’s bed. Underneath its plump embrace, within its tender custody, lay an ailing president. His carved ebony bedside table, on which a small crystal table lamp cast its benevolent light, overflowed with medications, liniments and vitamins. A portrait of a healthier and more confident Kolo rested above the head of his bed, separately illuminated. All the curtains were closed.

Kolo lay back on fleshy pillows, picking at the Chinese ties on his pink satin pyjamas. He smiled in weary fashion. Today TransAqua would start to move in the mighty turbines. More people would need to be displaced. And now they would see what they had only heard of. Trouble loomed like a black cloud.

If he succumbed at this early stage, the Kolo name would not live on. He wondered what had happened to his three assassins. Three months had passed. They had not succeeded in killing
Jegede nor even reported on the TransAqua bus bombing. He had never expected them to stick to schedule, but neither had he imagined that they would disappear altogether. Against a background of orchestral soft rock, he wondered whether Jegede’s group had killed them first.

Easing himself up, he leaned over for the phone, intending to call the Inspector General of Police, a man whose life grew ever shorter with each blunder. Suddenly, his hand stiffened, hovering over the handset. Water. He heard it spurting somewhere above him, trickling down the walls.

Noises to his left made him jump: jets and sprays of water on the other side of the door threatening to blow it apart. He pulled the covers over his face so that only his eyes were visible. Gathering his courage, he staggered to the window, lurching in a zigzag pattern so that enemies would be unable to follow the motion. Cautiously, he peered out from behind heavy brocade curtains and squinted at the ground. He could not jump from such a height.

As he scanned the perimeters of the governmental complex, the splashing noises abated. It was unusual weather: the sun shone with a white intensity. The temperatures soared to push human endurance to its upward limit. The sky grew increasingly fanatical, in a capricious shift from the humid season’s blazing merriment of yellow and blue to the dry season’s white glint and back again, like the flash of a gunshot. Its explosion of radiance attacked the eyes, making it difficult for a man to hit a target at any distance.

The walls looked secure. The guards seemed calm. Still, enemies might have paid off the sentries.

He turned back to his room and froze. He heard a noise. A gushing sound. He looked at the ceiling. They must be trying to flood him out. He called his guard.

“Caretaker. Now.”

The guard left and within five minutes opened the door to an old man in blue overalls. Kolo waved the guard away.

“Yes, sir?” The caretaker bowed.

“You see that?” Kolo pointed to the soundproofed ceiling.

“Yes, sir.”

“Take it out tomorrow. I want cement. And no water pipes anywhere.”

“Cement?” The old man looked up at the ceiling. “Yes, sir.” He scratched under his arm.

“And call the guard.”

The old man hobbled off and soon the guard returned, his ornamental epaulettes flashing with golden arabesques, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

“Bring.” Kolo pointed to a few prized possessions, including his medications. He wrapped himself up in his duvet and waddled out of the room.

Kolo led the guard through corridors and down stairs. The thunderous cadences grew fainter, until they could no longer be heard. They finally came to the garage, where Innocent was polishing the Mercedes. The guard lowered his sunglasses on his nose so he could see better.

“Bring sheets!” Kolo ordered. The guard flinched, betraying his surprise. Kolo clicked his fingers. “Now!”

The guard, assuming his sunglasses hid his disbelief, put the medications down on the Mercedes’ hood. Innocent opened the trunk as the guard left to retrieve the bed linen from the presidential bedroom. When the guard returned, Kolo instructed him to place the bedding inside the trunk, as taut as possible. He had already commissioned a specialist to adapt the bulletproof trunk for flotation, with at least three days’ supply of oxygen.

“That’ll fool them,” Kolo said to himself with a giggle.

Mary sat in great pain, her irritable bowel syndrome radiating out from her abdomen. Despite the discomfort, she descended into deep thought. She clicked back on to Drop of Life’s website, but could endure only a few moments of Barbara’s lecherous leer. After all that Mary had engineered in Banff, Barbara had obstinately maintained her tenure with this makeshift crew. Mary could think of no threat great enough to budge her. She had to deal with the situation before Sinclair stumbled, or rather slipped, onto the information.

Death always worked.

Perhaps a bit radical. Still, the promise of death might prise Barbara away.

She picked up the phone, stood up and looked out over TransAqua’s fountains to the thirsty desert.

“Hello, Daddy. How are you?”

“On the mend, my dear. Still recovering. Watching the old tick … It’s Mary!” he screamed. “No, your daughter. No, Mary, dear.” He turned back to the phone. “Mother sends her regards. Heard from you-know-who?”

“Nope. She’s still at Drop of Life.” She felt sick just thinking of it. “Daddy, can’t you persuade her to leave Ottawa? Please?”

“Far be it for me to interfere in her life,” he sighed in a singsong voice. “I’m only her father, after all. That carries very little weight with some people. What can I do? An apparently corrupt engineer like me, too incompetent, by the way, to build one of Africa’s most famous dams.”

“But, Dad, I’ve just talked to the Nigerian president. They have a contract out on her life.”

“No more mention of her name, please. It’ll upset your mother.”

“Dad! She may be killed.” Mary twirled a rubber band around her index finger.

“Well, she got herself into this mess; she can get herself out of it. Your mother’s health is very fragile.”

The phone clicked. “What about my health?” her mother shouted.

“It’s very fragile, dear.”

“What?” Mother’s voice cracked with alarm. “What is it? Cancer? Is it cancer?”

“He’s sending out his hit men,” Mary continued, flicking the rubber band off one index finger and onto the other. “She needs to get back to the US.”

“Who’s sending hit men? Who needs to get back to the States?”

“The Nigerian president. Barbara.”

“No more mention of her name in this house. It’ll upset your father. She’s
persona non grata,”
Mother said, the tail end of her sentence wobbling with emotion.

“But her life’s in danger.” Mary flicked the rubber band even higher.

“She’s made her bed. She’ll have to lie in it,” Mother said in her most clipped tones. “We have to think of your father’s health. He may not have long to live.”

“What?” he yelled. “I don’t?”

“If,” Mother continued, “we continue to harbour terrorists, as Mary is proposing.”

“What’s the doctor told you?” Father shouted. “I demand to know! It’s my life, after—”

“But, Mom,” Mary whined, “I might lose my job if she keeps working with terrorists.”

“What? Oh my God! They’ve fired you?”

“No. I was just saying they will when they hear Barbara is with Drop of Life.”

“Not both of you!” Mother sounded as if she were about to faint.

“Mom, I haven’t been fired. Is there any way you can persuade Barbara to leave Ottawa?”

“When has she ever listened to us?” Mother asked, a sob breaking through her fainting spell. “She hardly knows we’re alive.”

“You can tell her she’s been disinherited,” Father veered off topic, “and that includes any monies from the Inga Dam work. Since it’s so ethically offensive to her.”

Mary suddenly hit on a solution. “Tell her you’re dying, Dad. That’ll work!”

Silence.

“I’m not saying you
are
dying,” Mary explained. “You’re both in good health.”

“I wish that were the case,” Father said, a plaintive note in his voice.

“Her antics have almost killed us,” Mother whispered.

“Call her up, Dad. Tell her you’re dying. She’ll come home. Please!”

“But, Mary—”

“She’ll get them to stop the Inga Dam investigation if she thinks it’s caused you health problems. Anyway, I need to keep my job. Do you want the neighbours to hear you have two unemployed daughters?”

“Ernie.” Mother’s firm tone suggested she had now recovered. “Do as she tells you.” Yelling. “Mary needs her job back.”

“Okay, love. Anything for our Mary. Give us the number to Life Drop.”

After they got off the phone, Father tried Barbara’s numbers in Ottawa, only to receive no answer.

There was a smell of indifference, of competence, of formality, and it was this scent that first pierced Barbara’s consciousness. She opened her eyes. Through the fog of her bleary vision, she could see insipid green all around her. She looked down. As she concentrated, bandages slowly came into focus. Her wrists. Bandages on her wrists. Around her, a grubby white curtain set on a rusting aluminum rod. She began to weep, weary, defeated. She had survived.

She would have to try again.

Someone dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. She turned her head to the side, her neck stiff. Behind the sedating daze, there was Astro, with a crooked, encouraging smile.

“Hey!” she said in a croak. Her throat was sore, her eyes puffed.

“Hey, Babu!” He leaned over and kissed her softly on the forehead. “Finally, you’re awake!” Two teardrops landed on her nose. “At last, man. What have you done to yourself?”

“What am I doing here?”

“The people at work found you. A woman called Krystal phoned. You’d put me …” He sniffed bravely. “You’d put me as next of kin.” He squeezed her hand, his bottom lip trembling. “Babu—don’t ever do this again, okay?” He began to weep.

“So don’t leave me, okay?” Tears fell to each side of her face. She did not know why he would stay—she had betrayed his immeasurable faith in her. But if he stayed, here was the branch she could hold on to through the current of her despair.

As Barbara succumbed to sleep, she heard a match being struck. The comforting scent of Astro’s ylang-ylang incense accompanied her into slumber.

“Could you turn that announcement down, please?” Astro frowned. “My patient here is in a very fragile condition.”

“I’m afraid we can’t. It’s the safety instructions,” the flight attendant whispered as she demonstrated the inflation of a life jacket, miming these actions as softly as she could.

Following Astro’s grave prognosis, the airline had upgraded Barbara and her stern, tawny-haired attendant to first class, so great was their concern over her health. As per Astro’s proscription, all noise in the cabin was stifled. Few of their cabin-mates dared to tinkle the ice in their drinks in the face of Astro’s disapproval.