Candleburn (4 page)

8

“Guys?” Blake said uncertainly. “I’m logged into the main network and I can’t find my folder?”

Alice
wearily raised her eyes to heaven.

“What
folder?”

“These
laptops only have limited memory. Video footage takes up a lot of space. I created a folder on the system last week and placed my extra footage in there for this week’s story. Now the folder’s gone.”

Alice
looked at Duncan. Blake saw a smirk cross his lips and quickly fade. Duncan brought a hand up and rubbed it through his ginger hair.

“I
don’t know anything about that,” he said.

“Did
you label it?” Alice asked.

“Sure
– I called it ‘Blake DO NOT DELETE’.”

“Well
the main server isn’t for general use. You know how temperamental it is. Did you have anything important in there?”

Blake
stared in disbelief at her.

“The
folders labelled ‘Alice’ and ‘Duncan’ are there and intact. You both have projects you’re working on in those. I don’t understand where my stories and footage have gone.”

“Well,
I’m sure you can write and film them again. They couldn’t have been that important.”

“Alice
– it was an exclusive I had on a prostitution ring. I’ve been building those contacts for months. I can’t just get access to a brothel and secretly film it.”

Alice
half stood. She wrapped her knuckles on the desk and pretended to type into her computer. Blake watched her screen. All she was doing was messing around.

“Well,
I can’t see your files either. But brothels?” she sneered. “Frankly, it doesn’t sound like the piece you were working on had anything to do with work.”

“What
are you talking about?” Blake ignored the insinuation. “I told you I had an exclusive I was producing for the World News team. They’d set aside a full page for it next Sunday. The video was going up on the Web site.”

“We
cover economics here,” she snapped. “Your first focus is our team. That should be your output. If you have any spare time, then you can work on side projects.”

“That’s
not relevant,” Blake continued. “I produce my stories for our part of the Web site – and the newspaper. Where is my other work? Have you deleted it?”

“Don’t
be ridiculous!” She replied with rising anger. “You’re so paranoid and unprofessional.”

Blake
took another few seconds. When he spoke, he was calm and clear.

“I’m
not paranoid, I’m just wondering why the work I’ve done is no longer here. Especially since the work the two of you have archived is all present.”

He
stared at Duncan.

The
ginger haired weasel avoided his eyes. Tall and lithe, with ears so large they could almost pick up satellite broadcasts, Duncan was so deep in the closet he was practically hiding behind the coat rack.

Blake
had never considered him a friend – but this?

Could
he really support this? Maybe he alone was responsible and Alice’s surprise and anger, as fake as it seemed, was justified and real?

Blake
tapped his fingers slowly. Both his colleagues were staring at him as though he was mad. They were a picture of virtue.

“Well
played,” he thought, “well played. Damned if I complain and damned if I don’t. If I call New York to speak with the main editors, they’ll think I can’t get along with my team here and, if I ignore the clear deletion of my work, this shit will run and run for the next eighteen months. Fuck this three year contract.”

He
took a deep breath and considered his options. He had no proof that someone had erased his folder – it would be easy to argue that it was a computer error; after all, Alice was correct that the server was unreliable.

And
yet...

The
itching claw of addiction scratched at his skin. He needed a cigarette.

“Well, if that’s all on that subject perhaps we should hold the weekly editorial meeting?”

As
Alice said it, a wicked glint lit her face.

“Oh
Christ,” Blake muttered. “What fresh hell is this?”

***

The car roared to life.

Mehr
slammed the gearstick into reverse. His foot hit the floor. Wheels screeched as they gained traction on the dust strewn tarmac. The Algerian reached the driver’s side door, its window still open, and lunged his sword towards Mehr’s head.

Mehr
span the steering wheel, his foot hammering the pedal. The blade missed his nose by inches as it whipped past his face – first in, then out – as the car shot backwards.

Metal
ground as Mehr changed gears. The four men who’d been milling outside the shop were now charging towards him too, carrying baseball bats and meat cleavers. Mehr released the clutch.

The
car engine stalled.

“Shit
.”

He
tried to start it again.

Before
he could speed away, the Algerian thrust his sword again through the gap in the window. Mehr ducked. The cutting edge skewered the headrest. He hit a button on the door, locking it, then the one next to it.

Mechanical
whirring.

The
glass wound slowly higher.

Mehr
saw the Algerian’s anger: teeth clenched, veins high in his neck as he kicked the aluminium door and wrenched his weapon free. The steel blade grated across the glass as the window trapped it in place.

Grabbing
the grip firmly with both hands, the Algerian began slicing back and forth, jabbing and poking. Mehr weaved. The other gangsters were nearly at the car, bats raised high.

Mehr
tried the engine again. It sputtered to a start.

His
shoe pushed the accelerator back to the floor. The car surged away. A gangster bounced off the bonnet, his shoulder shattering the windscreen before he rolled over the roof and landed prostrate in the car park.

The
Algerian released his sword as the car sped up. Two more henchmen made half-hearted attempts at hitting the car. Their blows swung wide.

Asp,
his eyes still closed on the back seat, spoke for the first time.

“I
hope we’re not going anywhere. I really want to get in to see Chaiwat.”

“Absolutely,”
Mehr replied.

He
skidded the car round violently.

The
three standing gangsters were again charging forward, led by the Algerian.

The
engine revved.

Mehr
sped towards them. Faster and faster. At the last minute, the Algerian tried to dive away. Mehr turned sharply. The Algerian rebounded off the boot. His head hit the pavement. He was out cold.

Mehr
opened his door, smashing it into the first thug to arrive. Winded, the man took two paces back. Mehr climbed out and extracted the sword. He punched the thug in the throat, causing him to collapse.

The
second thug stepped forward.

Arms
high above his head, he brought the baseball bat crashing down.

Mehr
dodged the blow and kicked him in the testicles. The gangster keeled forward. There was a loud crack as Mehr connected the sword hilt with the back of his skull.

A
meat cleaver swung in towards him. Mehr deflected it with the sword. A second swing, a second deflection. It was the winded gangster, back for a second try. Mehr stepped close.

The
head butt is a total stranger to any Middle Eastern fight. For Europeans a standard compliment to the traditional menu of fists and feet – for Scotsmen an almost obligatory requirement of any barroom brawl – in the Gulf, despite all of Hollywood’s best attempts at public education, the move always stuns.

Mehr’s
forehead connected with the gangster’s nose.

Blood
spurted.

Mehr
stepped underneath the reeling attacker and tossed him like a sack of flour. When the thug landed on the tarmac two metres away, Mehr stood tall and brought the flat of the sword to bear on his assailant’s throat leaving him gasping for breath.

“Come
along Zain,” Asp said, hopping out of the car’s back door. “You can’t stay here playing with your new friends all day. We’ve work to do.”

Mehr
let out a deep exhalation as his boss moved through the mayhem of sprawled bodies to the parade of stores.

“Yes
boss,” he said calmly.

9

“Okay,” Alice started. “Let’s begin with my stories, go through to Duncan’s and then discuss Blake’s.”

The
three of them huddled around the conference table in a backroom just off the main office. Alice and Duncan both placed their tablet computers squarely in front of them and clicked to open their notes.

The
room was a confined, grey space, barely big enough for the furniture and chairs. Along the back wall a bookcase stood empty save for a fine veneer of dust and a small collection of model aeroplanes, each a gift from some corporate public relations firm or other.

“This
week, I’m going to cover the seven dissidents who were detained by Qatar,” Alice said. “I’ll look at what affect this might have on scaring away foreign investment from the country as the government looks to present it as a tolerant place to do business.”

Blake
said nothing.

“Alice’s
story...” he thought.

Blake
had presented the same idea at a meeting three weeks ago, when it had actually been news, on the day the dissidents were arrested. Alice shot him down in flames (‘it isn’t business related’, ‘you’re just trying to be controversial’, ‘why would anyone care about seven random people in Qatar’).

Blake
took a gulp of his saliva.

His
head still reeled from the deletion of all his material from the main server. He’d been in enough meetings with Alice to know that bringing up that she was stealing his story was a bad idea.

“Next
is Duncan,” she continued. “He’s going to do a piece on water shortages in Jordan.”

Blake
watched her as she nervously ran her fingers down the computer screen. She barely seemed able to look up and face Blake. Duncan was grinning inanely, his ears flopping back and forth like a particularly pleased elephant trying to cool itself, lest his ego overheat.

“For
fuck’s sake,” Blake thought. “It’s Jordan. The country’s had freshwater issues for decades. The first studies into the collapse of the Dead Sea were carried out in the 1960s.”

He
said nothing.

“It’s
a great idea for a story,” Alice crowed. “A really nice spot, Duncan.”

“What’s
the hook for the story?” Blake asked politely.

“Hook?”
Alice asked. “Duncan?”

Duncan
shuffled in his seat. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk.

“It
doesn’t really have one for this week. I just thought it was time to cover the topic. We’ve not done it in a while. Why? What’s your issue, Blake?”

He
placed emphasis on Blake’s name, as if that alone somehow negated the validity of whatever was going to be said.

“I
don’t have an objection. I just thought that the time to do Jordan’s water issue was six months ago, when they drilled a well to hit a groundwater flow and were disappointed because instead they struck oil. It’s not often a country finds a new oilfield and is frustrated.”

“Yes,”
Alice replied. “That was one time to do the story. But Duncan wants to do it now. And New York has agreed, so that’s an end to it.”

And
there it was: confirmation for the first time of what he’d suspected for months.

Alice
and Duncan had privately discussed before the editorial meeting everything they would cover with their bosses in the United States.

It
was a standard tactic in political circles in DC that decisions should never be taken in meetings and that you used private briefings beforehand to isolate whomever you wanted to freeze out. Blake was familiar with the tactic from his life before journalism. It made all meetings a total waste of time – except for one aspect; destroying the person you wanted to cut off.

“So,
Blake, what are you scraping from your barrel to offer us?”

Blake
pulled an A4 page of notes from his pocket. Duncan looked at Alice and whispered.

“Paper
and pen? Join the 21st century already.”

Blake
withdrew a biro from his pocket.

“My
first idea was based on the failed mango harvest in Fujairah,” Blake began.

Quiet
chuckles across the table.

“A
contact of mine in the Ministry of Agriculture says 96% of the crop has failed due to a virulent new fungus that’s proving totally resistant to everything they throw at it. With nothing to sell, the farmers face starvation unless they get government aid. The effect on the sector will be huge, not to mention the economy...”

“What
makes you think the wider world will care about the economy of one of the smallest emirates in the UAE – frankly, one that nobody outside the country has heard of?”

Blake
sat back.

“Well,
unless we cover it,” Blake replied, “that’ll never change – but more than that, this is the first time this fungus has emerged. World-wide mangoes are worth around $12 billion – that’s just the trade, mind; many countries consume almost all the crop they produce so it never makes it to international markets.”

Alice
began staring at the ceiling. Duncan seemed intently interested in playing a game on his iPad.

“If
this fungus isn’t controlled,” Blake continued, “it would be devastating for farmers from Spain to Africa to the world’s largest producer, India, which is likely to be hit next given the strong trade routes between the port in Fujairah and Goa.”

“N
o-one cares,” Alice said bluntly. “If it’s just small scale farmers, with no multinationals involved, readers of the Journal can’t make money trading off the shares. That story’s dead. Next?”

“Hang
on a second,” Blake said. “There is a multinational angle. My contact says the government is in talks with Monsanto to open a biotech plant in Fujairah to study the issue. They want a genetically modified mango capable of resisting the disease. In return Monsanto will train up locals in bio-engineering. This is win-win. It ticks all the boxes: the Emirates moving away from oil dependence, a major world crop, youth employment – everything.”

Alice
drummed her fingertips. Her lips tightened. Duncan drew himself to his full height.

“No,”
she said. “Next?”

Blake
looked from one to the other. He said nothing, simply running a line of pen diagonally through the portion of his notes.

“Next,”
he said, “is a piece on Ras Al Khaimah airport...”

Duncan
returned to his tablet as he played his game. He simply mumbled: “Jesus-fucking-wept.”

Alice
reached out a hand and placed it on his arm to calm him.

“I
thought I just said that I don’t want a story on smaller emirates in the UAE that no-one outside the country has ever heard of before?”

“You
just said that, yes,” Blake said slowly, “but this is the first time you’ve mentioned that and I also think this story stands on its own merits.”

Alice
folded her arms and huffed loudly as though the conversation were draining every ounce of her patience.

“Go
on,” she said.

“As
you know the three biggest emirates, Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, have built their airports to be major flight hubs. That’s left the smaller northern emirate of Ras Al Khaimah looking for a way to boost its own airport. Now, a fourth hub for international passengers based in RAK would be unfeasible in a country this size...”

“No-one
cares,” Alice interrupted. “What don’t you get about that?”

She
waved her arms over her head, as if crying for help while drowning at sea.

“Please,
let me finish,” Blake replied. “They’ve hired out the tarmac to the United Nations and because the airport is small but ex-military, it has a runway long enough to take any plane. The UN likes RAK because the runway means they can land what they want there, yet because of the airport’s small size, they can also pin down the perimeter with a small number of troops.”

“This
isn’t economics!” Alice shouted across the table. “By definition, it’s the UN. Not economics – that’s politics. It’s outside our remit!”

Alice
and Duncan were both shaking their heads.

“Of
course it’s economics. Think ahead!” Blake said. “RAK’s going to become the airport of choice for flying things – all things – in and out of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is land locked. It has no sea ports. You can’t simply drive goods in and out – the country borders Iran to the south, so that’s out because of the sanctions. Elsewhere, whether it’s the lawless border with Pakistan or the mountainous one with Turkmenistan, it’s completely unfeasible. That means everything – everything – will be flown in and out of through the airport in Ras Al Khaimah. Right now those goods are military but soon it’ll be cars, TVs, video games. My sources there tell me...”

“For
God’s sake, Blake. Who is the manager here?” Alice slapped her palm on the table. “Who’s the boss? I am! And I’m telling you ‘no’. Got that? No! You’re not covering bullshit no-one cares about.”

Blake
went silent.

He
looked at the third story on his page. What was the point? If he said it, they’d shoot it down in flames, then wait three months and represent the idea as though it was theirs in the beginning.

“And
your third brilliant suggestion?” she asked, rolling her eyes at Duncan.

Blake
was quiet for a few seconds.

Did
he tell them? If he didn’t, he knew what would happen: an hour from now he’d get a phone call or an email from Nasty Rick, the boss in New York who was mentoring Alice as a protégé. Rick would claim Blake was dodging his work responsibilities.

“Well?”
Duncan asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve been slacking again?”

“It’s
a piece from another airport – Al Bateen in Abu Dhabi,” Blake said slowly.

Alice
gasped and slapped her hand on the table again, shaking the pens and coffee cups.

“I
knew it,” she said. “You are shirking – or taking bribes to cover the same companies. You did a story from there already – what just three months ago?”

“A
year ago,” Blake replied. “I covered the introduction of RPX AeroJet – a new business that is operating an emergency medical insurance programme with a rescue Lear jet. Their business plan is to provide emergency flights out of the region for workers who need to be hospitalized in a country that provides better medical care than, say, Yemen or Afghanistan or Syria.”

“You
see?” she opened her palms out to Duncan who murmured in agreeing tones.

“This
story is one year on and completely different,” Blake replied. “RPX have bought a Chinook helicopter – a twin bladed super giant that can carry up to 14 tonnes in weight, which they’re planning to use to fight oil-rig fires using some kind of thermal expansion smothering foam.”

“Ridiculous
suggestion,” Duncan breathed.

“It’s
an excellent story,” Blake disagreed. “This will be the biggest fire-fighting operation in the entire Middle East, a true one-of-a-kind that fills an important gap – allowing any explosion on an off-shore rig to be put out before it gets out of hand.”

Alice
sucked on the inside of her cheek.

“Are
you quite finished?” she said, her eyes expanding wider to show closeted anger.

Blake
could see Duncan and Alice again shaking their heads in unison. He wondered if they practiced that while he was out of the office.

“My
apologies,” Blake said huskily. “Please, what story do you have planned for me? I presume you already have something you want covered?”

Duncan
and Alice looked at one another and grinned.