The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  Chillicott declined an invitation for lunch at Middleton’s club, he’d been before and hated the staid atmosphere and English food; not a hamburger on the menu. Ilona took him to the door and he embraced her, then climbed into the car waiting to take him back to Whitehall.

  As she closed the door, Dr Middleton called, ‘Ilona, could you come back in here please, I’d like to dictate some notes.’ She sat at the table beside him. ‘Oh, and I’d like you to find out everything you can about a young man named Leo Stewart and his immediate family. He’s with XPlus Circuits in Dubai.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And do some research on XPC as well as their parent, Lee-Win Micro-Technology in Shanghai, please.’

  TWELVE

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  May 2017

  ‘Apart from a few points I want to cover this morning, things seem to be going fine, but I don’t have to remind you the timing’s really tight. First off, I had to find a new VP to replace Scotty on the Mark VII firmware development, and we’ve been really lucky with that. His name’s Ed Muire, he was a senior programmer with ARM, and he’ll be here in ten days. With his experience, I’m betting he’ll be up and running in no time.’

  Leo Stewart was reviewing his first two weeks as SVP at XPC with his immediate boss, Shen Fu Liáng and their CEO, Tom Connor. At just twenty-three years of age, Leo was responsible for three work-teams, thirty-six people in all, including Sharif, the VP who now reported to him. They were sitting in Tom’s office on the fourth floor of the building, looking out onto a terrace area with a small swimming pool and bar. Reserved for VIP guests, Leo imagined, feeling quite flattered to have been invited up. The air conditioning was hardly noticeable, since a violent storm had come in the night, bringing the temperature down from thirty-eight Celsius to a more tolerable twenty-five. The African blood in Leo’s veins meant that he could withstand the hot weather better than most, but it was a lot hotter than San Francisco and he was still acclimatising to it.

  Leo had asked for this meeting for two main reasons. The first was that, probably due to Scotty’s disappearance, the reporting structure between Tom, Shen, Sharif and himself wasn’t working and needed sorting out. Then there was the planning system, or rather, lack of it. At M2M he’d been used to a well-defined work programme, with constant performance reviewing and measuring, rewarding or correcting where necessary, but planning at XPC was almost non-existent, with no clearly defined separation between the immediate priorities of delivering Mark VII and ACRE. The final specifications and designs had to be in Shanghai by the end of July for the 1 September launch date, just three months away, and they were running late, but Tom and Shen seemed to take the approach that ‘it’ll be alright on the night’.

  This meeting was not going to be easy, but he didn’t think he’d been hired to take the easy way out and that wasn’t his way of working. It also wasn’t his way of viewing life, you either did things properly to the best of your ability, or you didn’t do them at all. He plugged the projector into his laptop and addressed the second problem first:

  THREE-MONTH WORK PROGRAMME

  ‘Here’s the short version,’ he said. ‘If we want to deliver the full software package to Shanghai by July 31st we need to create, right now, a critical path work plan, as well as a review and correction procedure. It’s necessary and urgent, so if there are no comments, I’ll just get on with it and sort it out.’

  The three men spent the next two hours going through the report and discussing Leo’s concerns. He had expected little or no input from Shen, but he was disappointed with Tom Connor, who seemed to be ambivalent about what Leo considered to be a black-and-white choice of alternatives. He kept repeating the same simple message time after time until he got it across, ‘Either you plan properly then measure and correct regularly, or you have no idea of how or when you’ll be able to deliver your assignment, if you ever do.’ He finally got the others to agree to create a planning committee of Shen, Sharif, Ed Muire and himself. Daniel Oberhart would also be involved when necessary. By the end of the week, the committee would issue a plan for the three months up to the launch date.

  Relieved, Leo moved onto his most pressing worry:

  REPORTING STRUCTURE

  Here, he was even more dismayed at the CEO’s lack of decisiveness and apparent dithering. It seemed he didn’t want to clarify the relationship between the four people principally involved: himself, Leo, Sharif and Shen.

  When he saw he was getting nowhere, Leo said, ‘Listen guys, this is a very simple problem. I don’t want to spend my time running around making sure that Sharif is doing what I tell him to and not what Shen tells him. And Tom, the same thing applies to you and Shen, you have to remember he’s my boss, otherwise it will be just one enormous crapshoot. That’s not the way to run a corner shop, never mind a hi-tech, multimillion-dollar business. If it doesn’t change I won’t have time to get close to the development teams to do the job I was hired for, so I should simply get on the next flight back to SF and let you get on with things without me.’

  Tom could see that Leo was serious. After the business with Scotty, he couldn’t afford another screw-up in the new products division, it would cost him his job. ‘What exactly do you want us to do?’

  ‘OK. First, no offence, Tom, but I don’t want you to talk to me about operational matters and I don’t want to receive any direct instructions from you. Anything you want to say to me you should say it through Shen, or we have a three-way meeting to discuss it.

  ‘Second, Shen, I want you to stay away from Sharif and his team. Please make it clear to them that they report to me and we’ll avoid any further confusion. If you have something to suggest or discuss, you do it with Sharif and I together. The same rules will apply to the Mark VII team. Ed Muire will be arriving next week and that’ll simplify everybody’s life.

  ‘Third, to make sure that you guys are up to speed on everything and can kick my ass when I screw up, I suggest the planning committee meets with Tom every Sunday to catch up on the previous week and plan for the current one. I’ll prepare a weekly summary report so everyone’s on the same page.’

  Tom and Shen finally agreed Leo’s proposals, although he could see Shen wasn’t happy to cut his ties with Sharif. He’ll get used to it, he said to himself, and I can forget all the political crap and get on with some productive work. ‘I’ll get Daniel Oberhart on board. I know he feels the same way as I do, it’s not what he was used to in Zurich.’ Privately, he wasn’t enjoying working with the Swiss man. He was uncommunicative and inflexible and could be cold and hostile when he felt his area of responsibility was being infringed, but Leo knew he had to toe the line to make the whole programme work.

  Finally, Leo brought up the ACRE upgrade programme. He insisted on being personally tasked with this project, heading the separate four-man team. ‘Otherwise it’ll just get lost in the rush to get the Mark VII products finished. I think it’s by far our prime go-to market asset, and encryption happens to be my strongest suit. We should aim to bring out a new version at least every two years. Each upgrade is an uptick in our monthly revenue and makes our customers feel warm and cosy and looked after by XPC. Once Ed takes over Mark VII, I’ll be able to work on nothing else but ACRE. We have to prove we can fulfil our timetable, just like we promised.’

  Shen began to argue the matter, but surprisingly, Tom supported his proposal and called the meeting to a close.

  ‘Thanks guys,’ Leo said. ‘You won’t regret this. Now we can get on with our jobs.’ Back in his office, he circulated the email he’d already written, with the reporting chart, to everyone concerned, including Tom and Shen. Then he went to see Daniel Oberhart, hoping this organisational change wasn’t going to upset their working relationship.

  Tom Connor was sitting in his office reading Leo’s message when Shen came back in. ‘What did you think of all that?’

  Tom walked to the window. An Asian man in overalls was pushing a vacuum cleaning hose around the pool. He ke
pt his gaze downwards, didn’t look towards the office. Tom always felt sorry for the manual workers in the Emirates. They had no real status, worked at menial jobs, earned a pittance, sent money home to their families and lived in crowded, shitty little apartments in compounds with others like them. What kind of an existence is that? he asked himself. And we westerners are living off the fat of the land. No wonder there’s so much trouble in the world.

  He sat back at his desk. ‘What do you mean by “all that”?’

  ‘That kid, Leo. Taking over the whole show and you just sat there and let it happen. He’s the youngest employee in the division and now he’s suddenly telling us all what to do. Why did you let him get away with it?’

  Tom had been expecting this reaction and had already considered his response. ‘Three reasons, Shen. First of all, he’s right. He’s right on the reporting, he’s right on the planning and he’s right on the button in prioritising our work. Secondly, we can’t afford to have him walk out and look as if we completely screwed up. It would be a catastrophe for the company and for us personally. And the third reason is, no one else has come forward with a clear plan of action and the balls to present it like he did. You haven’t done it, I haven’t done it either and frankly, it had to be done.

  ‘Let’s face the facts, Shen. We fell into sleepy mode when Scotty was here. Between him and Sharif we didn’t have to worry about any of that, they were a great team combination. They made it happen and as long as they delivered we just went along with it. I spent all my time on marketing, operations and finance and I didn’t have to worry about development. But since he died we haven’t faced up to the situation. Things on the development side are out of hand and we’ve got to get it sorted. Leo’s right, it’s not a way to run a business. I don’t give a shit how old he is. If he’s got the balls to talk to us like that, to see what needs to be done as clear as he does and be ready to take it on, then I’ll back him, and I want you to do the same.’

  Shen seemed not to notice the CEO’s indirect criticism of his stewardship of the development division. ‘OK, I’ll go along with your decision, but I want it to be noted that I disagree with you. If things go wrong, I want to be on record that I warned you and you ignored my warning. Understood?’

  ‘Understood. I’ll dictate a minute of this discussion to Nora to type up and we can both sign it. But what do you mean by “things going wrong”. What do you expect to go wrong?’

  ‘Let’s just wait and see. That kid is young and arrogant. He’s taking on an awful lot and he doesn’t have the experience of running multi-project programmes. I hope it works out, but I’m not convinced.’

  ‘I’m fine with that, so long as you don’t try to step on my toes. Just sort out the programming side and leave me to worry about my responsibilities.’ Daniel Oberhart had listened to Leo’s summary of the meeting and delivered his fairly lukewarm opinion of the result.

  ‘I know how to respect boundaries,’ he replied. ‘I’ve done a lot of that in my life.’

  Oberhart said nothing. He filed away the chart and Tom’s memo and looked back at his computer screen, apparently waiting for Leo to leave.

  Strange guy, he thought to himself. He doesn’t seem at all interested in anyone. Never asked me a question; where do I come from, what have I done, how did I get the job, nothing at all. Maybe it’s my fault, I’ve been too busy to get to know him. Well, someone has to make an effort. He said, ‘Tom told me you’ve been with XPC since the start-up in 2014?’

  Daniel tore his gaze away from his computer. ‘That’s right, I was in the set-up team.’

  ‘Came over from MicroCentral in Geneva, right?’

  ‘Zurich. I’m Suisse Allemand, not Romand, different mindset altogether.’

  ‘Sorry, Daniel. I guess that’s like calling a German an Italian.’

  He gave a slight smile. ‘Something like that.’

  It took Leo ten minutes to prise any personal information out of the Swiss man, finally learning MicroCentral had been founded by his father and was now majority owned by a Chinese hedge fund. He’d been with them for ten years before leaving to come to XPC.

  ‘Wow! That must have been one hell of a decision, what made you check out of the family business?’

  Oberhart’s expression didn’t change. ‘Money.’ He saw Leo’s eyes widen with surprise and added, ‘Have you ever worked for your father?’

  ‘I didn’t even know him. He left my mum when I was a baby.’

  ‘Oh, well, ten years was enough, believe me. When Lee-Win asked me to come over here, it was just a question of what’s in it for me? Then, how quickly can I come?’

  ‘Do you see your folks, now that you’re out of the stress of working together?’

  ‘My mother died five years ago and no, I haven’t seen my father since I came down. Now, I’ve got to get the night schedule out, so I’ll see you later.’ He turned back to his keyboard and started typing.

  Leo went over to the elevator, What a character, he’s just like a cold fish. To walk away from your father and not even go to see him. He calculated that Oberhart was in his mid- thirties, that meant his father would be coming up to sixty. How can you not visit your only remaining parent for almost three years? He’d lied to Oberhart about his own father leaving his family, it wasn’t like that at all. His mind drifted back to his childhood in Newcastle, living in a tiny flat with his mother, wondering who his father had been, where he’d gone, where he was, if he was even still alive and why he was just another one-parent kid at school. It wasn’t until after his abduction in 2010 that Emma had decided it was time to tell him about his Rwandan mother, Mutesi, and her rape at the hands of a Hutu genocider. How after her death, Emma had smuggled the newborn baby into England and somehow managed to get him registered as a UK citizen.

  Leo had known there was a great mystery around his birth, but for sixteen years Emma had kept her secret, and when finally he learned the whole story, the dreadful truth was almost too much to cope with. But the one thing he had to cling on to, the only thing that mattered, was that his adoptive mother had moved heaven and earth to find him, and with Aunt Jenny’s and Marius Coetzee’s help had brought him back to safety and a loving, stable home. Leo knew he could never give up his adoptive family for anything, or anybody.

  He felt sorry for Daniel Oberhart. He still has his father, but he’s lost that magical family love, and it doesn’t sound as if he’s very bothered about it.

  That afternoon, Sharif came to see him. ‘Shen told me you’re taking over the ACRE programme. There’s no need, I can do it, I worked with Scotty on the encryption development.’

  ‘I haven’t really had time to look at the progress on it, Sharif, so I’m not criticising or even commenting on the status. My thinking is only that you’ve got a huge job to get the new product out and it’s our top priority, even more important than ACRE,’ he emphasised, hoping that would defuse Sharif’s disappointment. ‘Ed Muire’s arriving next week. He comes from ARM, so he should be shit-hot. He’ll work alongside you and we’ll have two really strong teams to deliver Mark VII, and I’ll have time to look after ACRE properly.’

  Sharif supressed his annoyance at Leo’s decision and the two men shook hands on the matter. Leo wasn’t very happy about the conversation. Why would he want to try to manage two massive projects at the same time? He knows he can’t do it. He was having trouble understanding the players in the game; what were their motives, why were they being so counter-productive, what were their real objectives? Don’t we all work for the same company?

  The first meeting of the planning committee was called for the following afternoon. Sharif seemed to have put the previous day’s argument behind him. He was positive and keen to take responsibility for his team’s input, and Leo was impressed with his contribution to the discussion. Daniel Oberhart was also a useful contributor, with his expertise in network planning and scheduling. Shen, on the other hand, said virtually nothing, and Leo was obliged to run the meeting
himself. I wonder why the guy was sent down from Shanghai? He adds no value at all.

  THIRTEEN

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  June 2017

  It was nine at night and Leo Stewart was still working in his office on the second floor of the XPC building. Apart from the night shift customer support staff, he and the man sitting opposite him were the only people in the building. He’d just finished marking up the critical path chart prepared by his planning committee against the status from the week’s performance report. After two weeks, they were two days behind schedule. At that rate they’d be a week late by the end of July. Unacceptable, and not what he wanted to tell Tom and Shen at their management meeting on Sunday. He’d have a serious talk the next morning with Sharif and Kurt Reiner, the senior programmer in the firmware team.

  He turned his attention to the second report on his desk, from Ed Muire, who’d arrived from the UK that week to take over Mark VII as soon as he was settled in. Leo had given him a test mission to assess the ACRE upgrade status and produce a ‘warts and all’ report for him. It should tell him a lot about the technology, and probably a lot more about Ed. As far as he could find, this was the first report ever produced by the team, he’d been unable to discover any other. Once again, he despaired at the lack of organisation and control he’d faced when he arrived, and vowed he’d either lick everyone into shape or leave them to wallow in their own incompetence. He was glad he had only the development division to worry about, I certainly hope the rest of the business is better organised, he thought. Tom can’t leave everything to chance as he seems to have done in this area.