Blood Diamonds - [Kamal and Barnea 05]

by By Jon Land

  “You’re not going to be sick.” Danielle paused. “What if I were here to help you?”

  “That’s what the cowboy said yesterday.”

  “Cowboy?” she asked him, feeling a cold tingle prick her spine.

  Katz gestured toward his bandage. “Then he pushed a finishing drill through my cheek.”

  Danielle hesitated. “Tell me about your father.”

  “He was arrested for illegal trafficking. The authorities are calling him a smuggler. The people I thought sent you arranged everything because they thought he was stealing from them. And he was, but not that much. Just holding back a few of the rough diamonds.”

  “How did Ranieri get them into the country?”

  “Listen to me,” Katz implored. “I can’t talk to you. If I do, they’ll have my father killed.”

  “Help me and perhaps I can help your father.”

  The younger Katz’s hands emerged from his hair and he looked up. “You can get him out?”

  “At least make sure he’s protected so long as he remains in jail.”

  “They’ll kill him if they find out I even spoke with you.”

  “You were expecting someone else when I showed up,” Danielle said.

  Katz nodded. “The Russians. To pick up the shipment of rough diamonds Ranieri delivered. I haven’t even looked at it myself.”

  With that, he rose from his chair and moved to the wall. A hefty push revealed a secret compartment. Katz reached inside and removed the suitcase Danielle recognized as the one Ranieri had left here. He laid it down on his desk and lifted the top, angling the case so Danielle had a clear view of its contents.

  “Recognize this?”

  “It’s a Torah scroll,” Danielle said, baffled.

  “Not just any Torah scroll. This is a Holocaust Torah scroll.”

  “One of the most prized possessions in Jewish culture,” Danielle remembered. “Certain never to be searched by Customs officials for fear of damaging it.”

  “With good reason. The Nazis collected scrolls like this from all over Europe and stored them in a Prague building they called the Museum for an Extinct Race. After the war, these scrolls were taken to the Westminster Synagogue in London to be repaired and later distributed to temples all over the world.”

  Katz stroked the Torah tenderly. “This particular one is a Czech scroll,” he said and unscrewed the tops of the rollers that held the scroll together, called the Trees of Life. “The Atsei Chayim have been hollowed out. That wouldn’t escape close scrutiny but, as you said, these scrolls never receive any scrutiny at all.”

  Katz laid the tops of the Trees of Life, Atsei Chayim, down on his desk. Then he lifted the Torah scroll up gently and turned it upside down.

  Dozens and dozens of various-sized stones spilled out from the hollowed-out tubular compartments, clacking against each other on the bottom of the suitcase. Their colors were disparate, ranging from almost clear to dark gray, from radiant white to dull yellow—not looking like precious stones at all.

  “Blood diamonds,” Danielle muttered, recognizing the stones in this crude stage before they were cut, polished, and made wildly expensive. She tried to calculate the value of the rough stones piled in the suitcase before her. “How much are these worth?”

  “In this condition, five million. Once finished, their value at the Israeli Diamond Exchange will be ten times that.”

  “So Ranieri delivers the rough stones to you in Holocaust Torah scrolls ...”

  “And in return we give him finished stones worth twenty percent of their finished value.”

  “Ten million dollars, the diamonds melted into the eyeglass lenses constituting a ten percent down payment.”

  “Standard operating procedure.”

  “There’s nothing standard about such subterfuge.”

  “There is with blood diamonds, thanks to Certificates of Origin,” Katz answered. “Rough stones can no longer be sold on the open market without them, because of the new registration procedures enacted by De Beers and the rest of the diamond cartel.”

  “Procedures enacted to prevent exactly what you’ve become a part of.”

  “Exchanging legitimate diamonds for illegally trafficked rough ones allows us to circumvent them, yes. Everybody comes out on top.”

  “No one ever checks the inventory manifests? You’re not afraid of the discrepancy showing up?”

  “Afraid of who?”

  “Your diamond dealers. The syndicate you buy from.”

  Katz almost laughed. “You think De Beers and the others care about blood diamonds?”

  “They don’t?”

  “Only so far as they can set the price. The cartel cares about controlling the market and nothing else. If a glut of these blood diamonds were suddenly released, they could drive the price dangerously low, create instability.”

  “So they buy them, knowing all this, just to keep the prices where they want them. Maintain control.”

  Katz nodded. “Is that such a surprise? No one gets hurt, after all.”

  “Except the people in the African countries where the weapons your diamonds buy end up.”

  “I told you, I don’t have a choice.”

  “You used to. Your father as well. You’re lucky you weren’t arrested a long time ago.”

  Katz almost laughed. “Arrested by who? Don’t be naive. Why do you think I haven’t gone to the police myself? Why do you think I didn’t care you were a cop?”

  Danielle remembered claims made by Dov Levy on thePeter the Greatthat Israeli authorities, like Moshe Baruch, were involved.

  “The authorities are being paid off to look the other way,” Katz explained. “Keep things just the way they are, the diamond market stable, because the whole business about diamonds being rare is a myth. Prices need to be kept artificially high, and anyone who threatens their game is punished.”

  “Your father, for instance.”

  “Weren’t you listening to what I said? These people answer to no one. They can keep him in jail for as long as they want.”

  “Unless you help me,” Danielle told him.

  “How?”

  “What time are you expecting your Russian friends to come by?”

  * * * *

  Chapter 47

  E

  njoy your stay in Russia,” the customs agent said, stamping the passport Danielle had procured for Ben through Sabi.

  “Thank you.”

  Exhausted, Ben moved through the jam-packed Moscow Airport, wondering how best to reach the city of Dubna, located 100 miles to the north. He had no way of knowing whether there would be any evidence left there of whatever had been packed into the crates stolen from the freighterPeter the Great,or where exactly he should look for it. With Anatolyevich dead, though, this was his only potential lead.

  Outside Moscow Airport, Ben found a bus headed north and was glad to lose himself in the glut of people aboard. Exhausted as he was, he offered his seat to a woman holding a baby. She didn’t bother to thank him, just sank into the seat and held her baby tightly to her as if she expected someone to take it from her.

  “Where you going?” an old man standing beside him asked Ben, as the bus rumbled across Moscow’s pothole-marred streets, gears grinding and worn-out shocks creating a jarring ride. The stench of hot exhaust fumes permeated the bus’s interior and more than one passenger sat with their mouths tucked into their sleeves.

  “Dubna.”

  The old man looked at Ben in surprise. “This bus doesn’t go there.”

  “I must have gotten on the wrong one,” Ben said, figuring he shouldn’t have trusted his ability to read instructions in Russian.

  “Doesn’t matter. No bus goes there anymore, not for days now.” The old man leaned closer to Ben and lowered his voice. “I heard the old reactor there blew. Worse then Chernobyl. People dying and getting sick. No one from the outside allowed in.”

  “You know anyone who lives there?”

  “Cousins,” the o
ld man answered. “I called a few times. Nobody answered. All bullshit. But I don’t make trouble. Who would believe me?

  Ben kept his eyes on the old man, waiting for him to continue.

  “Twenty years I worked at the reactor station in Dubna. Twenty years and then no job. So if anybody knows, it’s me.”

  “Knows what?”

  “About the bullshit,” the old man said, snickering. “Because the nuclear plant there was shut down a dozen years ago.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 48

  S

  ergeant-Major J. Peter Reese of the British Royal Marine Corps, hands clasped behind his back, walked up and down the rows of uniformed Sierra Leonean soldiers standing at attention.

  “Good news, blokes,” Reese announced, his husky voice carrying over the parade ground at the Benguema Military Training Center located outside the capital city of Freetown. As he spoke, a translator who moved as his shadow repeated the words in Krio, Sierra Leone’s native language. “My government, in the true spirit of generosity, has decided to re-up its commitment to this messed-up little country of yours by continuing to lead the International Military Advisory and Training Team. That means you’re stuck with me for at least another six months!”

  The translator couldn’t quite match Reese’s volume, which didn’t stop a collective groan from rising through the crowd, although all five hundred troops gathered continued to stare straight ahead. He also botched his translation of the Sergeant-Major’s next comment referring to the additional five million pounds Britain had committed to the effort.

  “And my job, you bloody incompetent lot, is to help your country, so when Her Majesty orders us out, it will be considerably less of a piece of trouble.”

  Reese continued to stride between the rows, his back arched, chest thrown out, his translator struggling to keep up. In spite of the sweltering heat, Reese was outfitted in his full dress uniform, including the battle sword he had actually worn in the brief Falklands War but never had occasion to draw. That uniform fitted his sinewy frame like a glove and helped distract his charges from his slight limp, the consequence of a training wound that had prematurely ended his active service.

  “Now, I’d love to spend the rest of my recently extended stay here in God’s version of hell breast-feeding you babes who didn’t know a rifle bore from the arse end of your old fat mums five weeks ago. But I’ve got another couple thousand of you to put through their paces, so pretty soon you’re going to be seeing my pretty little face against yours for the very last time.”

  At that point, for effect, Sergeant-Major J. Peter Reese of the Royal Marines stuck his ruddy, pockmarked, and square-jawed visage right into that of the nearest Sierra Leonean soldier.

  “Now I hope that pisses you off mightily,” he continued, pulling away and spinning sideways on his heels, “but don’t fret, laddies, for old Pete’s got some good news for you: You’ve still got me for another week. Happy about that, ain’t you?”

  “Yes, sir!” the trainees bellowed in perfect cadence.

  “Happy about that, ain’t you?’ Reese demanded, louder.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “That’s a bit better now,” he nodded, tossing a wink at another of the British marine trainers who had just had his stay in Sierra Leone extended. “So good I think we’re ready to take the next step, go out and kill some rebels!”

  An enthusiastic roar exploded through the crowd as soon as the translation was completed, American-supplied M-16 assault rifles thrust into the air.

  “They won’t be real rebels, not yet. Back home we call these war games, laddies, but it’s a pretty safe bet that if you get yourself killed when we’re playing, you’ll be among the first to go down when it’s for real. So pay attention to the rules and the regs, and stick with your training. That’s how you’re going to kick the arses of these rebels who like to play hit and run. Well, you can’t always stop ‘em from hitting, but you can sure as shit stop ‘em from running.”

  Sergeant-Major J. Peter Reese’s stride finally brought him back to the front rank of the government troops of Sierra Leone who in one week’s time would be sent out to take on the forces of the Revolutionary United Front. His translator stopped the same shadow-length’s distance away.

  “Here’s how the game goes, laddies. The forest beyond the compound has been peppered with blokes from Troop A dressed in the olive drab uniforms of the RUF. The object is to hunt them down, flush them, and blow them to hell with your paint bullets before they can do likewise to you. Now you should know that Troop A, and their paint bullets, are going to employ every dirty trick the rebels are known for, so be ready . . . and let’s kick their arse!”

  As the translator finished his own rendition of Reese’s words, another tumultuous scream rose up through the ranks of Troop B, M-16s loaded with paint bullets again jabbed toward the sky.

  “As yu mek yu bed, na so yu go ledohn pan am,” the Sergeant-Major continued, using their native language for the first time the recruits could remember. Then, translating on his own, “As you make your bed, so shall you lie on it.”

  Even with twenty-five years as a Royal Marine behind him, Sergeant-Major J. Peter Reese couldn’t pin down the precise moment when he realized things had gone terribly wrong. Something on the wind, a nagging feeling that hit him as an ache in his bad leg just after he had given Troop A, playing the role of Revolutionary United Front rebels, the order to begin their attack.

  Their reply had come back over the radio garbled.

  In retrospect that must have been what alarmed him, although Reese couldn’t quite identify the reason even as he unsnapped the holster for his sidearm.

  “I’m going to call this off, Captain,” Reese said to the center’s commanding officer who stood proud and stiff-lipped alongside him. The thick cover of the dense woods adjoining the Benguema Military Training Center prevented Reese from seeing very clearly, even with binoculars from his vantage point in the thirty-foot guard tower. Still, he kept spinning the focus wheel futilely in search of a glimpse of something that would tell him he was wrong.

  Captain Marks, who had been all of twelve years old for the Falklands War, glared at him. “What?”

  “Something ain’t right, sir; I can feel it.”

  Marks turned back toward the woods and pretended to be looking at something. “You’ll do nothing of the kind, Sergeant-Major. This is a crucial exercise and we must stay on schedule if we’re to—”

  The staccato burst of gunfire drowned out the rest of the captain’s words. The screaming started as Reese grabbed for the walkie-talkie on his belt. He had the damn thing at his lips just when the bursts of gunfire intensified, only no one answered his call.

  “Holy mother of God,” Captain Marks muttered, watching funnels of gun smoke drift up from the woods to be caught by the wind.

  “Bloody hell!” Reese bellowed, pistol drawn as he moved for the ladder.

  Marks peered down at him through the opening in the tower. “What is it, Sergeant-Major? What’s happening?”

  “We been boozled, that’s what,” Reese said, taking the rungs downward. “It’s the bloody RUF out there for real!”

  Reese leaped down the final ten feet and hit the ground running, sword in one hand and pistol in the other as he rushed for the woods as fast as his limp would allow.

  * * * *

  Chapter 49

  D

  anielle stood watching the diamond shop from down Dizengoff Street well into the afternoon, waiting for the arrival of the Russians Jacob Katz was expecting. Danielle thought of the cowboy, James Allen Black, drilling through the man’s cheek. She could picture him smiling as he did it, enjoying Katz’s screams. She hoped it would be Black who showed up today; whoever it was, the plan was for Katz to switch on the shop’s outside lights to let Danielle know they had arrived.

  The last time she had waited outside Katz & Katz, when she was following Ranieri, Danielle’s thoughts had been filled with the lingering
doubts that had plagued her for months. That maybe she couldn’t cut it anymore. That maybe Moshe Baruch was right about her being best suited for a position in administration. Those doubts, though, had now vanished. Her confidence returned with the realization that she had never really changed; only circumstances had. And once those circumstances required her well-honed skills again, they were there at the ready, the tentativeness she had felt gone. Burned out of her as though it had never been there at all.