Digging Deeper: An Adventure Novel (Sam Harris Series Book 1) (10 page)

To her surprise, it was Pedro who came to the door.  He had a face like thunder. 

Sam was miffed that he did not notice her dress.  ‘So, Pedro, welcome back. Did you enjoy your break?’

‘I see you’ve been busy while I’ve been away.’

‘Busy? What do you mean?’

‘Are you the General’s whore now?’  He was purple with rage and quivering with the fury of a man who imagined himself scorned.

‘How can you even ask me that?  Are you on drugs?’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me.  I saw you cosy up to him in the café.’

‘I was having a coffee, and I didn’t cosy up, not that it's any of your business.  Who do you think you are anyway?  The sex police?'

‘I thought we had an arrangement.’

‘An arrangement?'

‘You know what I mean.’ 

‘No, I don’t think I do.  What arrangement?’

It was becoming clear that Pedro was suffering from a dangerous fit of jealousy.  He must have attached far more importance to their flirting than she had.  She stood her ground with her hands on her hips.

Pedro was not finished.  ‘How could you be such a fool?  Do you really think a five-star General has the slightest interest in a two-bit gringa like you?  Are you an idiot?  Your only value to him is as a spy.  Black will be livid when he finds out.  You will be fired for sure.’

‘I haven’t done anything wrong.  I don’t have any access to useful information.  Anyway, he didn’t ask me anything about diamonds.  Why would Black want to fire me?’ 

But even as she said it, she knew he was right.  She had been foolish to accept the invitation.  But the temptation of good food and company was too strong after the weeks of misery at Kardo.  She did not have any information for them.  But why else would they invite her to the island?  It’s not like she was a friend of the family or anything.  The Ministers did seem to ask a lot of questions that she could not answer about production and operations at the mine.  The General had even engineered that private chat with her to talk about Kardo.  But she had ruined his plans by bursting into tears.  It was all clear to her now.  Another humiliation for Sam.  Was she so naïve when she thought no one would mind if she went to the island if she did not have anything to tell?

She decided on damage limitation.   ‘What are you going to do, Pedro?  You're the only one who knows.  Please don’t tell anyone.  I don’t even like the general.’

‘I thought you liked me.’

‘I did. I do.  I didn’t feel I had any choice. I was practically kidnapped.  How could I fancy an old man like that when I had you here in the office?’  She touched his arm to lower the tension.

Pedro appeared to be mollified by this.  He moved closer to her and lifted up her chin.

‘I was thinking about you on my break.  I thought we would be a couple when I got back.  I brought you a present.  Sorry I over-reacted.  Maybe if you come back to the Villa Alice with me, we could fill in the time before the flight. We could have a couple of beers and hang out in my room.’

Sam was trapped.  She knew he had her backed into a corner.  If she refused, he would take revenge, and if she did not, he might blackmail her from now on.  She played for time.

‘I thought the flight was at six o’ clock?  Maybe we could do it next time I’m in town with more time.  We could do dinner?’

But Pedro was not to be denied.

‘No fuel. It is delayed until eight.  Come on, I’ll give you a lift right now.  You look hot in that dress by the way.’

‘Okay, I need to repack my things anyway.’

‘I’ll take off your dress for you.’

***

When Sam and Pedro arrived at the airport, there was no plane on the tarmac.  An aircraft taxied up half an hour later. Then the tanks were filled with diesel for delivery to Kardo.  The cover was then taken off one of the engines for maintenance or repair work.  Sam looked at her watch and sighed.  How much longer is this going to take?

She and Pedro sat in the mini-van in a cloud of mosquitoes until late evening when the cover finally went back on.  There was no point trying to drive back to Villa Alice in one of Mondongo’s appalling evening traffic jams.  Sam avoided speaking to Pedro by pretending to sleep through all this but on leaving the mini-van, she had to kiss him goodbye.

‘See you soon I hope,’ he said.

‘Not if I see you first,’ she muttered under her breath. She got on the plane, clutching the lurid pink teddy bear that Pedro had given her at the house, which proved that he had no idea who he was dealing with.  There was nothing Sam hated more than fluffy toys, above all pink ones. 

Sam had plenty of time to think on the cold cargo plane to Kardo.  She felt dirty and used.  How could she get herself in such a horrible situation?  It was bad enough feeling forced to have sex with Pedro, who went at her like a battering ram and with about as much emotion.  His pride restored, at least he had been magnanimous and had driven her to the airport.

Aside from that horrible memory, which she would expunge as soon as she could, she knew in her heart that Pedro was right.  What would a general want with someone like her?  A mere geologist?  What had she been thinking?  Why was she so bad at reading people’s motives?

It was another disaster, and she was not sure she could trust Pedro to keep it to himself.  She did not want to imagine what a fit Black would have if he found out.  He might have a stroke and die.  Although she doubted that there was much hope of that.

She decided that Pedro should be kept at arm’s length on her next visit to Mondongo.  It seemed likely that he might again demand payment for his silence.

This job was a bloody nightmare and was getting worse by the day.  The only person in the country that Sam could trust was Jorge, and maybe Black.  In a strange way, she thought she might grow to like Black despite his despotic ways.  She shifted in her seat, trying not to focus on her bruised pride and nether regions.  At least things could not get much worse and with the one hundred percent bonuses that were about to be paid, she could afford to cut the contract short if things did deteriorate.

The plane arrived at Kardo with a big thud that almost wrested the fuel tanks out of their bindings.  Sam imagined being hit in the back of the head by one of them. 

A driver appeared out of the gloom and ferried her home. 

A few days later Jim handed over control of the project to Ewen Mackenzie, head of the Gali project.  Ewen was a tall taciturn Scot with white blonde hair and blue eyes in a well-used face.

Jim had told Sam that he was a big hit with the ladies.  But Ewen did not try charming her.  In fact, he did not direct a phrase her way all day.  She felt left out. 

Ewen took over Jim’s radio and his car, which Sam had been expecting to do.  Ewen already had a car and a radio from Gali where he was general manager like Jim.  Sam had been looking forward to bombing around the project without having to hitch a lift with someone who had a pickup, checking on things and hanging out.  Now, she had to stay in the office or go with dour Ewen. 

Why couldn’t he bring his own car?  What was she going to do while Jim was away?  Worse still, what was going to happen when Black arrived?  She was dreading the arrival of the boss and she was not alone. 

She cheered herself up by giving the horrible pink bear that Pedro had gifted her to the little boys begging for food outside the canteen.  They were so excited that it almost made it worth the ordeal she went through to obtain it.  The smaller boy hugged it close, his eyes bright with tears.  Sam felt her own eyes welling up and had to look away.

Jim left the next day, looking forward to his holiday and taking another large haul of diamonds from the pothole, which had produced epic numbers of high value stones, to the bank in Mondongo.  Sam felt bereft.  Jim had been good to her and generous with his experience.  No one else had thawed yet. 

She rang her father using the satellite phone in the Kardo office but got cut off five times in the space of three minutes.  Most of the precious thirty-minute allocation was spent repeating what had already been said but not deciphered. 

In the canteen at lunchtime, she complained about the crap satellite telephone.

To her surprise Bob muttered, ‘There’s a landline in the office.'

‘A landline?  Can I make international calls on it?’

The other senior managers glared at him but he ploughed on.

‘The landline can only make national calls but it can receive international calls.  There's a roster in the evenings.  You can book half an hour of phone time by writing in the roster book.’

‘But how do your family know what time slot you've booked?’

‘That’s where the satellite phone comes in.  You phone your family on the sat phone, tell them when they should call you and hope they remember.’

‘Thank you, Bob.’

He looked sheepish and stared down at his plate. 

Sam wondered if he was still trying to mend some bridges with her.

After lunch, Sam dug out the landline roster and used the satellite telephone to book a slot with her mother, which she wrote in the book.  Why had no one told her about it before?  Murphy and his spy story had a lot to answer for. 

Several days later, the handover was turning out far better than she had imagined. Ewen had changed tack as soon as Jim had left and now involved Sam in his decision making.  It occurred to Sam that maybe Ewen had been waiting for Jim to leave before letting her take on some of the work.  He did not seem to realise that Sam was a pariah, who was not in the loop on any of this information, or maybe he did not care.  He just wanted to share the responsibilities of running the mine with someone who was competent and he had read her résumé.

He discussed production with her in great detail and asked her opinion on how to spread the bounty over the next couple of months to increase people’s bonus payments.  It was great to be treated as one of the team.

There were glares from the others but no one wanted to include Ewen in their clique.  She did not know why but he also seemed to be excluded. 

To her relief, Jorge was the same as ever and even gave her a big hug.   He never mentioned the bet or the consequences.  Sam was glad she did not have to discuss the near debacle at the party.  No one had asked her about her weekend, so she did not have to invent any lies.

She asked Jorge why Ewen was not accepted by the group.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said.  ‘It’s quite strange really. Did you know that he was one of the hostages taken by MARFO during the civil war in 1992?  They were force-marched a thousand miles before being handed over to the Red Cross.  They weren't fed on the trip and suffered unbelievable hardships.  I heard rumours that Ewen had killed a snake on the trip and hidden it up his sleeve for three days before he could eat it in secret, by which time it was putrid.’

‘That’s incredible.  I can’t believe that after that ordeal they still give him the cold shoulder.’ 

‘I’m not sure what it’s about.  Ewen’s a bit odd.  He doesn’t care if people don’t like him.’

Later Sam asked Ewen why he came back to Tamazia.

He squirmed in his seat before answering.  ‘I know it sounds weird but Tamazia is addictive.  I love working here.’

‘Aren’t you afraid that the MARFO rebels might attack?’

‘Oh, I doubt it.  We have very good security here.  There are easier places to attack.’

She went out with Ewen and Jorge all morning checking out the river diversions and showing Ewen all the works that were going on.  She sat in the back of the car, while Jorge prattled on in the front, telling stories and trying to make Ewen laugh.  That was quite a challenge. Sometimes she thought she could sense hidden depths, but they stayed concealed 

After lunch, she went to Jim’s house, where Ewen was staying, to get Jim’s radio, which Ewen had decided that he did not need after all.  Ewen came to the door in his socks with the radio and the charger and handed her the car key. 

‘Off ye go then wi’ Ramos,’ he said.

She must have beamed as she got a wee smile back.  She went with Jorge in Jim’s death-trap Nissan, which still did not drive in a straight line but danced down the gravel roads with its bum swinging wildly from side to side, like a dancer in the Rio Carnival.  It was fun and liberating to be given the chance.  She decided that she could get to like Ewen.  He was as hands-off as Jim was hands-on.  Chalk and cheese.  She realised that she had prejudged Ewen, influenced by Jim’s jaundiced view, just as many people appeared to have prejudged her when she arrived. 

She tried to get Fred, the geologist, to come with them to see the river diversions.  He refused on the grounds that he was ‘busy.’  Fred’s geology room was often locked while Jim was away.  He had taken up with one of the local village girls who offered herself for sale.  Sam was sure she was only about fourteen, but like most of the men who thought that they were ‘helping’ by paying underage girls for sex, Fred could not see anything wrong with it.

Fred did not get to bed until dawn most nights, so Sam guessed that he often sneaked off for a sleep at lunchtime.  He would always pitch up late in the afternoon, sighing and flopping about like a beached catfish and talking about being down at the terrace which was being mined at the time.

Sam was sure he was lying.  She would have spotted him at some stage if he had been there.  He was very large and not easy to miss.  It was becoming ever more obvious that he was economical with the truth at the best of times.  Sam could see that he was not pleased that Ewen had put her in charge of production.  Maybe he had expected a temporary promotion?  She could not help that. 

She really tried to get him to work with her.  She showed a lot of interest in his work and made an effort to get involved.  Despite what Black had said in Johannesburg, it was the expatriate males who did not want to work with her, not the locals.  It had always been her problem. She was not surprised, but she was disappointed that things had changed so little.

At lunchtime, Sam heard the news that MARFO had shot down a military transport plane to the north of Kardo, killing twenty-four people.  She hoped they could tell the difference between a military plane and a TransTamazia flight, as she was due to fly a lot in the coming weeks.  Perhaps she should have bought a parachute before she left the UK.

While Jim was away, Sam had to learn the radio codes so that she could contact all sections of the mine.  She was ‘Office Two’ or production manager, until Jim got back.   All day, she heard people talking on the radio with the ubiquitous ‘over’ at the end of every sentence.  She did a lot of coordinating and went with Ewen to the diamond recovery plant to check on the progress of the Tunde material.

‘How do they decide which materials to process?’ she asked Ewen.

‘Well, all three mines, Kardo, Gali and Tunde, share the processing facilities, so there is intense competition for picking time at the end of the month.  All the mines are trying to fill their quotas of diamonds and win bonuses for good production.’

‘Doesn’t that cause disputes?’

‘Oh, yes.  There is a tendency to process any old material in the vain hope of reaching the bonus figures before cut-off day.  This causes resentment between the mines who have good material to process and those that are scrambling around in the dirt and tying up the recovery plant with low grade material.’ 

Black was due to arrive from Mondongo and there was a charged atmosphere in camp.

‘You know that Black is due now’ asked Jorge.

‘Yes, I’m a bit nervous,’ she confessed.

‘He likes to drink,’ said Jorge. ‘And he likes his management to drink with him. ‘We don’t get to lie in the next morning like he does, more’s the pity.  His visits can be a bit of an ordeal.’

At midnight, the doorbell rang. Drugged by sleep, Sam threw on some clothes and went to the door.  Jim’s car was parked up close to the outside door.  In the moonlight, she could see Marybelle, Black’s girlfriend, on the steps to her house, swaying like a reed in the wind.  Out on the road, Sam saw the figures of Black and Ewen talking to the occupants of another jeep.  Black looked like a giant bumblebee with a yellow and black striped rugby shirt on his rotund body, balanced on tottering legs clad in shorts.   No one spoke to Sam at all.  She stood silently at the door in her pyjamas. 

Finally, she said, ‘Hello everyone    Did you come in on the flight this evening?

‘Yes, we did, Last minute,’ said Black.

‘Is this important?  Can I do anything for you?' 

‘No, we’re all just drunk.  We thought you might like a drink too.’

‘No thanks. Night night.’

Sam went back to bed before they could protest.  She fought for sleep for far too long before drifting off.

She had to get up before dawn to go to the diamond sorting plant, so she was not pleased about her midnight visitors.  Since Jim was on leave and the chief metallurgist was away due to illness, she had her first go at taking the diamonds out of their envelopes in the recovery cabinet using the leatherette gloves. It was like picking up a needle with an excavator.  She knew how astronauts felt about working in space with their huge gloves.

The diamond recovery area was dark and dank and full of mosquitoes.  It was difficult to work in those conditions and she could sense people enjoying her discomfort.  She was sweating like the proverbial pig when she finished.  Sweat dripped off her nose onto the cabinet and her shirt stuck to her back.  After what seemed like hours, the torture was over and the diamonds were put in acid to clean. She cadged a lift to the office where the production meeting had just started.

***

Black was on his way out of Mike’s house when he was waylaid by Brian Lynch.  Brian did not notice his employer’s foul humour and forced him into conversation.

‘Boss, it’s good to see you.  Did you have a good flight?’

‘Is that a joke?  Of course I didn’t.  What do you want Brian?  I’m in a hurry.’

‘Boss, I’m worried about that new woman you hired.  Did you know that she is running production while Jim is away?  I think that it’s a really bad idea.’

‘Who asked you?  You should mind your own business.  I don’t tell you how to run security.’

‘Now Boss, don’t take it the wrong way.  I’m just trying to give you some good advice.  I know that woman is trouble.  I don’t know what she’s doing in a mining camp.’

‘For your information, I’m the one who hired Sam and I’m the one who makes decisions about what she does or doesn’t do.  You can stuff your advice where the sun never shines and I’ll thank you to keep your opinion to yourself from now on.’

***

  After the customary glare from her cohorts, she sat down at the table.  She could see that Fred was in a bad way.  He had an exaggerated tic in his right eye when he had had no sleep, and he still looked drunk.  Another five a.m. finish with Dina, his local squeeze.  Fred weighed about three times as much as Dina and Sam could not help lurid pictures of their congress from intruding into her thoughts. 

Sam stayed with Ewen in the office until Black appeared.  His filthy mood was demonstrated by the way he launched himself at her without preamble.

‘Who told you that you could get involved in production?  I told Jim that you weren't to touch it.  Didn’t he fucking tell you?  Whose fault is this?'

Sam winced but did not reply.

There was a nasty edge in his voice.  ‘I wasn’t expecting insubordination from the new bitch on the block.  It’s a fucking liberty.’

Sam hung her head and looked apologetic enough to take the sting out of Black’s attack.  She was not stupid.  Black was throwing his weight around like she had been warned in London.  It was like watching the alpha male ape thumping his chest.  She knew it was all show.