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them.
    â€œItalian food OK?” asked Martin, hardly waiting for agreement before directing the driver to the Piazza Roma restaurant.
    The driver started the car, and slowly drove down the main street, before turning left onto a smaller road lined with restaurants. Lara noticed a shiny black Mercedes parked in front of one of them, and a group of men in suits climbing out of it.
    Jack leaned over Lara, to peer through the window on her side and came so close to her that she held her breath, for fear of touching him. Her heart thumped in her chest despite her best efforts to ignore the radiating warmth of his skin, the fresh scent of his hair. “Look!” he exclaimed, turning to Lara and gazing into her eyes, so much so she felt she was drowning and had to look down. “That’s the Minister for Energy. He seems perky, too.”
    â€œSo it is,” Martin said, staring out with a frown, “so it is.”

V
    â€œWhat’s the Minister’s game?” Lara jumped out of the car and headed to the Italian restaurant.
    Jack shrugged. “The only thing I know for sure is something’s going on.”
    â€œShame we can’t just ask him.” Even to a newcomer like Lara, it was obvious that would break protocol.
    Jack nodded. “Real shame. But it’s all about saving face here. If we back him into a corner we’re unlikely to get any cooperation from him in the future.”
    They would have to wait until the Minister came to them, no matter how long it took. What else could they do? Lara sighed. She wished she didn’t have to play along. She was used to a world where meetings started on time and negotiations were, except in very rare cases, carried out in good faith.
    Martin held the door to the restaurant open for Lara and she stepped in, relieved to be once again out of the sweltering heat. As her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, she took in the plastic tablecloths, the vinyl chairs and the general gloominess of the premises.
    Jack smiled. “One of the better places to eat out.” Their eyes met and she felt his gaze linger a little too long on her lips. She looked away, but couldn’t avoid the fluttering in her stomach. Jack was handsome. Too handsome.
    The only other people in the restaurant, two men in blue shirts sitting in a corner, waved at them. “Our engineers,” Martin said by way of explanation.
    A man in a bright dwana was sprawled out over two chairs in a corner of the restaurant. He jumped up when he saw his new patrons and escorted them to a table. He pulled out the chairs for them and, as they sat, handed them a menu, beaming.
    Lara, ravenous, studied it immediately. She longed for something refreshing, a salad and cold meat, but anything uncooked was out of the question. It was more likely to harbour bacteria and the dreaded amoebae from the water used to wash the food.
    The menu listed ten different kinds of pizza, from Supreme to Pepperoni. It seemed safe enough. Nothing would survive the wood-fired oven treatment. She picked the Marinara thinking the seafood would be fresh. The coast wasn’t that far away, and there were no polluting industries here.
    Martin turned up his nose. “I wouldn’t have that if I were you.”
    â€œWhy not? She asked, exasperated. Lara was starting to wonder if everything was a health risk, in Negala. No salads, no fruit, no drinking water from the tap, no washing your face in case the water got into your mouth or up your nose, and now they were telling her she was restricted to only a few pizze on the menu.
    She felt like shouting “enough”, wanted to throw her serviette across the table and run out the door, but she was a professional. She took a deep breath and smiled, and although anyone who knew her well would have been able to tell it hadn’t come naturally, she hoped Martin and Jack hadn’t noticed.
    â€œNone of our people have ever been sick with the