Defender (11 page)

"I agree, bud," Fredericks started drawing imaginary lines around the areas identified by Garrett as the launch points for the rebel coup. "This group's headed for the television and radio stations out to the north of the capital. This group is poised to take the airport and army garrison there, and this one to the west will take the port. And these guys," Fredericks emphasised, "are headed for the power station and the water supply out east."

"The power station and dam are within spitting distance of here," Morgan noted, concerned. "There's only about 30 K's separating us."

"You said it."

"Any idea how many men Baptiste has out there?"

"Can't be certain, but Garrett reckons 100 plus," Fredericks was grave. "That's a company worth of troops on our doorstep."

"It's not a stretch to expect they'll take the dam pretty easily, seize control of the country's power supply, leave a small contingent to secure it and then head north, straight to us. Any more good news?"

"Like I said, bud, 24 hours tops."

"Agreed," Morgan turned his attention back to the groups of expat and local staff as they all scampered around the site, getting everything together ahead of the evacuation order. He noticed a number of the expats offering personal effects to local staff who had run the domestic arrangements at Pallarup; some for many years. Strong personal ties had been formed and the prospect of leaving behind friends to an uncertain future was the source of much distress and anguish on both sides. The Malfajirian local staff would not be evacuated. "We better get this lot to wrap up and then get 'em fed before the kitchen gets shut down for good. Then they can rest before our final evacuation briefing tonight."

* * *

Arena Halls hadn't found anything even remotely suspicious amongst the mountains of files and paperwork she'd been poring over for most of the afternoon.

She'd managed to discreetly peel herself away from the main group at the end of Morgan's evacuation training session and had made her way to the head office complex under the pretence of checking on personnel files, specifically to check for any medical conditions that could cause problems during the evacuation.

She found herself thinking of Alex Morgan.

His experience and knowledge were obvious but understated, with not a hint of the bravado or egotism she'd expected. He'd been respectful and empathetic towards the expats throughout the training, every last one of them. He wasn't obnoxious or condescending and he had a very natural way of imbuing them with a sense of confidence in him and in the knowledge that he would get them out alive. Arena was warming to him, it wasn't hard; she knew herself well enough not to deny it.

Absently, with her thoughts elsewhere, she pulled out another filing cabinet drawer, but this time - too hard. With a loud clatter of loose roller wheels and slides, the drawer, heavy with files, crashed to a stop as it slid out. "Damn it!" she exclaimed.

"You should take it easy on those filing cabinets, Ms Halls," came an amused voice from behind her. "Turner's likely to invoice you for damages, you know."

"Oh shit," she started. "Where the bloody hell did you come from?" Morgan was sitting languidly, a few feet away, with legs outstretched,

resting on top of a nearby desk, arms folded across his chest. He looked tanned and strong. God, get a grip, she thought. This is too much.

"I needed a few minutes to take a load off and I just happened to come in here . . . and there you were. How lucky am I!"

"Lucky? Lucky, how?" Arena responded, startled.

"Well, coming in here," Morgan smiled broadly, "and finding you." "Are you action-man types always this . . ." she stumbled for a moment. "Interesting?" Morgan offered.

"Obvious," she corrected. "There is a war about to start."

"Doesn't mean we have to drop basic courtesy, does it?" Morgan swung his legs from the desk, straightened himself and walked towards her. "So, anyway, what are you up to?"

"Oh," she was expecting someone might ask her that question but, coming from him, she felt slightly rattled. "Just checking through personnel files, looking for any medical conditions amongst the staff that might cause us some problems on the evacuation. You know, heart conditions, epilepsy, that kind of thing."

"Can't you just ask them? It must be a huge pain in the arse to plow through all those files."

'Tm a stranger to these people, Major. Our experience is that when people are under pressure and all they want to do is escape danger, they're more likely to conceal a condition than volunteer it. Now, we won't be leaving any of them behind, but there'll be at least one amongst them who will be so paranoid about an ailment that they'd already have convinced themselves that we will leave them if it means saving the others. This way, we'll know who to keep an eye on. Make your job easier, that's for sure."

"Well, nobody can say you're not thorough," he said, unable to work her out, but his instinct told him she wasn't a problem for him. Maybe she was an auditor from Alga Creek. Given the job of doing the final due diligence before the place collapsed. Who knew?

"So, how are you coping with all this? You OK?"

"Yeah, thanks." Jesus, stop being so considerate, she thought. 'Tm holding up OK, I suppose. Like everybody, though, I have no idea what to expect when this coup happens. Any more news?"

Morgan had moved closer to her now, very close. He had perched on the edge of a desk just inches from her, sitting quietly, watching her with an intensity she would normally have associated with a predatory animal gauging its prey. But, in this case, she knew she wasn't prey and somehow, his quiet strength gave her comfort, even made her feel safe.

"There is news, Ari," he answered familiarly for the first time. "But, it's not good I'm afraid."

"Oh God," she said. "How long do we have?"

"Hey, turn that up, would you?" Morgan called over the top of the chaos of the Alga Creek mine site office. There was plenty of activity as expats and local staff prepared for the evacuation that could be initiated at any moment.

Judging by the news, Morgan thought, that moment had come.

He left the table at the back of the large open-plan office where he and Fredericks had been going over the mine site layout and various maps of Malfajiri, Cullentown and Pallarup. The two had been meticulous in their planning. Morgan would coordinate the extraction from Pallarup
to
ensure that no one was left behind, and all operating systems were shut down - permanently. He would be last out. Fredericks would go out on the first chopper and receive each sortie as it arrived at the rendezvous - the RV - and coordinate the onward movement of the expat staff onto US Navy helicopters and, ultimately,
to
a US Navy aircraft carrier. The RV would be the Francis Hotel. Fredericks was familiar with it.

Morgan snaked his way through the desks, chairs and filing cabinets to join the cluster of staff who had been drawn to the BBC World coverage of a developing incident in London. It didn't take long to realise that the actions occurring thousands of miles away in central London were about to have an immediate and shattering impact on each and every one of them, frozen in front of a television screen on the edge of Africa. The room fell eerily silent, but for the television.

The reporter continued:
"...the attack began when two vehicles rammed the motorcade of visiting head of state, Dr. Namakobo, the President of Malfajiri. Both exploded on impact. We cross live to BBC World reporter ..."

Morgan stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the staff. The frosty reception he had received on arrival the night before had almost thawed. He understood the reticence amongst them to become involved or even be civil toward him. He was third in a line of men who had apparently been sent out to protect them. The first two, for reasons unknown, had suddenly gone 'off the reservation', never to return. If only they knew.

Morgan was certain that Arena's presence, her effervescent and naturally easy manner with everybody, had helped immeasurably. He knew that he'd been accepted, albeit reluctantly, during the last 24 hours as a direct result of his apparent association with her, based purely on the fact that they'd arrived together. Whatever it takes, he smiled to himself. He stole a look away from the screen, searching for her face in the cramped space, looking for those fabulous blue eyes. Morgan couldn't spot her. He had been so engrossed in his deliberations that he'd lost track of her. She was obviously off doing whatever it was that she was here to do. What was she here to do? It occurred to him that there were still a couple of people who had remained fractious towards him, most particularly, the site manager - the man Turner. Could be something there, Morgan thought. Was it just a deliberate intent to shut him out, or a pig-headed attempt to control turf? Morgan caught sight of Turner. He was a short, balding, repugnant little frog, who sweated profusely and mopped at the slime with a brightly coloured bandana handkerchief clutched in his fist. He was standing in front of the staff, closest to the television, in everyone else's way, staring at the images on the news with an expression that Morgan couldn't decipher. But for the moustache, Morgan was reminded of Richard Attenborough in the role of serial killer ]ohn Christie in the old movie, '10 Rillington Place'.

Instinctively, for he couldn't explain it any other way, the moment the reference was made to Namakobo, Morgan's gaze snapped back to Turner. Turner caught Morgan's scrutiny and sank back among the staff.

At the very moment he needed time to follow the leads he had discussed with Davenport back in London, fate stepped in. Instead, Morgan was surrounded by 100 imploring faces desperate to survive, and his cover story would become his obligation.

As so often happened in life, reality had arrived unannounced and changed everything.

* *
*

With leaden fingers Arena Halls tapped frantically across the keys of Turner's notebook. Her eyes glued intently to the flickering screen, she suddenly became aware that she felt lightheaded, her vision tunnelled and her breathing had become shallow. On impulse, she lifted her fingers from the keyboard and found that they were shaking. Ari raised a hand to her chest and placed the other slowly down to grasp the edge of the desk. She closed her eyes and forced herself to take a series of slow, deep breaths. She knew enough from her self defence classes that her body's primal 'fight or flight' instinct had kicked in. She was scared, petrified of being discovered.

Turner's office had been free of him for hours, he'd been off on one of his apparently infamous errands in the capital, but no sooner had Ari finally managed to sneak in unobserved, than she heard him return.
It
was impossible not to hear him, she thought with disdain. His intolerably irritating squeal of a voice rang clear over the rising tumult out in the main office. He was no doubt running around outside trying to give the impression of being in charge.

What
was
all the commotion about out there?

She knew she had to wrap up before being discovered, but there were still files she hadn't managed to access. So far, she'd had absolutely no luck in finding anything that looked even remotely suspicious, apart from some disgusting internet downloads that she was not in the least bit surprised to find. What did Johnson expect of her? Then she spotted something within her peripheral vision, a corner of paper, a letterhead. With shaking hands she tugged it from beneath the batch of discarded papers that lay strewn across Turner's desk, constantly stealing glances to and from the door.
It
was a stylised business emblem incorporating the profile and headdress of a Native American Chief. The logo was blood red, and beneath the emblem was the title: 'The Renegade Group of Companies'. Where had she seen that before? She scoured through the text of the document, scanning references to Alga Creek, various joint ventures, oil platforms in the Timor Sea, goldfields in Kazakstan. God, where had she seen this Renegade thing before? She was searching her memory, usually so easy to access, but the upheaval from the main office area erupted into full-scale panic, making any further thoughts impossible. Using the furore outside Turner's office, Ari took a gamble that whatever was going on would provide an effective distraction allowing her escape from the administrators room. Cracking the door slightly, she slipped out using the side door and found herself in the midst of escalating chaos.

In his top floor room of the rebel headquarters, Baptiste strode up and down in front of the television, chest puffed, full of confidence.

'I,m impressed, English. You have delivered, and Namakobo lies dead in a London street. My followers will cry... 'Such is the power of Baptiste!' I need only say the word here in Africa and Namakobo is killed returning to his bed in London."

"That's what I'm here for, Colonel," replied Lundt brusquely, unmoved by Baptiste's praise, and fed up with his ramblings. "But, I presume you realise that now the hard work begins. You must move against Namakobo's government before he makes a miraculous recovery."