to enter his mind was the possibility of corporate espionage. Several Asian and European telecom carriers had been competing to become the African fiber ring’s savior when Planetaire went belly up, and it was conceivable one or more of them could have gotten upset enough to go over the top when UpLink won its contract with the Gabonese government, figuring they could still gum up the deal. There were also various national lobbying groups that had joined in opposition to yet another dominant foreign company moving in its assets and tried to block UpLink’s entry with a passel of legislative maneuvers once they happily bade adieu to Planetaire. A few were still making moves despite the ruling party’s obvious support. Any of these interests, or combination of interests, could have decided to do some peeping.
Except Nimec had nothing but questions about what their game might be. Add them to the questions he’d been left with after talking to Pierre Gunville, and there were more than he could count… though bundling them all together in his head was almost certainly a bad idea. He had a vague mistrust of Gunville, but at this stage, it was merely that. Nimec didn’t know whether it meant Gunville was connected to anything he needed to be concerned about, let alone to whoever was messing with UpLink. The truth was he didn’t know what was going on. But the involvement of the gendarmerie was heavy, and he would need to start producing some answers fast.
Nimec took a bite of his fry bread and chewed. Happy, happy business traveler enjoying a treat on his off day… and how was he to know talking with a mouth full of food was hell on lip readers?
“The termite that hopped out at you this morning,” he said. “You know the real problem?”
DeMarco indicated he did with a grunt as he shook his head no, borrowing Ackerman’s little mixed signal trick.
“For every one you spot, there’s a hundred more you don’t,” he said. “If they’re infesting us, we’d need a Big Sniffer to find all of them.”
Nimec swallowed perfunctorily. The Big Sniffer was Sword’s most sophisticated countermeasure sweep unit. But the device was hardly inconspicuous. Used with a boomerang antenna for scanning walls and other surfaces, its microcomputer-controlled instrumentation was carried in what amounted to a medium-size hardshell suitcase.
“If the termites on the surface twitch their feelers, they’ll stir up the nest,” he said, wiping his lips with his napkin. “We’d get rid of the soldiers and workers, but the breeding colony would just go deeper into the wood.”
DeMarco nodded.
“I’ve been hashing that over,” he said. “And I haven’t come up with a solution.”
Scull shrugged.
“Think garnets,” he said.
DeMarco looked at him.
“And ilmenites,” Scull said.
DeMarco continued to stare.
“Think
“Garnets. Ilmenites. Diamond hunters look for ’em when they analyze soil samples from termite mounds here in Africa,” Scull explained, as if the termite reference would surely make the pertinence of his declarations clear. “They aren’t worth much by themselves, but come from the same underground layers as diamonds. Termites carry tiny ones up from something like a hundred fifty feet underground, where their breeders live, and deposit them in their little hills. That’s how the Orapa mine in Botswana, richest in the world, got discovered.”
DeMarco remained clueless. As did the others.
“I have to confess, Vince,” he said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Nimec was thoughtful. The fact was, neither did he.
Scull frowned, put an arm around Nimec’s shoulders, turned a hundred eighty degrees to his right, and gestured at random toward a vender’s stall. Nimec squared around with him as though to study an item of mutual interest, gazed absently at a woman selling thick cuts of bush meat. They were laid out on a table in the open sunlight, under netting meant to repel clusters of large black flies. The handwritten signs on the table behind them read:
“Elephant trunks, monkey brains,” Scull said, translating aloud. “In case you’re interested in buying, the monkeys around here can carry ebola.”
“Thanks.”
“Any time.” Scull pursed his lips and spouted air up over his face to dry off some sweat, simultaneously fanning himself with one hand. “That problem you mentioned… it occurs to me the best idea might be we don’t do anything.”
Nimec looked at him in silence a moment. Then his eyes narrowed.
“Leave the termites alone?”
Scull squeezed his arm, his expression that of a teacher who had broken through to a slow but earnest student.
“There you go, Petey. We wait. Keep the lights off. Let those droops keep working away figuring they’re safe in the dark,” he said, using Scullian shorthand for “dirty rotten snoops.” “The stuff they leave behind’s worthless crap, ’long as we know it’s there.”
“But it tells us where to find the diamonds.”
“You got it. When we’re ready, we dig down into the nests where the breeders are crawling around and make sure to bring along our cans of Raid… you remember the slogan from those old TV ads?”
Nimec looked at him.
DeMarco had joined them in pretending to be interested in the meat seller, comprehension dawning across his features as he listened.
“What do you think?” Nimec asked him.
“If we run with Scull’s idea,” he said, “I’m guessing our execs and engineers would need to be informed.”
Nimec gave him a nod. They would. Informed of everything. So they could know what not to say and do in the false privacy of their hotel rooms or elsewhere.
“It might not appeal much to them,” DeMarco said. “I can testify getting naked in the shower this morning wasn’t a comfortable experience. And the rest of my personal business was even less fun.”
“You don’t need to get graphic on us,” Scull said. “I just ate.”
Nimec looked at them.
“Unless somebody’s got a better solution,” he said, “they’ll have to live with it. The same as we will.”
DeMarco took a deep breath, blew the air out with a long sigh.
“I’d hate to be the one who tells that to Tara Cullen,” he said.
Aboard the
DeVane’s fingers wanted to tighten around his black line cell phone, but he resisted the angry urge, willing the hand to remain steady.
“This word you’ve gotten from your source at the newspaper,” he said into the cellular’s mouthpiece. “There is no question about its accuracy?”
“No,” Etienne Begela said from his end of their connection. “A declaration of multiparty government ratification of the telecom licenses is to be announced on the front page of tomorrow morning’s edition. In accordance with the Cangele agenda, they are to be ratified without further review for a minimum of fifteen years. All key members of the president’s parliamentary opposition have adopted a revised stance in his favor, and there is to be a public display of solidarity in the capital.” A pause. “I hold in my hand a facsimile of the article’s first draft. It is to appear in
“The government’s voice.”
“Correct.”
DeVane thought in silence, felt the mild heaving of the deck under his feet. The still air smelled of brine and throbbed faintly with the sound of the offshore pumps.
This would look bad for him, and he could not afford it. Not once more could he afford it. While he had always expected his endeavors here would be of finite duration, he would need time to maximize their profitability. And
