“About what?” Mike asked, unaware of the bargaining stakes.
“Someone has kidnapped Maria and Angelica.”
“Charles!” Mike raised her voice, and her black hair was flicked back as she raised her head skywards, or at least towards the dome. “I told you to get them on a plane out here as fast as possible.”
He raised his hands, palms upwards, and shrugged.
“What do they want? A percentage of the production from your Antarctica field?” she asked cynically.
“Sight of a contract and the parties involved.”
“What’s this contract?”
“An agreement with Johnny Musselwhite and some other people, plus the full details about PEGASUS.”
“Charles,” Mike said very slowly through gritted teeth.
“It’s a commercial agreement. What do you want me to say?”
She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything. Instead, she stared at him intensely from under her black fringe.
“It’s commercially sensitive.”
“Of course it’s sensitive. I can work that out. I think it was the murdering, shooting, kidnap and blackmail that gave me the clue. We need to talk … somewhere private.” She pivoted on the spot with her arms crossed, waiting for Charles to lead the way.
He led her down a corridor into a study with two walls lined with books (although Mike couldn’t imagine that he would ever have touched anything on these meticulously arranged shelves). He closed the door, and they sat at a desk inlaid with red leather with a decorative gold border. It looked like an interview for a job; perhaps it was?
He pulled out a laptop, turned it on and tapped in some password while she sat in silence, wondering how a room like this could look so photogenic, but at the same time, be totally devoid of any character. Did Charles have any opinions, views or preferences of his own? Did he really simply react to what was before him?
“I need to get this file ready to send to … them.” He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘blackmailers’.
“Can you talk while you are doing that?”
He didn’t answer.
“Obviously not.” She didn’t sound sympathetic. She kept going. “Is this really about PEGASUS? Is this all about a pipe? Or is PEGASUS not a pipe but a cover for something else? Are there people, governments … I don’t know … who would prefer you not to build a pipeline that goes from Algeria to mainland France via Corsica?” She was trying to provoke him, but he seemed obsessed with the screen and the keyboard.
“Wait a second. I’m not very good at this. I have Jo and ten other people who use these damn things for me.” It appeared that he wasn’t avoiding the question but concentrating on applying his limited computer skills.
“May I help?”
“Yes,” he said begrudgingly. “You know the passwords anyway.”
She moved around the desk and leant over to the keyboard. “What are you trying to do?”
“I want to move that file called PEGASUS so that it’s ready to email when they give me the address.”
Less than thirty seconds later, she said, “There. Done. Now relax. I’ll attach it for you when they call back, if that’s what you want.”
She was tapping away at the keyboard while he began pacing up and down.
“So, who doesn’t like the idea of PEGASUS?” She stared at him, trying to encourage him to tell her the truth and not beat about the bush.
“The Moroccans … and the Americans and the Spanish.”
“Are we talking governments or private interests?”
“Both,” he replied. “Their governments don’t like it, and neither do certain industrial groups and their backers. It would mean that Algerian gas goes directly to France and across Europe. The pipeline to Spain via Morocco would be redundant. It’s almost redundant already, but the Moroccans cling to the hope that it will reopen one day – if the politics change.”
“So, they want the details of the project and to kill it?”
There was a long pause.
“PEGASUS is a complicated project,” he said.
“Do you want to send the MEDUSA project file as well?”
“No! Good God, no. How do you know about MEDUSA?”
“Relax. It’s in the same folder as PEGASUS. I’ve just seen it.”
“No, no … please separate the PEGASUS stuff from the MEDUSA file; that’s a different project.”
There was a period of quiet while Mike rattled the keyboard and undertook Charles’s instructions. This moment of peace was broken when Charles’s phone rang.
“Charles Yelland.” His voice was steady, but his eyes betrayed a fear.
“Mr Yelland, do you have a pen? I’ll give you the email address.”
