Novels by Abiodun Emmanuel

The call came in when Robert was in the kitchen.In one hand he held a glass of water, in the other a summary of a contract, and was reading standing on his feet as he always did when his brain was still whirling too rapidly. Roxanne was in the next room. He was able to hear the television, low volume, and the sound of her getting comfortable in the evening.The counter phone screen illuminated.Diana Castellano.He looked at it for a full ring cycle. Then he picked it up."Diana." He kept his voice flat.She spoke quickly. That told him something. Diana Castellano was not a fast talker. She was a woman who followed her own way and held unto it. The pace mean she is afraid of losing her nerve."I need to talk to you," she said. "About Victoria. Concerning what she has been really chasing.” A pause. Barely a second. “And what I helped her do without knowing what I was really helping about.”Robert placed the summary of the contract on the counter. Going to the other end of the kitchen,

Diana had come to the office of Victoria unannounced.The assistant got on his feet. "Ms. Diana, you can't just"“Watch me.” said Diana, and threw the door open.Victoria was on a call. When Diana came in she raised her eyes and read her daughter in a second and said into the phone, “I will call you back.” She laid it aside without waiting for a response.Diana closed the door. She didn't sit. She dropped a folder on the desk of Victoria so hard that the papers in it moved."What is this?" Victoria asked.“The Harrington energy tender.” said Diana. “The Castellano pre-qualification filing. The short positions on Zenco were opened six weeks prior to Ryan Ward contacting Roxanne."She touched one of her fingers on the folder. “And the contractor company has been registered two months prior to the time you took the environmental lawsuit to me and informed me that it was about Robert.”Victoria examined the folder. Then at Diana. Her face gave nothing."Sit down," Victoria said."I'll sta

The discrepancy occurred on a Wednesday evening and Diana discovered the first one.She wasn't looking for it. She was reviewing the environmental suit-case papers that Victoria had given her months before with specific directions to the angle to be studied. She had read them twice and thought she knew everything in them.The third reading caused her to halt.A name of contractor in financial appendix. The name of some company she did not know. Small. Easy to miss. She wrote it down on the notepad next to her laptop and continued to read. The name sat in the back of her mind was like a splinter small, annoying, impossible to overlook once it was detected.That night she searched the name in a business registry.Castellano controlled holding company. Registered eighteen months ago. Two months prior to Victoria initiating the environmental suit with Diana.Diana relaxed in her chair and stared at the screen.She glanced at the name on her notepad. Again she looked at the screen.She dre

The two hour board meeting was completed.Robert was at the head of the table and took them through it all. The full history. The recovery work. The statistics of the community rebuilding. He didn't use slides. He didn't use a presentation. He talked plain bluntly and left the supporting work to the documents on the table.Hargreaves had interrupted twice. Both instances his voice had the special tincture of a man who had already formed his opinion and was seeking to have it confirmed.Both times Robert responded without speaking loudly.The second time he spoke, Hargreaves said “You kept this a secret over the years. That alone is a governance issue.”“I had a personal history, and I had kept it to myself” said Robert. “The financials operations and legal position of the company have been transparent throughout the reporting periods. Those are two different things”Hargreaves sat back and made no reply.Bloom asked about the investor suspensions. Robert explained to him that he had b

Katherine Yee's office was smaller than Robert expected.A desk with three screens. Piles of folders that appeared functional and not decorative. One of the windows had a brick wall facing it. No view. No performance. Nothing but a room only meant for work.He entered, and she was standing, mid-forties. Spectacles protruded on her head. She shook his hand and it was brief."Mr. Jackson. Thank you for coming.""Thank you for having me on short notice," Robert said.They sat. On the desk between them was a recorder. She hadn't started it yet.“I would like to be clear about my way of work before I begin the recording.” Katherine said. “I will ask you everything. Questions will not be soften because you have come at your own choice. I owe a duty to the reader and not to the subject. In case you say something that leads to more questions I would ask you those questions.” She looked at him steadily. “You must tell me on the spot in case at any time you feel that something is being misrepre

Loretta had a whiteboard covered by nine AM.She had come earlier than most of the team, at seven and she has been working since then. Mapping the attack structure what she had read on the plane and what Marcus had provided her access to overnight. When Robert, Dave and Marcus got there she had already drawn in three columns with a black marker and a red line between certain points across the columns.She was standing in front of the board and explained it to them without any preamble.“It is a multi-front suppressive operation.” she said. “My case in Paris was eighteen months ago, and the architecture was almost the same. An industry, players, blueprint. It is not aimed at destroying the target on a single hit. It is to generate enough pressure and make the target spend all the energy to respond to it and none to move forward.”She tapped the first column. "Media. It was not accidental that three outlet were released. All the outlets had been selected based on distinct audience which