Doing Dangerously Well (34 page)

Just then, Sinclair pushed past them.

“How’r you doin’?” Beano queried.

Two rows of white enamel sparked into life, aimed in Beano’s direction. “Dangerously well. And you? How’d the trip go?”

“Dangerously wet. Had to swim to catch a taxi, with an embarrassing lapse into breaststroke.”

Sinclair threw his head back and laughed, completely out of proportion to the joke. He slapped Beano on the back and stalked into the conference room without asking any further questions.

In the meeting, Sinclair spoke only of other projects, the ones keeping his job afloat in the short term.

Resembling the eagle he delighted in sporting on his bolo, Cheeseman circled like a bird of prey over another area ripe for the picking, his attention drawn by the East Africa team to the outflow of Victoria Lake in Uganda.

Silence had descended over the Niger River project; this could only mean that Sinclair and Glass had navigated through new waters to reach their personal deltas, Sinclair having apparently cut Beano adrift in the process.

F
limsy barbed wire fencing protected TransAqua’s dam site at Kainji. Femi walked the perimeter, his eyes tracking its course. It seemed such an inconsequential barrier-it was not even as thick as a finger-yet it represented an obstacle protected by hidden forces. This insubstantial line demarcated a conversion from public and private, from outside to inside. Within its boundaries lay the vast networks of international business, shielded by the full weight of the law, government and the armed forces.

TransAqua’s private army, comprised mainly of former Nigerian military personnel, guarded the enclave whose separate infrastructure cauterized the wound of living within the developing world. It cleaved to all the amenities that the West took for granted: uninterrupted power supply, clean water that flowed from taps, working telephone lines, computers, air conditioning and cable television. It housed not only the corporation’s local
headquarters but white houses of differing sizes for the foreign staff, surrounded by well-kempt lawns featuring all manner of ribald flora.

Having scouted the periphery of this citadel, Femi realized he could not enter the sanctum without a pass recognized by a series of high-tech electronic devices. He considered other options. He scanned the distant row of buses waiting to shuttle personnel from the site back to the closest town, twenty miles away.

A bird needs wings to fly,
he thought as the sun skidded across his eyelashes, making him blink.
So why not cut off its feathers?
He contemplated for a while, considering not only methods but implications.

The three new recruits were waiting at a farmstead hut that belonged to a sympathizer. Femi returned with a plan: “We phone a bomb threat.”

Uncharacteristically, Lance reacted with an explosive impatience. “So why did you make me launch new threads to come? I have a cell. I don’t need to find my pulse in this city!”

Igwe pulled down his glasses and peered over them at Lance as a gesture of reprimand.

“Dat na question? Use your sense, joh!” Femi boomed. “Once job finish, we can watch you use your cell. But before, we need to show we can stroll the place at any time. So we target bus and—”

Yussef interrupted, “Why bus?”

“Bus only require pass; building require strip naked ID and consultation with forensic scientist each time you show face.”

Lance settled back into a pacific composure. “Eh-heh. So we go for D & C! Detonate and celebrate.”

“Yes, but we no wan’ risk worker life. So we go plant firecracker.”

“Are you joking?” Ekong glowered. “You wan’ use toy? Are you serious? Make we bring skipping rope too?”

Unruffled by War’s volatility, Femi threw his eyes to the sky with impatience and theatrically turned to Igwe. “I beg, don’t let him make me spark.” He then rotated back to Ekong and explained in a quiet voice, “Why use hammer if you can use pin?” He glared until Ekong finally lowered his eyes. After clearing his throat, Femi continued, “So, we use your natural assets.”

The three turned to him with query in their eyes.

“Igwe, Mr. Cautious, you’re ground control as always.”

“Eh-heh!” he replied. “And you can cross your leg at home base too. Everyone know your eye. It’s not safe for you.”

“If you insist, but then you have to put your own leg for road to get their passes. People trust you.”

“He’s like a pet.” Lance reached out to stroke Igwe.

“A pit bull is a pet!” Igwe snapped back. “Don’t mess!”

“So, Lance—since you enjoy putting your hand in the mouth of pit bull, you can entertain the guards, distract them. You have a good virus for that.”

“Bring photo, so they can remember you,” Igwe mumbled with an unusually caustic tongue.

“Ekong,” Femi flashed a look of reproach at Igwe, “you plant the firecrackers under the buses.”

Ekong glared at Femi, obviously understanding the implications of his “assets.”

“Yu!”

“Yes?” Yussef looked anxious.

“Drive a motorcycle just outside the gates and pretend it’s broken.”

“Why me?”

Lance responded before Femi could open his mouth. “Which moto will stop for an ugly guy like this? You can linger.”

Before a quarrel broke out, Femi added, “Leave TransAqua on leg, enter motorcycle, and then detonate the firecrackers. There are the devices.” He pointed to a box. “I go wait near bus stop make sure three commot safely. If not, I go come get you people.”

“What?” Igwe cried.

“I know the exits!”

“There’s only one exit-now! It’s known as the entrance. Your body also want to wear cape and tights?” Igwe kissed his teeth.

“I was hoping to. Why? Do you think say I overdress?”

Around four o’clock the next afternoon, Femi arrived at an informal bus stop, marked by a concrete block. The bus carried staff from the turmoil of survival to the inner sanctum of TransAqua and the warm breast upon which so many laid their heads.

Femi sat down on the pavement next to the block. He opened a newspaper, feigning a languid interest, but inwardly too restless to digest the information. After a short period, he turned a page.

“Ah-ah!” a voice behind him shouted, making Femi jump. “Not so fast. I haven’t completed my perusal.”

He turned around to see a small man wearing a tattered tie and jacket and carrying an empty-looking satchel. He had an officious air, his sense of importance accentuated by his thick glasses but betrayed by the Scotch tape that held a cracked lens in place.

Frowning, Femi held the page open, struggling to contain his anger against this vermin: a man serving his own self-interest to the detriment of the greater good. After a minute, he received further instructions: “Okay. Next page.”

Femi flipped the page with an irritated whack. “Don’t they give you newspaper at the dam site?” he snapped.

“I hope so,” the man replied. “But since I am not currently in employment in those majestic facilities, how am I supposed to apprise?”

Femi waited for the end of the man’s sentence. There was none. “Why are you standing here, then? Are you selling something?”

“Can you not see my briefcase?” the man barked. “What am I carrying? Is it not a briefcase? When have you seen a vendor carry a briefcase, you idiot? I am a man of business, not a common vendor. This is why this country is in bedlam. They squander money on education. Why not just let idiots like you walk around in circles? Tie mattress around your body, let you perambulate.”

Femi stared at the man. His chest was thrust out so far that his back curved in a hollow shape, leaving a large bottom to stick out in an S. His stance signalled his utter certainty that all the statements that fell from his lips could be found referenced in the world’s encyclopedias as absolute truths. Something about the man set Femi on edge. He exploded. “Are you not satisfied already? You’ve killed over one million? You want more? Go and work at a slaughterhouse, joh. Enjoy yourself there.”

He closed his newspaper.

“Who are you talking to?” The man’s bald head glinted in the sun. “Who? Do you know who I am? I am an orphan of the storm. Yes, that’s correct. The flood extinguished my own father. Who are you to talk? Are you someone? No! Of course not!”

Femi looked at the man closely and for the first time noticed the sadness in his eyes. Grief was the foundation upon which the rest of his emotions were now built. Looking at this man, Femi knew in an instant that he looked upon a fellow sufferer. Chastened, he calmed down.

“Sorry-oh, my friend!” Femi said, as images crowded in of his father’s neck snapped back by the force of the water, his father screaming his name. “May your father rest in peace.”

“Rest in peace? How can he rest in peace, you ragamuffin?” The man’s voice cracked as he threw his satchel down on the road. “My mother met her own expiry date just six months after. From traumatization. My junior sister became invalidated.”

Femi hung his head as tears welled in his eyes. Dozens of images flashed through his mind: his mother in the kitchen as panes of glass shattered into her eyes. He did not know how his family had died, but their terror haunted him.

The man stared at Femi, paused and dabbed his eyes with his greying sleeves. He leaned over and picked up his battered
portefeuille.
He began to weep. “My senior sisters are at home. The crop has failed, the fish are poisoned, the corporations have polluted the land.” He sobbed. It seemed as if, in voicing his wretched story, he had become aware of its overwhelming tragedy. “I have no pecuniaries. No prospect. Just suffering. What can I do?” He turned to Femi, as though he could provide an answer. The man was barely able to stand, the oppressive weight of responsibility resting heavy on his shoulders.

It was obvious to Femi that the man had never had time to grieve. As with so many other Nigerian men and women, the duties of the parents had been passed on to sons and daughters with no preparation. They had to survive with no guidance from the elders, no path, no footsteps to lead the way—this and more had all been wiped away by the flood.

“This is the only place with job-now,” the man continued, drying his tears with a tattered jacket sleeve. “What does the Lord want from me? There is nothing I can do for Him! He should look somewhere else. Nobody can assist Him here.”

“This is not the work of the Lord.” Femi rose and put his arm around the man. “This is the work of the political machinery.”

The man rolled his eyes heavenwards and muttered to himself.

Femi let go and sat down again. He flicked open his newspaper, now questioning the idea of sabotaging TransAqua. On the front page was an article about a woman who had killed her husband and children. He flipped through the pages and found more stories of family violence and local hooliganism, which had increased dramatically since the tragedy of the flood.

The man behind him shouted, “Ah-ah! These women will kill us all!”

Like so many others forced to choke back their sorrow, small irritations could set Femi off for no reason at all. This time, he did not know what he had found important in the debate, but he erupted again.

“The women?” Femi shed his earlier sympathies for the man. “Are you serious? Look, why don’t you leave me alone? Go away! The bus will not come today anyway.”

“Idiot!” the man exclaimed, once more inflated by his own self-importance. “Why are you lingering here if the bus is not coming? I know for a fact that the bus is coming, ergo I will continue to remain at this, the designated waiting area.” He pointed to the concrete block.

Femi exploded, enraged by the man’s impenetrable self-assurance. “Are you driving the bus?”

“If you probe the law,” the man took off his glasses, jabbing them in Femi’s face, “you will be comprehend that your dilemma is consequential because, as we all know, you can never prove a negative. That is one thing you can never prove. In law. In the courts. You can never prove a negative. Do you understand what I am now telling you?”

“Of course, but—”

“There are no buts. Your sentence cannot finish with a ‘but.’”

“But, however and nevertheless, all but one person in Kainji knows that when you are standing at a bus stop, you are not in
a court of law. One day, I will explain to you the difference between a bus stop and a court of law. But today, I will just tell you one thing. You cannot prove the bus will come.”

They both tsked and looked into the distance for the bus. It could not have left! Surely TransAqua had taken the threat seriously?

Then a blast of ferocious intensity slammed into the air. Unseen energies flew into orbit. Detonations from the TransAqua site radiated out with convulsions that made the ground jerk up in unstable ripples of abrupt movement. The imperceptible elements that confirm the integration of existence flew off into a realm of chaotic frenzy. Severed from them, Femi entered the falling, all sounds muted, submerged in reaction to his fear.

The motorcycle carrying the three recruits careered past him, terror anchoring their bodies into rigid postures.