Читать книгу The Song of Mawu - Jeff Edwards - Страница 11

5

At ten o’clock the following morning, a now fully rested group of travellers made their way through the pile of packing cases and plastic covered furniture that littered the lobby of The Fund’s new headquarters to the lift that would take them to the board room.

Their current board room at the London office of The Fund was located near the vault in the basement of a former bank building, but now the lift they entered rose swiftly to the top floor of the new building. Here, the executive suites for The Fund were in the process of being furnished.

An entire corner of the floor had been set aside for the board room with its sweeping views over the surrounding countryside.

Just as it had in the old board room, the portrait of Jade Green done by Lana Reynolds dominated the wall behind the Chairman’s seat. This portrait had been painted using press photos taken at the time of her trial many years before as well as Lana’s memory of the woman she had only known as an elderly lady. The picture was of a middle aged woman, fashionably dressed for the period, with eyes of startling green that pierced the viewer to their core. It had been the legacy of Jade Green’s wealth and her dying wish, which had resulted in the creation of The Fund.

Now, for the first time in many months, the full board of directors were gathered together.

Justine Kemp, the self elected Chairman, sat at the head of the table, with Eliza Strang to her right, while Nori Akuba and her husband Ali took their places beside her. On Justine’s left sat Brian Reynolds and his wife Lana, with Suzie and then Toby Brown.

‘I declare the meeting to order,’ announced Justine. ‘I will now ask Brian Reynolds to read the minutes of the last meeting.’

And so the meeting began with the usual administrative details being attended to. Several minutes later the formalities were out of the way and new business introduced.

Justine began, ‘I now call on Eliza Strang to report on her African project.’

Eliza cleared her throat while shuffling some of the papers before her. Then, quietly at first, but louder as her confidence grew, she made her report.

***

Eliza’s report was extensive and the board of directors listened closely for over an hour as the true description of conditions in the refugee camp was revealed. Several times Eliza’s voice quavered as emotions overcame her, but she persisted.

As her report was drawing to a conclusion there was a discreet tap on the door. The directors turned toward the door in surprise as Rodney Taylor, The Fund’s head of intelligence walked in. The grim look on his face filled those present with a feeling of impending doom.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but I thought you’d want to know right away,’ he said as he handed a slip of paper to the chairman.

Justine read the note and her brow darkened. The rest of the directors watched her reaction closely and felt their stomachs knot in anticipation.

Passing the note on to Brian Reynolds, Justine turned to Rodney Taylor. ‘Thanks Rodney. We’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve had a chance to discuss this.’

Surprised and a little hurt that they didn’t want him to remain, Rodney let himself out. He was on very good terms with all the directors and had assumed that he would be asked to stay and offer his opinion on how to respond.

***

Justine quickly wrote a note on a blank piece of paper and held it up for the other directors to read as Rod’s note was passed around the table.

WAR ROOM were the only words on Justine’s message and the directors nodded to her without comment.

Nori and Ali Akuba exchanged worried expressions as they read the message, but Eliza’s very loud ‘Shit!’ was the only vocal comment.

***

Grasping the note in her clenched fist, Eliza was the first to stand, as the directors made their way silently to the lift lobby.

As the last to enter the lift and therefore the closest one to its rows of buttons, Brian took his security pass from his pocket and waved it over the security pad.

Unlike passes issued to all other staff, the directors had been designed to allow them, and only them, access to the most secure parts of their new building. In fact, the area they were about to enter was completely unknown to anyone except those aboard the lift, and that included The Fund’s Head of Operations.

Brian pushed the button for B4, the fourth level of the basement and when the destination button lit up, he hit the same button several more times in a prescribed pattern. The lift doors closed and the group descended.

The directors stood in silence watching the floor numbers pass from the tenth floor down to the ground floor and then further on down to the basement levels. When the last number B4 was lit, that light remained on but the lift continued to drop beyond the lowest level of the building. A further four floors later the lift finally stopped and the doors opened onto a small bare lobby. Once they were all out, the doors of the lift closed behind them and returned to the B4 level where it would await their call.

The directors were now in a small square lobby surrounded by three walls of painted cement, each totally unadorned. There was no indication of any way out of the enclosed area other than the lift in which they had arrived.

Toby Brown stepped up to the wall on the left hand side of the lift and placed his security card to a scanner that had been skilfully disguised and looked like nothing more than a small blemish in the paintwork. Immediately a small click was heard on the opposite side of the lobby and a carefully disguised door slid open.

Without a word, the directors entered the hallway beyond. Toby was the last one through and applied his pass to a pad inside the door. He watched to make sure the secret door closed behind them.

Movement activated lights switched on as the group passed, until they arrived at a door at the end of the corridor. There Eliza used her pass to gain entry.

Beyond the door, the group found themselves in another board room which was almost an exact copy of the one where they had been sitting in minutes before.

However, the walls of this room had been lined in lead, and its depth below ground level, as well as its secrecy, ensured that any words spoken here would not be heard beyond these walls.

Finally, free to express their views, the group broke into animated conversation and Eliza gave vent to her feelings in no uncertain terms, swearing loudly.

Nori placed her arm around the young woman’s shoulders and hugged her comfortingly.

Justine shook her head in frustration before taking charge. ‘Okay, okay. We’ve all had time to yell and scream, now its time to get down to solving the problem. Sit down everyone and we’ll get on with our meeting.’

Slowly the directors took their chairs and Justine noted that there were tears of rage on Eliza’s cheek, ‘I’ve got to get back there! They need me! I’ll leave straight away!’

‘Will you calm down!’ Justine ordered her friend, ‘Let’s take a moment to consider the situation. Then we’ll decide what to do.’ She took the note from Eliza, and straightened it out before reading it out aloud. ‘Namolan soldiers have taken over your property. Our people being used as forced labour.’ She then looked up at Eliza. ‘Alright Justine, what light can you shed on this message? Would it be correct?’

Eliza looked at Nori and Ali, and then nodded. ‘Not long after we moved in we were visited by Lattua’s brother. That’s General Thomas Lattua the head of Namola’s armed forces. He’d been in the valley with his men when the British Engineers had built the camp. He turned up with a fleet of empty trucks and I think he came to see what he could ‘souvenir’ from what the engineers had left behind and it took him by surprise to find us there using all the buildings.’

‘He didn’t like our presence one little bit and we had to produce all our documentation to convince him that we had every right to be there,’ added Ali. ‘We produced the lease to the property, signed by Governor Trong, the Provincial Governor of Victoria, and the administrator in charge of the area that includes the valley of Ashloko, but he still remained adamant that we should not be there. I think he must have contacted the Governor and his brother the President before he finally went away.’

‘He came back on several more occasions and we had visits from the governor as well,’ said Nori. ‘They ‘said’ it was to learn from our methods, and to see if they could be used to increase productivity on some of their unproductive lands, but the looks of greed I saw when the land began to prove productive told us an entirely different story. I’m sure they were waiting for us to turn our backs so that they could move in.’

‘Well they certainly didn’t waste any time,’ commented Suzie Brown. ‘It seems as though your plane’s wheels were hardly off the ground before they made their move.’

Eliza stood up, ‘Well I’m going back. Now!’

Nori put her hand on the girl’s arm and tried to pull her back into her seat, ‘You can’t go. There’s an army sitting in your camp waiting for you. We have to be careful!’

Justine nodded to her friend, ‘Nori’s right. Sit down. We’d need a larger force to remove them now and we don’t even have a pea shooter between us. We have to think about this.’

Reluctantly Eliza slumped into her chair and looked around at her friends in frustration.

‘The first thing we have to do is try to speak to someone in authority out there,’ said Brian, ‘We have to find out their reasons for doing this and put forward our legal claim to have the army withdrawn from our property,’ said Brian.

‘Spoken like a true solicitor,’ replied his wife with a wry grin.

‘He’s right of course,’ said Justine. ‘I think we need to go right to the top and speak to President Lattua himself. We’ll put our complaint straight to him and plead our case to have the military return our property to us.’

‘I’ll go out there and speak to him face to face. Ali will help me,’ said Eliza.

‘I don’t think that would be a very good idea,’ said Ali, ‘From what I learnt about President Lattua when we were out there, I think we’d better find out how deeply he’s involved with this before we try to go and visit him. I’ve heard stories of people who tried to oppose the President and simply disappeared without a trace.’

Eliza remained silent as she too recalled some of the stories from the Namolan community.

‘I’ll make some arrangements and try to set up a teleconference with the President. We’ll take the call in here so that we can all listen in and form our own opinions,’ announced Justine.