top of the central spindle. She knew what it was, and the whole thing leaped into proportion.

‘We obtained the schematics for the underground structures from Nairobi Central Planning department,’ Haran said. ‘They are much more amenable to inducement than UNECTA.’

‘It’s incredible.’

‘The largest piece of civil engineering in Kenya in the past five years. I can show you the construction details and costings. They are impressive.’

‘How could they keep something this big quiet?’

‘It is not so hard when the United Nations runs your country,’ Mombi said. Her voice was high and musical, another incongruity with her huge body.

‘What is it for?’ Gaby asked. Whatever price Haran asked of her, it was worth it to bust this secret subterranean citadel wide open.

‘That is where we have run into difficulties,’ Haran said. ‘It works to different protocols and passwords from the rest of the system. My operatives cannot get direct access to it. Our information is deduced from secondary sources like revenue, accounting, power consumption, logistics. From the engineering specification, which we obtained from the firms who constructed the unit, we have concluded that it is designed to be a self-contained environment. A comparison of catering costs with wages figures reveals an interesting discrepancy. There are fifty full-time staff on the unit pay-roll – most of them have medical qualifications, significantly. The amount of consumables passing into the unit system is sufficient for many times that figure.’

‘How many times?’

‘Approximately six times.’

Three hundred people, down there under the earth, in those circular corridors, going round and round in artificial light forever. Peter Werther’s tan would have faded under the fluorescents. To him it would be just another strange place. To William, who had lived most of his life outdoors, under the sun, without walls, he would wither and despair, thinking that he would never be let out again. What had his experience of the Chaga been that they took him away and shut him up in these curving corridors?

‘Who are these people?’ Gaby asked.

‘We do not know. UNECTA keeps no lists. This place does not exist, remember.’

‘How can we get them out?’

‘You cannot,’ Haran said. ‘No one has ever come out. How can you get people out who are not officially in?’

‘Only one thing comes out,’ Mombi said. ‘Blood. Every three weeks, a consignment of two hundred and eighty-three samples is sent by courier to the Kenyatta National Hospital Department of Haematology.’

‘We know this by the shipping documents,’ Haran said. ‘One of my posse members has a relative who works in the hospital reception.’

This is how it gets done in Kenya, Gaby thought. By a relative of a friend, or a friend of a relative. They had information networking in this land long before the worldweb spun its silk lines across the globe. Blood. Two hundred and eighty-three drops.

‘Which section?’

‘The GAPU HIV 4 research section,’ Mombi said. Haran laughed. Gaby had never heard him laugh before. It was like the bark of some feral animal scavenging along the lanes and hovels of the townships.

‘For so many months, you were living in the same house as the answer to your mystery,’ he said. ‘You moved too soon.’

‘Haran’s man has gone through the records,’ Mombi said. ‘The GAPU Haematology unit has been processing samples for twenty-seven months.’

‘They are testing them for HIV 4?’

‘It seems that this is so. As my partner has said, it is difficult to penetrate the security of these organizations. We have reached the limits of what we can find out. Now you are uniquely placed to learn the truth. When you do, I hope that you will share it with me, for, unlike my friend Haran, I am a woman who loves her country.’

Haran laughed again and pushed his cane forward. At the sign, the watekni moved from their positions to the door to cover the withdrawal through the Thorn Tree bar. Mombi inclined her head to Caby as she swept out. Haran paused a moment.

‘Most uniquely placed, Gaby. The truth may be closer even than Miriam Sondhai. If UNECTA’s Peripatetic Executive Director does not know what is happening in his own organization, who does?’

He touched the tip of his cane to his planter’s hat and Gaby was alone in the women’s room.

~ * ~

T.P. was at the table by the street. The others had all left. He did not look like a happy owl.

‘I can’t have this, you know.’

‘T.P., T.P., listen, it’s a conspiracy…’

‘Heard it before, Gaby. Journalists report the news. They do not become the news. It’s not professional. I don’t care who started it, but I will not have the press community thinking I’m running some kind of female mud- wrestling stable. This is a disciplinary matter, Gaby. I’ll overlook entertaining heavily armed watekni in the ladies’ jax. But you do not try to turn the senior On-line editor into Sinead O’Connor.’

‘Fuck, T.P…’

‘I’m prepared to let it ride this once, provided you donate a month’s wages to a refugee aid charity of your choice.’

‘Jesus. T.P.’

‘And I want to see the receipt. A written apology wouldn’t go amiss either. You’re dangerous, Gaby. Not just to yourself -that’s par for the course for a reporter out here – but to everyone who comes into contact with you.’

‘Trust me, T.P.’

He left some shillings on the table. ‘I can’t. That’s the trouble.’

‘T.P.!’ He stopped on the step down into the street. ‘I’ve got the diary, T.P.; She’s alive. And I think I know where I can find her.’

37

In the anonymous hired Toyota pick-up, Gaby McAslan watched the figure in the red onepiece turn out of the gateway and run along the grass verge. Fifty-five minutes. She waited until the woman turned on to Ondaatje Avenue and got out of the truck.

God, what if she has got a new code for the alarm? Gaby McAslan thought as she walked down the brick drive to the front door.

Three. Eight. Four. Four. Two. Seven. Four. Nine.

And pray.

And turn.

The door opened with the silence of aged mahogany on well-oiled hinges. It was in here. Miriam Sondhai was the icon of many virtues, but not the Madonna of memory. Her attention was turned to loftier things than the numbers that define modern life. She got her cashcard swallowed every week. As she jogged across the Dental Hospital car park toward Mandella Highway, she would have the door code tucked into the tongue pocket of her running shoes. Gaby’s entire scheme rested on the theory that Miriam was similarly lax with her passwords to the Global Aids Policy Unit system.

Where to look? The filofax on the table. Too obvious. She had a bad memory but she was not stupid. Same for the PDU. The handbag, hanging from the teak and antelope horn coat rack.

All truth is in the handbag.

She would be past the new Sirikwa Hotel now, waiting at the keepie-leftie for a gap in the traffic. Forty-five minutes.

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