“You have my solemn word,” murmured Sir James Manson. “Sooner or later the political situation may well change, and when that happens, ManCon will put in a tender for the mining concession exactly as usual and in accordance with normal business procedures.”
Dr. Chalmers climbed out of the taxi and looked back at his employer in the corner seat. “I’m not sure I can do that, sir,” he said. “I’ll have to think it over.”
Manson nodded. “Of course you will. I know it’s asking a lot. Look, why don’t you talk it over with your wife? I’m sure she’ll understand.”
Then he pulled the door to and told the cabbie to take him to the City.
Sir James dined with an official of the Foreign Office that evening and took him to his club. It was not one of the very uppercrust clubs of London, for Manson had no intention of putting up for one of the bastions of the old Establishment and finding himself blackballed. Besides, he had no time for social climbing and little patience with the posturing idiots one found at the top when one got there. He left the social side of things to his wife. The knighthood was useful, but that was an end to it.
He despised Adrian Goole, whom he reckoned for a pedantic fool. That was why he had invited him to dinner. That, and the fact that the man was in the Economic Intelligence section of the FO.
Years ago, when his company’s activities in Ghana and
Nigeria had reached a certain level, he had accepted a place on the inner circle of the City’s West Africa Committee. This organ was and still is a sort of trade union of all major firms based in London and carrying on operations in West Africa. Concerned far more with trade, and therefore money, than, for example, the East African Committee, the WAC periodically reviewed events of both commercial and political interest in West Africa—and usually the two were bound to become connected in the long term—and tendered advice to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on what would in its view constitute an advisable policy for British interests.
Sir James Manson would not have put it that way. He would have said the WAC was in existence to suggest to the government what to do in that part of the world to improve profits. He would have been right, too. He had been on the committee during the Nigerian civil war and heard the various representatives of banks, mines, oil and trade advocate a quick end to the war, which seemed to be synonymous with a Federal victory in double time.
Predictably, the committee had proposed to the government that the Federal side be supported, provided it could show it was going to win and win quickly, and provided corroborative evidence from British sources on the spot confirmed this. The committee then sat back and watched the government, on Foreign Office advice, make another monumental African cockup. Instead of lasting six months, the war had lasted thirty. But the businessmen were sick to their teeth at the whole mess and would, with hindsight, have preferred a negotiated peace at month three rather than thirty months of war. But Harold Wilson, once committed to a policy, was no more going to concede that his minions might have made a mistake on his behalf than fly to the moon.
Manson had lost a lot in revenue from his disrupted mining interests and because of the impossibility of shipping the stuff to the coast on crazily running railways throughout the period, but MacFazdean of Shell-BP had lost a lot more in oil production.
Adrian Goole had been the FO’s liaison officer on the committee for most of the time. Now he sat opposite James Manson in the alcove dining recess, his cuffs shot the right inch and a quarter, his face registering earnest intent.
Manson told him some of the truth but kept the reference to platinum out of it. He stuck to a tale of tin but increased the quantities. It would have been viable to mine it, of course, but quite frankly he’d been scared off by the close dependence of the President on the Russian advisers. The profit participation of the Zangaran government could well have made it a tidy sum, and since the despot was almost a puppet of the Russkies, who wanted to increase the republic’s power and influence through wealth? Goole took it all in. His face wore a solemn expression of deep concern.
“Damnably difficult decision,” he said with sympathy. “Mind you, I have to admire your political sense. At the moment Zangaro is bankrupt and obscure. But if it became rich— Yes, you’re quite right. A real dilemma. When do you have to send them the survey report and analysis?”
“Sooner or later,” grunted Manson. “The question is, what do I do about it? If they show it to the Russians at the embassy, the trade counselor is bound to realize the tin deposits are viable. Then it will go out for tender. So someone else will get it, still help to make the dictator rich, and then who knows what problems he’ll make for the West? One is back to square one.”
Goole thought it over for a while.
“I just thought I ought to let you chaps know,” said Manson.
“Yes, yes, thank you.” Goole was absorbed. “Tell me,” he said at length, “what would happen if you halved the figures showing the quantity of tin per rock ton in the report?”
“Halved them?”
“Yes. Halved the figures, showing a purity figure of tin per rock ton of fifty percent the figures shown by your rock samples?”
“Well, the quantity of tin present would be shown to be economically unviable.”
“And the rock samples could have come from another area, a mile away, for example?” asked Goole.
“Yes, I suppose they could. But my surveyor found the richest rock samples.”
“But if he had not done so,” pursued Goole. “If he had taken his samples from a mile from where he actually operated. The content could be down by fifty percent?”
“Yes, it could. They probably would, probably would show even less than fifty percent. But he operated where he did.”
“Under supervision?” asked Goole.
“No. Alone.”
“And there are no real traces of where he worked?”
“No,” replied Manson. “Just a few rock chippings, long since overgrown. Besides, no one goes up there. It’s miles from anywhere.”
He paused for a few instants to light a cigar. “You know, Goole, you’re a damnably clever fellow. Steward, another brandy, if you please.”