Patrick Carlton 01 - The Diamond Conspiracy

by Nicolas Kublicki

  “If it's diamonds you want, diamonds I'll get you. As cheap as I can get them.” Cohen took a deep breath. “I can't give you specifics, Maximillian. It would only place you in greater harm than you are already in.”

  “Harm?”A shiver of fear shot up his spine.

  Cohen nodded. “Grave harm.”

  “Because I want to mine diamonds in Arkansas? How could—”

  “Things are not always as they seem. You of all people know this. Arkansas may seem poor, simple, quiet, but it has been a diamond battleground since the 1920s. Since the time of your map. How can I say this for you to understand? I don't even understand myself. There are certain...certain interests at work in Arkansas. Diamond interests. No one knows exactly what they are. Exactly who is involved. Frankly, I don't want to know. For many years, there have been threats to diamond miners, diamond dealers who dig a little too deep in Arkansas, if you'll forgive the pun. Quiet and subtle at first, then severe. People have disappeared, never to be heard from or seen again.”

  MacLean nodded. “That explains the telephone calls.”

  “Calls? From whom?”

  MacLean explained.

  “So it has already started.”

  MacLean had never seen Abraham's face so serious.

  “I can't tell you what not to do. You are a powerful man. You are cautious and wise. I know that people do not toy with you. What I tell you is between an old diamond dealer who has seen a great deal and a man who is like my own son. Abandon the project, Maximillian.”

  “But I can't. Not now. All those beautiful stones.” He visualized them in his mind's eye. “Such beauty.”

  Cohen stared at MacLean in silence, then sighed. “In that case, mazeltov. And be very careful.”

  “Thank you. I will.”

  Cohen stood and smiled broadly. “Enough gloom. Life is too short. Come, I have something to show you.” He opened a large safe behind his desk and removed a tray filled with small white envelopes. He ran a finger along the tray and selected an envelope. “This, you will find of unparalleled beauty.” He unfolded the envelope with great care. He reverently picked up a large stone with a tweezer and dropped it in MacLean's palm.

  MacLean gasped. The little glowing stones from Arkansas he had shown Cohen were dull granite pebbles compared to the fiery brilliant-cut gem that sparkled pink in his palm. The synergy of God's hand and man's industry. The gem in his palm surpassed all other stones he had seen, diamond or otherwise. Even the six-figure D flawless diamond in Claire's engagement ring. MacLean lifted the gem up to the light, turned it reverently between two fingers. Shards of rose, crimson, magenta, and blood red light shot out from the stone and made it dance before his eyes.

  Cohen smiled. “A ten-carat brilliant-cut Argyle pink. From Australia. Absolutely flawless. One of the rarest diamonds in the world. I just received it back from the cutter in Antwerp yesterday.”

  MacLean stared at the diamond in breathless silence, finally tore his gaze away. He held out his open palm to return it. Cohen closed MacLean's palm over the diamond. “I told you I would give you and Claire a wedding present when I found something worthy of you both.” He leaned close. “For you and Claire, Maximillian.” He stared into MacLean's eyes. “In your marriage and in all you do, particularly in your dangerous venture: mazal u ’bracha. Luck and blessing.”

  11 HISTORY

  Capitol Hill

  7:02 P.M.

  Carlton would never have dreamed to ask a subordinate female employee to meet him alone outside of the office at night. In a bar, of all places. His sense of professional propriety forbade it. But this was different, he reasoned, trying to reconcile professional ethics with his growing fondness for her.

  Erika had called the meeting, chosen the time, the location. Carlton didn’t know why she had asked him to meet her, but she had sounded excited.

  As usual, he was late. Snow fell from the sky in large flakes on Carlton’s white tailfinned 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible he’d nicknamed ‘the Shark.’ The stereo gushed Sinatra as he made the short run from Main Justice to Capitol Hill. While other cars slipped and slid wildly in the accumulated slush, the Shark weaved in and out of traffic with impunity thanks to the concrete blocks Carlton had placed in the trunk before the onset of winter. He spotted a parking space at the corner of the block and gunned the massive engine. Carlton had great luck with parking spaces, even if they were generally far too small for his land yacht.

  He locked the car, thrust his hands into his overcoat pockets, and bent forward to avoid the falling snow. He walked past a group of homeless men bundled in filthy blankets, far too frozen to panhandle. He took a five-dollar bill out of his pocket, handed it to one of them, and whispered a silent prayer. Most Washington residents grew accustomed to the daily sight of the homeless on the streets. But Carlton never did. Homeless people in the richest, most powerful nation on earth baffled him. He shook his head and continued down the block.

  The Hawk and Dove greeted him with its characteristic smells of hamburgers, beer, and cigarette smoke. The Hawk, as the Hill crowd referred to the pub, was packed with the usual suspects: legislative and agency staffers, interns, consultants, and those lobbyists not yet working the elected-official watering holes of La Colline and the Monocle.

  Carlton had no problem spotting Erika by the bar. In contrast to the cookie-cutter Washington crowd, Erika glowed. He felt himself suppress a skipped heartbeat as she smiled and waved a glass of white wine.

  “How’s it going?” Carlton asked, squeezing between loud bar patrons.

  “Great. I love this place. It’s so. . .I don’t know, political?”

  “You chose well. It’s one of my favorite D.C. haunts.” He should caution her about professional propriety, but was far too happy to be with her. He ordered his favorite drink instead.

  “Bombay Sapphire and tonic. Lots of ice and plenty of lime, please.”

  “I know it’s kind of weird, asking you to meet me here, but you mentioned how paranoid Jarvik was about stopping after you got your settlement.”

  Settlement? He felt a prick of disappointment realizing that she had called him for professional, not romantic reasons. He retreated behind his professional armor. “You learn fast.”

  “After you told me what happened, I saw a diamond ad in a magazine. You know, ’Diamonds Are Beauty’?”

  “I’ve seen them.”

  “The ad was put out by Waterboer Mines Limited of South Africa. I started doing some research on them, and the stuff was so interesting that, well, it sucked me in. I got carried away. A half hour of research during lunch ended up being six hours.” Large green eyes smiled up at him over the wine glass. “I thought I’d fill you in.”

  A harried waitress with a bun hairdo interrupted them and herded them to a newly vacated table. They quickly selected items from an oily laminated menu and ordered. The woman scribbled pub hieroglyphics on a tiny pad, all the while mashing on gum. Burger and fries for Carlton. Grilled chicken sandwich and salad for Erika. No butter, no mayo, dressing on the side.

  She took a deep breath and organized her thoughts. “I’ve gone through history books, documentary videotapes, and news articles I pulled up on Lexis-Nexis. This is going to sound a bit like a lecture, so I apologize in advance. I don’t want to come off ... you know ...”

  “Patronizing? After Stalin, I’m immune. Lecture away. You’re the one who did the research.” He drained his gin and tonic, motioned for another.

  “Thanks.” She took a deep breath and concentrated.

  “Okay. So a whole mess of diamonds were discovered in late nineteenth-century South Africa. Not just discovered, discovered big. By a man named Nicholas Waterboer. He and his young partner, Cecil R. Slythe, chained dozens of black laborers together—slaves, really—each with a can around his neck. The laborers formed a long line, on their hands and knees, and picked rough diamonds directly from the ground, putting them in the cans as they moved across the field. Alluvial d
iamonds found above ground in dry river beds. Then Waterboer and Slythe found underground diamond deposits formed by old volcanic activity. That’s when they really hit the jackpot. The diamond rush began. Miniature mines popped up all over the place, mostly in the Orange Free State.”

  “Where all those white supremacist crazies are.”

  Their food arrived. Carlton chomped into his burger. Erika was too engrossed to eat, pushing her plate aside. “At the time, the market for diamonds wasn’t very large. Not nearly large enough for the flood of diamonds coming from South Africa. Until then, most diamonds had come from dry river beds in India. Now they were being mined by the ton, and new underground deposits were being discovered all over the place. The big mines figured out that diamond mining could be profitable only if it was monopolized. So big mines started buying up little mines. Major mines merged. One company came out on top.”

  “Let me guess. Waterboer?”

  “Bingo. Waterboer Mines Limited. Although it was Slythe who led the way. A complete monopoly of South Africa’s diamond industry. Eventually, Slythe forced Waterboer out and took firm control of the company and South Africa’s diamonds. South Africa had no antitrust laws, so the monopoly was legal. As it is today, from what the articles said.”

  “That’s right. No antitrust laws. Not the way we understand antitrust, anyway. But the new Boiko government is talking about it from what I hear. Go on.”

  “Well, from what I read, it was Slythe who made sure South Africa has no antitrust laws. But all that’s just South Africa. Diamond fever spread worldwide. Everyone started mining for diamonds. The world supply of diamonds shot up. Slythe realized the key to maintaining Waterboer’s preeminence in the diamond trade was to control the world supply, and they set up purchasing agencies all over the place, bought up mines like crazy. For huge sums of money. If they couldn’t buy a mine, they got contracts to buy the mine’s entire supply. If they couldn’t get that, they simply paid the mine not to produce.”

  Carlton stopped mid-chew, blinked.

  “Sound familiar? The Waterboer empire—it really is an empire— was untouchable. If a third-world government gave them trouble, they bribed officials, incited revolution, or simply assassinated the troublemakers. No scruples.”

  Carlton listened to her intently.

  “Little by little, Waterboer gained control of world production. During the independence movements of the 1960s, Waterboer forged alliances with dictators who would control their countries’ production with iron hands. During the Angolan civil war in the late ’70s and early ’90s, even today, the mines were overrun. Waterboer spent hundreds of millions of dollars however and wherever they could to protect the market.”

  “But if supply grew, prices had to drop.”

  “You would think. But by then Waterboer controlled the supply of diamonds and began stockpiling.”

  “Didn’t they have any competitors?”

  “They did in the beginning. But Waterboer had such a large stockpile they were able to manipulate the market and kill off competitors. Like starting a small car manufacturer if GM, Ford, and Chrysler were all rolled into one company and there weren’t any antitrust laws. Just not possible, like the Tucker car company found out fifty or sixty years ago.”

  Carlton demolished the remainder of his burger, worked on the greasy french fries.

  Tension, Erika guessed, as she sipped her Chardonnay.

  “But that’s just one side of their operation. Until the twenties, really, there wasn’t much demand for diamonds. They were pretty stones, but compared to emeralds and rubies and sapphires, people considered diamonds pretty dull. Waterboer had to increase demand, and they used every gimmick in the book to push diamonds. In reality, they wrote the book.”

  “For instance?”

  “All the strategies still used today in one form or another. They gave free diamonds to Hollywood producers to display prominently in films. They paid screenwriters to write scripts that gave diamonds an aura of ultimate elegance, of romance, of desirability. They gave diamonds to the wealthy and famous so the society pages would be filled with pictures of America’s elite wearing diamonds. They launched a huge advertising campaign to brainwash people into believing it was necessary to buy a diamond at each important marker in a relationship: engagement, wedding, anniversary.”

  “Diamonds Are Beauty?”

  “Right. They made people believe a man had to give a woman a diamond engagement ring if he really loved her.” She held up her left hand. “Can you imagine what would happen if you gave your fiancée an engagement ring without a diamond?”

  “Fiancée?” He smiled. “I don’t even have a girlfriend.”

  Erika grinned. “Well, it’s pretty much just assumed. Ask yourself why. Why would you automatically buy a diamond engagement ring? Why not a ruby, red like the color of love?”

  “I never really thought about it. Tradition, I guess.”

  “Right, that’s the feel of it. But that tradition didn’t exist a hundred years ago. Before that, men readily purchased an emerald, sapphire, or ruby ring. Those stones are far more rare. Just as beautiful, more beautiful, even. Men automatically buy diamonds, don’t even look at other stones. Women expect and demand diamonds, even if they esthetically prefer sapphires, rubies, or emeralds, because the world tells them that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Also because they couldn’t make their girlfriends jealous by sporting an emerald engagement ring or really believe their fiancé loves them if he doesn’t buy a diamond, even though the sapphire may be more expensive. Waterboer’s ad campaign in action.”

  Erika sipped her water. “But Waterboer didn’t stop there. It financed gem museums all over the world, donated fancy diamonds to display, emphasized how rare a diamond is, how durable, what a great investment diamonds are. They gave diamonds to royal families all over the world knowing they would be imitated. And it worked. People who would otherwise never have thought of buying a diamond now spend two months’ salary to purchase a rock of pure carbon. The two months’-salary rule is also a Waterboer contrivance, by the way.”

  “What are you saying, then? That diamonds aren’t rare?”

  “I thought so, but apparently they’re not. They’re carbon. Pressed carbon. So many diamonds are mined that Waterboer can barely buy and store them fast enough to prevent a flood on the market, and more mines are coming on line all the time. Just recently in Canada. Waterboer keeps billions of carats in storage to make them rare, because rare means expensive. Supply and demand. That’s why they can charge so much more than diamonds are really worth.

  “Waterboer has eliminated competition by preventing a resale market. You can buy diamonds, but you can’t sell them back. Unless they’re so out of the ordinary they really are rare, like the ones sold at auction for millions.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “You can’t sell diamonds back to jewelers. Not for the price you paid, anyway. Only about 160 people are allowed to buy rough diamonds directly from Waterboer. Waterboer holds a dozen sales to these people in London every year—in London to avoid U.S. antitrust laws. Most of these people are cutters who sell to retail establishments. Some are brokers who sell to cutters who can’t buy direct. Waterboer also sells precut diamonds. Everyone else has to buy from these people. Try to sell a diamond back to a big jewelry house for its purchase price. They’ll laugh. Politely, of course. But they’ll laugh.”

  “A car dealer would do the same.”

  “But a car really does become used. Its lifespan is limited. Parts wear down. Models change. Safety, emissions, and gas mileage improve. Diamonds are stones. They stay the same as the day you buy them.”

  “But that’s capitalism and advertising. I mean, you could say the same thing about dishwashing liquid, too.”

  Erika leaned forward, pushed her plate still farther away. “But unless you eat off of paper plates, you really do need Palmolive. Plus, the company may soften peoples’ hands, but it doesn’t enslave them.” />
  He stared at her. “Enslave?”

  She nodded. “That’s where this Waterboer thing really gets ugly. From what I found out, when diamond mining really boomed in South Africa, Waterboer needed unskilled labor to work in the mines, thousands of feet down. South Africa didn’t have much unskilled labor. Whites would demand high wages, so Waterboer targeted the blacks. Most blacks were subsistence farmers on family farms who had no incentive to work in the mines. Waterboer forced the government to pass prohibitive taxes on black farmers to get them off the farms. They knew that black farmers did business through a barter economy and didn’t have any cash. They were forced to find work to get the cash. But who would employ unskilled black farmers? Guess what? Waterboer was hiring.”

  “They left their wives and children behind, and when they got to the mines, they were stuck in concrete barracks with other miners for up to a year at a time. In filthy conditions. Slop for food. Like animals.”

  “Slavery.”

  “Sometimes worse. The laborers weren’t allowed to leave the compounds for the duration of their mining contract. They couldn’t have any contact with women. They had no civil rights. They could be publicly strip-searched and body cavity-searched at any time.”

  “The joys of apartheid.” He shook his head in disgust.

  “And all this stuff continued up to a few years before Mandela became president.”

  “I’m amazed. I had no idea.”

  Erika removed a bulging folder from her nearly new briefcase and placed it on the table. “Here you go. All my research. I didn’t have time to read all of it, so I indexed and tabbed it.”

  “That’s quite a doorstop,” he said, impressed.

  “I just printed everything out.”

  “Indexed and tabbed? Do you ever sleep?”

  “Very little.” And alone, she wanted to add, but didn’t. One step at a time, girl.

  “This is above and beyond, you know. Thanks.” He saw her blush before looking away. “I’ll go through it.”