“How steeply?”
“I can’t put an exact figure on it. We’ve only got what the aid agencies tell us, informally, and that’s not always consistent. But the best guess would be an initial fall of maybe six to eight thousand a year. That held fairly steady for the first twenty-six years of the regime. Since then it’s gone through the roof. The current rate’s possibly as high as fifteen thousand. And if you think of that as a percentage, it’s even worse, ’cause the base population is shrinking all the time.”
“That’s a lot of people to misplace. Why’s it accelerating so much?”
“I don’t know for sure. But the file says there’s one candidate that’s head and shoulders above the rest.”
“Who is it?”
“Not who. What. Something called dysprosium.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s some kind of mineral. Very rare. Or rather, you get it from a mineral. One called xenotime. It’s only been available from one other place, so far. China. So naturally everybody wants to get their hands on it.”
“What’s it used for?”
“Manufacturing. It’s a component in nuclear reactor control rods. But the real action is hybrid car batteries. You can’t make them without it. But whatever, loads of corporations are busting their guts for it. The rival car makers. The gas companies. Engine component developers. And the upshot is that money is literally gushing into the place.”
“So if the place is getting richer, why are the people suffering so much more?”
“Because none of the money is reaching them. The ruling elite—maybe two or three hundred—are siphoning it all off. Nothing filters down to the bottom of the heap. And that’s fueling the discontent. Leading more and more people to find their voices.”
“Leading to more and more being killed.”
“Exactly. Things are escalating, by all accounts. It was bad enough when only power was on the line. Now it’s power and money. And not just ordinary money, either. Out-of-this-world riches. Which is a powerful motivator.”
“It is. And that’s really helpful. You’ve joined a lot of dots, there, Lucinda. Any news on the other thing? The gas?”
“Not yet. No sign, so far. If there is anything, it must be buried pretty deep.”
“It will be. That’s the nature of the thing. Are you OK to keep looking?”
“I can give it a bit longer. No one pays too much attention to what I’m doing, anymore. That might change when Tanya’s replacement gets here, though.”
Lucinda’s words set me back for moment. The idea of massacring thousands of civilians was hard enough to understand. But replacing Tanya? Impossible. For me, anyway.
“Call me when you find something?” I said, pushing those thoughts away.
“Of course,” she said. “No point in doing the work, otherwise.”
“Good point. I’ll keep my phone switched on . . .”
Under normal circumstances I’d have turned and walked straight into the store, found a vacant computer, and looked for some softer material to flesh out the information Lucinda had given me. Photos. Video. News reports. Diary entries. Blogs. Anything to add a human element to the facts and statistics she’d just dug up. But it was precisely the human element that stopped me, this time. In my world, you get used to a degree of constant, ongoing tension. When you’re working a regular case, there’s no way to avoid it. Every conversation, every interaction, every time you walk into a room or pick up the phone you’re risking exposure. And if that happens, the chances are you’ve reached the end of your particular road. But at least it’s a road you’ve chosen. You’ve been trained to spot the pitfalls along the way. And there are people, albeit at arm’s length, ready to try to help you if the sky does fall in. It can be stressful enough, at times. So I could only imagine what life was like for the ordinary villagers in Equatorial Myene. They hadn’t signed up for any such thing. But due to no better reason than someone else’s greed, they had to live every minute of every day in fear of a knock at their door. With the constant, gnawing knowledge that they could be taken away at the drop of a hat. Or that their friends could be. Or their families. People were vanishing faster all the time. The bastards who were responsible seemed to be gearing up for even more killing, with this Spektra gas. And it was McIntyre who’d put it in their hands.
All of a sudden I wasn’t feeling so bad about the hard arrest being ordered. Or that I was the one who’d get to carry it out.
I did go into the store, in the end. I saw a crowd of people checking their e-mail and tweeting and updating their Facebook pages, but there was still no shortage of available computers. I set up on one at the end of the left-hand table, near the door, but with the screen facing the wall rather than into the room. The Internet connection was fast, the first set of keywords I used hit their marks, and I had no trouble finding useful material. There were plenty of good Web sites. They yielded lots of intriguing detail. But none of it made me feel any better about what was happening. I spent a good half hour intensively browsing, thinking less and less favorable thoughts about McIntyre and his buddies from Equatorial Myene, and was just about ready to leave when Lucinda called back.
“You were right,” she said. “There was something about the gas. As in, one thing.”
“Only one?” I said.
“Only one that I could find. I used every tool we have, and searched every source we know about. And that’s all I could turn up.”
“OK. Well, one’s better than none. What can you tell me?”
“That I won’t be sleeping well tonight. Probably not all week. I hope you’re not anywhere near this stuff, David. It’s not very nice.”
“I didn’t think it would be. How bad are we talking?”
“Pretty bad.”
“Can you describe it? I need to know what I’m dealing with here.”
“Oh, you’re going to absolutely know in a minute. The resource I found includes a video clip. Have you got an e-mail address? A private one, I mean. One that the service knows nothing about.”
“I do—hclpqz63819@yahoo.co.uk.”
“Wow. Nobody’s going to stumble across that one by mistake. OK. I’m going to send the link to you. You won’t recognize my address, either, and you won’t be able to reply. It’s a throwaway.”
“No problem. I’ll go back inside and log on.”
“Wait. Inside where?”
“The Apple store. I’m right outside. I was just using one of their machines.”
“David, no. You haven’t been listening. You cannot—cannot—view this anywhere that a civilian could catch even a glimpse. Absolutely not.”
“OK. I’ll head back to the consulate. Like you said, they have computers.”
“No. You can’t do that, either. You shouldn’t be going anywhere near this Web site. It’s on a classified server we’re not even supposed to know about. Service computers are way too easy to trace. The cyberfuzz would be all over you before you got halfway through.”
“Where can I view it from, then?”
“Didn’t you bring a laptop of your own?”
“No. I don’t own one.”
“Oh. Really? Then I don’t know what to say.”
“How about, maybe it’s time I put that right? I’ll go inside and buy one. Then take it to my hotel.”
“OK. That would work. As long as you don’t have anyone stashed away, in there.”
I didn’t reply.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It was really insensitive of me.”
I took another moment.
“Going and buying a laptop is a great idea, by the way,” she said. “And I like the direct approach. Another reason why it’s always a pleasure.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” I said. “And thanks for your help, Lucinda. If it wasn’t for a couple of little details, I’d commend you to your boss.”