Dark Dawn - Part 4

December 31, 07:57


Auckland Robert locked his office door and laid out on his desk the contents of Greenback's dossier which had just arrived by courier. He read again the letter from the Russians. It was just as Greenback said in his e-mail yesterday. All the correspondence was addressed to Sir Henry, not to Greenback. He was sure that they were both in it, but he believed Greenback that Sir Henry had finessed the deal. It had all of his hallmarks.

There was a knock at the door and Robert admitted Stephen Jayson, a senior partner at Hindle Smithson.

Robert had called his trusted friend late the previous afternoon after receiving Greenback's condemnatory e-mail. Jayson had worked all night on documents Robert asked him to draw up. He arranged them neatly on the small meeting table then unpacked an unusual safety deposit box - one with two locks and two keys - which he set down on Robert's desk.

A few minutes later there was another knock and Melissa ushered in Sir Henry. Robert locked the door behind him. Sir Henry's eyes darted between Robert and Jayson. He had met the lawyer once before and knew he had done some work for the firm, but was expecting only Robert.

"What the hell is this all about, Robert?"

"I know about Deal II, Sir Henry. I know about your part in it, about your defrauding of the company, not to mention breaching the Renegade contract. It's all here." He gestured to the table.

Sir Henry took out a slim cigar and lit it.

"Do you mind?"

Robert shook his head.

"A bit of an ambush, eh?" Sir Henry had reddened slightly, but was trying to take it lightly.

"I don't know what rubbish you've assembled there, Robert, but are you sure you've got all the facts? These are heavy accusations. I think, perhaps, I should call my lawyer."

"No time, Sir Henry. I've got a very simple choice. I pick up the telephone to the Prime Minister's Office and our former business associate Admiral Tennison and I send them the documents. Or we lock them in that safety deposit box which requires both our keys to open it, and leave it with Jayson here for our mutual protection."

Sir Henry frowned.

"Blackmail, Robert? This is a bit out of your league, isn't it?"

"I've only the company's interests at heart. You lied to me about Deal II, but you're right about one thing. This all blowing up would hurt the firm. I don't want that. But it's a risk I'm prepared to take."

Sir Henry sat down. Robert walked slowly across to the window.

"Stephen has all the documents on the table. You sign to me your 60 per cent stake in Systemax, and you leave the country. The rest of your assets and your reputation remains intact, Sir Henry. I know you would have adequate resources. You don't come near Systemax again.

"In return, the safety deposit box stays locked."

Sir Henry was staring at a print on Robert's wall.

He had underestimated Robert, or was it overestimated? He could argue it both ways.

Robert braced himself for Sir Henry's rebuttal. He had anticipated the full array from loyalty, to trust, to anger and demeaning abuse. He was far from sure that Sir Henry would agree. Then he would be forced to take a terrible step.

Instead, Sir Henry picked up the pen on the table and began looking through the contracts. While the two men looked on in silence, he signed away his shares in Systemax, puffing on his cigar and humming what sounded faintly like Summertime.

Having signed the papers, he held out his hand: "I may as well take my key, although it's all a bit Boy's Own, isn't it?"

Jayson collected the documents from Robert's desk and double locked the box. He handed one key to Robert and the other to Sir Henry, who slipped it into his waistcoat pocket and left without a parting shot or glance.

The two men stared at each other in disbelief, then Jayson smiled.

"Congratulations!" he extended his hand to Robert.

"Here's to the new owner of Systemax."

"I don't believe it," said Robert, "I thought he'd go ballistic."

"You were holding all the cards, mate," said Jayson.

"A good poker player like Sir Henry knows when to fold."


December 31, 09:00


Auckland

Robert called in his senior team and briefed them on the departure of their chairman. He said that it was due to Sir Henry's "difficult personal circumstances" and that he had assumed full control of the company. He thought most of the team took it pretty well.

There had been enough innuendo to indicate that Sir Henry had been caught in some deep scandal, and that Robert was walking a careful line to extricate the company.

Robert left the office and set off up the northern motorway towards Takatoa. He felt the wind hitting his car as he crossed the harbour bridge. The Waitemata harbour billowed with sails. He didn't ring ahead. He didn't know what he would say to Anita, but he didn't want Greenback to have the chance to avoid him.


December 31, 11:50


Northland

Anita didn't look too surprised when she opened the door of her sprawling country home. She wore a headscarf and white latex gloves, and smelled as though she had been polishing wood. They stood for a second at the threshold, uncertain. Then she gestured him inside.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Robert?" Taut, sarcastic.

"I wanted to tell you in person, Anita. It's Greenback and Sir Henry - there was a second deal. Those chips did go out."

"Greenback?"

"We were taken for a ride, Anita. They sold them to the Russians and split the money."

She turned away and stood with her back to him, looking out into the garden.

"You've got proof?" she said quietly.

"It was Greenback who sent me the documents," he said.

"He resented Coombes and me laying the blame on him. Is he home?"

"I ... I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon." She stood with her arms by her side with her back to him. He saw her fists clench inside the white gloves.

"He's gone? ... I'm sorry, Anita."

"How could he?"

"If there's anything I can do ..."

She shook her head and said nothing. He stood there for a while. Beyond the bay windows, the greenhouse glinted in the late sun.

"I'll let myself out, then," he mumbled.

"I just thought you should know. And I wanted to tell you myself - but I didn't expect him to ... to run."

She turned now and followed him to the door.

"Thank you, Robert."

He stopped and turned around to her. Her face was set and hard. She looked hot and angry. He struggled but couldn't speak. He gave up and walked down the path to the driveway, thinking of all the things he wanted to say. How he'd been wrong to choose the deal over her. How he thought every day about having another chance. How she'd been right about the second shipment, just not in the way she thought. But he was unable to speak these thoughts.

She stood at the doorway, watching him get in his car and drive out of sight. She listened until the country silence returned, save for a few birds in the orchard undeterred by her scarecrows. The silence amplified her rage. She hardly cared about Renegade anymore, about what had been done then. But to be lied to in the present, to be the subject of such deceit. Why had Greenback even cared? Why hadn't he just told her? Did he really think she would have repeated the mistake she made with Robert? Thrown it all away on the basis that her moral viewpoint was superior to his?

But Greenback hadn't trusted her. He had even played along with her futile search for the missing chips. She could feel her face flushed with anger, and it was towards herself.

She'd bought the lifestyle and the cruisy values and the easy-going joyride and had never faced up to the nagging doubts over the years. She had lowered her standards, and she was furious with herself.

Anita ran down the path by the side of the house to the barn and greenhouse complex Greenback called his Y2K shelter.

She unlocked the petrol pump and opened the valve on the fuel tank. Her actions were precise and decisive and at the outer limits of her control.

She attached the extension hose that Greenback used to get fuel to the boat, when he brought it up from the river. She stretched it across to the greenhouse and turned on the petrol.

She watched the fume haze, like a mirage on a hot road, as she hosed petrol all over the greenhouse. She doused the structure, and the ground all around. She picked up an old padlock lying outside the barn and flung it through one of the panes, splintering the glass. Jagged glass teeth rattled and fell one by one as she sprayed the petrol into the hole.

After what must have been no more than a minute, she told herself "enough". Then she felt fear. She felt the petrol on her hands and the splashes on her clothes, but she didn't stop. She fumbled with the valve of the petrol tank. She went into the barn to find matches. She reeked of petrol. She washed her hands. She crumpled and flattened an old cardboard box. She took it outside and set an edge of the box alight. She stood up and flung the burning cardboard towards the greenhouse. It scythed flat through the air, like an awkward frisbee and fell into the grass against the greenhouse.

There was a silence, but it was a hissing silence in Anita's mind, before an explosion of flame tore up the side of the greenhouse and she screamed at its force and unexpected suddenness.

She took cover, like a soldier under fire. Exploding glass panes cracked like rifle shots.

Within seconds the greenhouse was an inferno. She saw the sprinkler system come on. She took up an axe from the shed and ran crouched over, feeling the heat from the flames and severed the hose with a single blow. She picked up the severed hose, now gushing water and began to spray it all over herself and over the shed and the fence, worried that the fire would spread. But the heat forced her all the way back to the house. She peeped out from round a corner, watching like a child in hiding at a late night bonfire.

The greenhouse fire began to subside almost as quickly as it had flared. Blackened wooden framing collapsed like matchsticks. She presumed the strange smell in the air was roasted wasabi, combined with molten plastic and charred timbers.

Between the soft crackle of the flames was only silence. The feasting birds had fled the orchard. Anita began to cry. As she slid to the ground, the barn erupted in a huge fireball, the contents of the petrol tank immolating Greenback's masterpiece.


* Part Five Tomorrow.