A Quiver Full of Arrows Read online

  “And the ports problem?”

  “The port is totally congested. There are one hundred and seventy ships desperate to unload their cargo with a waiting time of anything up to six months. On top of that, there is a demurrage charge of five thousand dollars a day and only perishable foods are given any priority.”

  “But there’s always a way round that sort of problem,” said Eduardo, rubbing a thumb twice across the top of his fingers.

  “Bribery? It doesn’t work, Eduardo. How can you possibly jump the queue when all one hundred and seventy ships have already bribed the harbor master? And don’t imagine that fixing the rent on a flat for one of his mistresses would help either,” said Rodriguez, grinning. “With that man you will have to supply the mistress as well.”

  Eduardo held his breath but said nothing.

  “Come to think of it,” continued Rodriguez, “if the situation becomes any worse, the harbor master will be the one man in the country who is richer than you.”

  Eduardo laughed for the first time in three days.

  “I tell you, Eduardo, we could make a bigger profit building a salt mine in Siberia.”

  Eduardo laughed again and some of the Prentino and Rodriguez staff dining at other tables stared in disbelief at their masters.

  “You were in for the big one, the new city of Abuja?” said Manuel.

  “That’s right,” admitted Eduardo.

  “I have done everything in my power to make sure you were awarded that contract,” said the other quietly.

  “What?” said Eduardo in disbelief. “Why?”

  “I thought Abuja would give the Prentino empire more headaches than even you could cope with, Eduardo, and that might possibly leave the field wide open for me at home. Think about it. Every time there’s a cutback in Nigeria, what will be the first head to roll off the chopping block? ‘The unnecessary city,’ as the locals all call it.”

  “The unnecessary city?” repeated Eduardo.

  “Yes, and it doesn’t help when you say you won’t move without advance payment. You know as well as I do, you will need one hundred of your best men here full time to organize such a massive enterprise. They’ll need feeding, salaries, housing, perhaps even a school and a hospital. Once they are settled down here, you can’t just pull them off the job every two weeks because the government is running late clearing the checks. It’s not practical and you know it.” Rodriguez poured Eduardo de Silveira another glass of wine.

  “I had already taken that into consideration,” Eduardo said as he sipped the wine, “but I thought that with the support of the Head of State…”

  “The late Head of State—”

  “I take your point, Manuel.”

  “Maybe the next Head of State will also back you, but what about the one after that? Nigeria has had three coups in the past three years.”

  Eduardo remained silent for a moment.

  “Do you play backgammon?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I must make some money while I’m here.”

  Manuel laughed.

  “Why don’t you come to my room,” continued de Silveira. “Though I must warn you I always manage to beat my staff.”

  “Perhaps they always manage to lose,” said Manuel as he rose and grabbed the half-empty bottle of wine by its neck. Both men were laughing as they left the dining room.

  After that, the two chairmen had lunch and dinner together every day. Within a week, their staff were eating at the same tables. Eduardo could be seen in the dining room without a tie while Manuel wore a shirt for the first time in years. By the end of a fortnight, the two rivals had played each other at table tennis, backgammon and bridge with the stakes set at one hundred dollars a point. At the end of each day Eduardo always seemed to end up owing Manuel about a million dollars, which Manuel happily traded for the best bottle of wine left in the hotel’s cellar.

  Although Lieutenant Colonel Dimka had been sighted by about forty thousand Nigerians in about as many different places, he still remained resolutely uncaptured. As the new President had insisted, airports remained closed, but communications were opened, which at least allowed Eduardo to telephone and telex Brazil. His brothers and wife were sending replies by the hour imploring Eduardo to return home at any cost: decisions on major contracts throughout the world were being held up by his absence. But Eduardo’s message back to Brazil was always the same: as long as Dimka is on the loose, the airports will remain closed.

  It was on a Tuesday night during dinner that Eduardo took the trouble to explain to Manuel why Brazil had lost the World Cup in soccer. Manuel dismissed Eduardo’s outrageous claims as ill informed and prejudiced. It was the only subject on which they hadn’t agreed in the past three weeks.

  “I blame the whole fiasco on Zagalo,” said Eduardo.

  “No, no, you cannot blame the manager,” said Manuel. “The fault lies with our stupid selectors who know even less about the sport than you do. They should never have dropped Leao from goal and in any case we should have learned from the Argentinian defeat last year that our methods are now out of date. You must attack, attack, if you want to score goals.”

  “Rubbish. We still have the surest defense in the world.”

  “Which means the best result you can hope for is a 0-0 draw.”

  “Never…” began Eduardo.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  Eduardo looked up to see his private secretary standing by his side looking anxiously down at him.

  “Yes, what’s the problem?”

  “An urgent telex from Brazil, sir.”

  Eduardo read the first paragraph and then asked Manuel if he would be kind enough to excuse him for a few minutes. The latter nodded politely. Eduardo left the table and as he marched through the dining room seventeen other guests left unfinished meals and followed him quickly to his suite on the top floor, where the rest of his staff were already assembled. He sat down alone in the corner of the room. No one spoke as he read through the telex carefully, suddenly realizing how many days he had been imprisoned in Lagos.

  The telex was from his brother Carlos and the contents concerned the Pan-American road project through the Amazonian jungle. Prentinos had tendered for the section that ran through the middle of the Amazon jungle and had to have the bank guarantees signed and certified by midday tomorrow, Tuesday. Eduardo had quite forgotten which Tuesday it was and the document he was committed to sign by the following day’s deadline.

  “What’s the problem?” Eduardo asked his private secretary. “The Banco do Brasil have already agreed with Alfredo to act as guarantors. What’s stopping Carlos from signing the agreement in my absence?”

  “The Mexicans are now demanding that responsibility for the contract be shared because of the insurance problems: Lloyd’s of London will not cover the entire risk if only one company is involved. The details are all on page seven of the telex.”

  Eduardo flicked quickly through the pages. He read that his brothers had already tried to put pressure on Lloyd’s, but to no avail. That’s like trying to bribe a maiden aunt into taking part in a public orgy, thought Eduardo, and he would have told them as much if he had been back in Brazil. The Mexican government was therefore insisting that the contract be shared with an international construction company acceptable to Lloyd’s if the legal documents were to be signed by the midday deadline the following day.

  “Stay put,” said Eduardo to his staff, and he returned to the dining room alone, trailing the long telex behind him. Rodriguez watched him as he scurried back to their table.

  “You look like a man with a problem.”

  “I am,” said Eduardo. “Read that.”

  Manuel’s experienced eye ran down the telex, picking out the salient points. He had tendered for the Amazon road project himself and could still recall the details. At Eduardo’s insistence, he re-read page seven.

  “Mexican bandits,” he said as he returned the telex to Eduardo. “Who do they think they are,