Doing Dangerously Well by Carole Enahoro

Author:Carole Enahoro [Enahoro, Carole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-37416-5
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2010-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

Face of Gold

Although the Dam Division had deployed key staff to Kainji, surrounding themselves with a preponderance of American construction crews, Beano suggested that he assume the mundane task of visiting the area, chiefly as a courtesy, in Sinclair’s stead. Dam Div could be unusually sensitive when TransAqua put their lives at stake.

At Kainji, the project had fallen behind schedule as expected, but Beano’s dimples managed to secure a loyalty that Sinclair’s dazzling width of teeth and Glass’s linear slash could never have achieved. He stood with a project manager in a Portakabin, watching an artillery of rain smash down to earth, pummelling the ground so hard that stones pinged and flipped.

“Wow! It really pours down here, huh?” Beano shouted over the rain’s booming.

“No protection against it, sir,” the man shouted back through the dank air. “Wish they’d invent an umbrella made out of Kevlar.”

Beano released a ripple oflaughter. “Project going well despite?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve had to build infrastructural support-roads, bridges, you name it-and fly in all the equipment.” He wiped the sweat from his face and forearms. “Some shipped in, of course.”

Beano flashed a bashful glance of adulation at this item of burly masculinity. The project manager might find it unsettling, Beano knew, but he would also appreciate the acknowledgement that only the tough could survive Nigeria’s rigours.

“Any problems from saboteurs?”

The man’s chest puffed out. “Nothing we can’t handle, sir.”

His fingernails shredded to non-existence with the anxiety wrought by three months of indiscriminate destruction in areas north of Kainji Dam, Kolo once more called for the newspapers. He had moved his desk behind a pillar that separated two large windows, in order to hide from potential snipers. To reinforce his authority, however, he also ordered that his portrait hang behind him, even though its frame jutted out slightly into the window casings.

The minister for the environment entered. Although the man was one of the least powerful ministers in government, Kolo enjoyed his confidant’s company, if only to assure himself of his own worth-a particular humiliation inadvertently meted out to his hidden opponent.

“Good morning, Mr. President. How are you, sir?” The minister’s manner seemed skittish.

“Well as can be, under the circumstances. And yourself?”

“Dangerously well, sir,” he smiled at this phrase. “Dangerously well.”

Kolo jerked up at the faint echo of a similar phrase, but he quickly discounted such trifles and furrowed back down into his despair.

“The news is not good. What has this country come to?” The minister bowed and handed Kolo the papers with trembling hands. “Explosions everywhere. No one knows where Jegede will strike next. We cannot find where his militia is based.”

Kolo waved for the minister to sit down.

“You need to increase your protection. I can organize greater security for you,” the minister said.

Kolo slumped in his chair, gave an absent-minded nod and scanned the headlines: “Opposition to the Dam Grows.” Under a picture of broken power lines, the caption “Power to the people.”

His heart began its erratic drumming once more, beating messages of warning. “Who can believe it?” he demanded.

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