The Prey Read Free

notes, then looked up at her, this time meeting her eyes for the first time. ‘Thanks for your time.’
    Kylie unclipped the microphone from the lapel of her jacket, picked up her now lukewarm coffee, stood up and went back to her seat.
    The trainer rubbed his hands together. ‘Next victim.’
    Kylie had volunteered to go first but now Jan Stein and Jeff Curtis looked at each other. They’d just seen her demolished on camera by a one-man wrecking ball and neither wanted to go next. Kylie thought Jan would have had bigger balls. She opened the workbook the trainer had given each of them; as a senior member of the team she would be required to face the media more often and now that the shock of the pretend interview was over she was looking forward to mastering a new skill. If she had a chance at a second interview, and she suspected this would be part of the training, Kylie wanted to be able to nail it. She had not got to where she was in this male-dominated industry by backing down from confrontational situations.
    ‘My turn,’ said Musa. He was beaming. Kylie looked up from the course notes as Musa got up, adjusted his silk tie and buttoned his suit jacket. He was the smartest dressed man in a head office full of suits – some of them very expensive. By contrast, Kylie’s approach to her wardrobe could be described as pragmatic at best. While she hadan office in the company’s Sydney headquarters, in Macquarie Street with a view out over the Botanic Gardens to the Heads, she spent most of her time on the road and on-site at the company’s mines. There she wore steel-capped boots not stilettos, and the standard uniform of blue overalls with a yellow high-visibility vest ringed with reflective panels – a uniform she felt far more comfortable in than the navy A-line skirt suit she’d thrown on for today’s training session.
    Musa took a seat in front of the trainer, threaded the lapel microphone up under his jacket and carefully attached it to his perfectly tailored grey suit jacket. Kylie felt sorry for the man already, he was about to be eaten alive.
    ‘OK,’ said the trainer, ‘we’re rolling. If I could just start by getting your name and –’
    ‘My name is Musa Mabunda,’ he spelled in a clear, deep voice, his delivery slow and precise, yet not laborious. ‘I am the Manager of Corporate Communications for Global Resources in South Africa.’
    ‘Mr Mabunda, how can your company rape –’
    ‘Perhaps I could start by giving you an overview of our plans for a new mine in South Africa – a mine that will uplift an impoverished community, provide valuable resources and income which will aid the development of the new South Africa and be a world-class model for safety and environmental protection.’
    The trainer tried to interject, but Musa had the ball and he was running with it. Kylie smiled. The former journalist tried again to ask one of his barbed questions, but Musa raised his voice ever so slightly and continued his monologue.
    ‘First, the site of the proposed new Global Resources coal extraction facility is
not
, I repeat,
not
in the Kruger National Park. It lies to the west of the park on a former game farm that was returned to its rightful owners, the Shangaan people, back in 2009. The traditional owners of this land own the mining rights, not the national parks board of South Africa.
    ‘This proposal has been the subject of an exhaustive environmental impact statement and Global Resources has not only met,but in fact has exceeded the requirements placed on the company by government in terms of air and water quality management, economic upliftment of local communities and wildlife conservation conditions.’
    ‘But –’ tried the trainer.
    ‘Further,’ Musa continued, ‘this project will employ nine hundred formerly disadvantaged South Africans.’
    The trainer looked at his notes. ‘There were ten fatalities in South African mines last year. What guarantees can you give that