Digging Deeper: An Adventure Novel (Sam Harris Series Book 1) by PJ Skinner

you in London?  The line is so clear.’
    ‘No, I’m still in Tamazia, in the office in Mondongo actually.  How are you and Daddy?’
    ‘We are both fine, dear.  How is the job?  Have you met anyone at the tennis club yet?'
    ‘The job’s okay.  I’ve not had a chance to go to the club yet.  We’ve been pretty busy.’  She winced at the lie but she could not tell her mother that the club had probably been closed after independence.
    ‘Now don’t work too hard, dear.  You need to have a social life, too.  Are there any nice people there?’
    ‘I’m sure there are, Mummy.  Just haven’t met them yet.’
    ‘Are you okay, darling, really?’
    ‘Still in one piece, I promise.  I can’t chat now.  I just called so you would know that I got here safely.  Give Daddy a hug from me, will you?’
    ‘Okay, darling.  Look after yourself.’
    Sam hung up the phone.  She was economical with the truth at the best of times when it came to her parents.  There was no point in telling them things that might upset them, like where she was really working and why.  She had not felt in any real danger yet. 
    There were disadvantages to her new office besides having to be locked in all day.  It did not take long for her to realise that there was no toilet.  She had to leave the office, lock all the doors, walk to the transit trailers and find an open one so that she could use the toilet in the trailer.  She prayed never to get diarrhoea whilst in Mondongo.
    At lunchtime, she went to a spare trailer, where her precious boxes of belongings had been stored after they had been rescued from customs, to fish out a tampon from her supplies.  At that moment, Pedro turned up unannounced and wanted to drag her off to lunch.  There was an awkward moment when he offered her his hand to shake and she had to kiss him because she had a tampon in her right hand and did not want to give him a heart attack. 
    Sam was well aware that Latin men were not very good with that sort of thing.  He’d probably never seen a tampon before.
    Sam and Pedro went to a nice restaurant with an oval bar around which people ate and drank.
    Pedro flirted with all his considerable charm. 
    ‘I can’t wait for you to come to Mondongo to work.  It’s going to be a lot of fun.’
    ‘I don’t think I’d call working in that isolated office fun,’ she said.
    ‘I’m talking about after work.’
    ‘Oh, and who are you going to have fun with?’
    ‘You, of course.’
    ‘Me?  Oh, I don’t really like fun.  I’m a very serious person.’
    ‘Not that sort of fun.  You know what I mean?’
    ‘No, I don’t, would you like to spell it out?’
    ‘I love it when a woman plays hard to get.’
    ‘Impossible to get more like it.’
    ‘Don’t be mean, Sam.  I know what I want.’
    ‘You know what you think you want.  You don’t know me Pedro and I don’t know you.’
    ‘But we’re going to be so good together.’
    Sam wondered if he thought that she fancied him after the kiss-to-hide-the-tampon incident.  However, she had to admit that she enjoyed being the focus of his attention.  It was fascinating to watch a man work that hard at seduction.  She was not a prime catch.  She was less plump now but not glamorous, as she was dressed in field gear ready for her flight.  It was amazing what the laws of supply and demand could do for a woman’s sex appeal.
    Pedro had the Latin man’s belief that no woman could resist him.  He did not seem to realise that just because he fancied a woman, it did not mean that it was reciprocal.  Sam was not immune to Pedro’s charms but she was not keen on the assumptions he was making about the ease of the conquest in her case. She had no doubt that she could outlast his enthusiasm but it might be fun to play along until he got bored.
    Later that afternoon, she did a round of polite handshakes in the office. Then she went to the trailers to get her boxes of goodies.  Pedro dropped her at Villa