BAMAKO - Aribert Raphael (red queen ebook TXT) 📗

was more than he purported to be. The nobility, the aristocratic demeanour, his manner—everything about this man spelled a higher station in life.
She went to sit on the lounge chair and heaved a sigh. Slowly and when her heartbeat returned to normal, Talya began to visualize the chain of events, which led to the murder of Richard Gillman and the reasons behind it. She was closer than ever to confirming the identity of the killer.
Dinner arrived. She ate on the terrace. As she was looking at the ocean, she remembered what she had seen on the first morning of her arrival in Dakar, ages ago now. A pirogue, a fisherman rowing, another casting his net once, then twice… She knew the answer, but she couldn’t prove it.
93
Late that night Talya was reading in bed when she heard a knock at the door. She wondered who could be calling at that hour. Hassan had said that he was going to retire early, so to be ready to tackle what ever was going to happen the next morning—like a meeting with the ambassador.
The rapping became insistent. Talya got into her robe and went to the entrance passage, listening to the sounds behind the door.
“Who is it?” she called out.
“James Flaubert” was the answer. In a rush, she let him in and closed the door behind him.
“James! What on earth made you come down?” Stunned, she got a big hug from him.
“Don’t look so surprised. Are you all right?”
“Yes, absolutely, but why—”
“Why am I here? Talya, I couldn’t reach you—you had left the Grand without a word. All I knew was that you were coming down to Dakar as we’d agreed when we last spoke. Only a phone call from Sir Gillian got me on the first available flight. When I arrived, I was told that Savoi and Mr. Hjamal had been questioned, that his cohort, Abdul Rasheed, was on the run, that several hundred kilos (!) of nitro had been discovered in Sabodala, and that you, my dear, were behind this ... this chaos. The ambassador also told me that Mr. Fade met with him today and that everyone was back in town awaiting police instructions. I wanted to know what really happened. So here I am.”
“Please come in,” Talya said.
They went to the living room where they sat down, she in one of the chairs, and he on the sofa. “Would you like something to drink?” Talya asked.
“Yes, if you don’t mind. I could use a drink. A scotch on the rocks, will do, if you have?”
“Of course, there is everything in this place—” She went to the bar, got James what he asked for and helped herself to a cognac. She settled back in her seat, looking at her boss in amazement—she could not quite believe he was sitting opposite her, in Dakar, in Africa!
“James,” she began, smiling, “all I want to say for the moment, is that I am very grateful that you’re here. It will make things a lot easier.”
“What things are we talking about?” He took a grateful sip from his scotch.
“What things? Well, to tell you that, I would have to tell you the whole story, and to do that, I would have to spend the rest of the night doing it.”
“Talya, I came ten thousand miles to hear what you have to say, please do me the favour of telling me right now what happened.”
She told him. When she finished, James got up from the sofa, where he had been sitting for over an hour. “If I had heard this from someone else than you, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it. And, I’m not sure I do yet.” He stood facing her, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his glass.
Talya shook her head and looked up at her boss, somewhat disappointed. “You’ve asked me to uncover the truth. You wanted me to find out what was behind Savoi’s conduct so to satisfy the Board and our shareholders that we were innocent of all blame. I’m sorry, if this whole thing turned out to be a little more than what you expected, but that’s the best I can offer.”
“Yes, I know.” He drank a bit of the scotch. “What are you going to do now?” He then pivoted on his heels and went to stand by the terrace door.
“What I’d like to do is to meet with Hjamal one last time. We need to know why he went so far as to tunnel under the village and if that was just part of a plan. And I have a couple more questions for him—”
“Such as?” James came back and sat down once again, glass still in hand.
“Such as what he is planning to do now. He doesn’t have the right to sell the land nor continue mining it, unless the government grants him the necessary permits. If not, what is he going to do?”
“And when you know that, what’s next?”
Talya was wondering why the questions. Where did he want her to go with the answers? “Sabodala will have to be taken over by someone. And if we play our cards right, Carmine can be the one to do that.”
“Aren’t you jumping the gun a little? Sabodala has never been explored properly. You know that as well as I do. We would have to start from scratch. And I don’t know that we can convince the shareholders to do that at the moment.”
“Don’t tell me you want to put Sabodala in the too-hard-basket,” Talya said, flustered, “when you know that we have a solid opportunity here. We can’t just turn our backs on it.”
“We’ll see. And what about Mali, what are we doing there?”
“We can’t do much at the moment, except perhaps planning for an exploration campaign—but that’s Terry’s department. And before getting to that point, we’ll need to do two things—”
“And what are those?” Talya felt like she was back in school, the teacher continually steering her train of thoughts.
“For one thing we have to show proof to the Minister of Mines that our agent, Mr. Savoi, was in fact embezzling funds, and was bribing government employees without our knowledge. When we’ve done that, we’ll probably be called to come back to Mali and make a presentation to a bunch of Ministers, who will ultimately approve of our plans for the development of Kankoon.” She stopped, sipped on her cognac, and waited for the next query. It didn’t come.
Instead, James said, “Now that I’ve put your brains back in some sort of order, what are you going to do tomorrow?” Put my brains back in order? What was that supposed to mean? Come to think of it—he is right. Talya was in desperate need of steering into the future.
“Well, I need to go and see the ambassador, and perhaps I’ll go to the commissioner and give a statement.”
“I agree with the ambassador part, but as for going to the commissioner, I think you should get him to come over here, so he can hear your conclusions in front of Hjamal, Savoi, Rheza McLean and Johan. And then, he can write all the reports he wants and question who ever he pleases at leisure, and we can be on our way home in a couple of days.”
That statement hit her hard. Going home—did I want to go home?
“I guess you’re right, that will be the quicker way to do things.”
“What’s wrong? You don’t sound convinced.”
“No, no I am, it’s just that…” Talya hesitated.
“What? For goodness sake—”
“What about Sabodala? Are you going to walk away?”
“I’ve heard what you said earlier. And no, personally I won’t walk away. Yet I have to think about it. If there is a way for us to get involved then of course, we can’t just turn our backs on something like that. Just let me sleep on it, okay?”
“All right.”
He fumbled in his pockets in search of his room-key. When he found it, he showed it to Talya.
“That’s where you should be able to find me in the morning. I may have a lot more questions to ask you then. And you, Talya, better have the answers.”
She smiled.
He rose from the sofa and looked down at her but didn’t say anything. He quietly took his leave. Talya remained standing in the hallway watching the door close on the man who, unknowingly, had been responsible for creating a monstrous situation out of misplaced trust.

94
The morning light came too quickly. When Talya opened her eyes, she immediately thought of Samir. How can this man have such a power over me? She wouldn’t find the answer to that question for weeks to come.
A little after nine o’clock, she and Hassan were on the terrace eating breakfast. She told him about James’s arrival and of his suggestion to tell the story to everyone who had been involved in this affair, the next day. Hassan agreed with the plan and said he would organize a meeting for nine o’clock. She also mentioned that she wanted to meet with the ambassador and with Hjamal, one last time. He didn’t like that last idea at all. Jealousy had flared in his eyes again.
A strident ringing from the living room jerked Talya out of her thoughts.
Putting the receiver to her ear, she recognized James’s voice instantly.
“Hello there. How are you?” Phone still in hand, she came back to the terrace and sat down again.
“Not worse than expected.” James sounded tired still—twenty hours of flying and running through airports could get you exhausted in no time. No wonder he sounded weary. “Ready to face the music?”
“Yes, I guess so. But could I see you, before I do, though?” Talya asked.
“Yes, I think we should meet and do a little planning of our own. That’s why I phoned.”
“Okay, when and where?”
“Let me have breakfast then I’ll come to your suite. There is enough room in there to have a General Meeting of the Board.” He laughed. “Would eleven suit you?”
“Yep, that’s sounds fine. Oh, one question; do you want to meet Maitre Sangor, and have him present at the meeting?” At hearing these words, Hassan smiled and shook his head.
“If he’s available yes, because what we have to discuss may interest him as well.”
“Good, eleven it is. We’ll see you here then.”
When they rang off, Hassan peered into Talya’s eyes. “What are you up to now?”
“Nothing really. I just thought that you should be here when I talk to James, that’s all.”
“I know you, Talya. You and James are planning something ... what is it?”
“I’m planning nothing. James is.”
“I hate going into a meeting blindfolded—”
“There isn’t any blindfolding anyone here, and to tell you the truth, I don’t know what James’s planning. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”
“Okay, you win again. But you’ve mentioned something about going to see the ambassador, when do you intend to do that? And, what about this other meeting with Hjamal? Maybe I need to get Daphne out here to straighten things out—you’re getting busier than a Minister.” He was grinning.
“How about you phone the ambassador and Hjamal to get the meetings set up for this afternoon?”