Predator. Wilbur Smith
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laughed, gazing in wonder at his daughter, his darling Kitty-Cross. How had she done it, he wondered? How could a tiny little person who had only just learned to say her first words fill his heart with so much love? He was helpless in her presence, yet the tenderness of his love for her was equalled by the fierceness of his determination to keep her safe.
Now that Johnny Congo was at large once again, Cross knew that he would have to go back to war. Sooner or later, Congo would come after him, and when he did, there could only be one winner, one survivor. This time, though, Cross would be alone on the battlefield. Jo’s decision to leave had ripped open the emotional wound that she herself had helped heal. Cross wondered if there would ever be another chance to find someone new. One of the reasons Jo had left was that she thought he would blame her for Congo’s escape. The truth was, he blamed himself much more for exposing her to the death, the pain and the harsh cruelties that were his inescapable companions.
‘Mr Cross … Mr Cross!’ His reverie was broken by Bonnie’s voice. ‘There’s a Skype call for you … from America.’
Cross looked at his watch. In all the fussing over Catherine’s dinner, he’d completely lost track of the time. ‘Snap out of it, man!’ he told himself. ‘Work!’
He went into his study, sat down in front of the monitor and did a double-take. Bobby Franklin was not the middle-aged white male he had been expecting but an elegant African-American woman, whose fine features and lovely hazel eyes were given a scholarly touch by her tortoiseshell spectacles. That must have been the information that went missing when he’d lost contact with Bigelow, that afternoon on the Tay. To judge by the grainy image on the screen in front of him, Franklin was in her early to mid-thirties. ‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I’m Hector Cross.’
A smile crossed her face. Cross frowned uncertainly. Had he said something amusing?
‘Excuse me, Mr Cross,’ Franklin said, ‘but there’s something on your face and it looks a little like spaghetti sauce.’
Now it was Cross’s turn to grin, more from embarrassment than amusement. ‘That’s my daughter’s supper. I was crazy enough to try feeding her this evening. Where is it, exactly?’
‘On your cheek and chin …’ She paused as he dabbed at his face. ‘No, the other side … there you go!’
‘Thanks. Hope that hasn’t totally destroyed my credibility as a security expert.’
‘Not at all. And it’s made you much more interesting as a man.’
Cross felt the electrical charge of that first contact between a man and a woman. How strange to experience it through a pair of screens, thousands of miles apart. Pleased that the loss of Jo Stanley hadn’t completely beaten him down, Cross looked at Franklin for a moment, just to let her know that he’d heard her.
‘Speaking of interesting, you don’t look much like an average Bob,’ he said.
She smiled again. ‘It’s Bobbi, with an “i”, short for Roberta.’
‘Well, I’m glad we’ve sorted that out,’ said Cross. ‘Now we should get down to business …’
‘Good idea … so, do you know much about Africa, Mr Cross?’
‘Well, I was born in Kenya, spent the first eighteen years of my life there and the only reason I’m not a full Morani warrior of the Maasai tribe is that although I’ve undergone all the initiation rites, I’ve not been circumcised. So yes, I know a bit.’
‘Oh …’ Franklin said, wincing. ‘Sounds like I should have done my homework before we met.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s quite a relief that Uncle Sam doesn’t know everything about me.’
She smiled. ‘Oh, I’m sure he does. I just hadn’t asked his archives the right questions. But I’m glad to hear about your past because it makes my job today a whole lot easier. You’ll understand the first thing I want to say, which is this: Africa isn’t poor. The great mass of Africans is still very poor. But Africa itself is very rich. Or, at least, it could be.’
‘You mean if corrupt leaders didn’t keep all their people’s wealth for themselves and siphon off most of the aid given to them by guilt-ridden suckers in the West?’ said Cross, who liked the way Bobbi Franklin thought almost as much as the way she looked.
‘Well, I’d put it a little more diplomatically, but, yes. Let me give you some examples to illustrate the point: stop me if I’m telling you things you already know. You’re going to be operating off the coast of Angola, so would you care to estimate how much oil those offshore fields produce, in total, per day?’
‘Hmm …’ Cross thought, his mind now fully focused on his job. ‘Our rig at Magna Grande will produce around eighty thousand barrels a day when it’s going flat out. There are lots of other rigs like it. So I guess the total would be, what, twenty times as much?
‘Not bad, Mr Cross, not bad at all. Angola produces one point eight million barrels of oil a day: so yes, just over twenty times your rig’s production. The nation’s oil exports are currently running at about seventy-two billion dollars a year. And there’s about three hundred billion cubic metres of natural gas down there too.’
‘That sounds like they have around a trillion dollars of reserves.’
‘And that’s why I say that Africa’s rich. Granted, Angola’s not as blessed with oil reserves as Nigeria, and it doesn’t have the incredible mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it’s got Africa’s first female billionaire, who just happens to be the President’s daughter. And I hope Bannock Oil gives you a decent expense account when you’re out there because a couple of years ago the Angolan capital, Luanda, was named the most expensive city on earth. A hamburger’ll cost you fifty bucks. Go to a beach club and order a bottle of champagne – that’ll be four hundred. If you decide you like it and want to rent a single-bedroom apartment, the best ones go for ten grand a month.’
‘And I thought London was expensive.’
‘Here’s the biggest sign that things have changed. Forty years ago, Angola was just declaring its independence from Portugal. Three years ago, the Portuguese Prime Minister paid a visit to Luanda. He wasn’t coming to give Angola aid. He couldn’t afford to. Portugal was bust. So the Prime Minister wanted aid from Angola.’
Cross gave a low whistle. He’d always thought there was something condescending, even racist, about the western liberal assumption that black Africa was a helpless basket case of a continent, pathetically grateful for a few crumbs from the white man’s table. Now those tables had turned. But there was one vital element missing from Bobbi Franklin’s account.
‘Just out of curiosity, how rich is the average Angolan?’ Cross asked. ‘I’m assuming they don’t eat too many fifty-dollar hamburgers.’
‘You assume correctly. More than a third of Angola’s population, which is roughly twenty million people – no one knows the exact figure – live below the poverty line. Less than half of them have access to electricity. So even though they’re sitting on gigantic energy reserves most of them depend on a mix of wood, charcoal, crop residues and animal manure for their cooking fires. This is a classic case of a rich African country filled with dirt-poor African people.’
Now they were getting to the heart of the discussion. ‘How angry are these people?’ Cross asked. ‘Are they ready to take violent action against the government or foreign businesses? They do in Nigeria, after all.’
‘Yes, they certainly do.’ Franklin nodded, and Cross was momentarily distracted by how sexy she looked pushing her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. He tried to snap his mind back to what she was saying.
‘Nigerian oil production can drop by up to five million barrels a day because of terrorist and criminal activity. As I’m sure you know, there are regular attacks on the oil industry’s infrastructure. There’s also a major problem with “bunkering”. That’s