Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (6 page)

The
Conjunction Engineering
building was one of the most modern
buildings in the entire city. It was built with lightning speed and it was
one of hundreds of new headquarters of foreign owned businesses that
had set up in the city following the euphoria at the end of the apartheid era. The decades of international disapproval from the rest of the
world had amounted to little more than financial finger wagging, but
now that foreign powers had allowed South
Africa to come back in
from the cold and join the right thinking nations
of the planet, the
floodgates
of inward investment had been blasted open. This was not
some act of altruism; an approving nod to a new and more enlightened
South Africa—it was all about taking a newly
opened opportunity
by
both hands and making loads of easy money. It was a brave new world
and for those companies willing to take the risk, it was a world filled
with the potential
of
making a substantial
profit, alongside shaping
the new political system in the country.

South
Africa’s own industry had been portrayed to the world as being strong and healthy during apartheid, but in reality it was sick, with
many
sectors in terminal
decline after years
of
crippling sanctions.
The new political reality was approved of enthusiastically all around
the world and governments everywhere were keen to help with investment to show how the new South
Africa was a better place to live

in than the old South
Africa—at least that’s how those governments
presented their change in policy towards South
Africa to their people.
The good intentions
of the world’s most
powerful nations would underline their long held beliefs that the people of South
Africa all had
an equal right to choose who leads them, and they all had the right to
choose how they as individuals lived their lives.

As F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela negotiatedand implemented a
transfer
of
politics and
power,
most
of South
Africa
celebrated. The
mass elation willed a better future for everyone and completely missed
what was fast shaping up to be the country’s long term destiny—the
rich would get richer; the middle class would grow
but it would be
squeezed till breaking point; and the underclass would be buried even
deeper than they had been under white rule as shanty towns expanded
and slipped into a state of semi self-determination, with their own laws
and system of justice. The faces may have changed but the corruption
and exploitation remained firmly in place and there wasn’t a nation in
the developed world who didn’t want a piece of that very lucrative pie,
for all manner of reasons. For
America the ultimate aim was a permanent air base in the country from where they could launch air strikes
on various Islamic fundamentalist training camps that had sprung up
like a virulent weed all over the continent. For Britain it was all about
the money, with just a little of the impetus aimed towards curtailing
China’s growing influence in
Africa—some
African countries had become little
more than
Chinese colonies—corrupt
governments were
handsomely rewarded for letting armies
of
Chinese into their countries to strip them of their natural resources.

From the
outside, through the
media, it looked as if the future
looked good for
Africa. The continent was in revolution—starting in
South
Africa and spreading across the entire continent like the warm
rays of an early sunrise. Mankind had learned one thing down through
history as far as revolutions were concerned—no matter how
noble
the aspirations
of the revolutionaries, the aftermath was never
quite
as idyllic as anyone had hoped. South
Africa would be no different.
There was not the mass lynching of whites that some had feared, nor
were there land or property grabs by the long oppressed black majority.
That
didn’t
mean that retribution would be completely absent,
only
that when it came it would be subtle and carefully directed. Theworld
had held its breath and the magnanimity of their new President, and
father of the nation, Nelson Mandela, kept a lid on the worst of the
hatred—for the most part.

The
men and women who were now intent
on subjugating the
people
of South
Africa were black and white, and every
other shade
in between, and the vast majority
of them were from other countries.
They had the money and power to step in and fill the empty gaps left
in South
Africa’s beleaguered economy,
but it would come at a
price
that would enslave generations of South Africa’s children.

Conjunction Engineering
was one of those new companies from the
outside world, but it was slightly different to most of the others. It was
not so much funded and assisted by the British government as it was
owned and controlled outright by it. That was never overtly admitted
but certainly the Russians,
Americans and Chinese were all aware of
the truth behind the company, not least because they all had their own
versions
of
Conjunction
based in Cape Town. The espionage business
had not been so productive since the height
of the Cold War and every
week more and more new spies arrived in the country from all over the
world. South
Africa was viewed as the centre of a new
Africa and the
nation that
could control South
Africa could also control the rest
of
the continent. There was a rush by the most powerful nations to exert
their influence on the new political elite and
Conjunction
was Britain’s
flagship in her effort to win that race.

The man at the helm of
Conjunction
carried a lot of responsibility
on his shoulders—not
only
did he have to ensure that the company
ran smoothly and turned a
healthy
profit, to avoid any
unwelcome
suspicion, but he also had to do his bit for Queen and country, regardless
of which
down road that led him. He could pretend to himself
that what was about to happen to the African Continent was every bit
as reprehensible as anything that had gone before, and that the British
were the best hope for Africa, but he was too clever to believe that. The
best that
he could
ever hope for was to protect the people
of South
Africa as best he could in the hope that
one day someone in the UK
would take power who was not afraid to talk openly about what the
continent really needed to survive and prosper.

Jack sat behind the large, hardwood desk in his office. The view
from the twentieth floor was among the best in the entire city, but
as he waited in the chair, Jack’s eyes were firmly fixed on the door in
front
of him, rather than
out
of the window
behind him. Every
day
he looked
out
of that window and he marvelled at just how
quickly
the city was changing. On the
one side the new wealth was leading
to areas of high-end housing and state-of the-art
office buildings, and
on the other side there were the sprawling shantytowns. The fastest
growing city in the world outside of China and India was also one of
the
most
dangerous
cities in the world.
Residents
played
down the
background soundtrack
of gunfire and sirens, but there were only so
many times that someone could dismiss the crack from a weapon discharging as a car backfiring.

Jack drummed impatiently
on the desk as he waited. The highly
polished wood that the desk was made from was the subject of much
debate to visitors to Jack’s office. The original shipping order was lost

and no one knew exactly who ordered it. It wasn’t oak, or cherry or
mahogany, but knowing what it wasn’t only served to deepen the mystery as to what it was made from. The small,
brass
Made in South
Africa
plate at the bottom of one of the table’s legs suggested that the
wood was some local variety, but the dark stain that had been applied
to the surfaces of the table masked the identity of that wood from even
the most expert of local woodcrafters. The thought had crossed Jack’s
mind at
one point that the desk may have been sent to his office by
the South African secret service. He had the desk meticulously scanned
for listening devices. Nothing was uncovered, but Jack held on to a
small doubt in the back of his mind, and he resolved never to discuss
anything toosensitive or important in the office. The everyday corruption that was par for the course in business in that part of the world
was fine, but anything pointing directly to Britain’s involvement in the
company was never talked about within listening distance of the desk.
The solid double doors that Jack was staring at from behind his
desk
were large but plain. The unattractive light grey veneer with twofoot
long vertical handles was too 80s for Jack. A traditional pitched
pine or solid oak set of doors would have sent out a much more optimistic signal to his visitors, in his opinion—old, solid and reliable,
even if the company was built on foundations that were anything but

those virtues. The grey doors reminded Jack of terrible recklessness of
the 80s back in London and he did not much care for the link to that

greedy time. Jack tilted his head as he sat in the chair and thoughts of
taking a screwdriver to the hinges and throwing the doors
out
of the
windows
onto the street
below
provided him with a
humorous
distraction for a few moments. That joyous moment was shattered when
Jack’s PA dramatically
opened both doors into the office. She was followed by several
men. The small group paced quickly and for a
moment it seemed as if they were not going to stop. This was the power
walk
of the authoritative and Jack found it
entirely ridiculous—the
more important a person was the faster they seemed to walk, as if they
and their time were so important that they
didn’t have a
moment to
waste.

Jack’s PA busied herself setting chairs around the desk as Jack got
to his feet with a smile and extended his right hand for the man closest
to him to shake. Everything about that moment was a pathetic bit of
theatre and Jack hated every moment of it. The chairs could have been
in place before the men arrived—Jack knew exactly how many people
were coming to the meeting,
but
making a fuss
over them made the
men feel that little bit more important. It was a kind of deference that
went
down particularly well within South
African business circles—
someone showing respect was
more likely to be trustworthy—in the
UK, someone being too respectful was often viewed with suspicion.

“Robert, my
old friend, it is so good of you to come,” Jack said, as
he
shook the
man’s
hand.
“Michael,
Christopher,
Aaron,
Peter,”
he
continued, as he shook the hands of the others in turn.

The men sat down. The man who Jack greeted first, Robert Theiler,
sat next to Jack. He acted as the main spokesman for the group and
he was definitely under the impression that he was in charge—everyone else,
including Jack, knew that nothing could be further from the
truth.

“You spoke on the phone about a small problem?” Jack quizzed.
“Yes,” Robert said, and then he sighed. It was the sigh of the falsely
despondent car mechanic preparing to pass on bad, yet highly profitable news to an unsuspecting
customer. That
summed Theiler
up
nicely—a bit of a chancer.