Delicate Chaos Read Free Page B

poachers were another story. Since the incident back in April, they had been stalking Kubala and his team, taking potshots
     at them from the bush. Two of his men had been wounded, one in the arm, the other in the leg. Nothing fatal, but almost enough
     to scare them into submission. Almost, but not quite. Kubala Kantu was not a man who was cowed by adversity. Not even when
     the adversity came in the form of bullets and machetes.
    “When are you heading back to Africa?” Leona asked.
    Mike shrugged. “You’ve got a fundraiser tonight. I’ll wait for the accountants to release whatever you raise at your function
     before I go. Probably a week or so.”
    “Should be a good one tonight,” she said. “We’ve got a few new faces in the crowd. It’s nice when donor fatigue isn’t an issue.”
    “Donor fatigue?”
    “You know, when the room is always full of the same people. After a while they get tired of giving. New donors get their checkbooks
     out a little quicker.”
    Mike nodded as the waiter reappeared and took their food order. He surveyed the room as Leona pointed to the menu and made
     sure her fish wasn’t going to be battered or deep-fried. He doubted there was a man in the room who would survive a week in
     Nairobi with five hundred thousand dollars in his briefcase. Most would be dead inside twenty-four hours. Yet here they sat
     in their thousand-dollar suits, ordering fifty dollar lunch entrées and drinking twelve-year-old scotch. Different skill sets.
     Theirs just paid better.
    “Poachers seem to have forgotten about killing the elephants,” he said as the waiter disappeared into the kitchen with their
     order. “No new carcasses since April.”
    “Too busy trying to kill people.” Leona sipped on her soda water. She glanced around the restaurant for the first time, drinking
     in the clientele. “What’s with us? As a species, I mean. Why are we constantly trying to kill each other?”
    Mike peeled the label off the beer bottle. “It’s easy to figure out why people want to kill lawyers. Determining motive for
     the rest of us is a little tougher.”
    “You had a good lawyer,” Leona chastised him. “You still have your house.”
    “Lost my balls, though,” Anderson snapped back. She didn’t respond and he said, “Where’s the fundraiser tonight?”
    “At the restaurant. Eight o’clock. You should come. Tyler’s cooking up something special.”
    “It’s a surprise. He wouldn’t tell me.”
    “It’s your restaurant. You own it. You’d think that if anyone could find out what’s on the menu it would be you.”
    She grinned. “Doesn’t work that way. You know what chefs are like. Masters of their domain. I might own the place, but Tyler
     runs it.” The grin slowly faded. “Try to make it this evening, Mike. You need to get out more. I’m worried about you.”
    He finished his beer and set the bottle on the polished table. “I’ll try.” They were quiet for a minute, the background noise
     in the restaurant suddenly louder. “What’s new at the office? You said something unexpected came up.”
    “One of the big boys came down from twelve and dropped a file on my desk,” she said, purposely omitting the promotion to VP.
     “It’s a utility company. They generate electrical power.”
    “Coal or water?”
    “Coal. Why?”
    “Big issue these days, burning coal to produce electricity. Lots of it going on now that natural-gas prices are through the
     roof.”
    Leona leaned forward. Mike Anderson was well-read and intelligent. His opinion was usually worth listening to. “What’s wrong
     with burning coal to produce power?”
    “Depends on how it’s done and what kind of coal they’re using. You can burn coal cheap and dirty, or you can burn it clean
     and expensive.”
    “I don’t know the difference.” She leaned back as the waiter set their plates on the linen tablecloth. “But I can guess how
     you burn it affects the bottom line.”
    “Big-time,”