O-Negative: Extinction (18 page)

“Salem I know that I’m supposed to remain silent mourning my father and Abdullah all through today and tomorrow but I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to drive us.  You didn’t need to do so.  I also want to thank you for all the other times you’ve driven me over the years without receiving any gratitude from me in return.  Though I always resented the fact that I’ve been unable to drive myself I want you to know that I’ve appreciated the service you’ve provided to me and before that to my father and the family”.

The sincerity of her simply thanks was too much for Salem and she realised that her words had touched him to such an extent that he’d started to silently weep.  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand as Rahmaniah reached forwards to stroke his arm reassuringly.

Wiping his eyes he replied “Oh Javi you don’t need to thank me.  The privilege and good fortune to have you as my passenger over the years has been an undeserved blessing.  You took a poor relative with no prospects and allowed me to develop as a person far beyond what might have been my fate in another family.  You know that my loyalty to you is unquestioned.  I will never be able to repay you for everything you’ve done for me including giving me my own shop and a position of responsibility in the events business.  But all this shies into insignificance compared with you putting me in a position where I find myself married to Rahmaniah.”

Now it was Rahmaniah turn to start crying again.  Javeira found herself smiling at the last comment as she replied “Are you sure about that last part Salem?”  He laughed slightly in return.  “Am I sure that I’ll be the one wearing the trousers in the relationship no.  But am I sure that she’ll be the best thing that’s ever happened to me yes I’m sure.”  He shifted his head to look at Rahmaniah and she looked back at him without saying anything, perhaps her eyes indicating a level of respect for him that she hadn’t been expecting to find herself experiencing.

Gosh she thought ‘Rahmaniah’s actually falling in love with Salem what a turn up for the books’.  “Salem I’m sure that you will both find a fulfilment in your relationship that perhaps neither expected.  But enough of this soppiness we’re all emotionally distraught following the terrible events of the last couple of days but I’m beginning to see more clearly now.  For a start I want you and Rahmaniah to take a much more active role in the business.  Rashid and I are going to have a huge amount on our hands going forwards and with that in mind I think, subject to your agreement Rashid, it might be best if Salem became the managing director  of Tamina Productions”.  Rahmaniah turned towards her questioningly as if to say and ‘what about me’.  Of course Salem I wouldn’t expect you to take up such a position without your own personal secretary…Rahmaniah would you know of anyone who might be suitable for such a role?”

Rashid and Salem laughed out loud at this as Rahmaniah turned her puffy face towards her and scowled.  “No I’m afraid as a mere woman of leisure I don’t know anyone who might be able to or even wish to fill this role.  In fact I’d consider leaving Salem to become a missionary travelling the poorer parts of the globe to bring the word of God to all the heathens out there before I became his secretary”.

“Oh that is a shame Mani I had hoped to make you an integral part of my business but if you insist…”

Rahmaniah smiled bravely “Oh shush Javi of course I’ll be his silly secretary but I hope he realises that this title will be in name only I fully intend on actively participating in all the decisions relating to the enterprise”.

Salem bowed his head in acknowledgement.  “I don’t think any of us thought it would be any different Mani.”

She realised that the mood was beginning to shift from entrenchment and worry to one which though deeply sad showed signs of life once more.

“Rashid are you ready to become the figurehead of the Bajubair Company?”

His responding smile encompassed the quiet humility which had first attracted her to him.  “I doubt it very much Javeira.  Nevertheless I feel sure that my vice president will assist me in this new and somewhat unexpected role.  I am at your service my lady of the sands”.  At this he reached over and moved her hijab to allow sand caught in it to fall to the floor of the car.

This act of releasing the grains of sand from her hijab further bolstered her resolve and desire to begin the changes she knew she needed to make.  “My thanks husband.  I’d also like to bring my mother and Aunt Maya on to the holding group board.  Without Maya we’d have no company to run and my mother has been working behind the scenes for the company for many years and I’d like to formalise that more publically.  Of course she might decline but I think she can be persuaded.  It will also help in terms of getting the board on side with regards to any more radical plans I might want to put to them.  Not least of which will be the immediate divestation of any business relationship with the Mahfouz family.  They’ve already sold their stock in the main holding company but we have a number of shared contracts with their main business or with companies they control.  As far as I’m concerned I want nothing more to do with them.  In fact I want to be in a position to compete with them in areas which father was previously averse to doing so because of concerns it might upset them.  From this moment forward they are fair game.  I’d also like us to subtly undermine them and their interests wherever we can.  We’ll never be able to prove that they were directly behind father and Abdullah’s death but every molecule of my being screams to me that they were.  I want to make sure we do everything in our power to hurt them and, if we can, to wipe them and their friends from the earth.

Her friends nodded at her words and Salem spoke up “Did you know they’re in the middle of negotiating a large deal with the military and one of the guys I know has been acting as a middle man.  He’s been facilitating ‘capacity support’ payments to key Ministry officials on their behalf.  If I can persuade him to switch his allegiance we could potentially expose those dealings and move in to pick up the pieces when the Army is forced to re-tender?”

“Salem that’s exactly what I’m talking about.  I suggest you use the resources that are now available to you via Tamina productions to see what you can do on this”.

“Ok Javi I’ll get on it”.

Rashid also looked like that he wanted to say something.  “Rashid did you want to say something” she asked.

“Well it’s probably small change to the Mahfouz family but I’m sure I can get my father to get the Tabuk based businesses to stop buying from Mahfouz related companies.”

“Rashid I don’t care how small it might be.  Everything we can do to spike their business interests should be done.  Please speak with your father about this and make sure any trading he or his associates do with any of our businesses are henceforth conducted on preferential terms.  I bet that will be even more persuasive to your father than any familial duty”.

“Javi you know what else we could do?” This statement came from Rahmaniah.

“What else Mani?” 

“Well if won’t hurt them financially but how about we prevent any of the scions of the Mahfouz family and the families with close ties to them from attending any of our events around the country?”

She laughed “Oh Mani you are far too valuable to be just a ‘secretary’.  I think that alone will cause half of their associate families to switch their allegiance to us.  You might want to discuss this further with my mother as I’m sure she’ll be able to convey this unofficial restriction to the female members of the relevant families.  If there is anything worse for those women than to have their sons access to potential brides constrained I’ve yet to hear about it”.

“Ok team Al-Bajubair I think I’m beginning to feel like we’re beginning to pull ourselves up a bit.  I only hope nothing else happens to derail us any further, I don’t think I could take any more than we’ve had to cope with over the last week”.

As was required she spent the next two days as the grieving daughter.  It didn’t take much for her to continue to be distraught while friends and relatives came to pay their respects. Often recollecting stories about either her father Ja’far or Abdullah as was customary.  Many of these seemed so poignant the tears fell freely at their telling.  The only time she shed no tears were when Mahmud and Hassan had stopped by to express their ‘deepest sympathies’.  She’d met their comments with silence and in a show of impropriety that had her mother tugging on her arm, had held their gazes until both looked away.  She wanted them to know she knew and that she would be coming for them.  If not today then at some point in the future.  Mahmud who had been her father’s rival and sometime friend for 30 years or more had the grace to look abashed and even a little ashamed.  Perhaps realising that he had let his nafsu or passions persuade him to sanction the actions leading to the death of two innocent men.  Hassan had stared back defiantly at Javeira when she met his gaze but he had been the first to look away with just a hint of fear at the heat of her stare.  He was a proud and unrepentant man and she thanked Almighty God fervently for giving her the strength to face down her father when he’d told her she was to marry Hassan.  It would not have been a happy marriage.

Back in Washington he found himself wondering whether he chosen the right career.  The Congress was in session and so he was required to attend various debates as well as the scheduled hearings on the committees for which he was a member.  This meant evening meetings with Republican leaders and fellow congressman to debate which way to vote on the key issues of the week.  The discussions, as always, focused on the myriad of ways in which they, as the minority party, could stick it to their Democrat colleagues.  In a normal week he would have quite enjoyed participating in these talking shops but over the last couple of days his heart hadn’t been in it.  Who after all could get excited about the ins and outs of the federal infrastructure redevelopment programme when a week ago you’d been hearing about the possibility of strange events in Antarctica, potentially being a prelude to an imminent threat to the American way of life?

Greg had tried to get him interested in the forthcoming vote on the healthcare reform bill, which the Democrats looked like losing, or at least having to water down quite dramatically, but much as he tried to enjoy the President’s failing attempts at strong arming members of his own party he just wasn’t as enthused as Greg was.

“Maybe you should go home?”

“What?  No I’m fine, just a bit tired.  I didn’t sleep that well at the weekend”.  He didn’t mention why he hadn’t slept well - which largely revolved around his nocturnal activities in Houston.  After he’d left Chad’s house he’d fully intended on getting a good night’s rest in preparation for an early morning flight and then straight back into work on Monday.  But Felicia, this time minus Teri, had called and offered to keep him company.  He’d tried to say no but found himself inviting her over.  Felicia had been as enthusiastic as she had the previous night and as a result he was glad she’d come alone.  He smiled wryly to himself, he must be getting old.  Still it had been quite a night nonetheless.

“I think it’s time we called it a night.  This is about the eighth time I’ve caught you looking out in the middle distance.  Go home to Megan and come back refreshed in the morning.”

“Ok I guess you’re right.  I’ll admit my focus is a bit off today.  I’ll see you tomorrow Greg.”

When he got home Megan was still up putting some finishing touches to a report on Foreign Aid.  She’d been trying to get him to bring the paper to the attention of the Budget Committee but he’d been non-committal.  He just didn’t feel there was any political appetite for this type of thing at the moment.

“You’re back early. I wasn’t expecting you back till late?”

“What ten o’clock in the evening isn’t late enough for you” he joked.

“Well you know what I mean I thought you’d be there till the early hours rubbing your hands gleefully at the imminent demise of the healthcare bill?”

“I should be but Greg sent me home to get some rest”.

“Oh ok well I’m almost done here, I’ll see you upstairs in a minute.  Don’t go to sleep before I get there I wanted to have a chat with you about something.”

“Ok I’ll prop my eyes open with toothpicks”.  She laughed and turned back to her laptop.  He’d made the remark in jest but he did feel pretty tired.  He hoped she didn’t want to talk to him about her report, he didn’t think even with toothpicks he’d be able to keep his eyes open.

Megan didn’t take long downstairs and it wasn’t long before she was straddling him on the bed while he tried to watch the late evening news to see if he’d missed anything of import.  It would appear that he hadn’t so he switched off the TV and gave her his full attention.

“Ok Ms Lu what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Well Mr Mitchell I was wondering if you had remembered that we have now been seeing each other for almost a year”.

“I may have been aware of this fact yes.  Do you want to do something special to celebrate?”

“Of course I do but I was raising this more in the context of a call I got today from a reporter”.

“Righhtt isn’t that a pretty much daily occurrence for someone who works in a congressman’s office?”

“It is and normally I wouldn’t even have bothered you with it but this wasn’t about ‘what is the congressman’s position on the lack of sporting facilities in the nation’s high schools’.  This reporter was from the New York Sun and she basically asked me straight out ‘how long I’d been seeing Congressman Mitchell’”.

He sat up a bit straighter in bed.  “Aaahhhh.  And what did you say?”

“Well I didn’t blink and said ‘I think you must be mistaken I’m simply a policy assistant in Congressman Mitchell’s office but maybe your question is better directed to Carole Taylor who handles these sorts of things’.  I then put her on hold and transferred her to Carole.”

Carole was his correspondence secretary and as well as dealing with the numerous letters he received each week from constituents she also handled the enquiries from women across America offering to become the ‘love of his life’.  Primarily these were in written form and answered accordingly but occasionally she had to handle calls that got past the Capitol Hill switchboard.

“Sounds like you got it covered”.

“I did this time David but…”

“But you’re asking me about next time.  And by raising the fact that we’ve been together almost a year highlighting to me that it’s going to come out sooner or later.  Especially now that someone with half a brain at the New York Sun has had their suspicions raised?”

“Basically yes.  You’re a politician David and whether we like it or not our private life isn’t going to remain private for much longer”.

He sighed.  “I sense your mother’s fingertips all over this”.

“David!  I know my mother can be pushy but I don’t think you can blame her for this?”

“Are you sure?”

“Well I can’t be completely sure but I’m fairly sure she’d never do something like this”.

“I think you might be giving her less credit than she deserves.  I’ve seen her on the social circuit.  When she wants something she gets it”.

“But what does she get from embarrassing us”.

“Nothing necessarily, but if it is her I suspect I know exactly what she’s doing.”

“What?”

“Well”.  He paused for a moment but then continued slightly more hesitantly.  “Err well reading between the lines she could be sending both of us a message”.

“Go on Mr Mitchell I feel sure I’m going to be impressed by your deductive reasoning.”

“I may be wrong but she might be asking us if we want to be known as ‘the congressman and the intern he’s sleeping with’ or ‘the congressman who’s found love with the daughter of the UN Secretary General’.”

He waited while Megan digested what he was saying.

“Are you telling me you think my mother thinks we should get married?”

“I’m not saying anything but I know how your mother thinks.”

“I’m calling her right now to ask her if this is her doing”.  She reached for the phone by the bedside.  He grabbed her arm, gently preventing her from picking up the phone. 

“Maybe she’s right Megan”.  He looked at her for a moment seeing her facial expression change from angry to more wary.

“What do you mean by ‘right’ David?”

“Well.  As you’ve mentioned we have been seeing each other for a year.  My life isn’t ever going to be as private as I’d want it to be.  I’m a single man with, one might say, some prospects.  You are as far as I can remember an attractive single lady also with some prospects and in addition a set of impeccable social and familial contacts…”

“Are you asking me to marry you David Mitchell?”  He couldn’t tell from the expression on her face whether she was saying this in a positive or negative way.

“Err…”

“Because if you are David, I want the full works”.  She shifted off him so that he was now free to move about and looked at him expectantly.

He realised there was no going back from this conversation and so perhaps influenced by the events of the last few days with exaggerated care got out of bed and in his pyjamas got down on one knee and pulled her hand into his.  Looking up at her he said “Megan Lu, would you do me the honour of being my lawfully wedded wife”.  He smiled at her shocked if delighted face.

In a similarly exaggerated fashion she replied “I shall” she paused “take it under advisement with my social and familial contacts”.

His face fell at this less than fully committed response before she laughed and said “oh David don’t look so crestfallen of course I will - you’re right we’re a perfect political match.  Now kiss me quickly before I change my mind”.

He got up off the floor and kissed her before pushing her back on to the bed.  When they broke from the embrace she giggled almost nervously.  “Oh my mother is going to think this is all her doing”.

If she only knew he thought.  He had the sudden impression that Mrs Lu Senior had played him like a fiddle since the first moment he’d met her.  Well she and Megan had certainly got what they wanted, but he knew that to a greater or lesser extent he’d also got what he needed.  Not least of which was a good looking, intelligent, well connected fiancée who would undoubtedly raise his profile with the opinion formers in the Party.  God he suddenly thought ‘I hope Felicia and Teri aren’t going to be a problem’.  It wouldn’t look very good if it got out he’d been partying with a couple of waitresses the weekend before he proposed to his long-term girlfriend.  Maybe Chad would need to be one of the first people he told about the ‘good news’ to make sure he kept Teri and Felicia under wraps.

Chad had been most fulsome in his congratulations when he’d called him to let him know that he was now engaged.  Neither did he seem at all surprised that his girlfriend was Megan Lu the daughter of the UN secretary general.  He had started to work the conversation around to his recent activities in Houston but Chad was well ahead of him making a point of saying “and of course what happens in Houston stays in Houston”.  He took this to mean Chad was making it clear that he need have no concerns on that front but at the same time reminding him that he also needed to be circumspect about revealing too much about who else he’d met in Houston round at the McGovern house – not least to the daughter of the Secretary General of the UN.

Not wishing to take up too much of Chad’s time on what was basically personal business he had been about to end the call when Chad had slipped into the conversation that there was a bill currently passing through congress that it would be good for the Homeland Security Committee to get behind. 

“Oh what I don’t recall anything on the congressional business schedule that would come through our committee during the next period?”

“I think you’ll find it will be added in a couple of days”.  Chad said.

“…Alright and what’s the subject matter?”

“Civil Defence processes and procedures.  There are a few bits and pieces in the bill which are there to make sure the Democrats have something to chafe at and make themselves feel like they are doing their bit for civil liberties but the important point – which I wouldn’t want removed is the clause about State Governments having the right to step in when Federal institutions are unable to provide an appropriate emergency response.”

“This sounds like you’re vamping up your ability to intervene Chad.   Can you elaborate on exactly how this relatively ‘innocuous’ clause helps the cause?”

“Well now that would be telling David”  Chad chuckled before continuing “Listen the clause originates from all those recommendations that came out of the public inquiries done after the government’s ineffective response to the floods in New Orleans.  As you say at first glance it does appear to be relatively inoffensive however such a clause could potentially be very useful to our group in terms of justifying actions that individual States might not otherwise be empowered to tale.  It’s important David so please do what you can to make sure it stays in - ideally word for word.  Now I don’t want to tell you how to do your job but given you’re a Congressman from Louisiana I’d imagine your strong support for the clause will play well with others, including with Democrat colleagues, if couched in terms of ‘preventing a second New Orleans’?”