PROLOGUE
Professor Adelbrecht of the Biotech Research Agency for Vital Operations felt bile rise to his mouth as he watched one of the government’s highest officials wipe red stickiness off his fingers and extract cotton balls from his large, protruding ears. The whop-whop of the ceiling fan added a bizarre sense of ordinariness to the scene.
“I’m listening,” the minister said. The cotton balls fell into the waste paper basket with an ominous absence of sound.Adelbrecht talked fast.
“Brilliant. You sure it’ll work?” The minister’s question hung heavy in the sizzling African air.
The professor’s mouth went dry. “Yes.” If genocide is really what you want.
“This office has full confidence in you and your team. We understand the Ebola virus was both an unfortunate and unforeseeable accident.”
Spoken like a true politician, yet the professor felt the atmosphere in the room turn as thin as the ground under his feet. “That’s correct, Minister.”
“Right. What guarantee do we have this new virus won’t go ape-crazy?”
“With all due respect, Minister, Ebola was transmitted through any personal contact. The new virus we’re proposing will be contagious only via sexual relations. Nothing else.”
“So an infected maid will still be able to cook for you, but won’t pass the virus on?”
“Hundred percent correct, Minister.” Assuming you don’t sleep with her. But that was illegal, forbidden by the Immorality Act.
“Goes without saying that this discussion never took place.”
“Yes, Minister.”
“Even the prime minister doesn’t know about this project.”
Like hell he didn’t.
“The limousine is at your service, Professor. The driver will take you wherever you desire.”
Relief washed over him. He started rising from the sofa, ever the obedient puppet.
“Oh, and Professor?”
“Yes?”
The Minister Without An Official Portfolio rose, his shoulders blocking out the sunlight of the summer day outside. “This is your final warning.” Suddenly, he didn’t sound like a politician anymore. “Mess this up, and you’ll wish you were dead.”
South Africa means a lot of things to a lot of people: lions in long yellow grass, diamond mines, apartheid, Nelson Mandela, rugby. All of those images are right, yet none of them – in my opinion – are representative of the misunderstood country or its people. None of them describe what it’s like to live in South Africa, both in the 1980s and today. I’d like my readers to smell the red dust of the continent and to fall in love with Africa the way I did when I first set foot there as an impressionable teenager, a refugee from communism and the bitter cold of Poland. I left my heart in Africa, and I invite you to do the same.
Schedule;
M.J. Schiller, Romance Author
Margo Hoornstra – Writing Inside & Out
Loralee Lillibridge – Blogging Across the Back Fence
Jolana Malkston – Serious Whimsy
The Book Review
Jane Reads
A Cup of Tea & A Big Book
3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy & Sissy Too
Inspirations Today
The Last Word
ScrapBlog
The First Link
By The River’s Bend
The Review Notes
The Great Reads
Life’s Notes
Authors’ Cafe
Romance Me
Finding Fantastical Books
What Readers Want
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