Page 94 of Rio

RIO

I’m back in New York, about to head into the old man’s sterile and cold office.He told me to get my ass back home once news of the injunction being paused hit.

As I step inside, the air suddenly chills.Everything in this office is sharp and abstract, just like the old man sitting behind his huge desk.He’s furious.I see it in those glacial grey-blue eyes which fix on me like the cross-hairs of a rifle.

“The injunction is a fucking mess,” he says, quietly.It’s his calmness, despite his words, that warns me of just how pissed he is.

“It’s halted,” I say carefully.“For various reasons.Might not be so bad for us.”

“It was served by that lawyer woman.Daniela’s friend.I remember her from the wedding.”His words are sharp, and deliberate and my insides empty.This is not good.It’s way too close for my liking.

“How would you know that?”I ask.

He shrugs.“Pictures get around.”His vagueness rattles me.I have a dozen questions, but, deep down, he’s right.He knows who filed the injunction.

He steeples his hands.“This isn’t the result I wanted.You were sent there for a simple purpose.”

He looks at me, with his how-the-fuck-did-you-mess-up expression on his face.His perfectly manicured hands are clasped together on the table as leans forward, sucking the soul out of me with that look.

I can’t work out if he’s pissed about the pause, or about the actual injunction, but he’s not going to like what I have to say, because I can’t ignore what I saw.Delport’s data doesn’t match reality.The damage is real.The locals were telling the truth.I feel his fury, and suddenly understand something chilling.

He knew all along.

He knew Delport were at fault, and he sent me out to blind and stupidly naive, to lie and cover it all up.

To do his dirty work.

I take a deep inhale, flex my fists.I’ve been quietly investigating—requesting internal data from Delport, looking through audits and environmental reports, and I’ve started comparing site plans with satellite data, rainfall patterns, erosion zones.

There’s a pattern, and it stinks.Now that I’m no longer out there, I’ve started reviewing site plans and historical permit records.I’m piecing it all together.I prepare myself for the onslaught as I let it out.“I don’t think a lot of the information you have—or that you’ve been given—is correct.I think Delport’s hiding things.A lot of things.”

The old man likely knows all of this.He’s just not going to admit it.

I brace myself for the pushback, and denial.His lips curl up at the corners slightly, like he’s about to hit the knock out punch.

“Of course they are.It’s normal.This is how business works.”

The weighted silence is deafening.I open my mouth to protest, then think better of it.

“Do you think I’d let the locals stop this construction with complaints of a few dead mangroves and some blurry photos of erosion?”the old man growls.

“There’s much more evidence than that.Irrefutable evidence.”

“You’ve spent too long in the mud, boy.You seem to forget who you are.”

“This has nothing to do with who I am, but everything to do with justice and doing the right thing.”

“I don’t give a fuck about doing the right thing!”he rages.

I’m too shocked to move.

“You think those people are going to fix their coastline?”he rages.“Rebuild their village?They can’t.They’ve got no infrastructure, no capital, no future.We’re building something they can’t.Something that will make money.Brings jobs.Progress.You think the world gets built on good intentions?”

“We can do the right thing.We can—”

“Progress is messy.Sacrifices have to be made.If a few reefs get wrecked, if some fishing communities lose their bay, if the drinking water isn’t clear, it’s unfortunate—”

“It’s much more than that, the drinking water—”