Cyanide Games: A Peter Tanner Thriller Read online

  For Trish, Nic and James

  PROLOGUE

  She assumed the jet was company owned. Citadel Resources was in the top twenty of the Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest companies; it owned mining and exploration projects in twenty-eight countries. And probably many jets.

  Anne Warren knew Citadel’s environmental and human rights record mirrored that of its competitors and was murky at best, but she had found ways of letting herself off what she knew was a moral hook – her work helped companies like Citadel at least mitigate their impact. She helped them be as ‘green’ as they could be.

  The document she was given when she boarded the jet was headed Confidentiality Agreement. It had her name on it, her work address, and described her as a ‘water consultant’. The counterparty was Citadel Resources. She read it quickly. Citadel sought to forbid her from discussing anything to do with the reasons for her travel to Tovosevu Island, or from saying anything about what work she might perform there. She was not allowed to reveal, unless compelled by law, that she’d even been to the island.

  According to the next clause, she was to be forbidden from revealing the details of any work she’d performed for the company. It was as though she was to expunge Citadel Resources from her life.

  The final section of the document was headed ‘Penalties’. Should she breach any of her ‘Confidentiality Obligations’, she would be liable for liquidated damages of five hundred thousand dollars per breach, even if Citadel was unable to establish such damage in a court. Beyond that she had to indemnify Citadel for any loss it suffers as a result, directly or indirectly, of any breach of the confidentiality obligations outlined above.

  ‘Would you mind signing that now?’

  Warren’s mind was still scrambling when the man standing next to her spoke, his soft voice deadened by the sound of the jet’s engines being started. She looked up and saw an Asian man, perhaps late thirties, smiling faintly at her.

  ‘Here,’ he said, holding out a pen. She took it instinctively.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. She looked at the paper in her hands, then back at him.

  The jet started to taxi, and the man placed his hand momentarily on the back of her seat to steady himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘My name’s Joe Cheung. I’m a lawyer for the company. You’re . . . ?’

  ‘Anne,’ she said quickly. ‘There’s a problem with this. It has to be changed. I can’t –’

  ‘Anne,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure there’s scope for negotiation.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I’m nearing the end of my PhD. Some of my research has been at Citadel mines.’ She looked up at him, waiting for him to acknowledge he was following. ‘Surely it can’t be meant to cover –’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, nodding like he understood. ‘I’m sure it’s only meant to cover what you’re about to do, and where we’re going now.’

  ‘But that’s not what it says. I need to speak to Martin. My boss, from GreenDay? Martin O’Brien? He’s sitting at the back.’

  The lawyer crouched down. ‘Mr O’Brien has already signed one of these. I’m sure it will be okay. It’s not my understanding that it’s meant to cover what you’re talking about.’

  ‘That’s not what it says,’ she repeated. ‘It covers everything.’

  ‘Is there some problem?’

  Anne looked at O’Brien as he joined them. ‘Martin, this document,’ she began, ‘it’s too wide. It –’

  Joe Cheung held up a hand. ‘Anne was just explaining about her PhD thesis,’ Cheung said. ‘I’ll talk to Citadel.’

  ‘I have to be able to –’

  ‘Calm down, Anne,’ O’Brien said. ‘Think about it. If this was enforced strictly, we wouldn’t be able to lodge an EIS with the government for Citadel. Don’t get so literal with every–’

  ‘I still don’t think I should –’

  ‘Anne, this isn’t the place for –’

  ‘– be forced to sign a document like this.’

  ‘Anne,’ the lawyer said calmly, ‘I’m sure for your thesis, Citadel will give you a specific release from the obligations in this agreement.’

  ‘Can’t we just cut that clause out, then?’

  ‘I’ve been told we can’t take off unless everyone signs,’ O’Brien said.

  Cheung laughed slightly, and shook his head. ‘That’s a bit dramatic, Martin.’ He turned back to Anne. ‘Look, I’ll sit down with one of the guys and talk to them. I’m sure I can sort something out to give you comfort. Hang on to it for now. I’ll come back once we’ve taken off.’

  He smiled at her and she nodded. O’Brien sighed, shook his head, and went back to his seat at the rear of the jet.

  When he returned thirty minutes after take-off, Cheung said, ‘I’ve spoken to one of the guys. There shouldn’t be any problem with what you’ve done so far on your thesis.’

  ‘Who are “the guys”?’ He made them sound like a pop group.

  Cheung smiled. ‘They might need to check what you intend to cover. This thing though,’ he said, pointing to the confidentiality agreement she still held in her hands, ‘isn’t intended to stop you using the work you’ve done on their other mines for your thesis. You’ll just need permission.’ He paused to look at her over the top of his glasses. She nodded slightly. ‘Just sign it for now. When your thesis is done, Martin will get the all clear from Citadel. I’m sure there won’t be a problem.’ He smiled the kind of smile she assumed a lawyer gives when he’s expecting a yes.

  ‘So why then – ?’

  ‘When your thesis is done,’ Cheung said, ‘Martin can call me. I’ll liaise with Citadel for you.’

  He handed her a card. Black embossed lettering. Joseph Cheung. Bloomberg Butler Kelly. Partner, Mergers & Acquisitions/Energy & Resources. Her instincts still told her not to sign the document.

  ‘If there’s not going to be a problem about what I’ve done other than whatever it is on Tovosevu, can’t we just cross out – ?’

  ‘Anne, they aren’t going to negotiate with you.’

  ‘And if I don’t sign it?’

  ‘They’re not anticipating that.’

  ‘But . . . what would happen? Hypothetically?’

  Cheung squatted. ‘Can I give you the benefit of my experience?’ he said softly. ‘They’re not that well acquainted with people saying no to them. Do you understand?’

  She shook her head slowly. ‘Actually, I don’t.’ There was anxiety in her voice, but also defiance.

  ‘You really have to sign this.’ His tone was calm, but firm.

  She sighed and ran her hand through her short hair. ‘I should have my own lawyer look at this.’

  ‘Do you have a lawyer, Anne?’

  The wry grin he gave her almost made her smile. ‘I guess you guys would be out of my league, price-wise?’

  He smiled. ‘This is about Tovosevu, Anne. They’re just being cautious. Sign it for now, then have Martin call me when your thesis is done.’

  She didn’t trust Citadel, though she felt she could trust this man, for no particularly rational reason other than he seemed trustworthy. He spoke like he was on her side. She wondered if it was an act, some lawyer’s trick. He was, after all, Citadel’s lawyer, not hers. But she needed her job. Making an enemy of Citadel wouldn’t help her prospects.

  She signed the document quickly.

  ‘We’ll mail you a copy,’ Cheung said.

  • • •

  When they disembarked at the island’s airstrip, they were driven to the mine site, and allocated worker’s huts. Warren was shown to hers by a man dressed in khaki shorts and work boots, his shirt wet with sweat. ‘Someone will get you soon,’ he s
aid.

  She looked out of the window, and saw a square-shaped area about the size of two football fields, that had been cleared of trees. About two dozen army tents had been set up on the cut native grass. In the background, over the crest of a hill covered in shrubs through which a dirt road had been carved, was the mine she’d seen as they flew in to land. From above, it sat like a giant grey wound on the jungle floor. An enormous open cut pit, and the entrance to the underground workings.

  Fifteen minutes later another worker knocked on her door. ‘Miss Warren?’

  ‘Anne.’

  ‘I’m Greg,’ he replied. An Australian accent, a touch of sunburn on his nose, a waspish blond beard. He looked not much more than twenty. ‘Ready?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘To go.’

  ‘Where?’

  He looked confused. ‘To the river,’ he then said.

  • • •

  There were four others in the jeep. Greg was the driver. In the passenger seat was an older man, in Citadel khaki attire, and a green floppy hat. He said his name was Ivan, and that he was the deputy mine manager. His neck glistened with sweat, and its thick band of fat swelled and rolled like the tide with the movements of his head. O’Brien sat next to her, looking tense, saying nothing. It was humid, thirty-two degrees Celsius. Someone had told her it was always thirty-two degrees on Tovosevu. Sometimes it rained, sometimes it didn’t.

  As they drove towards the gate of the workers’ compound, a truck overtook them on the dirt road, swerving close as it went past. It was carrying twelve men in the back, sitting six a side on two benches, shaded by a canvas tarpaulin. The men had rifles. The truck pulled away from them on the unsealed road, a cloud of dust in its wake.

  ‘Who are they?’ Warren asked. No one answered. Ivan had put his window down when the truck went past, and the jeep’s diesel engine was loud, so she wondered if she’d been heard.

  ‘Who are – ?’

  ‘Just security,’ Ivan said.

  ‘Security for what?’

  ‘For the mine,’ he replied.

  ‘What does the mine need protection from?’

  Again Ivan was slow to answer. ‘Every mine in the world we have has security,’ he eventually said.

  ‘Where are they going?’

  ‘Routine patrol.’

  Tovosevu Island had five villages, and about three thousand native inhabitants. She knew that from the internet search she’d done. She wondered how dangerous they must be for such security. Citadel had a lease from the PNG government over the whole island. The terms of the lease were effectively a grant of sovereignty. Citadel controlled communications, who arrived and who left. As a condition of its mine approval, it had to fund a school and a medical centre. Almost everyone on the island worked for the company.

  ‘The rifles,’ she said. ‘They look –’

  Ivan laughed. ‘They’re private security, miss. They wouldn’t be security without being armed.’

  Because the window was down, she knew what had happened before they stopped. Greg pulled the vehicle as far off the unsealed road as he could. When the engine cut, she could hear the river, somewhere down at the bottom of a ravine to her right.

  ‘We’ll go down here,’ Ivan said as he opened his door. He and Greg got out of the jeep.

  ‘You can’t smell that?’ Warren said, looking at O’Brien. He shook his head. ‘Anything now?’ she said when they got out.

  ‘Jungle,’ O’Brien said. She saw him sniff though, and something registered on his face.

  ‘Now?’ she asked.

  ‘Something burnt?’

  ‘Something bitter,’ she said, correcting him. ‘Can you smell almonds?’

  He looked down the green ravine. ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not almonds,’ she said. ‘It’s cyanide.’

  The affinity of gold for cyanide was the kind of chemical paradox that amused Anne Warren – the bond between wealth and death. Down the green slope, at the edge of the riverbank, there was death. Several fish had washed up near them, she saw others floating down stream. The smell was strong near the water; the spill recent. The toxic plume was still spreading down the river from somewhere.

  ‘We had a breach of the main tailings dam,’ Ivan said.

  ‘A breach?’

  ‘A wall collapse. Incredible rains the last few months – even into what’s meant to be the dry months. No one could have predicted it.’

  ‘What was the capacity?’

  ‘We think maybe two hundred million litres,’ he said.

  ‘And the dam has been built near this river?’

  ‘We need water to mine, miss.’

  ‘How much tailing slurry has flowed into it?’ she asked.

  He shook his head, turned up his palms. ‘The wall collapsed at night,’ he said. ‘Assume most of it.’

  ‘Have any of the villagers been – ?’

  ‘We’re taking care of that.’

  ‘They’ve been warned though, right? The cyanide is lethal. You’ll need to truck in water or –’

  ‘We’re taking care of that, miss.’

  She wanted to tell him to stop calling her ‘miss’. ‘I’m just saying –’

  ‘There’s going to be a thorough clean up,’ Ivan said. ‘We’re doing it right now.’

  Whatever part of the river the cyanide plume flowed through, the fish that swam in it would have died within minutes. But cyanide degrades quickly and she knew already what her test kits and lab results would reveal. Arsenic. Cadmium. Copper. Lead. In concentrations lethal to complex life. All much harder to remove than cyanide.

  ‘You need to clean up the dead fish,’ she said. ‘If anyone or anything eats them –’

  ‘As we understand it,’ Ivan said, ‘the cyanide will break down in –’

  ‘The cyanide isn’t the only problem. I assume you’re taking steps to stop any flow into tributaries or aquifers? You’re going to need to dredge a lot of the river, especially closest to the dam. Do you – I mean, this is a massive task, and in the meantime none of the villagers who use this river should be –’

  ‘Miss, miss,’ Ivan said, smiling. ‘We have a lot of people working on all that. You have to focus on your tasks. We’ve picked out some spots for you to test the water and sediments.’

  ‘I’ll decide where I need to test.’

  He gave her a crooked smile, and used his index finger to wipe some sweat from his moustache. ‘Let’s get started, then.’

  It was forty hours since the spill. She tested the water, and took samples of the river sediment using a small boat, two hundred metres from where the tailings dam water had first flowed into the river, and at five hundred metre intervals downstream.

  Warren knew that three of the island’s five villages were on the river, downstream of where the contaminated water had flowed into it. She’d expected to be taken into the affected villages, to test the waters the people used, take samples of the nearby sediments, make sure that warnings were being given. She was told they could not go in.

  ‘I need to test there,’ she protested. ‘It’s crucial that I –’

  ‘Things are sensitive,’ Ivan said. ‘We’re trucking in water.’

  ‘But if you explain we’re only helping,’ she said. ‘I need to know –’

  ‘We cannot go into any village,’ Ivan said, closing the subject.

  • • •

  Warren surveyed the food carefully before selecting her meal. One of the cooks noticed her examining the fillets of barbecued fish that lay in tins on a trestle table with the other food.

  ‘Mahi,’ he said. ‘Salt water, not from the river.’ He smiled. Electric white teeth. She chose lamb.

  She sat on a table on her own, before O’Brien and the lawyer joined her with their meals.

  ‘Any particular reason you had to come here?’ she asked Cheung after he sat down.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We could have signed the confidentiality forms at
the airport, not midair.’

  He smiled, but said nothing.

  ‘What else are you doing?’

  ‘Taking briefings,’ he said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what happened.’

  ‘What’s happening in the villages?’

  ‘Anne,’ O’Brien said curtly.

  Cheung smiled. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I can’t discuss that with you, Anne. You know, client privilege?’

  ‘Seriously?’

  He nodded. ‘Seriously.’

  ‘Did anyone die?’ she asked, looking right at Cheung.

  ‘Anne,’ O’Brien said, anger in his whispered voice. ‘No one has died.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The villagers were alerted straight away. There’s water being –’

  ‘Alerted in the middle of the night when no one knew what had happened?’

  O’Brien stood up and put both hands on the trestle table, leaning towards her. ‘No one died, Anne,’ he said again.

  ‘This is my fault,’ Cheung said, looking at Warren. ‘It all seems a bit cloak and dagger, with the confidentiality deed, and saying I can’t answer your questions.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’ve been assured that cleaning up is the number one priority, not gold or copper production.’

  She noticed how cool he looked. She could feel wetness under her arms, and down the back of her legs. ‘Joe,’ she said, ‘is this mine still meant to be using cyanide for extracting gold?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said casually.

  ‘Is there a treatment plant?’

  ‘There is.’

  She nodded. ‘When I got back from the river this afternoon,’ she said slowly, ‘I wanted to check something on the internet. I asked someone if I could use the wifi, but I was told I needed permission for the password. Can you give me that, or do I need to speak to someone from Citadel?’

  ‘What did you want to look up?’ Cheung asked.

  ‘A map.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘The island.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a tributary of the river not far from the tailings dam. I saw it when we flew in.’

  ‘That’s not where the wall failed,’ Cheung said.

  ‘I saw a fence along both sides of it,’ she said. ‘Has the dam ever spilt into it?’