Heat of Passion

by Harold Robbins

  “Some fuckin’ security chief you are.”

  Cross grabbed my arm before I stepped off the elevator and pulled me aside so he wouldn’t be heard by a group of miners waiting to descend.

  “Watch your mouth with this guy Jomba, you’ve never met anyone like him. He’s a wild beast and hardly human, a chip off the old block of Savimbi. The closest thing to these guys would be a three-hundred-pound Chicago Bears lineman with the appetite of Jeffrey Dahmer. If you looked cross-eyed at him he’d have your arms cut off. If you cheated him out of fifty cents, he’d have the amputations done very slowly. That way you can think about how you fucked up as you bleed to death. Millions of people have died in this crazy war and guys like Jomba have personally killed hundreds, maybe thousands.”

  I had an idea why the colonel wanted to speak to me. But it wasn’t something I could reveal to Cross. João intimated I would be contacted about the diamonds-for-guns deal. I suspected this was it. It made my knees weak. What the hell had I gotten myself into? Running guns and blood diamonds had a totally different connotation in Lisbon than in Angola. If I wasn’t careful, some of the blood staining the diamonds would be my own.

  A line of jeeps with mounted machine guns and antitank rockets were parked at the gate to the mine. About thirty or forty rough-looking soldiers hung around the vehicles. There was an unkempt grimness to the lot of them that made them seem more like the marauders they were rather than government troops.

  Cross grabbed my arm again. “You’re on your own, bubba, I didn’t get an invitation. Don’t piss off this devil, I can’t help you if you do. Keep your mouth shut, your wallet open, and try to look scared. If you shit your pants, that’ll impress him more than tough talk.”

  “Looking scared will be easy.”

  “One last thing. If he invites you to a barbecue, you’re probably on the menu. He once burned a garimpeiro at the stake for holding out on him. The guy probably cheated him out of fifty cents.”

  Jesus H. Christ. As I got closer to the man, I realized Cross was not exaggerating—the colonel could kill the appetite of Hannibal the Cannibal. He was a bull, big girth, big arms, short legs the size of tree trunks. Big bald head completely free of hair. Bull neck. Put it all together and it added up to a guy who could rip off my arms and legs and beat me with them.

  As I got within spitting distance, the picture worsened. He had devil’s horns tattooed on each side of his head. And a tattooed necklace of barbed wire was around his neck. I didn’t miss the knife slashes on each cheek.

  The deliberate mutations were probably not designed to scare anyone. This guy was already scary. No doubt he added the horns and barbed wire necklace because he liked the artwork.

  Now that was really scary.

  He carried a British army officer’s swagger stick under his arm. His boots shined like mirrors. Medals bristled on his chest. A 9mm semiautomatic sat in a black holster on his right hip. Another gun was holstered under his left arm. On him, the guns look like children’s toys—he probably teethed on them when he was a baby and only a hundred pounds or so.

  He had “dangerous son-of-a-bitch” written all over him.

  I couldn’t imagine any mine owner being late with their rent. It was like missing a payment with the Grim Reaper.

  What do you say to a guy who has devil’s horns and barbed wire tattooed on him?

  “Hi. I’m Win Liberte,” I said in Portuguese.

  “I am Colonel Jomba,” the man said.

  “Glad to meet you.” I started to offer a handshake, but let the hand flap by my side. I wasn’t sure I would get it back.

  He had sharp teeth, what you’d expect to see in a shark. I wondered if he had them sharpened deliberately. Maybe it was a fashion statement, like the barbed wire and devil’s horns. And maybe the teeth got ground down chewing on the bones of his victims.

  The jeep he was standing next to had a human skull for a hood ornament.

  Another fashion statement.

  He snapped the swagger stick against the side of his leg as we walked and talked. His Portuguese was excellent, cultivated and educated, better than my kitchen dialect.

  “Senhor Carmona told you in Lisbon of the plan?”

  I was right. This was the contact about the blood-diamond deal.

  “Not really. He said he wanted to work out an arrangement involving certificates for diamonds that come from areas where there has been, uh, conflicts.” I didn’t mention that I was undecided about going through with the deal. The colonel was not a man you disappointed with a refusal or even a little ambivalence.

  “Pressure is great. If we wait too long, there will be open civil war. Once that happens, Angolan diamonds will be defined as conflict diamonds and subject to boycotts. When that happens, your certification will be useless.”

  “I see,” I said, seeing nothing. What was this colonel up to? He was subordinate to Savimbi. And João was persona non grata in deals with Savimbi and the UNITA. The word “coup” came to mind. I got the suspicion that the colonel planned to trade diamonds for weapons and use them to carve out his own piece of the rock. The fact that it might be a rogue operation was not encouraging. That would bring down both the government in Luanda and Savimbi’s UNITA rebels on me if it failed.

  Colonel Jomba went on. “The Bey also cannot come to Angola, at least not publicly. He was Carmona’s partner in the attempt to cheat Savimbi. Thus, you will need to take a more active role in the arrangements, filling in the duties that Carmona and the Bey cannot perform.”

  “I don’t want—”

  He stopped and faced me, tapping his swagger stick against the side of his leg. “We understand each other, do we not?”

  “Of course,” I smiled. I understood perfectly. My head was going to get mounted on his jeep’s hood if I pissed him off. João had left out a few things when he explained the deal to me in Sintra—mainly that my ass was going to be on the line. Cross had said Savimbi personally murdered the wife and children of an opponent. I couldn’t even imagine what he would do to an American caught plotting against him. This guy Jomba was supposed to have burned someone at the stake. Alive. Not to mention chopping off arms.

  The expressions, “getting skinned alive” and “the torture of a thousand cuts” came to mind as I pondered my own potential fate.

  “I will be back again to discuss the specific arrangements with you.”

  He looked back to where Cross was standing by the guard shed, watching us. “Have you told your security man that we will be dealing with each other?” He asked the question smoothly, inviting a slip of the tongue from me if I lied.

  “Not a word. He thinks you are talking to me about the contribution we make each month.”

  He eyed me. “Very good. If I doubted your word, I would kill him now.”

  “I’d like to have some idea of how the deal will come down. I know it’s diamonds for guns, but I have no clue what my part—”

  “No clue is exactly what is best for you. Do you understand what I mean?” He gave me an appraising look out of the corner of his eye. “You Americans have contempt for the mental capacity of people of the Third World. Dr. Savimbi has a doctorate from a Swiss university. I hold a degree in economics from a Portuguese university. I also studied economics in London. I know how to count beyond my fingers and toes. But I also deal with betrayal in a harsh, old-fashioned way. Do you understand what I mean?”

  I stopped and faced him. “I understand that you’re passing out a lot of threats to someone who you want to deal with. I understand that I intend to maintain my part, but that there are other people involved, not all of whom might hold up their end. I also understand I don’t want to be left holding the bag when everything goes to hell because someone in Lisbon or this Bey character doesn’t produce.”

  Jomba grinned and nodded his head to the cadence of the swagger stick beating against the side of his leg. “Then we understand each other. You do your part, and no matter what happens, you will be in the cl
ear. And well rewarded for your efforts.” He nodded at the Blue Lady mine. “Much more than you will ever get digging in that barren hole.”

  We parted company, with me clear on one thing: the odds of my surviving long enough to make a killing in Angola had just gone up. It was no longer a question of whether a twelve-year-old kid high on drugs pulled the trigger of his rusty AK-47, as I stood in the way of the bullet. Now I had enemies in high places. Men who handed out barbaric punishments that would have scared the balls off of Torquemada, the beast of the Spanish Inquisition.

  If a river miner got burned alive for cheating on a few dollars’ worth of diamonds, what would they do to an American mine owner who screwed up a blood-diamond deal? Or who stood around when everything went to hell?

  I hadn’t seen Savimbi, but if Jomba was just a chip off the block of the UNITA leader, I was getting caught between two savage demons.

  I didn’t think an actuary would give good odds of me surviving to a ripe old age—or even to my next birthday.

  I knew one sure thing: João had never walked a straight road in his life. He was the type who would cheat me out of whatever I had coming if it increased his share. If the Bey was João’s pal, he would walk the same crooked road. No matter what Jomba said about me coming out all right if I did my part, I didn’t want to be around when anyone else screwed him.

  As I walked back toward the guardhouse where Cross waited, I was careful to keep my features blank. The colonel had left me with many unanswered questions, but one thing was perfectly clear—it was a lose–lose scenario for me. Once I signed the phony diamond certification, and did whatever else Colonel Jomba wanted me to do in order to get guns into his hands, I would go from a needed ally to a material witness to his shady deals. Not to mention walking away with a big chunk of money that would fit better in his pocket.

  As Cross might say, there were three possible scenarios for me from this mess: dead, dead, dead.

  Cross hadn’t bought into any of this and I wasn’t about to endanger him by getting him involved. Not that he would be stupid enough to dig a hole for himself in Angola.

  When I came back, he gave me a puzzled look. “Well, bubba, there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye. And don’t give me any horseshit about you and the colonel discussing the rent—you two were as thick as thieves out there. If that prick wanted to talk money, he would have done it in front of Eduardo; he isn’t that subtle.”

  “Do you really want to know what was said?”

  “Fuck no. If that crazy bastard comes back to kill everyone at the mine because whatever was supposed to come down didn’t, I want to go to hell knowing I was an innocent bystander.”

  31

  That night after dinner I knocked on Cross’s door. He didn’t look happy to see me. He was packing his bags.

  “Going someplace?” I asked.

  “I’m bailing out, like I told you I would. You walking around with the devil’s cock in your hand today was the last straw. If you’ve come here to ask me to stay on the job, you’re wasting your time. I’m quitting, pronto. In the morning, I’m getting on my horse and riding into the sunset.”

  “What’s your real reason for leaving me high and dry? Is it just the usual prissy-ass crap about your impoverished childhood and the silver spoon up my ass?”

  “I told you I don’t like your choice of friends. Having to do business with the Jombas of this world is bad, but at least it’s just business. If we weren’t paying Savimbi’s boy, we’d be paying the thugs on the other side of this political quagmire. But from what I could see from the body language of you and that fuckin’ gorilla in a uniform, you have something else cooking.”

  I sauntered over to an end table where Cross had several bottles of booze and poured myself a Scotch. His holstered 9mm semiautomatic pistol hung from a belt hooked around the bedpost. Convenient. He could reach down and grab it in the middle of the night without hardly taking his head off the pillow.

  “What do I have cooking?” I asked. I sat on the bed, sloshing the whiskey around in the glass.

  “I don’t know and I don’t want to know. But being human, and knowing the vices of man, I can take a guess. Colonel Jomba has something up his sleeve. He has the worldview of a pit bull, so it’s probably just some simple plan involving murder and thievery. What scares the crap out of me is the secrecy. These guys aren’t subtle about collecting the rent. Which makes me wonder whether he might be thinking of skimming from Savimbi. And that you’re involved in it.

  “If you think the colonel is a mean bastard, I can only tell you that compared to Savimbi, he’s a pussycat. Savimbi catches you and one of his boys skimming, he’ll shove a hot poker up your ass and make you drink Drano to cool off. In Angola, guilt by association is proved just because you’re close enough to get dragged in when a couple hundred UNITA gunmen start rounding up everyone in the neighborhood.”

  “Cross—”

  “No—no—no, don’t tell me what you got coming down, I don’t want to know. But I knew some shit was up when you dropped Carmona’s name on me. He tried to cheat Savimbi once and the way I see it, he’s sent you back down here to finish the deal.”

  I had a feeling he was right. The colonel didn’t want the war to end, it was much too profitable. Peace meant getting a real job. And there were probably a bunch more in the rebel camp like him, chafing under the peace plan Savimbi had agreed to. That made it open season for João and his pal the Bey to trade weapons for diamonds. Cross was no dummy. If I gave him half a chance, he’d come up with the answer that it was a blood diamond deal. But I wanted to steer him away from the truth until I figured out what my moves were going to be. And besides, I had come to his room for a different reason than to ask him to stay at the mine.

  I reached down and pulled his 9mm from the holster.

  “Hey, don’t play with that.”

  He started for me and I pointed it at his gut and said, “I told you, whatever I do, I’m the best at. That includes shooting.”

  “What the fuck you doing, man? You point that fuckin’ gun another way or I’ll shove it up your ass.”

  “Get your roughs.”

  “What?”

  “Your roughs. I want to see them.”

  “What do you care about—oh, I see, you think I’ve been ripping you off, is that it?”

  “I know Eduardo’s been doing it. I still have a small question in my mind about you.”

  “Prick.” He took a book called The Secret Garden off the shelf and flipped it open. The book was hollow inside. He threw a pouch from the book onto the bed.

  “Everyone of those came from the river. Not that you’ll be able to tell. Diamonds don’t come with fingerprints, bubba. You can’t tell if those came from the mine, the river, or the moon.”

  I felt the stones, rubbing them in my hand. All different sizes. A few were a carat or more, but most “smalls” were less than a carat. Some were even industrial-grade. Even with the naked eye, I could tell few of them would be flawless. And all of them lacked a soapy feel.

  “That’s right, they’re not oily, they’re smooth,” he said, “just like river stones. But that don’t mean they couldn’t have come from the mine. Once they go through the boiling point to wash off the mess from the grease tables, you can’t tell a river stone from a mined stone. Unless that old man of yours taught you something that you can’t find in geology books.”

  “He did. None of these came from the mine.”

  I slipped his gun back in its holster and got up. “You’re not stealing from me. I didn’t think you were, but I had to be sure. Eduardo’s roughs had the distinctive feel of mined diamonds. He lied when he said he got them from his river claims.”

  I handed him back the stones. I should have seen it coming when he reached for them with his left hand. He buried his right fist about three inches into my gut, knocking the wind out of me. I flew back onto the bed and curled into a fetal position.

  “Now don’t you go puking on
my bed,” he said, “or I’ll make you change the bedding.”

  He filled a water glass almost to the brim with Scotch. “Want another shot?”

  I sat up, holding my stomach which hurt like hell. “I want a gastroenterologist.”

  “Hey, now don’t you go complaining. I deliberately hit you in the stomach so I didn’t knock out any of your pretty teeth. You know how hard it is to find a dentist in Angola? One without AIDS?”

  “Thanks, pal.”

  “I figured you had a right to be suspicious.”

  “I don’t want you to quit.”

  “Fuck you. Why?”

  “Because I need you. But I’m going to fire Eduardo.”

  “Who’s going to run the mine with him gone? You know how hard it is to find a competent mine manager?”

  “I’m going to run it.”

  “Shit, the heat here has gotten to you, or maybe you got bit by a bug that carries the crazies. Eduardo may be an ass and a thief, neither of which are grounds for being fired in Angola, but he also has a degree from a mining school and twenty years of experience.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to run the mine forever, just until I can get a replacement. And I know it’s not a piece of cake, but it’s not impossible, either. Diamond mining isn’t that complex. Half the job revolves around keeping the machinery going. And machines are something I understand even better than Eduardo.”

  “It won’t work.”

  “It has to, I can’t have Eduardo around.”

  “Tell him to stop stealing. And give him a raise.”

  “It’s not the skimming. Look, I have a feeling about this mine and about Eduardo. You know that old line about something smelling rotten in Denmark? Something stinks with this whole setup. Something about the mine, about Bernie getting in over his head, something more than your suspicions about João Carmona and Colonel Jomba. And I won’t know until I get rid of Eduardo and get down and dirty in the mine and really find out what’s going on.”

  Cross lit a cigar and sucked on the end. “Man, I don’t disagree with you. I knew Eduardo was skimming, but, hell, that’s just a perk for working in this hellhole of a country. I never figured he was stealing enough to really affect things.”