The Abrupt Physics of Dying Read online

  ‘Did you hear what I said, Straker?’ said Parnell. If anything he looked more bloated than Clay remembered, softer, the eyes darker, smaller.

  ‘I heard you,’ said Clay, and turning to Karila: ‘I need to talk to you, Nils.’

  Karila put down his knife and fork, swallowed his food.

  ‘It’s about Al Urush.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Something bad is happening. Some sort of epidemic. I think the sheikh was telling the truth.’ Why else would Al Shams be pushing so hard for answers, be willing to maim his own countryman? The young chief, who Clay had immediately trusted, had been convinced that this was no ordinary bout of sickness. And now he was dead, murdered by Zdravko. Clay swallowed hard, a dry stone in his throat.

  Parnell shifted his bulk and grunted something Clay could not make out.

  ‘We have already spoken about this,’ Karila said in his usual businesslike tone. ‘Al Urush is not our concern. If there is an illness, as you say, then it is something for the authorities, the Health Department.’

  ‘I took one of the kids to the hospital.’

  Karila and Parnell sat open-mouthed.

  ‘But when I went back today, the doctor had been replaced. There was no record of the examination. It was as if it had never happened.’ After another fifty dollars spent bribing the administrative clerk and two fruitless hours poring over hospital records, the clerk translating dates and names, Clay had driven to Al Urush. Mohamed and his mother were back in their house, the little guy even worse, limp on the creaky cot, barely able to open his eyes.

  She knew nothing, or hadn’t understood what the doctor had told her, if indeed he had told her anything at all. He’d spent over an hour trying to convince her to let him take Mohamed to Aden, put him in a real hospital, but she’d resisted every attempt, each of his clumsy arguments. Finally, in tears, screaming, she’d pushed him out of her house, slammed the door behind him, left him standing in the dust, the target of a dozen suspicious gazes shot through cracked shutters and shifted veils.

  Parnell leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his head.

  ‘I appreciate your sense of public duty, Mister Straker,’ said Karila. ‘But you represent Petro-Tex out there. I am sure our lawyers would tell you that such actions could be misconstrued by some as an admission of responsibility. Please do not do it again.’

  ‘You have got to be joking.’

  ‘I am quite serious. We have to keep our eyes on the ball here, Mister Straker. And the ball is getting this expansion underway as soon as possible.’ Karila looked over at his boss like a child at a doting parent.

  Clay could see the tightrope under his feet, the chasm of his friend’s fate opening up beneath. He took a deep breath, steadied himself. ‘The sheikh said that the illness started about six months ago. Is there anything, anything at all, that has changed up at the CPF? Leaks, spills, gas venting, anything that might trigger a problem?’

  Parnell rocked forward in his chair. ‘There ain’t nothin’ up there but a few oil-water separators and a tank farm, Straker. It’s not like it’s a fucking refinery or something. This is a basic operation.’

  Clay ignored Parnell and addressed Karila directly. ‘The water is a lot saltier,’ said Clay. ‘Nearly 4000 milligrams per litre. Normally it’s less than 500.’

  ‘You know as well as I do that water quality there is highly variable, especially in the wadis,’ said Karila. ‘It is perfectly natural.’

  ‘Whatever it is, they think it’s us. It’s ugly: sick kids, miscarriages. The payments aren’t going to keep them quiet for long.’

  ‘Get real, Straker. Look at the way these people live,’ said Parnell, forking a slice of beef into his mouth. ‘Raw sewage and trash everywhere. Are you surprised that they’re all getting sick? For fuck’s sake, Straker, you’re acting like a rookie. You’ve seen this stuff before. That’s why we pay you.’

  Atef leaned his belly over the table to put a plate of roast beef with all the trimmings in front of Clay.

  ‘Shukran, Atef,’ Clay said, his appetite suddenly gone.

  The cook smiled. ‘How is it, Mister Clay?’

  ‘About as well as Zamalek, to tell you the truth.’ Zamalek was Atef’s beloved Cairo football team.

  Atef smiled. ‘Yes, they lose again this week. No midfield, no attack. But we never give up hope.’

  Clay forced a smile.

  ‘Thank you, Atef,’ said Karila. ‘You can go.’ He waited until the cook had left the room, and then turned to Clay. ‘Did you make the necessary payments, Mister Straker?’

  Clay took a deep breath. ‘All done,’ he said, holding his tone neutral. ‘But Abdulkader is still out there, still a prisoner. We should offer a payment for his return.’

  ‘We don’t pay ransom to terrorists,’ said Parnell.

  ‘But we’re happy to bribe communities.’

  Parnell’s cheeks flushed. ‘It’s not the same thing, goddammit, Straker, and you know it.’

  ‘They are facilitation payments,’ said Karila. ‘Not bribes.’

  ‘This is not going to go away,’ said Clay.

  ‘Straker, you’re here to keep these people sweet. Not stir ’em up. The expansion is top priority. We expect our contractors to help move the ball down the field.’

  Clay looked at the American and then over at Karila. That was where he should have stopped. That was where he had stopped every other time, his client happy, with a bit of luck the money in his account, his conscience – what little of it he had managed to salvage over the last years – absolved. But the words came anyway. ‘Is that what Todorov is doing? Keeping people sweet?’

  Parnell and Karila looked at him with blank expressions.

  ‘What are you talking about, Straker?’ said Karila.

  They didn’t know.

  ‘Nothing. Look, we need to figure out what is going on. Let me go to the CPF, have a look.’

  The other two men sat chewing their food. Clay picked up his water glass, looked through its distorting meniscus at Parnell.

  ‘I thought you had taken a water sample,’ said Karila.

  Clay tipped his glass and let a drop of water fall to his napkin. ‘Bloody lab screwed up – spilled it.’

  Parnell coughed and fidgeted in his chair.

  ‘I could take some proper air and water samples,’ Clay continued. ‘That would tell us for sure. It won’t take long. I can do it right away.’

  ‘Thank you for the suggestion, Straker. But that is not in the programme or the budget at this time. We do not have time or money to waste.’

  ‘We’re talking about less than five thousand dollars, Nils. No impact on schedule.’ Before coming back to the guesthouse he had lodged the new samples from Al Urush and Bawazir with the laboratory, under his own name this time. If necessary he would pay for the analysis himself. Not that he could afford it. He was rapidly burning through the last of his cash.

  Karila wiped his lips with his napkin, draped it over his unfinished meal, and lit a cigarette. ‘The CPF is locked down. You know that. And even if it wasn’t, it would make no difference. We are not the cause.’

  ‘OK. We’re not the cause. Let’s prove it. To ourselves, to everyone, to Al Shams.’

  Parnell spat. ‘I don’t have to prove nothin’ to a goddamned murderer.’

  ‘Don’t be hysterical, Mister Straker,’ said Karila, smoke pouring from his mouth and nostrils. ‘It is ludicrous even to suggest that air pollution from our facility is causing this.’

  ‘It’s even more ludicrous not to protect yourself against the suggestion.’

  Parnell pushed his chair back with a loud scrape of wood on tile and levered himself to his feet. ‘Goddammit, Straker,’ he barked, eyes bulging. ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit. You got me? This is over. Now get on side and do your fucking job, or I’ll get someone who will.’

  Parnell and Karila strode from the room leaving Clay alone at the table.

&n
bsp; After dinner Clay showered and locked himself in his room. He pulled a bottle of CC from his bag and opened the big window and looked out over the lights of Little Aden blinking in the distance. A warm breeze blew through the room. The sea air smelt of iodine and faintly of sewage. He unscrewed the bottle and took two big gulps of the whisky. He was still not sure about the illnesses. A sick boy was not unusual. He had seen a lot worse – polio cripples walking bent double with wooden blocks strapped to their palms, diseased urchins picking through steaming landfills, their eyes thick with flies. He had not seen or smelt anything in the way of air pollution, and a bit of salt in the water was not going to make anyone sick. These kids were malnourished and open to all kinds of disease and infection. Their little bodies were just too weak to cope.

  But what had Zdravko been doing with the Army at Bawazir? What had sparked the killing? Karila and Parnell hadn’t even twitched an eyelid. Was Zdravko working behind the company’s back? And if so, to what end? More immediately, had he recognized Clay as the man who stood up on the cliffside and tried to stop the killing? If so, he was in real danger. Clay took another swig of whisky. His head was spinning. He closed his eyes. All that blood soaking into the parched ground. The broken bodies twisted like pretzels, the young chief dead on the ground, his white robes splattered with gore, the women wailing as they moved among the corpses, long plumes of dust spiralling away behind the fleeing vehicles into a sky so blue it crushed your eyes. He opened his eyes, shook his head, but all he could see were the sores on little Mohamed’s arms, open and weeping, and Abdulkader’s grizzled hand, hacked off God knew how, withered, dead.

  He reached for the bottle.

  There was a knock at the door. He stood, steadied himself a moment, walked across the marble floor and unbolted the lock.

  Karila held up a bottle of schnapps and two glasses. ‘Do you have a minute?’

  They sat outside on the balcony and looked at the lights flickering around the bay. Karila poured out two glasses and lit up a cigarette. ‘Don’t worry about Vance,’ said the Finn. ‘He’s not as bad as he seems, really.’

  Clay took a sip of the alcohol. It was aspartame sweet, oddly artificial. ‘He’s a pompous son of a bitch and you know it. All that crap about moving the ball, as if this were some kind of game. Abdulkader is a prisoner, if he isn’t dead already. And Parnell won’t do a thing about it.’

  Karila sipped his drink. ‘Leave it with me, Straker. I’ll talk to him, see if we can do something.’

  Clay looked at the Finn. His pale eyes were haloed red. ‘Let me do the testing at the villages, Nils. If we do it quickly, Al Shams will let Abdulkader go.’

  Karila waved his free hand. ‘You heard Vance. It’s out of the question.’

  Clay filled his lungs, held the air, exhaled slowly. ‘OK then. Five thousand dollars ransom would do it, Nils. It’s the going rate.’

  Karila put down his glass, pondered this for a moment. ‘That’s a lot of money, Clay.’

  ‘22,500 barrels a day,’ said Clay, not trying to disguise the anger in his voice. ‘World price twenty-one dollars a barrel, give or take. Cost of production and royalties, what, seven dollars? That’s a net profit of 315,000 a day, Nils. A day.’

  Karila glanced up and to the right.

  ‘I’d pay it myself if I had the money.’ He glanced at Karila. ‘But I haven’t seen a cent for three months.’

  Karila frowned. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to wait so long, Straker. We’ll get that sorted out right away.’

  ‘Maybe I should start charging Medved interest,’ he said. Both his offshore accounts in Cyprus were overdrawn, and the banks were screaming. He hadn’t sent anything to Eben’s parents in months. ‘I really need that money, Nils.’

  ‘I will look after it personally.’

  ‘And Abdulkader?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Inshallah,’ Clay said.

  ‘Things are going well, Straker. Let’s keep it up and get this past the regulators and finished. Finish the report so we can review it and sign off. Work your magic with the authorities. They trust you. There’s a bonus for you if you finish on schedule. And then there is another big piece of work I would like you to do for us – a baseline assessment for a new exploration block further North in the Empty Quarter – sole source, no bidding. We’ll extend your contract immediately at 900 a day. How does that sound?’

  Clay emptied the glass and put it back down on the table, calculated the money it would bring in. In a couple of months he might actually have his head above water, ever so slightly. ‘Hundreds.’

  Karila pursed his lips. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means good. Just pay me what you owe me, OK?’

  Karila fiddled with the bottle, twisting it in place on the table, grinding glass on stone. ‘Go to accounts first thing next week and Dunkley will have a cheque for you. And Clay …’ He had never used his given name before. ‘… the PSO called me today, asking about you.’

  Clay’s stomach lurched over the apex.

  Karila cast a sidelong glance and refilled his own glass. ‘They say you’ve been talking to the Press.’ Karila lit another of his French cigarettes and inhaled deeply. ‘That’s a bad idea, Clay, from everyone’s perspective. You know the rules.’

  Clay tried to avoid the plume of blue smoke. ‘Jesus, all I did was have a drink with a girl by the pool.’

  ‘Yes, that LaTour woman. I heard. Stay away from her, Clay.’

  Clay sat a moment, quiet, thought about this. Then he said: ‘Didn’t tell her a thing, Nils.’

  ‘Good. And stay clear of the Mövenpick. That’s an order. The management called me about your little altercation in the lobby. They are very unhappy that our people are engaging in “unruly behaviour”, as they call it.’

  ‘It was nothing, Nils.’

  ‘So you don’t deny it.’

  ‘Why should I? It was after hours. It’s none of the company’s business.’

  ‘Nothing, you say, Straker? The man you assaulted worked for one of our contractors. He was flown to hospital in Europe this morning with a broken arm and a fractured jaw, for God’s sake.’

  Clay said nothing.

  ‘You’re lucky he’s not pressing charges.’

  ‘He’s the lucky one,’ said Clay.

  Karila frowned. ‘Why do you have to be so difficult?’ He sighed. ‘Just remember what I said. We’re counting on you.’

  Clay leaned forward and grabbed Karila’s wrist. ‘And Abdulkader is counting on you.’

  The Finn’s cigarette butt fell to the floor. It glowed there, browning the tile. Karila looked at Clay’s hand on his wrist, then back up at Clay. ‘I said I’d do what I could.’

  Clay let go.

  Karila stood, crushed the cigarette with a twist of his shoe, gathered up the bottle and the glasses, and stood up. ‘Trust me on this, Straker,’ he said. Then he turned and disappeared into the hallway.

  Clay closed the door, walked over to the window, opened the whisky and swigged a mouthful, and then another, trying to wash the cloying taste from his mouth. Trust. He put the bottle down and walked down the hall to the communications room. It was empty. He picked up the sat phone receiver and punched in a number.

  ‘It’s Clay Straker.’ The satellite connection hissed and warbled behind the echo of his voice. ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ he said. ‘I need to talk to you. It’s important.’

  In Paradise

  Clay woke early the next morning, the city still shrouded in sea mist, the streets empty. He dressed, threw a water bottle into his pack, checked his wallet and passport, locked the door to his room, and walked down the guesthouse stairs. He was opening the front door when Atef called his name.

  The big Egyptian was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his hands covered in flour. ‘Telephone, Mister Clay.’

  Clay looked at his watch. Not yet six o’clock.

  ‘Here, in my kitchen.’

  C
lay closed the door and followed Atef into the kitchen. The air was thick with the smell of yeast, dough, rising bread. Atef handed him a flour-patched receiver.

  ‘Clay Straker here.’

  ‘You wanted to know about Champard.’ The line was bad, the voice hollow.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Look, I don’t have long.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘It wasn’t Al Shams who killed Thierry.’

  Clay said nothing, waited.

  ‘November 30th. That’s the day Thierry was killed.’ As if he could forget. ‘Check the personnel records, Straker, the accounts.’

  He could hear the Southern accent. ‘Jim, is that you?’

  ‘Dig, Straker.’

  ‘Who killed him?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it wasn’t Al Shams. Figure it out, Straker. But do it fast. They’re on to you.’

  ‘Why was he killed?’

  The line hissed. Clay could hear breathing at the other end. ‘Don’t let them do to you what they’ve done to me.’

  ‘Do what? What are they doing?’

  ‘Someone’s coming. I’ve gotta go.’ The line went dead.

  Clay stood for a moment, receiver in hand. Atef was watching him, sleeves rolled up over thick forearms, kneading a big lump of dough. ‘OK, Mister Clay?’

  ‘Tammam,’ he replied, unsteady. He replaced the handset in its cradle on the wall. ‘Did you know Champard, Atef?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mister Clay. A very nice man, a good man. Always polite. When he stayed with us here he always left money for the staff. Very sad what happened to him.’ The cook thrust a freshly baked croissant and a steaming mug of coffee into his hands. ‘Before you go,’ he said.

  By early morning Clay had left the wide sweeping Southern plains behind and came into the fertile uplands of Ta’izz. It was just outside of Ad Dimnah that he first noticed it: a white Pajero, newish, with a dented front quarter-panel, tracking behind. At first, he paid it no attention. But as other vehicles came and went, the Pajero followed like a faithful dog, falling back as the miles clicked by and then surging closer again, always behind. An hour later he was in the mountains, the country here green, terraced from valley to peak, the narrow road twisting through mountain passes with purple rivers and foam-white rapids threading through the dark volcanic rock far below, the Pajero still following.