The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [47]
As I stood surrounded by Literary Guild guests, staring at the white queen with the brioche bun, I could still see her drifting away in that blue Rolls-Royce. I tried to concentrate on her words.
“I knew you wouldn’t forget me, darling,” she was saying. “After all, I did take you to lunch, didn’t I?”
THE COUP
The blue-and-silver Boeing 707, displaying a large P on its tail, taxied to a halt at the north end of Lagos International Airport. A fleet of six black Mercedeses drove up to the side of the aircraft and waited in a line resembling a land-bound crocodile. Six sweating, uniformed drivers leaped out and stood at attention. When the driver of the front car opened his rear door, Colonel Usman of the Federal Guard stepped out and walked quickly to the bottom of the passenger steps, which had been hurriedly pushed into place by four of the airport staff.
The front section cabin door swung back, and the colonel stared up into the gap, to see, framed against the dark interior of the cabin, a slim, attractive hostess dressed in a blue suit with silver piping. On her jacket lapel was a large P. She turned and nodded in the direction of the cabin. A few seconds later, an immaculately dressed tall man with thick black hair and deep brown eyes replaced her in the doorway. The man had an air of effortless style about him that self-made millionaires would have paid a considerable part of their fortune to possess. The colonel saluted as Senhor Eduardo Francisco de Silveira, head of the Prentino empire, gave a curt nod.
De Silveira emerged from the coolness of his air-conditioned 707 into the burning Nigerian sun without showing the slightest sign of discomfort. The colonel guided the tall, elegant Brazilian, who was accompanied only by his private secretary, to the front Mercedes while the rest of the Prentino staff filed down the back stairway of the aircraft and filled the other five cars. The driver, a corporal who had been detailed to be available night and day for the honored guest, opened the rear door of the front car and saluted. Eduardo de Silveira showed no sign of acknowledgment. The corporal smiled nervously, revealing the largest set of white teeth the Brazilian had ever seen.
“Welcome to Lagos,” the corporal volunteered. “Hope you make very big deal while you are in Nigeria.”
Eduardo did not comment as he settled back into his seat and stared out of the tinted window to watch some passengers of a British Airways 707 that had landed just before him form a long line on the hot tarmac as they waited patiently to clear customs. The driver put the car into first gear, and the black crocodile proceeded on its journey. Colonel Usman, who was now in the front seat beside the corporal, soon discovered that the Brazilian guest did not care for smalltalk, and the secretary who was seated by his employer’s side never once opened his mouth. The colonel, used to doing things by example, remained silent, leaving de Silveira to consider his plan of campaign.
Eduardo Francisco de Silveira had been born in the small village of Rebeti, a hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro, heir to one of the two most powerful family fortunes in Brazil. He had been educated privately in Switzerland before attending the University of California at Los Angeles. He went on to complete his education at the Harvard Business School. After Harvard he returned from America to work in Brazil, where he started at neither the top nor the bottom of the firm but in the middle, managing his family’s mining interests in Minas Gerais. He quickly worked his way to the top, even faster than his father had planned, but then the boy turned out to be not so much a chip as a chunk off the old block. At twenty-nine he married Maria, eldest daughter of his father’s closest friend, and when, twelve years later, his father died, Eduardo succeeded to the Prentino throne. There were seven sons in all: the second son, Alfredo, was now in charge of banking; João ran shipping; Carlos organized construction; Manoel arranged food and supplies; Jaime managed the family