Cutting Edge

Today, with the VIPs going out, things are different. What we need to watch out for is different. There are human beings to protect. And I want to make sure we don’t let our guard down for a second. That we do what we always do when there’s more than the usual set of considerations about the safety of our personnel.”

The men were quiet.

Nimec watched a jet make its takeoff from the runway, gain altitude, and bank in their direction, its airframe reflecting the high sun, a silvery flare of brightness rushing across the open sky. The shoom of its turbos grew loud as it flew overhead and then began to fade.

Nimec turned toward Scull.

“What’s on your docket while we’re gone, Vince?”

“I want to follow up on the business with those French divers,” Scull said, and motioned with his chin. “We know the Rover’s clean?”

Nimec glanced toward DeMarco for an answer.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wouldn’t advise you to make any deep personal confessions in standard-issue vehicles like the one I’ve been driving around town, but these modified babies are checked for bugs at least once a day. Besides, they haven’t been anywhere except here at the airport, or over at the HQ site, where we’ve had men posted around the clock. Nobody besides our own’s gone near them.”

“What about guides and workmen?” Nimec said.

“They ride in the trucks or the standards. This vehicle’s okay, rest assured. If you don’t trust me, you can count on its intruder shock or bug detection systems. Take your pick.”

“Intruder shock?” Scull said.

“Anybody lays a hand on it who shouldn’t gets hit with fifty thousand volts, the same as with a stun gun. The zapper’s set every night.”

Scull nodded.

“Good enough, I just found myself a phone booth,” he said. Then he stepped past Nimec to the driver’s door and pulled it open. “You guys chill out a minute, I gotta make an important call.”

* * *

“Hello, Fred Sherman—”

“Sherm, it’s Vince,” Scull said into his secure cellular. It was much cooler inside the Rover than out on the blacktop, its mirrored windows blocking the sun’s powerful rays. “Since when do you personally answer your phone?”

“Since my receptionist left for the day along with everybody else who works sane hours,” said Sherman at the other end of the line. He was one of the top data hounds in Scull’s risk-assessment office at UpLink SanJo. “How’s it going?”

“Don’t fucking ask.”

“Nice to hear you sounding happy.”

“I try to be consistent,” Scull said. “Look, I need some info.”

“Sure. Tell me what it is, I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow.”

“I mean I need it right now.”

“Vince, it’s almost seven o’clock at night—”

“Not here in Africa, it isn’t.” Scull glanced at the dashboard clock. “Here in Africa, where I happen to be, it’s still before ten in the morning. The day’s young and the sun’s shining and it feels like a goddamn furnace.”

“Vince, come on. Another ten minutes, five minutes, I would have been out the door—”

“Good I caught you when I did, then,” Scull growled. “Is it a fluke or miracle of God, I wonder?”

“Ah crap, Vince, don’t do this to me—”

“You know the submarine cable maintenance outfit we contracted for our Gabon operation? Nautel?”

“Of course, I did most of the research on it—”

“Which is why I don’t have to explain how it’s the same fleet owner that was doing the job for Planetaire… and why I called you and not somebody else,” Scull said. “I want to see records from both companies about the African fiber outage back in May…”

“Oh. Well, that ought to be easy enough. I already have scads of them in my files…”

“And everything they’ve got on the accident that killed those two Nautel divers. Everything, Sherm. Internal review documents, too.”

“Different story there.” Sherman’s tone had lifted and sunk. “Nautel’s almost sure to cooperate, especially since we still haven’t inked our contracts. But it’s hard to get through to anybody who’s upper rung at Planetaire right now. With the company going bust, and those irregular accounting practices, quote unquote, being covered in the media, their top execs are all bolting down into hidey-holes. And taking their paper shredders with them.”

“More reason to pull the slimebags out by their necks,” Scull said.

“Just like that, huh?”

“Right. You figure out where we’ve got leverage. And use it.”

A prolonged sigh of resignation over the phone.

“Okay, I’ll try my best,” Sherman said. “Where do I fax the docs?”

“You don’t. Send them by ’crypted e-mail,” Scull said. “You need to talk to me about anything, dial up my cell. And from now on, don’t forward any messages to me at the hotel. Not even a hi-how-are-you from my kids. Or that brunette I’ve been seeing.”

“The racked stripper?”

“Amber’s a sultry erotic dancer,” Scull said. “But, yeah, she’s the one.”

“Christ, this does sound serious.”

“I said it was important shit. What the hell, you think I just got an urge to jerk your chain?”

“Christ,” Sherman repeated. “I’ll get back to you fast as I can.”

“Do that,” Scull said. “I’m gonna be waiting at my computer.”

“Look, rush job or not, this could take a while—”

“I’ve got a while. In fact, I’ve got all day. Send me what you can, and make it plenty. Meantime, I need to find an Internet cafe and plug in.”

“You sitting with a crowd of backpacking hipsters at a cyber cafe? Somehow I can’t picture it, Vince.”

Scull shrugged in the driver’s seat.

“Why not?” he said. “If a guy’s main goal is to be an anonymous nobody, there’s no better place for it in the whole stinking world.”

* * *

The UpLink convoy made good time for the first twenty miles of its trip out of Port-Gentil. But it was barely past noon when the populous townships beyond the city thinned out across the low, barren countryside and the string of vehicles left the paved coastal road to drudge over rutted sand and laterite.

At the head of the column, a group of local guides drove one of the unmodified Rovers. Rumbling along after it was a big, squarish 6?6 cargo truck with a loaded-down flatbed trailer. Pete Nimec occupied the front passenger seat of the tricked-out Land Rover in the third slot, DeMarco behind the right-hand steering wheel, a group of four engineers and company officers in back. Then came another armored Rover for the company honchos driven by Wade and Ackerman, followed by a plain vanilla filled with Sword ops and local hired hands. Next were two more 6?6 haulers. Hollinger, Conners, and an assortment of bigwigs and technicians rode seventh and last in the only remaining armored vehicle.

Soon they were rolling between the southern shore of N’dogo Lagoon and a belt of intermittent jungle and scrubland along the Atlantic Ocean. Sunlight poured down on the trail to throw a blinding white glare off the grainy material spread in uneven heaps beneath their wheels. Nimec could see heat-shimmers over his Rover’s wide steel hood as the feeble output from its air-conditioner vents blew lukewarm on his neck and face. Outside his window, slender smooth-barked cypresses rose straight as lamp poles from small island mounds in the lagoon. Storks and egrets stood in the straw-colored reeds at its fringes, some with their long necks bowed to drink. There was no hint of a breeze. Everything seemed still and torpid in the settled dry-season heat. The only motion Nimec observed was from animals along the lagoon bank darting off at the sound of the diesel engines, but it was always out of the corner of his eye, and always too late to catch more than a blurry glimpse of some startled creature — a sleek body,