Dead in the Water

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Book: Read Dead in the Water for Free Online
Authors: Brian Woolland
Talk shit to me, Jeremy.”
    “ Is this about Rachel or work?”
    “ Both. I have to write a report for Andrew Linden.”
    “ Oh,” says Peters. “Right,” making no attempt to conceal his distaste for Linden, the Foreign Secretary.
    “ Caracas is heaving with American and Chinese advisers. What does that mean? I don’t know. What I do know, Mark, is that the oil companies want to take things into their own hands. They’re recruiting private armies. They claim they’re protecting investments. But everybody knows they want the government to give them access to the tar sands. So… in answer to your question, yes, the government’s in control. But who’s in control of the government? What the hell do I know? I’m just the guy on the street.”
    “ Jeremy, you’re the guy who gets to have dinner with the Minister.”
    “ Listen, Mark. The man has all the charm of a Mafia boss running a protection racket. Europe comes up with Carbon Resource Funding, or whatever the current jargon is, or the forest gets turned over to the heavies. It was a threat, not a promise. Have you heard what they’re calling it? The Forest Protection Force . They have an asset; and they want to cash in.”
    “ I don’t care what you call it. Protection money. Whatever. The question is, can they deliver? I have a report to write for Andrew Linden.”
    “ You make it sound like a yes / no question.”
    “ I want an informed opinion.”
    “ Mark, I’ll write you a paper, I promise. Now can I have my shot of caffeine?”
    “ We’ve got the summit in just over a week,” says Mark. “Mrs Walker is confident she can get agreement on Carbon Resource Funding – providing there’s still a government out there to sign up.”
    “ I hear what you’re saying, Mark.” The conversation is over.
    “ Look after yourself.”
    “ I always do. What the hell is going on over there, Mark?”
    “ The Piccadilly bomb? You’ve heard about it already?”
    “ I have the World Service wake me in the mornings.”
    “ You probably know more than I do then,” says Mark.
    Later he grumbles to Ba, “Believe me, if I catch The World at One , I’ll feel well informed.”

6 Caracas
     
    The 6.45 phone call was not a good start to Jeremy Peters’ day. Since then it has got steadily worse. He got in to the office to find all three computers crashed; and now to cap it all, the landline phones are down.
    There are two full time paid staff in the One World office: himself and Calixta, who’s out all morning at a meeting. Several volunteers drop in on an occasional basis. And then there’s Salvador, an earnest young guy in his early twenties, a genius with computers, who would happily spend his whole life in the office. He reckons the problem is a virus. He can fix it. He can fix anything can Salvador.
    For much of the morning Jeremy has been using his own mobile to try to find someone, anyone, willing to talk to him about the shooting incident. He’s spoken directly to Ortega and even got through to Rodriguez’s PA; but everybody gives a version of ‘Why bother?’, variations on a theme of ‘Stuff Happens’: leave it, it’s not his business, things are tough at the moment; if the patrols are trigger-happy, so be it – better that than the anarchy and looting that erupted a month ago.
     
    Within a couple of hours Salvador has the first computer up and running, the virus purged and most of the data restored. The only lost files are overnight e-mails and internet correspondence. Salvador is pretty pleased with himself. “All I have to do is reload the programmes and the computer is ready. Now that I know what is the problem, the other machines are easy.”
    “ How long before I can do some work on it?”
    “ Maybe an hour, maybe ––”
    “ You’re brilliant, Salvador. Thank you,” which Salvador takes as an invitation to talk about his new girlfriend. How he’s known her for years, how he’s always wanted her, how he thought she wasn’t

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