“I see.” In other words, Eduardo couldn’t pay it back now that I had raided his bank accounts. And he would have the Bey’s men on his tail.
“I owe João an apology,” I said. “I thought he was behind Eduardo.”
“You owe João nothing. Eduardo went with the highest bidder. He approached both of us, but João could not guarantee the money needed to buy the mine and explore for more diamonds. João came to me as a middleman and I cut him out.”
“God, the tangled webs we weave. This scheme has more facets than a diamond.”
“It goes without saying that I now have no interest in obtaining your mine. You are aware of the potential, I wish you luck in developing it. You may get rich, or find out the exploration was a hole in the ground you threw money into.”
“I appreciate the fact that you’re going to let me have my own property, but I still have no intention of being the stakeholder.”
“Oh, but you must. You seem to be forgetting something.”
“What?”
“Your share of the transaction is coming from the diamonds that Colonel Jomba will be handing over. Do you plan to permit your share to come into my hands—or João’s?”
Jesus. What a pisser.
I had a question as we started to go back inside. I locked eyes with him.
“Who murdered my uncle?”
Nothing showed in his eyes. I might as well have asked him the time.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Of course, he did. One thing I had learned—the Bey knew everything. Including the fact that Jomba was the arms buyer. My gut told me that the suspicion I had was right. João had killed Bernie. I didn’t know how, I wasn’t even quite sure of why, other than it had to do with diamonds, but I could feel João’s hand in it.
After dinner we gathered in the center of the Bey’s high-domed library. The room had the ambiance of a museum. Simone came up beside me as I stared at a fully wrapped mummy.
“The Bey is known to collect—and deal in—antiquities. I’m sure there are custom inspectors from Giza to Angkor Vat who would like to get a peek in this room and the Bey’s vault.”
The Bey gathered us around a small table covered by a white cloth in the middle of the room. As he spoke, bright strobe lights came on overhead.
“As you know, my friends, I am an avid collector of rare treasures. Let me show you what I presently consider the crème de la crème of my collection.”
He whipped off the cloth. Simone gasped at the display.
A crystal bowl, party size, was filled with diamonds. On top of the diamonds, in the center, was a single gem, about the size of a walnut.
The Heart of the World.
With lighting from above and beneath the table, the display sprayed the room with glittering light, making the Heart of the World convulse with volcanic fire.
I didn’t gasp aloud like Simone, but I was also stunned. Like my father, I had diamonds in my blood. And, like my father, I had never seen a gem like this one. Diamonds were masked in myth and mystery. Hard enough to cut steel, yet dazzling and sensuous on a woman, a diamond never struck me as being of this world. Looking at this one, I thought it was misnamed—it wasn’t the heart of the world, but the blazing heart of a star. To a diamantaire, it would be better than owning the Mona Lisa.
Across from me, the glittery spray played on João’s features. It was like looking into the face of the devil and seeing the most deadly sins neoned—greed, murder, lust. It was inhuman, even terrifying. João stared at the fire diamond, a man possessed. I now knew why his wife called the gem his lover. When it came to the diamond, he wasn’t just a lover, he was a possessive demon-lover, the kind who followed his wife to her lover’s bed and then hacked them both to death, letting them see the wicked edge of the ax before it struck.
A drama soon played out in the room. João tore his eyes away from the Heart of the World and looked up at the Bey. The two men locked eyes, two predators coming face-to-face in a jungle, each digging its claws into the territory they claimed. Now another emotion appeared on João’s face—hatred. Violent, murderous, vicious malevolence.
Some devil gripped me, too. I thought about the fact that João had stolen the gem from my father. That he had murdered Bernie. And now he was trying to steal my mine—if he didn’t get me killed by Jomba.
“I understand you want me to act as the middleman in the exchange.” I directed my words at João. “I’ll do it, but my price has gone up.” I turned to the Bey. “I want the Heart of the World. It was stolen from my father and I want it back.”
João stared at me like I’d just cut off his balls. The Bey stared at me like I had just gouged out his eyes. Simone just gawked—for once, she didn’t emit that laugh of hers.
“That’s the deal. You don’t like it, go fuck yourselves.”
I walked out. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the limo that I had waiting for me outside. There was a chance that the Bey would hang me from a meat hook and let his thugs take target practice. And João was inflamed enough to walk from his wheelchair and grab my throat. But I didn’t give a damn. I was tired of being played for a fool and being threatened.
After having pissed off two of the most dangerous men in the world, all I had to do now was return to Angola and deal with murderous warlords while I tried to strike it rich.
I thought about the time I was in a New York bar and met a guy. He talked about a strange type of financial deal. It was called a “viatical investment.” The guy found people who had a short time to live and offered to buy their life insurance policy at a discount. If the dying person had a $100,000 policy, he’d buy it for $50,000. It was a win–win deal—the buyer made a killing when the person died and the dying person got an infusion of cash for their last days. The deals only went sour when the dying person made a miracle recovery.
If I called the viatical investor up and described my current problems, he’d be foaming at the mouth for a chance to invest in my imminent demise.
50
Angola
Marni stared at the people in the distribution line. The nausea she had felt earlier was welling up again. She had thrown up soon after rising. The only thing left in her stomach was the tea she drank to settle it, but she still felt ready to heave. I’ve got a dose of something, she thought. The question was whether it was something that would put her on her back for a few days—or kill her. The third possibility was something like malaria that remained chronic.
Her job this morning was to watch the workers hired to watch the people picking up food packages. The idea was one package, one person, but the way she felt, they could throw open the storage sheds and turn the food over to a mob.
“There are a hundred ways to cheat,” she told her assistant, Venacio, “and these people know all of them.” It was an unfair assessment and she knew it. Most people in line were honest, like most people everywhere. But desperate conditions made even the most honorable try to grab whatever they could.
Finally, she gave up the ghost and handed her clipboard to Venacio. “You’re in charge, try to keep them from stealing the store. I’m going to see if Dr. Machado will give me something that will put me out of my misery.”
She reported to the small infirmary where Machado, a mulatto from Luanda, and his staff, tried to provide medical support to the thinly spread medical facilities in the region. Machado also provided medical assistance for aid workers.
She gave samples of blood and urine and laid back on a cot while she waited for the results. The luck of the draw, she thought, that’s what the aid workers called getting a dose of something wicked. Everyone got sick, usually more than once, but her real fear was that it would be something permanent.
The woman who took her temperature noted the uncut diamond stone Marni wore on a necklace. “Very nice,” she said. “Is it flawless?”
“Yes,” Marni said.
She knew what the woman was thinking—it was foolish to wear something so valuabl
e. She wore it because it made her feel close to Win. She rubbed the stone and thought about Win, feeling sad and lonely. That she was in love with him was not at issue. He was not a hard person for a woman to fall in love with. But she felt a betrayal of her and the people she was in Angola to help. Blood diamonds were not an abstract economic-political issue to her. She had seen too much of the “blood” that flowed from the evil trade, too many orphan children roaming the streets, too many amputees.
She could forgive Win his ignorance when he was in New York or Lisbon, but he had spent enough time in Angola to see the terrible consequences of supplying arms for diamonds. It was murder, mass murder on a large scale.
Dr. Machado came in. He was frowning.
She groaned. “Give me the bad news, tell me the truth, I’ve caught something permanent, a bug that’s going to eat me alive.”
“It’s only permanent if you want it to be. They invented the condom for this sort of thing.”
“Oh my God, I have AIDS?”
“I believe the old-fashioned expression is that you are with child.”
She gaped at him. “I’m pregnant?”
He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Please, don’t tell me this is another immaculate conception. Or that you caught it off a toilet seat.”
She leaned back, her head on the pillow. “My God, I’m pregnant.”
“A time to rejoice . . . or for an abortion.”
“An abortion? I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.”
“When you do, realize that you must leave Angola as soon as possible if you decide to have the baby. This is not a healthy environment for the local women who become pregnant, and at least they have a resistance built up to some of the maladies lurking in every drink, bite of food, or exposed skin.”
There wasn’t any significant thought process involved in her decision. She would keep the baby. She loved Win Liberte, with all her heart and soul, even though she didn’t want to admit it. The child in her was a part of him.
She made another decision. Not to tell him about the baby. It was not selfishness on her part. A man who was untrustworthy and a liar could not truly love a child. She was sure that her own father didn’t love her. She was not going to let her child be emotionally abused as she was.
51
I tried to contact Marni as soon as I got back from Istanbul and was told she had returned to the States. That stunned me. Down deep, I suppose I thought that we’d still get together. I guess I had overestimated her depth of feeling for me—and underestimated mine for her.
I had been back from Istanbul for a week when I went to Luanda to meet Kruger’s plane when he flew in from Cape Town. We never went into town. I had the hotel deliver a gourmet lunch to the airport and my chartered plane took us to diamond country. I didn’t want him to take one look at Luanda and take the next flight back to South Africa.
It was dangerous for Kruger to putz around the diamond area alone. I told Cross to stick to him. The way the mining country operated, if anyone found out Kruger had a system for finding blue earth, they’d kidnap him and keep him on a short chain while they took him out prospecting.
When a shipment of equipment came in for Kruger, I rode out with Gomez to deliver it. While Kruger was getting the equipment set up, I took Cross aside.
“How’s it look?”
“Who can tell? All the guy does is walk around and talk to himself and tell the men where he wants equipment set up. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled out a divining rod used by water witches. From the looks of that drilling rig he’s set up, we may hit oil.”
“That would be okay with me. Listen, we need to talk.”
I laid it out for him, the whole shebang with João, the Bey, and Jomba, starting with the death of Bernie, right down to me demanding the fire diamond and walking out. Cross listened, blank-faced. I didn’t know how he was going to react. I needed Cross, he knew more about dealing, double-dealing, and dirty-dealing in Angola than I had time to learn.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked.
“Interesting. If I was a priest, I’d tell you to say a hundred Hail Marys and start thinking about what I’d say at your wake. If I was a doctor—”
“I get the idea. The bottom line is that you’re going to have to come to a decision. You’re either with me in trying to survive the Jomba situation—or pack your bags. If you’re in for the duration, you’ll get a piece of the action.”
“A ‘piece of the action’ has a different connotation in equatorial Africa than other places in the world. Around here, they take Shylock’s pound of flesh, literally. I wouldn’t stick around for a million bucks.”
“How about two million?”
That stopped him in his tracks. “Holy shit.”
“That’s my offer. You stick around, help me get through this mess in one piece, when we hit blue earth you’ll be a rich man.”
A chuckle came from deep in his throat. “I knew there was a catch—and there’re several of them. You not only have to live, you have to be in one piece. And then there’s that little contingency about hitting pay dirt.”
I looked over to where Kruger was yelling at the workers helping him. “Kruger has something good enough for people to want to steal. This mine is good enough for people to line up to steal. That sounds like a winning combination to me.”
“Enough to bet your life?”
“That’s what I’m doing. But you’ve stuck your head out far enough, already. If you want to bail out, I won’t blame you.”
“It’s kind of a rough fall when you bail out without a parachute. If I go back to the States, I’d head for L.A. where my sister has moved. I didn’t exactly leave the oil business on good terms, so it’ll be tough to get a decent job. Without money, I’d just be another guy hanging around street corners, wondering where my next fix would be.
“Bubba, you told me that the devil met the price of your soul when João offered you five mill in a blood-diamond deal. My soul’s got a lot more dents and scrapes on it than yours.” He slapped me on the back. “You got a deal.”
He grabbed my arm and held me back as we started to walk back toward Kruger. “It’s occurred to me that you might be smarter than you look. There’re an awful lot of players in this game, from Cape Town to Istanbul. You haven’t pulled one of those cons where you’ve sold more than a hundred percent of the mine, have you?”
“You have to trust me.”
“Fuck trust. You think João and Jomba are mean bastards. You get between me and my money and I’ll rip out your heart and feed it to my dog.”
“What I like most about you, Cross, is I always know where you stand—on the winning side.”
“Did you have a plan?” he asked. “Or were you going to just throw yourself on the mercy of the gods?”
“What do you think Jomba’s chances are of knocking over Savimbi with a coup?”
“I’ve seen Jomba, I haven’t seen Savimbi. From what I’ve heard, Savimbi would have Jomba for breakfast. Savimbi is a national hero, at least among the rebel faction, which is most of the backcountry. Jomba’s a pit bull with a brain, and he’s balking at the choke chain Savimbi jerks whenever he wants to keep the colonels in line.”
“Coups by colonels have been notoriously successful around the world.”
“Yeah, but they’re usually marching in and taking over a civilian government. Savimbi may not advertise his meanness with tattoos and hood ornaments, he’s too smart to appear as a murderous maniac, but from what I’ve heard, he’s murderous in terms of the big picture and keeps up a statesmanlike front. That’s why President Reagan and the CIA pumped so much money into him. They thought he was an idealistic patriotic. People in this country knew better.”
“Then Savimbi’s our man.”
“Our man for what?”
“To handle Jomba.”
“Shit, has diamond fever melted that little brain of yours? When it comes between choosing between you and Jomba, Savimbi wil
l take his colonel’s side on several counts, not the least of which is your being a foreigner without an army.”
“When Savimbi finds out Jomba’s plotting against him, Jomba will be history.”
“Maybe, and maybe you’re making the mistake of thinking like a Westerner. Try this for a scenario. Savimbi finds out Jomba is plotting against him. But Jomba has his own army. So the two of them sit around the campfire and reach an accord on how to deal with their mutual enemy, the government in Luanda, while they roast you over the hot flames.”
“Then we’ll have to sweeten the pot for Savimbi, give him a good reason not to deal with Jomba.”
“What’s the good reason?”
I shrugged. “He gets the weapons that were intended for Jomba.”
“How do you manage that?”
“We punt.”
“Bubba, you only punt when you have a kicker that can reach the goalpost. If the ball drops short around here, they whack your kicking leg off.”
“Okay, I haven’t got a plan yet. I need to know more about Savimbi.”
“That I can arrange. I got a pal in Luanda, he used to be a CIA contact with Savimbi, back when the Luanda government was commie and Washington thought Savimbi was an African George Washington.”
“He still with the CIA?”
“Nope, he went on the disabled list and settled down in Luanda with his Angolan girlfriend.”
“Got shot?”
“Got AIDS.”
Kruger approached us. “You dug in the wrong direction.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“The tunneling in your mine, we have to change the direction.”
Heat of Passion Page 25
