Blood Diamonds - [Kamal and Barnea 05]

by By Jon Land

  The State House’s hill-like setting provided a clear view of Freetown in the aftermath of the previous night’s battle. The city looked as though it had been dumped into a blender and spit out, its streets marred by chunks of debris and its buildings pockmarked and pitted. Martial law had been declared, preventing residents from venturing out to begin clean-up efforts. Instead, only government troops roamed the city, trying to stay ahead of looters and rounding up stray rebels.

  “The Jordanian delegate told you about Latisse Matabu’s plans for the United States?” Ben asked, speaking loudly enough for his voice to carry over the sounds of power saws and hammering that filled the State House as workers rushed to make the building presentable again.

  Kabbah nodded grimly. Save for the armed guards standing vigil on either side of the door, they were alone in the presidential office, the morning sun shut out by boards slapped over windows shattered by blast percussion the previous night.

  “I must tell you,” Kabbah said, “I saw the work of this Black Death myself.”

  “Then you understand why you must concentrate all your resources on making sure the Dragon does not leave the country,” Danielle interjected.

  “I’m afraid it’s already too late to stop her,” Kabbah told her.

  He nodded to one of the guards who proceeded to open the door and signal a pair of men to enter. The first was dressed in a suit, his hair perfectly combed, face freshly shaved—the look of a businessman ready to close a deal. The other, tall and lean, wore a military uniform that was torn at the knees and elbows. Something that could have been blood or sweat stained it in splotches across the mid-section. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. His cheeks were bruised and his nose looked broken. He moved tentatively, as if afraid of where his next step might take him.

  “May I present General Yancy Lananga, high commander of the Revolutionary United Front forces,” Kabbah said, introducing him. “In the absence of RUF supreme leader Latisse Matabu, General Lananga has generously agreed to act as liaison with the rebels as we strive to work out a comprehensive peace accord. For this, he will be rewarded with an important post in my cabinet.” Kabbah turned and smiled at the well-dressed man flanking Lananga. “Isn’t that right, Minister Sukahamin?”

  “It is, Mr. President.”

  “Do you agree, General?”

  Lananga nodded robotically. His eyes were empty and dazed, twitching from side to side.

  “He has also informed me that Latisse Matabu left Sierra Leone, accompanied by two of her soldiers, early this morning following your escape, and entered Liberia where the Taylor government has been supporting her rebels all along.” Kabbah turned his attention once more on Lananga. “We can safely assume she is already en route to the United States, can we not, General?”

  Lananga nodded again.

  Kabbah kept his eyes fixed upon him. “The general was kind enough to confess that the rest of the Black Death in the Dragon’s possession was shipped ahead of her. The original plan was for the crates to be divided up so their contents could be released at strategic points throughout the country. But that changed, didn’t it, General?”

  Another nod.

  “Apparently,” Kabbah continued, “the Russians had detailed plans about releasing the Black Death that Matabu never received. This makes sense to you?”

  Danielle nodded, recalling the plans that had accompanied the last shipment of the Black Death she had stuffed under her shirt in Sheik Hussein al-Akbar’s garage in Beirut.

  “Nor did she have the opportunity to dispatch her agents across America. It is just the Dragon and her two soldiers. The general informs me that she still intends to carry out her plan. He informs me that the Black Death has been shipped to the United States for transport down the Mississippi River by barge.”

  “The center of the country,” Ben realized.

  “General Lananga says that Matabu’s plan is to take possession of the crates in St. Louis. Besides a few other details Matabu shared with him so he could proceed in the event of her death, that is all he knows.” Kabbah returned his focus to Lananga. “Isn’t that right, General?”

  Yet another nod, deliberate and emotionless. General Lananga’s eyes looked like blown-out lightbulbs.

  “Have you alerted the American government?” Danielle asked the President of Sierra Leone.

  Kabbah frowned, started to shake his head, then stopped. “You can see my dilemma, of course. The problems that would result from something so potentially catastrophic must not be linked to my county in any way.”

  “You’ve got to give the American authorities a chance to stop it!”

  “That’s where the two of you come in,” Kabbah said, gazing back and forth at Ben and Danielle. “Minister Sukahamin will help you make any arrangements you require, including a government jet to fly you to anywhere in the United States you wish to go. He will also obtain for you any additional resources you request. Is that agreeable?”

  Ben and Danielle looked at each other, then nodded, knowing they had no choice.

  “Very well, then,” Kabbah finished. “I assume you will be flying to Washington.”

  Ben and Danielle exchanged another glance.

  “No,” she said. “St. Louis.”

  President Kabbah dismissed his guards after the foreigners had gone, closing the door behind them before moving to the phone and dialing the number he’d been given in Amman, Jordan.

  “It’s done,” he reported, when the voice answered. “They’ll be on their way shortly.”

  Latisse Matabu’s plane had barely left Johannesburg for New York when the pain began again. Her head seemed to be expanding, filling with air. She felt queasy and sick, grateful she hadn’t eaten anything to vomit up from her stomach. It wasn’t just the effects of the disease today, though, it was the words the Israeli woman had tossed in her face, shattering in the truth they held.

  She had killed her own son!

  She wanted to believe it was a trick, a fabrication meant to weaken her and detract from her resolve. But it was the truth; Matabu saw that in the Israeli woman’s eyes and knew it in her heart.

  Now every time she closed her eyes she saw the terrified look on the boy’s—her son’s—face before she killed him in view of his father, General Treest. If only she could relive that moment, take him in her arms instead of dragging the blade through his neck. Her throat felt so heavy, she could barely swallow. Resigned herself to keep her eyes open through the entire duration of the flight, because each time she closed the boy’s screams haunted her along with those of her parents.

  She deserved to be punished.

  But not yet. First she had to save her country by destroying its greatest oppressor. Provider of the guns that had killed her father. Ally of the man who had raped her and stolen her child.

  Matabu sat squeezed in the coach-class compartment in a center seat, dressed in shapeless robes decorated with beads to promote her disguise as a typical West African woman coming to tour the U.S. She had covered her hair with an intricately wrapped turban, and even applied makeup to hide the dry leathery finish the harsh elements of Sierra Leone had given her complexion. In that moment Matabu wished she had the two soldiers accompanying her to America on either side of her. But she had felt it best for security reasons for the three of them to be separated in the cabin to attract less attention to themselves.

  The Dragon fought down another wave of nausea and tried not to dwell on the miserable failure of the previous night. Focused instead on her last chance to make amends and come as close as she could to finding peace at the same time.

  Jim Black showed up at the café in downtown Amman, Jordan, a little early so he could order a beer, only to learn they didn’t serve any alcohol. No place in the city did, except the big western hotels where he wasn’t in the mood to show his face right now.

  He had regained consciousness two nights before, gagging for breath on the surface of the Mediterranean, clinging to a section of dock and reco
vering his senses in time to search the dock area for Danielle Barnea. Both she and the boat Sasha Borodin had provided, though, were gone. Black couldn’t help but smile, in spite of the pain shooting through his head. Nobody had ever outdrawn, or outfoxed, him before. Barnea was even better than he expected and he was almost glad she had gotten away.

  He tried coffee at the downtown Amman café and nearly spit out his first gulp, then added a week’s worth of sugar to quell the bitterness. When that didn’t work, he returned to the counter to get a tea instead and got back to the table to find a man sitting across from his seat wearing a business suit and a keffiyah.

  “Who’d you say sent you?” Black asked him, bypassing the usual exchange of greetings.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Somebody with some clout, be my guess.“

  “And you would be correct.”

  Black took a sip from his cup and found the tea only slightly more drinkable than the coffee. “ ‘Cause you got a serious beverage problem in this country. I’m wondering if your boss could do something about it.”

  “Don’t worry,” the man across from him said and leaned forward. “You won’t be here long. The man I represent has a job for you.”

  “I’m expensive.”

  “He can afford it.”

  “Where’m I going?”

  “The United States.”

  Jim Black swallowed some of his tea with a grimace. “Normally it ain’t wise to shit where you live.”

  The man slid a photograph across the table. “You know this woman, I believe.”

  Jim Black found himself staring at the face of Danielle Barnea. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Man, I just can’t get rid of this bitch. . . .”

  “Kidding you? I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “Never mind,” Jim Black said, giving up on the tea. “Just tell me where I can find her.”

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Chapter 95

  B

  en and Danielle flew west aboard a Sierra Leone military jet, an uncomfortable flight that left them grabbing for sleep in the interludes between refueling stops and bouts with turbulence.

  During one of the journey’s final legs Danielle awoke with a start to find Ben gazing at her.

  “We’ll be landing in New York soon,” he said, not bothering to disguise the irony in his voice. “Good thing we won’t have to get off the plane.”

  “I realized something over the past week,” Danielle told him. “I realized New York took more than the baby: It also took my nerve. To be a mother I was resigned to changing my outlook, my priorities. No more risks, no more missions, no more adventures. Everything I’d always been had to change. Then we lost the baby, but it still changed and I couldn’t get it back.” She stared at Ben more deeply. “I blamed you because I already hated myself too much to bother.”

  “I understood. I didn’t mind.”

  “You should have. You risked everything to save the child, just like you’re risking everything now, and in return I turned my back on you. Sierra Leone made it all clear to me.”

  “Because of Matabu?”

  “I looked at her and saw too much of myself. As bad as her life’s been, she’s made it worse. I’ve been doing the same thing.”

  “I don’t see the comparison.”

  “Different scale, that’s all. You lose hope, you give up, and you become like her. I could have been a step away, I could have been two. But I was getting there and that’s not a place I ever want to be. You can’t control what happens; only how you deal with it.”

  “Not true. All that’s happened to you may have brought you to the edge, but you never jumped.”

  “Matabu jumped. I think I was ready to.”

  “Because you hadn’t really changed; you only thought you had. You got caught up in the way Baruch and the other politicians saw you.”

  “And how do you see me?”

  Ben looked at Danielle sitting next to him and managed to smile. “Just where I want you to be.”

  Three refueling stops, combined with interminable waits for open slots in international terminals, had them on the ground at Lambert Field in St. Louis shortly before dawn. The airport was just opening, the first of the morning passengers beginning to arrive. There was a diplomatic escort arranged by President Kabbah waiting when they reached the arrivals area. The escort had procured a car for them, but Danielle opted not to take it at the last minute, not trusting Kabbah’s security nearly enough at this point. Ben and Danielle waited until the escort had departed before slipping out to the front of the terminal where they signaled for a cab and stowed the duffel bag Kabbah’s defense minister had provided in the trunk before settling into the backseat.

  The problem now was they knew Latisse Matabu and her soldiers were coming in to meet a barge, but not exactly where or when. The hope was the two of them had managed to get to the city ahead of the Dragon, although without any further information that didn’t seem to do them much good.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  “The Mississippi River,” Ben responded, as much out of frustration with their predicament as anything else.

  The driver twisted his head and shoulders back toward them. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “How about a freight yard?” Danielle suggested. “Somewhere on the river shipping barges are loaded and unloaded.”

  “On the Mississippi?” the driver posed incredulously.

  “In St. Louis.”

  The driver shrugged. “Still leaves you lots of choices.”

  “How many?”

  “More than I can count.”

  “Take us to the largest,” Ben said.

  “Main Port of St. Louis,” the driver said, shaking his head. “It’s your dime.”

  Latisse Matabu was already awake and walking the decks of the barge when the sun came up. She had chosen the two soldiers who accompanied her, Timo and Dikembe, because they had been born in the same village as she, their fathers killed with the same American-supplied weapons that had slain Matabu’s father. They never strayed far from her shadow, forever vigilant and protective, while clearly uncomfortable in western-style civilian clothes.

  The insulated crates holding the Black Death were stored in three large refrigerated containers powered by huge compressors located in the barge’s stern. Even though the crates could not possibly fill up all three containers, Matabu had rented the entire barge space to avoid complications. The only thing she had failed to consider was the time lag between her arrival and that of the barge’s crew. She should have paid them to stay on board. Now she was forced to wait for them to get here before departing. Perhaps in an hour, maybe two or three.

  Latisse Matabu tried to be patient, distracting herself with a review of her plan. During her long stay in the United States, she had seen the Mississippi only once, never imagining the role it would play in her future. She had made a detailed study of the river in recent days, after the third shipment vanished and with it the Russian Cold War schematic plans she had been promised.

  North of St. Louis, down to the Chain of Rocks Bridge, the Mississippi was dotted with manmade locks, dams, and channels, evidence of the Army Corps of Engineers’ determined efforts to bend and shift nature. South of St. Louis, though, the river remained far more wild and untamed. Narrower, without any locks or dams to impede barge traffic. In fact, Matabu had read of barge tows stretching a half-mile in length. Interconnected monsters generating wakes known to swallow or capsize smaller craft that strayed too close.

  The barge she had retained was self-propelled, enabling it to better handle the bends and curves in the river that considerably lengthened the journey south. From St. Louis south to the Gulf of Mexico the river was joined by literally hundreds of tributaries that collectively spanned the heartland of America like a network of veins and arteries. Matabu had already selected two dozen harbors at which to dock long enough to offload a portion of the crates for prearranged col
d storage. By the time her journey south was complete, then, the Black Death would have been evenly distributed down the center of the United States. Ready to saturate the nation as soon as she returned to let the frozen eggs at each drop thaw out and then release the creatures to spread.

  The bugs would seek out food relentlessly; she had learned that much from the small portion she had tested on the village of Katani nine days before. Matabu had formulated her plan after studying irrigation maps of the farm country that spread outward off the Mississippi. If the Black Death followed the same path as those waterways supplying farms with water, they would end up eventually feeding on land that offered an endless food supply.