Carbon
by Bryony Marsh

Nkechi Molebatsi was mortified. Her one chance to make a good impression and she’d squandered it! Not that it was her fault – or not as far as she could tell, anyway. Still, you couldn’t succeed in a new job if you started a half-day late, brought to work by the police.

She tried to concentrate fully upon the recording that she was transcribing, but within minutes a man had arrived at her station. Dressed in an expensive suit, he had to be one of the executives.

She removed her headphones and stood. “Dumela, Rra.”

“Oh,” he said with a smile. “You didn’t have to get up! I just came to say hello.”

Since she had already greeted him with “Hello, Sir,” she didn’t know quite how to reply. She gave an awkward little bob. “Thank you.”

“I’m Azuel Sibanda,” he said. “Welcome to National Reliant Bank.”

She thought she’d seen his name on the organisation chart, though she couldn’t remember what his role was. Too many introductions and new faces to take in all at once. “Thank you,” she said again, feeling foolish.

“You have everything you need? Settling in alright?”

“Everyone has been very kind,” she said. Most have been polite enough to not to mention the shame of my being brought to work by the Police Service, she thought.

“I couldn’t help but notice…” Mr Sibanda frowned as if unsure quite how to phrase his question. “Were you in some kind of accident this morning?”

She shook her head. “I was robbed, Sir.”

“Robbed? On your way here today?”

“Overnight, Sir. At least, I think so.”

“How terrible! And yet, how good to see that the police were able to assist you so thoroughly.”

“They were very kind, Sir.”

“What happened, exactly?”

She looked down, fiddling with the identity card that she wore around her neck. “Sir, I woke this morning feeling… not exactly terrible, but very confused. I was in a strange room… without my clothes.”

He looked at her in alarm – as well he might in a nation where more than twenty percent of the population were living with HIV/AIDS. “Were you, ah… is there any possibility…”

Nkechi squirmed, sensing the unspoken question that hung in the air between them. When she’d put on some of the clothes she’d found – clothes for a man much larger than her – and made her unsteady way downstairs to find a telephone, the police had made the same assumption: that she’d been the victim of a date rape drug, probably slipped to her on the final stage of her journey from Francistown. “The… police,” she spoke haltingly, “took me to hospital. I’ve undergone a thorough medical examination. I… remain as I ought to be.”

He frowned. “Why are you here? I mean, surely… you should be resting! My colleagues would understand if you delayed your start for a few days.” From the way he scowled, it seemed that his colleagues (and particularly Mrs Letsholo who was in charge of the secretarial pool) would do well to understand any such need.

She shook her head. “No, Sir. It’s better to be busy.”

“Have you spoken to your family?” he asked.

“There’s nobody,” she said, her face clouding. “Nobody close.”

“So you’re living… where?”

“Sir, I’m newly-arrived in the city. I… don’t have a place yet. I had intended to take a room at a guest house in Tlokweng.”

His eyes grew wide with surprise. “I’m alarmed to think that a young woman who’s travelled alone would put in a day’s work with no plans for where she might be staying tonight. Also, from what you said, I assume you have no luggage?”

She looked away, feeling foolish. “I don’t, Rra.”

“Money?”

“I have money, Sir.” There had been a fat roll of banknotes in the room where she had awoken: finding herself without clothes, documents or personal effects of any kind, she’d taken it. She knew it was wrong, of course, but whatever had been done to her was equally wrong. At first, she been reluctant to leave a small fortune sitting there when she left the room. Later, it was useful because the hand-me-down clothes the police had given her were hardly suitable for her first day at work: the nice policewoman who had been helping her had made a detour for a very quick shopping trip.

“Funny sort of robbery,” the executive mused. “Well, that’s fortunate. Good. Now stop work! Use the computer and make some personal calls to arrange accommodation if you wish… but no more work today. If… and yes, I say if you’re able to report for work tomorrow morning, well and good.”

“Sir, I can’t possi–”

“Yes you can. I’ll go and explain things to Mrs Letsholo. Goodbye, Miss…” he looked down at her badge; perhaps her cleavage as well, “Miss Molebatsi.”

He walked away, already calling out to Mrs Letsholo, who shot her a suspicious look.

+++

Walther Livingston played to win. To him, penetration testing was more than a job: it was like a sport, a military operation and a game of chess all rolled into one. There were rules… but there weren’t many. There were strategies, tricks of the trade, tools and subterfuges. He had invented more than a few of them personally.

He employed one of his favourite ones right from the outset, by stealing a march on the opposition. As soon as Armada Holdings had engaged him, he’d headed for Botswana. By the time his apparently innocent question, “When would you like the penetration test to commence?” was sent by e-mail, he’d already entered the country. He did so by road from South Africa, so as to conceal his movements. A multiple entry visa and some artfully smudged passport stamps would defeat any casual inspection.

He paid cash for a used van of the kind that the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation used. He’d brought some decals with him and he applied them to the vehicle, being careful not to dislodge the patina that the vehicle had acquired in its former life. The result was surprisingly convincing.

He met up with Davis, a local fellow whom he’d worked with before. Reliable and sober, Davis would play the role of workmate. He also provided an introduction: Mosegi was a youngster, but he seemed sensible. Walther gave them each a contract, making them official employees of ‘Red Team Services’ – which should help if they ran into any difficulties with law enforcement, since it would prove they were conducting a penetration test rather than simply thieving.

Davis drove to National Reliant Bank, Walther sitting in the passenger seat with a cap pulled down low. He preferred not to introduce himself to the security guard if it could be avoided, since he might want to play a different role later on. They had no papers, but Davis claimed he’d just had a radio message to attend as soon as they’d finished another job.

“I don’t have you on the list,” the guard told him.

Walther pulled his cap right down over his face and reclined in the passenger seat, projecting an aura of indifference. After all, telecom staff would be paid for a day’s work whatever happened.

“I’ll go, then,” Davis said. “Just understand that it might be a week or more before we can come again. We’ve got a big job to do at the airport.”

“Wait,” the guard said, going inside his little hut and reaching for a telephone. He spoke, listened, spoke again… the conversation lasted about a minute before he slid a window open so he could speak to Davis. “Who asked you to come?”

Davis shrugged. “On your side? No idea. My dispatcher said you were having problems with noise on the phone lines and slow internet. We’d just finished a job on New Lobatse Road, so they sent us over – but if everything’s fine, I’ll call it in and we can be on our way.”

The guard spoke on his telephone again.

When he concluded the call, he raised the barrier. “Park anywhere except under the awning. Report to reception at the main entrance.”

Davis drove onto the site. He chose an area that was out of the way and straddled two parking spaces, as if to give access to the van’s side doors. In reality they had no intention of opening the van, since this would reveal that it didn’t have any equipment inside, other than a couple of toolboxes.

“Good job, Davis,” Walther told him. “That’s step one. Now let’s see who meets us at reception.”

A helicopter clattered overhead and they watched as it came in for a landing on the roof of the bank. “Funny how they go to so much trouble to mine diamonds,” Davis said. “Then they bring them here and bury them again, in a vault far below ground.”

Walther laughed. “You’ll never get rich if you bet against the fundamental stupidity of the human species. Let’s go.”

The attractive young woman who sat at the front desk seemed to have been chosen for her looks rather than her brains. A visitor might have been impressed by her appearance, but her behaviour represented another strike against National Reliant Bank: it seemed that they considered security to be guaranteed by the outer ‘crust’ of perimeter wire and the man at the gatehouse.

“You’re the telecoms people?” she asked.

Their work clothes were nondescript, but they each wore a lanyard with an ID card that looked official. Like Walther always said, you laminate anything and it becomes ‘official’.

Davis regarded the visitor sign-in sheet. “Who should we say we’re visiting?”

The receptionist frowned. “Oh, er… just leave that part blank.”

“Right.” He wrote something indecipherable in the visitors’ book.

They were in.

Davis toured the floor with a clipboard, occasionally making a note of the numbers shown on the telephone sockets. This was irrelevant, but he sketched a map of the floor as he went, adding arcane annotations. If anyone had looked, his notes would have been assumed to be something to do with the work of a telephone engineer, but in reality he was noting the positions of security cameras, motion sensors and other security features. Nobody stopped him – in fact, somebody even held a door open for him, allowing him access to the next floor. After a little while, he went back to the door and admitted Walther.

Everywhere he went, Walther played the role of a telephone engineer trying to sniff out a line fault.

“Excuse me,” he asked one pretty girl. “Have you been having any difficulty with your telephone?”

She frowned. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Ah, well that’s something. On some extensions there’s a lot of feedback. Nothing here?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“And this is extension…”

“Three zero one seven.”

He made a note on his clipboard. “Ah, fine. Well in that case, I only need about two minutes…”

In this way, Walther achieved several things. Firstly, he planted the idea that ‘some people are having trouble with their telephone’. Soon everyone knew that there was a problem, even though nobody had actually experienced it. The non-existent fault established the idea that the telecom engineers ‘belonged there’ and that they were doing important work. Secondly, it persuaded people to leave their desks for a few minutes, since few wanted to continue their work with a stranger lying on the floor under their desk. (Using their telephone extension number, Walther made a note of all the staff who walked away from their computer without locking it: this would form a part of his penetration report.) More importantly, while ‘working’ under the desk he was able to unplug the keyboards of some staff and route the cable through a key-logger device. Usernames, passwords and whatever text they entered would be stored until he returned to collect the devices.

By the time the pair left the area where most of the staff were located, it didn’t have many secrets left.

It was like taking candy from a baby.

+++

“What do my colleagues have you doing today, Miss Molebatsi?”

It was Azuel Sibanda, the executive who seemed to have a gift for spoiling her concentration. Sure enough, she discovered that she had been about to pay a thousand pula to a supplier, instead of paying for a thousand lengths of metal bar.

“Hello, Rra,” she said, setting the work aside. “Today I’m cross-checking delivery notes, purchase orders and invoices for materials ordered at the Orapa mine site.”

He looked at the untidy stack of pink flimsies impaled upon a spike, each of which she would review before filing in date order. “Fun! Can you take a break?”

She locked her computer screen and picked up her notepad. “What can I help you with, Sir?”

“Nothing,” he said, slightly flustered. “I meant… take an actual break. Come for a walk? Or have a cup of tea? Do you drink tea?”

She felt something akin to panic. No doubt Mrs Letsholo was looking over at them already, resentful that she couldn’t chase away the executive the way she put the mail boy or the IT workers to flight if they attempted to ‘bother’ her girls. There would be a price to pay for this, Nkechi knew: some particularly dull task that would come her way, or something that would cause her break to be curtailed or taken at the most inconvenient time. Mrs Letsholo wasn’t exactly a bad person, but she seemed predisposed to keep score of a huge range of infractions: scores that she would settle sooner or later. Her first salvo had commenced with “I’m sure you’ll want to make up the time lost on your disastrous first day?” and it showed no sign of letting up.

Mr Sibanda wasn’t heedless of such workplace dynamics, though. “I understand,” he said quietly. “May I use your telephone?”

“Of course, Sir,” she told him.

He was already dialling. “My dear Mrs Letsholo! How are you? Splendid… look, I’m just reviewing some of the irregularities in the materials delivered to Orapa. I need Miss Molebatsi to talk me through her analysis and present in a video conference this afternoon: I’m afraid it’ll mean working through her break. Do you mind?”

Nkechi stared at him in alarm, but he grinned broadly, then spoke into the telephone once more: “Alright. Thank you very much. Goodbye.”

He replaced the handset. “Come to the video conferencing room with me, please.”

Obediently, she followed him.

“Have a seat,” he said once the door was closed. When she was seated, he crossed the room to a drinks trolley. “Coffee? Tea? The rooibos is quite good.”

She blinked. “Nothing for me, thank you, Sir. Now, about this conference… these ‘irregularities’ you want me to analyse?”

He made a face. “Miss Molebatsi, I was merely trying to secure some of your valuable time without getting you in further trouble with Mrs Letsholo.”

And now you’ve got me alone, she thought. “What exactly can I do for you, Sir?”

He matched her careful, formal tone. “I’d like an update on your situation, please. Lost property, accommodation arrangements, how you’re settling in – that kind of thing.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And I suppose you do this for every new worker?”

He shrugged. “It’s a new thing I’m trying.”

“I’m sure,” she said.

He set a little tray in front of her: a cup of steaming red tea with a little sugar bowl and two lemon slices.

She studied this for a moment. “So, there aren’t any irregularities in the materials ordered at the Orapa site?”

“Of course there are,” he said, preparing his own tea. “At least a quarter of the town is made from materials that supposedly form a part of the mine. From time to time I make a show of investigating it, to keep the degree of ‘shrinkage’ down to an acceptable level. I’ll be making just such a call this afternoon: I’d like you to sit in on it.”

“Very good, Sir,” she said, trying to think through the implications of this development.

“First, though, I want to know how you’re getting on.”

“Everyone’s been very kind,” she said automatically.

“Everyone?”

“Yes, Sir. I have no complaints.”

“How very saintly,” he said. “That’s a nice jacket. Did you recover your luggage?”

“No, Sir. It’s new – and thank you.”

“You asked at the airport? The bus station?”

“I tried, Sir. There was no trace of my things.”

In truth, she had asked at both places. Bizarrely, she’d discovered that she couldn’t remember how she’d travelled from Francistown. She had no memory of arranging the trip, boarding a bus or aeroplane… nothing. This gap in her knowledge scared her and she preferred not to think about it. She’d submitted ‘lost luggage’ paperwork at both the bus station and the airport, though she’d been unable to add any details such as flight number: it seemed unlikely that her luggage would find her. She’d gone shopping for more business clothes, then used the rest of the money she had found to pay for a room in a guest house.

“You’ve found somewhere suitable to live, I trust?”

“Quite satisfactory, Sir, thank you.”

“Well,” he said at last, “good.”

“Was there something in particular you wanted to say to me, Sir?”

“Yes. That’s perceptive of you. It’s like this… our security’s going to be tested in the days ahead. Not by robbers – or not as far as we know – but by agents engaged by the parent company. Personally, I think it’s already started. There’ll be strangers looking to gain access not only to the vault, but to information of all kinds.”

She added some lemon to her tea. “So we must all be vigilant, of course.”

He sighed. “You’d think so, but I worry that we’re altogether too set in our ways. I know people are making jokes about my ‘obsession’ with security, but it’s not thieves I fear: it’s that we find ourselves humiliated when our defences are tested. Our role could be downgraded: people don’t seem to realise it would lead to job losses.”

Last in, first out, Nkechi thought, with a sinking feeling. “What can I do, Sir?”

“Just… look out for anything out of the ordinary. You’re a clever young lady: trust your instincts if something doesn’t ring true.”

She frowned. “Wouldn’t it be better to give this responsibility to those more familiar with the operations of the business, so they can spot things that are out of the ordinary? Sir.”

He sipped his tea before shaking his head. “There’s a lot of complacent people here. Recently, I witnessed a senior partner typing his computer password with one finger: q-w-e-r-t-y. When I suggested he change it, he wrote the new one down, to carry in his wallet as a reminder. A series of unwise actions such as that could ultimately lead to the vault itself being raided!”

“Do you think I can prevent such a thing?” Nkechi didn’t relish the idea of pointing out a senior member of staff’s lapse of common sense, if she noticed one.

“You don’t have to tackle such foolishness in person,” Mr Sibanda assured her. “Just report it to me, discreetly.”

Had he just established a pretext to have intimate, secretive discussions with her on a regular basis? She wasn’t so naïve as to let that pass unnoticed. Still, he hadn’t said or done anything inappropriate… other than attracting the wrath of Mrs Letsholo.

She found herself nodding. What else could one do?

“Good,” he said. “I’m also keeping a close eye on new hires such as you, because anybody who started since the idea of testing our security first occurred might be a plant: somebody sent by Armada Holdings to be a man on the inside – or a woman on the inside.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. Was she being accused of being a spy?

He made a dismissive gesture. “Strangely enough, the very noticeable circumstances of your arrival suggest to me that it’s highly unlikely you are an agent of any kind. I doubt anybody who was here to steal our secrets would choose to be quite so conspicuous.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing.

“We’ll find our defences tested, sure enough,” he repeated, then shook himself as if to dispel such gloomy thoughts. “Meanwhile, let’s have a look at all those materials our friends at Orapa have been ordering, shall we?”

She nodded and reached for the conference room’s wireless keyboard and mouse, to sign into the system.“Yes, Rra,” she said.

+++

“The elevators in NRB are from Otis,” Walther explained to Mosegi. “Davis will go back in to work on their imaginary telephone system fault. What he’s really going to do is take one of the elevators out of service. We already changed their speed dial number for Otis Customer Service when we were ‘testing’ the telephone system at reception and in the janitor’s office: it goes to this cell phone. So when it rings, you answer as if you’re a member of staff at Otis, you work through the sequence of questions on this sheet and tell them you’ll send somebody at once.”

“Got it,” Mosegi said.

“Let’s try a rehearsal now,” Walther said. The kid did well in the role, so after that he relaxed. At one point he had to warn him against moving around while they were waiting in the back of the van, but other than that, he was good.

At last, the call came through. They left it three quarters an hour, which was something of a bare minimum for a plausible response time, even for a valued customer.

“Let’s go and be Otis repair men,” Walther said at last. He peered out of the van’s windows, finding nobody nearby, so the pair climbed down and headed into the building. The receptionist didn’t notice that security hadn’t mentioned the arrival of an elevator repair crew at the main gate. Another strike against NRB, Walther thought, though he doubted he would remember all the ways they’d messed up when he wrote his report.

They sauntered in, signed the visitors’ book illegibly and set about investigating what might be wrong with the elevator. (In reality, turning a key by ninety degrees would have restored it to full function, but that wasn’t the purpose of the exercise.)

“I’ll need to get various tools and parts from the van,” Walther told the receptionist. “I expect we’ll be in and out a few times.”

“Okay,” she said, allowing him to keep his visitor badge. He flipped open his laptop and made a note of this latest mistake, appending a photo of the visitor badge to show that he could have made a copy with ease. The neck strap, with lettering in red that said ‘VISITOR’, was a standard type that was available for sale online.

This isn’t proving to be much of a challenge, he thought with contempt. He and Mosegi shuttled between the building and the van a number of times, sometimes singly and sometimes together, until the receptionist was thoroughly accustomed to them going in and out.

Mosegi went out to the van, then returned to report that the elevator would be out of service until some parts could be delivered the following day. He handed both visitor badges back to the receptionist, who thanked him and said “See you tomorrow.” Davis, who had also ‘finished his work for the day’, drove him out of the compound in the fake telecom van.

Nobody realised that Walther was still inside the ‘out of service’ elevator, which was powered down with its doors closed. He lay on the floor using his tool bag as a crude pillow, resting and listening to music. When he heard the office cleaners commence their work he slipped out of the elevator and began to move from room to room. The cleaners weren’t motivated, educated or paid enough to wonder why a maintenance man was there and he took care not to get in their way as they worked.

Meanwhile, he was guided around the building by the sketched map that Davis had produced, so as to avoid all the video cameras. At each motion sensor he climbed on a chair and taped a small piece of paper on the lens, rendering them blind. Next, he collected all the key-loggers that they had previously installed on the company computers.

When the cleaners left the building, he went with them. Act like you belong and people will seldom question you. The yawning security guard probably just assumed he was a shift supervisor for the cleaners.

+++

“Tidying the stationery cupboard,” the young executive murmured. “What a splendid use of your talents.”

He spoke softly and from close by, causing Nkechi to jump and spill a box of green ballpoint pens. “Sorry,” he said. “Miss Molebatsi, I hope you’ll find some time to give me a report on that special project I tasked you with?”

“Uh, yes, Sir. Of course,” she said, flustered. The Sauron-eye of Mrs Letsholo was upon them and both, it seemed, telegraphed guilt.

“It’s good to know that somebody around here’s being vigilant, anyway,” Mr Sibanda growled. “Some other time, Miss Molebatsi.”

That ‘other time’ turned out to be an after-work drink at Capello. The clientele was a mixture of workers having a drink together before making their way home and partygoers embarking on a night out: Nkechi liked the atmosphere, which hinted at the Gaborone she hadn’t had a chance to sample yet. Once she had received her first pay cheque, she promised herself, she’d make more of an effort to sample such things.

“St Louis for me; Tusker for the lady,” Azuel Sibanda set down two glasses, clearly amused by something.

“Uh, have I done something foolish, Sir?”

“Please, not ‘Sir’. We’re not at work now and you must call me Azuel. Perhaps I might be permitted to use your first name also?”

She nodded.

“Nkechi,” he said with a smile, “meaning ‘loyalty’. I like it.”

“Mr Faithful Sibanda,” she countered, “if names mean anything. But you haven’t answered my question.”

He thought back. “Oh – nothing foolish: it’s just that I was surprised you chose a Kenyan lager. You have exotic tastes.”

“Oh,” she said, “I just liked the picture of the little elephant. I don’t think I’ve ever…”

“What?”

She frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever had beer, actually.”

“Really?”

She shrugged. “Not that I recall.” Something was nagging at her, but she couldn’t work out what it was while she needed to pay attention to her companion.

“I hope you like it,” he said.

She took a sip. “It’s quite refreshing,” she said. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “Good. How’s work?”

She considered her answer with care. “Not very challenging,” she said at last. “I suppose I have to walk before I can run, though.”

“Is this your first job?” he asked.

She nodded, feeling silly for suggesting that she was ready for greater things than bringing order to the stationery cupboard: the good-looking executive had to be ten years older and far more experienced.

“I’m sure we’ll have something more interesting for you soon – and in fact, isn’t my own security monitoring project a part of that?”

“Yes, Sir,” she said – which caused him to look disappointed.

“Let’s hear what you’ve observed, then,” he demanded.

“Overall, the working culture is good: the people mesh together very well. There are times when somebody might say ‘can you run a search for me?’ when they haven’t logged in, or they might borrow a piece of equipment without booking it out, but basically everybody seems reliable. There’s no petty theft of the kind that might indicate that some staff are fundamentally untrustworthy; no bullying that might create resentment; no real problems that I’ve detected.”

“Aren’t you even going to complain about Mrs Letsholo?”

She shook her head. “Her bark is worse than her bite.”

He grinned. “But she remains a dog. Ha! But, no… what you’re saying is, everything’s fine?”

She drank some more of the beer. “Yes – or as nearly fine as makes no difference. Some people use the Internet for purposes that aren’t exactly work-related and I’ve noticed one person who usually starts his day by collecting a pen from the stationery cupboard, then takes it home in his shirt pocket. I doubt you’re interested in confronting the gentleman, however.”

“Indeed not: we’re in the diamond business and I think we can spare a few pens. Anything else?”

“The fleet cars appear to have excessive mileage, given their stated usage.”

He pondered this. “How excessive is excessive?”

“Perhaps two or three hundred kilometres a month.”

He shrugged. “That’s nothing. There are always small trips that people don’t log.”

She felt silly for having mentioned it, so she tried something else: “When the water cooler people come to change the bottles, they prop open the emergency exit – which is the kind of thing that’s probably been going on for years, but I doubt it’s an approved practice.”

He nodded, suddenly more serious. “Now that’s more like the kind of thing I’m looking for! Well done: we’ll close that loophole, at least.”

She smiled. “Kaizen.”

He pursed his lips. “Who? What?”

“Something I read in a magazine this morning. A Japanese philosophy of continuous, small improvements coming from everyone, leading to great changes in the long run.”

“Oh, I see,” he said. “How interesting – but right now we’re facing a significant threat and I doubt that small improvements will be enough. Although in regard to our ‘friends’ coming to test our security, I recently did something distinctly unsporting.”

She grinned. “What’s that? If you can tell me.”

He spread his hands. “I’ve suspended all access to the vault. Nobody gets in or out, unless I authorise it and attend personally – and I haven’t approved anything going in or out for weeks. So unless dynamite is considered a legitimate strategy, which I find unlikely, nobody’s going to be able to report that they got inside the vault.”

Nkechi liked how animated he became when he talked about such things. “That’s clever. But presumably diamonds are still being mined, bought and sold. Can you keep this lockdown in place indefinitely?”

“No,” he admitted, “but it can last a few more days. There are security arrangements at each mine, where they’re authorised to hold diamonds up to a certain value. If somebody finds a really big one, that’ll be a nice problem to have! In the meantime, I’m hoping the delay forces the enemy to show their hand. While nobody is getting into the vault, our friends might try to do something foolish, because they can’t wait forever. They must fear that we’ll change our passwords, rotate the staff, notice something is amiss or whatever…”

She reflected upon this. How clever! She raised her glass: “Confusion to the bad guys!”

He joined her in the toast, then turned the conversation to other matters. “So why does a clever girl like you become a secretary?”

She gave a self-deprecating little smile. “It’s a good job, with a great company – and I had to be realistic: I’m an orphan. In an ideal world I might be doing something else, but a year at vocational college was what I could afford.”

Azuel was nothing but sympathetic. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I only ask because it’s clear you’re so much more capable than, well… let’s say because it’s so very clear that you’re highly capable.”

“Thank you,” she said. “If you decide to keep me on after my probation –”

“Oh, we’re keeping you,” Azuel asserted.

“If that’s so,” she went on, “then perhaps in a year or two I can enrol on a part-time degree programme. I might yet secure a management role, one day.”

He grinned. “I believe you might.”

He really was perfect, she decided. Where most people had at the very least a childhood scar or some feature that you tended to focus upon, he looked… perfect. Well groomed, elegant in his mannerisms and expensively dressed. He was simply lovely.

Also way out of her league. Are you single? Really? she wanted to ask – but didn’t dare to. Perhaps the beer was going to her head.

“I might have another task for you soon,” he said.

“What’s that?” she asked, not quite daring to hope that he might suggest something improper.

“I’d better talk to Mrs Letsholo first,” he decided. “May I walk you home?”

He did so. Disappointingly, he was a perfect gentleman.

+++

“Mrs Letsholo, I was wondering if you could help me with something?”

She scowled at the executive, who seemed now to haunt the ground floor. “Let me guess –”

“The dinner at the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry,” he said, perhaps more loudly than was necessary. “I was hoping you’d agree to be my ‘plus one’ for the night.”

“I most certainly will not,” she said, clutching a ring binder protectively to her bosom. “Your suggestion is highly irregular.”

“Ah, then I shall have to find some other employee with whom to share the invitation,” he announced, “for as you know, I lead a celibate, respectable and indeed monk-like existence.”

“Miss Molebatsi,” the harridan called, ensuring that everybody in the vicinity could hear. “Mister Sibanda wants to take you out to a ministerial dinner. Will you be needing an overtime claim form?”

“No, Mma,” Nkechi whispered when she had approached the pair. “Thank you.”

The older woman sighed. “Just tell him ‘yes’ and then perhaps we can get some work done around here.” She glared at all the staff who were watching and listening.

Regarding the pair, Nkechi sensed that the enmity they displayed was just for show: there was actually a complex friendship there, wrapped up in a kind of game that neither had ever acknowledged. “I’m afraid I must decline,” she said. “I don’t have anything suitable to wear – but thank you for thinking of me.

Mrs Letsholo held up her hand. “Nonsense. Rachida? Qwara? You’re both good at this sort of thing: will you help?”

“Yes, Mma,” the two secretaries chorused, knowing it was wise to agree with Mrs Letsholo when she phrased things like that.

+++

Two nights later, Nkechi was at Qwara’s house with Rachida, who handed her a garment bag.

“It’s a dress I wore as a bridesmaid some years ago,” she explained. “We’ll have to make some alterations because of your ridiculously thin waist, but I think it’ll look nice.”

Mrs Letsholo had wisely enlisted the help of two married women, on the basis that they ought to be less jealous that the new girl was getting so much attention from the gorgeous Mr Sibanda.

If they start sticking pins in me, I’ll know she miscalculated, Nkechi thought. “You don’t mind altering it?”

“I’m never going to fit in that again,” Rachida said. “Not after three children. Pop it on and see if you like it.”

Nkechi did so, enjoying the feeling as it slithered into place. It was made from silk, in light blue: the blue of the national flag. “Oh, wow,” she said. “I never felt anything like this before.”

Qwara frowned. “What, never?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so…”

The two women fussed over her, with the whole process being watched by one of Qwara’s daughters who peeped out from beneath a table, curious but too shy to put in an appearance.

For twenty minutes she was made to stand while the dress was tugged this way and that, marked and pinned. The three gossiped about work at the bank, Nkechi learning a few things and suspecting that in some respects they were either speculating wildly or pulling her leg. On the subject of Azuel Sibanda they warned her not to expect too much: a number of the girls at the bank had tried to catch that particular fish before her and all had been gently but firmly disabused of the notion that they might be the future Mrs Sibanda.

“To be honest, it’s a relief to hear that,” she told them. “I find it very difficult to concentrate when he pesters me at work.”

“Like you haven’t been fighting boys off with a stick for the last five years or so,” Rachida joked.

Nkechi frowned. “Uh, not that I recall… or not until I came here to the city, anyway.”

Qwara shook her head in disbelief.

Three quarters of an hour of work with shears and a sewing machine followed, after which Nkechi had to try the dress on again. She found it harder to work her way into it, but the effort was rewarded: it fitted closely, showing off her lithe figure.

She thanked them both and they laughed to see how excited she was. She promised to tell them what took place – within reason.

+++

Azuel arrived at her rooming house, bringing flowers.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, astonished. She couldn’t remember ever having been given flowers, and certainly nothing like these. The African flame lily made a magnificent centrepiece to a breathtaking arrangement.

“As are you,” her date murmured. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave them behind, but I wanted you to have them.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll put them in my room. Give me a moment.”

He nodded. “There’s no hurry.”

When she came back, he took her hand and led her to the car.

“You know Nelson, I believe?”

Nkechi didn’t know him, but clearly he was one of the company drivers. “Good evening,” she said.

“Good evening, Mma,” he said, opening the door and inviting her into the car.

Azuel joined her. “I don’t normally merit a driver,” he explained, “but Nelson is also something of a bodyguard. He knows karate, among other things.”

Nelson started the engine and pulled away.

“Do we need a bodyguard?” Nkechi whispered.

“Ordinarily, you and I would have little to fear on the streets of our city, but I’m afraid it’s mandatory when we’re out with something like this.” He held out a jewel case and opened the lid, to reveal a diamond necklace. The single large jewel seemed somehow to gather all the light in the vicinity, to sparkle playfully.

“My God,” Nkechi breathed, “what are you doing? That must be worth a fortune!”

He nodded. “It’s traditional that NRB show off some of their wares at functions like these.”

“Really? I mean, no, I can’t – it’s too precious.”

“You can and you must. You’re representing the bank tonight.”

She gave a nervous little shake of her head, but didn’t object further when he took the necklace from its case and fastened it around her neck. It nestled against her, to bounce as her heart thudded.

She frowned. “Does this mean you opened the vault?”

He was amused by the way it seemed that she couldn’t set thoughts of work aside. “No,” he said. “One of the directors has been keeping this little old thing in her office safe since its last outing. I hope to keep the lockdown on the vault going for a few days yet, if I can.”

She nodded abstractedly. “So what do I need to know for tonight?”

“I can’t tell you much about the minister as I’ve never met him. I knew his predecessor, but she moved up to the Finance Ministry last year. Our host was previously minister for Infrastructure and Housing Development, if that’s any use.”

“Alright. I don’t imagine I’ll need to say much to him, anyway.”

“Looking as you do? I think you’ll find that all kinds of people will want to talk with you.”

+++

In this, he was right – though by no means could all approaches be described as friendly.

“Here’s my friend Mr Sibanda, custodian of the nation’s other treasure,” said the man who was was placed opposite when they were seated.

“Miss Nkechi Molebatsi, allow me to present Mr Adegoke Okoye, who works for the Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation,” Azuel said, putting emphasis on the last word as if to imply that the gentleman was personally responsible for sewage.

She regarded the gentleman: stylishly bald, with a look of mischief about him. She kept it simple. “Hello, Sir.”

“Don’t let Mr Sibanda alarm you, my dear: we’re good friends.”

“You’re not blessed with terribly many friends if you need to count me among them,” Azuel teased.

Okoye smiled sardonically. “Are you courting at last?” he asked. “Or is Miss Molebatsi another of your employees?”

“Water!” Nkechi blurted: the first thing that occurred as she cast about for a way to interrupt the confrontation. “Can I offer you some water?” She lifted the carafe.

“Uh, thank you,” he said.

She sensed Azuel’s eyes upon her as she reached out and poured. Perhaps he was worried that she was about to ‘accidentally’ spill the whole thing in the lap of his foe, but she was trying to be nice.

“Water,” he raised the glass to study its contents. “The real treasure: thirsty people can’t drink diamonds.”

“To my mind, the real treasure is the people themselves,” Nkechi said. “A healthy, well-educated population has to be prized above all.”

“Well said,” the woman on the other side of Azuel put in. She was from the South African High Commission, working in a role that was something to do with the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. “Your mineral wealth is a gift, but a finite one. It needs to be invested wisely.”

“This is exactly why we’re investing in infrastructure,” Okoye explained. “A pipe network to bring water across the desert, all the way from the Zambesi. Say what you like – as I’m sure you will – but at least the water is an asset that flows. What do your diamonds do, but moulder in their vault? A fine way to destroy value!”

Acutely aware of the purely ornamental and ridiculously expensive diamond that she wore, Nkechi was minded to agree with him: she guessed its sale might have funded all the operations of a high school for a year or more. Still, she felt the need to defend her companion.

“I respect your position on the need for prudent investments,” she said, “but I see our primary role as one of ensuring the security of the nation’s precious assets – a service that would still be required even if there were no diamonds yet to be mined.”

“One day, there won’t be,” he said, darkly. “My friend here can restructure, refinance and reorganise as much as he likes, but he won’t escape that simple fact.”

Azuel rolled his eyes. It was clear than an old argument was being revisited. “Existing as a corporate entity rather than a branch of government has allowed us to borrow money at market rates and make investments of our own, with an eye to our future.”

“I wish you every success,” the other said, “for the sake of us all.” He seemed anything but reassured.

Azuel was uncharacteristically sombre and it seemed that the exchange had spoiled his evening. Between courses, Nkechi laid a placatory hand atop his, which seemed to improve his spirits a little. The lady from the South African High Commission chattered brightly about a recent trip to Lesotho and Nkechi did her best to keep the flow of conversation going.

After the somewhat awkward dinner, their host took the podium and gave a short speech in which he emphasised the importance of international trade. Azuel took it as a vindication and he was smiling broadly by the time they left the table. A band began to play and he steered her towards the dance floor.

Nkechi was alarmed: “I’ve never danced before,” she hissed.

“Perhaps this is a time for doing new things,” he murmured, unrelenting.

It didn’t seem that anybody was expecting ‘proper’ dancing with distinct steps, so they were able to blend in well enough, moving gently to and fro to what Nkechi assumed must be a waltz.

“Thank you,” Azuel whispered. “I’m sorry: I shouldn’t have allowed that fool to upset me. You did well – and you kept me from being too rude.”

She laughed softly. “Happy to be of service. Will you sign my overtime form now, Sir?”

“I’m hoping you’ll put in a few more hours yet,” he replied.

She looked up at him. “I’m afraid I can’t stay. I have to be safely at home by midnight, or I’ll turn into a pumpkin.”

His chest shook with suppressed laughter. “Not even the scullery maid, but the pumpkin? What kind of Cinderella are you?”

She gave him a sad smile. “I’m working on a tight budget. Also, I hear that the man who serves as night porter at my lodgings can be difficult with girls who come back late.”

“We’ll see about that,” the executive growled.

She shook her head. “Imagine what Mrs Letsholo will say If I so much as yawn at work tomorrow. No… it’s been lovely but I think I need my bed.”

“I’m just being greedy,” he said with a sad smile, “and since Nelson will probably shoot you if you attempt to run away as the clock strikes twelve, I suggest we should leave together. Shall we?”

She looked around the place one last time, to drink in the elegance of it all, but caught sight of Adegoke Okoye, the Water and Sanitation man, looking at her as if he might try to cut in, or try to claim the next dance.

“Let’s go,” she said.

They gave brief thanks to their host, then Azuel summoned his driver: they weren’t about to stand on a street corner and wait for the car – not with that diamond on display.

When he arrived, Nkechi noticed how the driver scanned the street before inviting them both to enter the car. She thought she detected the slight bulge of a concealed holster beneath his uniform jacket, which meant that Azuel hadn’t entirely been joking. She didn’t want the diamond around her neck any more – not in a world where such things were known to attract robbers.

“Time to go back to being a pumpkin,” she muttered, reaching to the back of her neck to find the clasp of the necklace.

“I’ll take care of it,” Azuel said, leaning close for this purpose. He smelled of sandalwood and she discovered that she loved his touch; his close attention.

She clung to him for a moment, impeding the task he was trying to perform but enjoying their closeness. “Thank you,” she said, “and put it somewhere safe – please.”

He chuckled. “I will. Nelson and I will place it in the night safe just as soon as we’ve taken care of the most precious item – by which I mean you, Cinderella. Tomorrow morning, I’ll order the main vault opened so I can get it properly under lock and key. Not that we use keys, exactly, but you get the idea.”

“Thank you for a wonderful evening,” she said.

“Without you, it wouldn’t have been one,” he told her. “Do you know, I think you look better without the diamond. There is such a thing as gilding the lily.”

She shook her head, embarrassed, but when the motion ceased he was close and it appeared that he might kiss her. She glanced forward, expecting to see Nelson watching them in the rear view mirror, but he seemed preoccupied with the task of driving. Boldly, she moved to cover the distance that remained between them to deliver a small, soft kiss.

She couldn’t remember ever having kissed somebody like that before and she found herself astonished by the surge of emotions that she felt. Was she falling in love? That was going to be difficult: she’d only been in the job a few weeks. What would people think of her? She gave him a terrified look and he nodded sympathetically.

He held her close, but didn’t try to kiss her again. All too soon, Nelson had pulled up to the kerb outside her guest house. There were things that hadn’t been said; kisses that might have been exchanged – but this wasn’t the time.

Nelson stayed with the car – with the diamond, Nkechi was amused to note. Azuel walked her up the cracked path to the front door, which hadn’t been bolted. She turned to him, unsure quite how to say goodbye.

He bent down to give her another little kiss. “Sleep well, Nkechi – and thank you.”

She toyed with his hand. “Good night, Azuel. This has been wonderful.”

“Until next time?”

She smiled. “Yes – next time!”

He gave a little bow and she let herself in, skipping up the stairs to her room. All those old films in which lovestruck girls sang about their feelings didn’t seem quite so silly now. She disrobed, hung up her one good dress, then cleansed and moisturised while softly singing and humming a half-remembered song from the balcony scene in West Side Story.

It was all well and good insisting on an early night, she thought as she lay in bed – but how was a girl meant to sleep with so much to think about?

+++

Nkechi arrived at work early, hoping to forestall some of the gossip by demonstrating that she wasn’t suffering from the effects of a late night out, nor anything more scandalous. She found it difficult to settle down and work, but Mrs Letsholo set her the task of transcribing a recorded conference call. This isolated her enough to prevent everyone trying to engage her in conversation all morning. At break time she gave a summary of events at the reception to Rachida and Qwara.

“He danced with you? Then what?” Rachida demanded to know more.

Haltingly, Nkechi tried to explain something of her impressions and her feelings.

Qwara nodded approvingly. “You were right to insist on being taken home. He’ll want to spend more evenings with you, I’m sure.”

Rachida giggled. “So, he’s a good kisser, right?”

“I have no basis for comparison,” Nkechi whispered, deliberately choosing to be evasive.

“None?” Rachida demanded. “Were you at a convent school or something?”

It became apparent that others were listening in, so Qwara kindly changed the subject, discussing the worsening drought conditions instead.

Shortly before lunchtime, even with her headphones in place, Nkechi could sense that the mood around her had changed. People were tense: she sat back from her computer screen, removed the headphones and glanced around.

“It’s some kind of crisis meeting,” Qwara told her. “It’s never good when all the partners come in at once and there’s nothing in the diary. They’re in the boardroom now.”

“I’m sure we’ll know soon enough,” Mrs Letsholo told them all. “For now, you all have jobs to be doing. Let’s not be seen gossiping.”

At lunch, nobody quizzed Nkechi about her ‘date’ with the handsome executive: that was old news. Instead, they speculated about the meeting that had caused all the senior staff to gather in the boardroom, where they had been joined by a high-ranking officer of the Police Service. The off-duty security staff had been called in as well, some reporting to management while others conducted a sweep of the building.

Nobody was getting any productive work done by mid-afternoon, when Nkechi saw Azuel for the first time that day.

She went to him, concerned. “Are you alright?”

He gave her a tired, lopsided little smile. “Hello. I’m sorry – I should have come to thank you for last night. All this, it’s… much as I feared. Not a complete disaster, though.”

She took his hand. “Can you tell me? Can I help?”

He considered for a moment before answering. “Basically, we’ve been outfoxed by the people who were sent to test us, but they didn’t get past all our defences. There’s some confusion on the other side about a missing team member. It’s, uh, a long story. Do you want some tea?”

She looked to Mrs Letsholo, who made an exasperated gesture. Azuel looked suitably apologetic and at last the older woman rolled her eyes and pointed as if to say “Go on, then.”

Azuel led her upstairs, to a place where refreshments had been set out, just outside the boardroom. Nkechi was nervous to think that she might be found drinking tea by any executive who might emerge, but Azuel insisted that it was acceptable.

“We can talk here,” he explained. “So here’s what we know: earlier today the Police Service questioned two fellows who’d been seen watching the bank from a parked car. It seems they’d been doing the same thing from various locations for a few days.”

“The people who were sent to test our security,” Nkechi said.

“Precisely – or some of them, at least. At first, the police assumed they were planning a robbery, but they had paperwork that showed they were acting for a South African company called ‘Red Team Services’. They had maps of the site, including detailed plans of each floor of the main building; keys to various pieces of machinery; fake badges that had allowed them to gain access on multiple occasions, posing as telephone and elevator repair men, delivery drivers and so on.”

Nkechi frowned. “They’ve already been inside?”

“Yes. We’ve seen photographic evidence that they roamed all over the building.”

“But not the vault, surely?”

He grinned. “It appears my lockdown of the vault may have derailed their plans. Perhaps it forced them to take chances and led to their being apprehended this morning.”

A security guard arrived, clearly wanting to give a report but not with Nkechi present.

“I have no concerns over what Miss Molebatsi might overhear,” Azuel said. “Let me have your update.”

The security guard looked grim. “There’s small pieces of paper taped over most of the PIR detectors. The police are taking them away for fingerprints. There’s evidence of infiltration all over the building –”

“Such as?”

“Er –” the guard gave a nervous little cough. “For example, there’s a handwritten note on the side of Mr Mompati’s computer that reads ‘Ryan Kumba Brown is great goalkeeper but he serves less well as a password’. We found… evidence that somebody used the elevator hoist room as something of a base of operations, probably camping in there for a day or two.”

“Evidence?”

“Food, drink – and the consequences of food and drink, if you follow my meaning.”

Azuel had his face in his hands. “How long ago?”

The guard wrinkled his nose. “A few weeks ago, judging by the state of things.”

“Aren’t we supposed to check places like that every few days?” Azuel demanded. “Never mind: is that document for me? I’ll present it to the Board.”

Clearly grateful that he hadn’t been hauled over the coals, the guard departed.

“I’m so sorry –” Nkechi began.

“Nothing about this is your fault,” Azuel said firmly. “I asked you to consider our security arrangements, but it seems that our ‘friends’ had already been and gone.”

“Been and gone, yes. But what was that about a missing team member?”

Azuel shrugged. “I have no idea. One of their number probably received a better offer. Or maybe he got drunk and didn’t come back to work. It’s not our problem.”

“And the vault is secure? You’re certain?”

“It’s still locked up tight,” he said. “Nobody’s been in or out for weeks.”

“Nobody in… or out,” Nkechi said, with a growing sense of dread. What had that man from Water and Sanitation said? “Thirsty people can’t drink diamonds.”

Azuel looked at her in horror. “You don’t think…”

She swallowed. “Has anybody actually checked the vault?”

He shook his head. “To unlock it requires credentials from three executives. Everyone’s been in the meeting since they arrived! I’ll have to… right: let’s do that.”

He snatched the door open and strode into the boardroom.

“Mr Sibanda,” a woman protested with considerable irritation, “you agreed to let us conduct our review without interruption. What is the meaning of this?”

“I apologise, Madam Director, but this might be an emergency. It’s the vault.”

“What about the vault?” she demanded.

“We need to check it, Mma. At once.”

Somebody else spoke: an old man. “You think this is about more than passwords and tampering with the telephone system?”

“Rra, I think it would be a mistake not to complete a full search of the premises, in the light of recent events.”

“What makes you think –” somebody began, but his question was lost in the sound of chairs being pushed back and people rising. It was a general exodus: more than a dozen people heading out of the boardroom, down to the ground floor and from there to pack the narrow stairway that led down to the main vault.

Azuel clasped Nkechi’s hand as he passed and she was hauled along with them.

+++

Some weeks earlier, Walther had been bored. He’d sequestered himself in the elevator hoist room, where he spent the bank’s working hours sleeping or watching the cricket on his iPhone. He received regular updates from Davis, but these indicated no change in the guards’ posture: they hadn’t been spooked and they weren’t hunting him.

At night, he could roam the building at will, retreating or hiding out when the guards made their regular sweeps, which didn’t involve much beyond testing that various doors were locked. Gradually, with great care, he’d extended the depth to which the bank’s building and systems were penetrated. He’d performed a simple under-the-door attack to get into the server room, where he’d taped a ‘Red Team Services’ business card inside the casing of each piece of electrical equipment; then he’d retreated to his elevator hoist room to write up this latest piece of damning evidence against NRB.

Next, he’d opened a box of sweetener that he found in the break room, tipped some away and replaced it with salt. He added a little note that read ‘On this occasion, none of your staff have been poisoned – with best wishes from Red Team Services’, sealed the carton again and placed it back on the shelf. Such petty pranks didn’t amuse him, but he was killing time: waiting until he could gain access to the vault.

The first barrier was a pair of glass doors, leading to a lobby that was manned during the day. He could have interfered with the badge reader, but already he’d recognised a mechanism that would open the doors automatically when a customer was leaving the area. It was a simple matter to insert the nozzle of a can of ‘Dust Off’ between the two doors: held upside-down so as to spray out cold propellant, it spoofed the infra-red detector, which obligingly opened the doors for him.

Now inside the lobby, Walther knew he was far less likely to be interrupted by a guard patrol. The next barrier had a combination keypad – but the enclosure had been left with the factory-fitted ‘A126’ key: they usually were. Walther always carried an A126 key. With the access control box open it was simple to bridge between two pins on the circuit board with a paperclip. The door solenoid fired and Walther had passed another barrier. Stairs led down, deep into the bedrock beneath the bank.

The next task would be a lengthy one but Walther had plenty of time, hidden away from the guards. Just outside the vault door was an access panel of a kind that he recognised. He opened it up and made two modifications. First, he piggybacked a ‘sniffer’ on the card reader mechanism so that whatever credentials were supplied by card would be cloned. Next, he installed a pinhole camera, to cover the keypad: whatever numeric combination was used in conjunction with a particular card, he’d be able to replicate it.

He tidied up the area where he’d been working and tiptoed his way back up the stairs, to hide in the lobby until the regular guard patrol had gone past. Funny how human beings always slip into a routine, he thought.

He then retreated to his hoist room hideout to await developments.

+++

The next day, there was a routine visit to the vault. Walther didn’t know it, but he’d only just completed his work in time: this was the last time the facility was opened before Azuel Sibanda decided to suspend access, as a precaution. The equipment that Walther had installed worked perfectly, recording everything he needed to make an unauthorised visit – a crowning achievement to demonstrate that NRB’s security was hopelessly outdated.

Walther retraced his steps down to the vault. When he was close, he connected wirelessly to the new equipment that he had added to the access control machinery, finding that it now held all the information he needed to breach the vault.

“Candy from a baby,” he muttered, initiating the process.

Lights came on as he eased the huge, cylindrical door aside on its smooth bearings. He wondered if the circuit that caused the lights to come on might also be sounding a silent alarm, somewhere, but it didn’t really matter: even if he was apprehended now, he could claim victory because he might have brought twenty litres of gasoline with him, or a bomb. Diamonds burned just as well as coal, or so he’d been told.

Squinting against the brilliant light, Walther regarded the mass of shallow drawers that made up one wall of the vault: each would contain a king’s ransom in cut diamonds, he knew. There were cabinets for valuable documents and bulky cassettes for data backups as well, but what particularly drew his eye was a single, large diamond on a pedestal.

It was pure theatre, of course, to display a single gem in brilliant lighting like that. Visiting VIPs would be impressed; persuaded to entrust their valuables to the vault, perhaps. It was likely that the data was more valuable, or the documents. He ought to photograph a couple of pages, just to prove that he’d gone that deep, but… that diamond!

In something close to reverence, he approached it, fascinated by the rainbow of internal refractions that it displayed. How smooth the crystalline faces were! He wanted to touch it; to feel its weight and the coolness of it. A stone, after all…

Walther hadn’t decided exactly what he was going to do within the vault to make clear that it had been penetrated. At times, while he’d been waiting in the hoist room, he’d imagined himself taking a shit on the floor – this constituting feedback on some of the most lax, generic security arrangements he’d ever seen. Or maybe he should leave a handwritten note, or just take photographs?

Now, he knew what he wanted to do: he’d take this diamond. He’d return it, of course – via the parent company – but for now, he wanted it. And if he was going to do that, fingerprints didn’t matter. He removed a glove and reached for the sparkling gemstone.

Something strange happened as soon as it was in his hand. He felt its cool hardness, just long enough to pick it up – and then it disappeared. Not quite instantly, but it melted in his hand as rapidly as an ice cube on a hot stove.

There was no heat and nothing dripped or ran down his arm, but the diamond melted and he got the impression that it was being absorbed into his skin.

Horrified, he tried to hurl it away, but by the time he initiated the movement, it was gone completely.

He regarded his hand, trying to understand what he had just witnessed. Was his arm feeling numb? Or was that his imagination? He couldn’t decide.

He was sweating, though he doubted it could be because he was nervous. He’d performed penetration tests that were far riskier and more arduous than this one, but he found himself blinking away sweat and mopping at his brow.

To hell with this, he decided. They’ve set some kind of trap. Like maybe a hallucinogenic gas, or some kind of contact poison on that fake gemstone. Perhaps I’ve been given a massive dose of LSD, or something like it.

His tool roll, left on the floor just inside vault door, would have to serve as his calling-card: he didn’t trust himself to carry it anyway. Distances seemed to telescope in and out as he peered about him and he pressed himself against the wall so as to avoid falling down. After a minute or two he managed to drag himself back through the vault door, leaning his weight on it until it bumped closed and he heard the mechanism locking.

He half-crawled his way back up the stairs, to hide in the lobby while he called Davis. “We’re done,” he said, “but I’ve got to get out, right away.”

Davis was quick to understand. “You need a distraction? I could do an Uncle Henry at the main gate in twenty minutes. How’s that?”

“Can you make it fifteen?”

“On my way. What’s happened?”

Walther was struggling to focus. “I don’t feel well. Like, poisoned or something.”

“Alright. Hang in there!” Davis ended the call.

Walther gimmicked the emergency exit with a piece of insulating tape, such that the alarm wouldn’t sound when he pressed the bar to open the door. He left the building on the far side from the main gate, using the last of his strength to climb the fence when he heard the commotion begin: Davis playing the part of a drunk to distract the guards and occupy all their attention for a minute or two while he demanded that they call him a taxi, and so on.

Since he’d made a call that might later be placed as having come from the vicinity of the bank, Walther left his phone in the road, where it would soon be either stolen or crushed by a passing vehicle. Then he stumbled away from the scene, struggling with double vision but managing to locate the particularly disreputable rooming house where he was staying.

Probably just got to sweat this out, he told himself, drinking some water and then crawling into bed. I’ll feel better in the morning.

+++

Everyone was crowded into the little corridor outside the vault, the last to arrive still on the stairs.

“Open the vault,” somebody called, clearly accustomed to giving orders.

“Yes, Rra,” Azuel said, threading his way to the front and towing Nkechi with him. He flourished a keycard: “I’ll need two others to swipe their cards and enter their passcodes, of course.”

This was done and the locking mechanism was heard to retract. Azuel swung the ponderous metal door aside, according him the first glimpse of the vault’s contents – to find a discarded glove, a workman’s tool roll and a pedestal made conspicuous by the absence of one large diamond.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered.

+++

Two hours had passed. The icy fingers of terror had receded, just a little, once it became clear that this had been the result of a penetration test and not an outright robbery. Only a single diamond was missing, not the far greater wealth that existed elsewhere in the vault.

The executives had gone back to the boardroom, though once again they excluded Azuel from their deliberations because they were discussing his recent performance. For his part, Azuel sat outside, waiting to discover his fate. Nkechi stayed with him, never thinking to return to the secretarial pool.

Time wore on and the working day ended.

At last, the executives all filed out of the boardroom. A few of them nodded politely to Azuel as they passed, so it seemed that he wasn’t completely in disgrace.

At last, only one of the partners remained behind. This was Ms Gorata Phiri, semi-retired but the holder of a considerable block of voting shares. She was, it seemed to Nkechi, a woman of vast experience who had probably heard every excuse and seen every trick. Not a person to take lightly, for all that she looked like a friendly grandmother.

“This is the preliminary report from the penetration testers,” Ms Phiri said, holding it away from her as if it stank. “It’s incomplete, but what there is of it sets out a litany of foolish mistakes and warnings that went unheeded.”

Azuel bowed his head. “Yes, Mma.”

“You misunderstand, Mr Sibanda. I’ve seen the emails in which you told everybody to adopt a secure password – and I know about your efforts to improve our security in other ways.”

“I failed,” Azuel said. “The vault was breached.”

“You tried,” she countered. “Believe me, on a day when I’ve been shown fifty or more examples of failure, your own efforts were like a breath of fresh air. Today I learned that one of my dear colleagues uses his desktop computer to put money on horse races – and uses the same password for his banking duties.”

Azuel didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

“There are going to be some changes around here.”

“Yes, Mma.”

She nodded reflectively. “I want you to take charge of those changes.”

Azuel was astounded to find himself rewarded with greater responsibility on such a dark day, but it seemed that Ms Phiri had already secured the agreement of the Board.

She smiled, then continued: “Now, I’d like to discuss something with your young lady. I know you’ve spent most of the day waiting out there, my dear Mr Sibanda, but I’ll ask you to wait a few minutes more.”

He glanced at Nkechi, apology and surprise both showing on his face. “Of course, Mma.”

Ms Phiri beckoned. Nervously, Nkechi went inside.

When the door had closed, the older woman smiled. “You’re a rare beauty,” she said.

“I, er… thank you, Mma,” Nkechi stammered.

“Flawless,” she said, as if amused by some joke she didn’t choose to share. “And you’ve worked here for just three weeks or so. Is that right?”

“Yes, Mma. It’s my first job. I hope my work has been satisfactory.”

The older woman shrugged. “I’m sure it has. Now, come sit with me – and have a look at this.”

She produced a velvet bag with a drawstring. Nkechi guessed at once that it must contain a diamond, but even so she was astonished by the large, brilliant cut stone that the Director showed her. She positioned it atop the bag, twisting it this way and that until Nkechi could see her reflection in a large, flat surface.

“Funny things, diamonds,” she said.

Nkechi was distracted by the complex internal reflections within the gemstone, though she tried to be polite. “Funny, Mma?”

“We’re not in the pearl business, Miss Molebatsi.”

“No, Madam Director.”

“Very strange things, pearls. They start out as something that doesn’t belong. It gets glossed over, to make it less irritating. You know about pearls?”

“Almost nothing, I’m afraid.”

“Not to worry. My point is, without an unwelcome piece of grit, there can be no pearl. The imperfection is the seed – whereas a diamond can be flawless.”

“Uh, yes, Mma.”

“A flawless crystalline structure, I mean. Consider this one, for instance.”

Nkechi swallowed hard, struggling to speak as she looked into the near-infinite depths of the jewel.

“My late husband had an interesting theory,” Ms Phiri said, quietly. “He thought that the diamonds were somehow alive. A carbon-based life form, he called them.”

“Mma?”

She gestured wildly. “You should see the interplay of light when you allow it to fall on a roomful of diamonds! He used to tell me that we had a symbiotic relationship with them: we release them from the depths of the Earth, cut them and polish them… and they make us rich.”

Wondering if the Director might be teetering on the brink of senile dementia, Nkechi thought it would be polite to agree with her. “I suppose they do, Mma.”

“Poor Azuel thinks he closed the door after the horse had bolted, but he’s mistaken. I hope you can console him.”

“Mistaken, Mma?”

She laughed. “I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Consider: if diamonds are in some sense alive… what might they want?”

Nkechi was entirely confused by the direction that the conversation had taken. “Madam… excuse me, but ‘want’? What could a diamond want?”

Ms Phiri reached out to the gem, rotating it gently. “I like to imagine them having something like a conversation. One catches a beam of light, refracts it, splits it and sends it on to yet another…”

It was becoming hard for Nkechi to see her reflection amid the rainbow hues being scattered by the diamond. “Perhaps they want the diamond that disappeared to be returned to them?”

“Don’t you know what happened to it?” Ms Phiri prompted. “Look again.”

Blinking madly, Nkechi peered into the diamond, no longer seeing her own reflection but that of somebody else. Ms Phiri turned the gem first one way and then the other, the effect being something like that achieved by adjusting the dial on an old-fashioned radio. Tuning in on a distant station… or a different life.

The life it showed was that of Walther Livingston, professional penetration tester. He was of middle years, with a little bit of a paunch and an unremarkable sort of face that allowed him to masquerade as a delivery man, elevator repair technician or whatever the job required.

As she spied upon him, Nkechi acquired the impression that he was a man who enjoyed his work but who had few people with whom to share the joy of barriers overcome and secrets exposed. He had no family; no love life. He was good at his job and he enjoyed it the way another might take delight in finishing a crossword puzzle, but it was a largely solitary pursuit.

“Who is he?” she whispered.

“That’s the man who broke into the vault, of course,” Ms Phiri told her. “Touch the diamond: twist it a fraction and you should be able to see what happened.

Nkechi followed her instructions, quickly getting a sense of how to make the diamond reveal such a thing. She watched as Walther removed his glove and reached out to pick up the diamond in the vault; watched it disappear and saw the effect that this had upon him. She watched him leave the vault and escape from the site, stumbling away into the night and abandoning his phone. She saw him burst into the room he had rented, to drink straight from the washbasin’s cold tap before crawling into bed – in a room that looked very familiar to Nkechi, though she hadn’t spent long there.

In shock, she looked away from the view of the man, now shivering and sweating his way through the night. Instead, she looked at Ms Phiri, who gave a sad smile.

“Now I think you understand.”

Nkechi was aghast. “That man… he… he’s me?”

The older woman caught her hands, exerting a steadying influence. “I’d say that you’re him – made flawless.”

Nkechi shook her head. “But that’s impossible!”

“To us, yes. But who knows what diamonds can do? It seems that the diamonds didn’t want a man who intruded upon them and threatened to disrupt their gathering in the vault. They didn’t want him: they wanted you.”

Nkechi found it a struggle to ignore the sparkling light from the huge diamond in front of her. “Why would they want me?” she asked.

“You’ve already proved yourself to be intelligent, hard-working and dedicated to the Bank. Perhaps they have plans for you.”

“But I’m not real…” Nkechi was floundering, unable to trust her own thoughts.

“This has happened before,” Ms Phiri told her. “It’s not as sinister as you think! Notice how you can look upon either Walther or Nkechi, reflected in the depths of the gem?”

Nkechi frowned, peering into the stone again. “Yes, Mma?”

“You get to decide who you want to be. If you choose to be the man who broke into the vault, you’ll develop another fever and when you awake, the diamond he touched will have been expelled from your body. His body. We get our diamond, he gets a three-week gap in his memory and we defeated the penetration test.”

“Madam Director, what else can I be?”

“You can be Nkechi Molebatsi, a secretary at National Reliant Bank – although I suspect you won’t remain a secretary. Look.” She spun the diamond and it sparkled with a series of images: Nkechi behind the wheel of a car; giving a presentation; cutting into a wedding cake with Azuel by her side; holding hands with a small child as he took his first steps; at a graduation ceremony…

Nkechi gasped.

“Predestination is horrible,” Ms Phiri said, “but don’t worry: these impressions will fade once we put the diamond away. I take it you’ve made your choice?”

“I… can’t,” Nkechi said. “I can’t do this. I can’t deceive Azuel.”

“Your integrity does you credit,” the Director said. “There’s something you don’t know, however.”

“Mma?”

“Some years ago, there was a manager working here. He had debts as a result of some poor decision-making in his personal life. Perhaps he thought he could eradicate those debts through the theft of a single, large diamond – and he managed it, too.”

Nkechi frowned. “Are you saying –”

“He grasped a diamond, just as Walther Livingston did. He, too, was transformed.”

“Azuel?”

Ms Phiri smiled broadly. “He’s a fine-looking young man, isn’t he? Also trustworthy and hard-working. Flawless, one might say.”

Nkechi considered this. “Does he know about me?”

“He doesn’t even know about his own past. He chose not to remember – just as you can, although I’d appreciate it if you managed to keep hold of the skills that Walther Livington had.”

“Skills, Mma?”

“He had an uncanny ability to find the gaps in our defences, that one. Perhaps, in due course, we can persuade you to take on a security role within the bank.”

“I’m astonished,” Nkechi shook her head in wonder. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you have a very forgiving nature, Madam Director.”

“I believe I’ve lived long enough to develop a deep understanding of things,” Ms Phiri said with a smile. “One the one hand, there’s the raw material – and on the other, there’s the conditions that shape it. One deposit of carbon remains amorphous while another becomes graphite and a few turn into diamonds. When you find a diamond, it needs the right setting.”

“So I’m to remain as Nkechi Molebatsi,” the younger woman said. It wasn’t a question.

“I think so. Remember what I said, though: try to retain the knowledge of Walther Livingston.”

“But how –”

The Director swept the large diamond back into its velvet bag, closing the drawstring.

Nkechi blinked, momentarily confused.

Ms Phiri smiled warmly. “I think you chose well.”

“Mma?”

“What are your thoughts on our security arrangements?”

Nkechi frowned, sorting through thoughts that seemed somehow alien. “Uh, Madam Director, the server room needs a better door, but even when it’s replaced there’s a problem: all the data cables run within a suspended ceiling. Anybody could tap into those cables and we’d never know it.”

“I see.”

“Also the access to the roof platform is far from secure. Somebody could use that as a point of entry and –”

“Alright,” Ms Phiri laughed. “Thank you, dear. Please put together a memo and we’ll set up a meeting to establish a prioritised list of our shortcomings.”

“Yes, Madam Director.”

“How do you feel about… other matters? Personal matters.”

Nkechi pondered this question, struggling to formulate an answer “I… have the strangest impression. I think I’ve been… sort of daydreaming about my future.”

Ms Phiri nodded. “There’s nothing wrong with having dreams. Personally, I’m impressed by your level of ambition. There aren’t many people who could finish an MBA dissertation with a young child at home and another on the way.”

Nkechi just scratched her head.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the Director said. “When the time comes, perhaps you’ll find that you can organise your working and home life into distinct facets.”

“Mma,” Nkechi objected, “what about the missing diamond? It must have been worth a fortune.”

The Director had a twinkle in her eye as she replied. “They’re far more common than most people think. That’s why we have to store so very many of them in the vault, or the price would collapse overnight. Don’t worry: I think we can spare a diamond or two.

“Now, let’s not leave that nice Mr Sibanda waiting outside a moment longer. We should go out for dinner – or do you lovebirds want to be alone?”

- ENDS -

13,500 words © Bryony Marsh, 2022

Thanks for reading ‘Carbon’: I hope you enjoyed it! Reviews are always appreciated and if you want more Bryony Marsh in your life you can find news, views and other authorbabble at https://bryonymarsh.wordpress.com/

If you’d like to put something in my ‘tips jar’, I have a collection of books for sale on Amazon. You might like the romance of ‘My Constant Moon’ or the adventure of ‘Egyptology’; the kink of ‘Schooled’ or the hard sci-fi of ‘In Armour Clad’. As always, Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read for free.