Olivia had stopped talking. She was smiling coolly at Khaled, waiting for his response. Something in the way she met his eyes indicated that she was expecting him to agree.
He tossed the report onto the table and stood up. He needed to think. Instinctively, he wandered over to the glass wall of the London office. Gray buildings, gray clouds, gray smoke. This was what the world called civilization? He took a slow breath and looked again, more carefully. Bright-eyed pigeons circled below. Green trees pushed up defiantly toward the sky. The harder he looked, the more he knew he would see. Nature was too strong to be beaten down, even in the center of a concrete city.
“Your Highness?”
His lips tightened, but he turned to speak to her. “Ms. McInnes.”
She was standing up, presumably because he was.
“Sit down.” He called for more coffee and thumbed idly through the MCI report again. It was thorough, but not thorough enough. Not where it counted.
Saleema refilled his cup, and he waved at Ms. McInnes, indicating that she should have whatever she wanted. She smiled at Saleema and asked for tea. It was an unexpected smile, wide and full, with a flash of warmth that was immediately extinguished behind the cool façade of the businessperson.
But the smile remained in Khaled’s vision. A smile like that could intoxicate a man if he weren’t careful.
Khaled turned his attention to the report on the table. “This is an excellent proposal, Ms. McInnes. My father has done extensive research on MCI Oil and I know that he is eager to do business with you.”
She nodded. “As is my father eager to do business with the nation of Saqat.”
“Quite. And yet, neither your father nor mine is here.”
She had apologized for that at the start of their meeting.
She frowned. “Are you telling me you are not authorized to make the deal on your father’s behalf? I understood that…”
“I have the authority.”
“Good. So do I.” She folded her hands in her lap.
“But I am not so easily satisfied as my father.” He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t just sign Saqat’s future away.
“What do you mean?”
He picked up a pen and tapped it against the report. “Tell me about the environmental impact of your proposals, Ms. McInnes.”
“As I mentioned before, a full environmental survey of the area has been undertaken, and the results are in the report you were sent. Provisions are laid out in the contract should any unforeseen consequences arise from the drilling.”
“Provisions?”
“Financial compensation. Restoration. Containment.”
He’d seen the contract with its standard industry clauses that covered everything from minor habitat damage to the devastation of a full-scale leak. None of them went far enough.
“Have you ever been to the Persian Gulf?” The starched and suited Ms. McInnes looked as though she’d never been out of her air-conditioned boardroom.
“No. I’ve traveled to Dubai and Saudi Arabia, but never to the Gulf itself.”
“I see. And have you ever seen the consequences of an oil spill in a natural environment?”
“Yes. It’s terrible. That’s why MCI employs a belt and braces approach to safety, Your Highness.”
“Enough with the highnesses.” No one in England bothered with that except his embassy staff. “Call me Sheikh Khaled.”
“Yes, Your… Sheikh.”
He shook his head, but he smiled. It was reassuring to know Olivia McInnes could get flustered. “Not ‘Your Sheikh.’ Sheikh Khaled.”
She batted the mistake away. “Sheikh Khaled,” she repeated coolly. “As I was saying, our safety record is second to none, and we employ a stringent set of checks to ensure that such a disaster will never happen.”
“Never again, you mean.” If she wasn’t going to mention it, he would.
“That was a long time ago.”
“Yet the effects are still being felt.”
“What do you mean?” She couldn’t quite hide the anxiety in her voice.
Khaled pressed his advantage. “The mating population of puffins on Straer Island has never recovered to its previous level. The fish population is steady, but there is a locally high proportion of adults with stunted growth and abnormal tumors.”
Twenty years ago, an oil leak in the North Sea had hit Straer Island, off the eastern coast of Scotland. The clean-up job had been finished for nearly fifteen years. Olivia’s eyes grew wider as he continued to list the ongoing effects of the spill.
“Residual oil in the sand continues to affect the shellfish. Just because the seaweed has grown back and you can see a seagull or two overhead does not mean that the environment has recovered.”
She shook her head slowly in stunned amazement. “How do you know all this?”
“How do you not know? Is this the way MCI Oil makes provisions for disaster? By doing the sketchiest possible clean-up job and moving out as soon as the public outcry has died down? Because I assure you, Ms. McInnes…” He stood and leaned over the table, “…that will not do for Saqat.”