African Ice (24 page)

Sam trailed Travis from the narrow confines of the passageway into a wider, more modern street and recognized where they were—one block from their apartment. Travis quietly opened and closed the outer doors and walked through the enclosed courtyard, pausing briefly at the fountain to splash some water over his face. Sam set the lamb on the dusty cobblestones and followed suit. The water felt wonderful in the arid May heat. She let the cool liquid drip from her face onto her chest and loosened her robes so the droplets fell on her breasts. Travis seemed not to notice the slight indiscretion. They took the stairs to the second floor where Alain Porter rested on a velvet couch.

“Any word on Troy?” Travis asked, dropping the sacks of lentils, onions and noodles on the table.

“Doc Adamson called about ten minutes ago. Troy's strength is returning quicker than he thought. He said he'd be arranging for a flight back to America in about a week's time.”

“Excellent. Thanks.” Travis had limited connections in Cairo, but one had proved invaluable. Travis and Greg Adamson, a medic stationed briefly in Little Creek and now living a quiet life of retirement in Cairo, had stayed in touch over the years. Once Travis figured out that Cairo was the best route back to civilization, he called the doctor and put him on alert. They were incoming with a severe casualty.

Billy Hackett had flown the surviving trio into the Ugandan city of Masindi, where for the appropriate amounts of cash no questions were asked. They chartered a Lear, usually used for moving packages, and flew eight hundred miles nonstop into Khartoum. More money crossed palms, and they refueled without incident. Khartoum to Cairo was about the same distance but entry into Egypt was more difficult. The plane sat on the runway for almost three hours before Travis finally talked to an official who could help them bypass customs. More money, a lot more, and they were in. But by now, Troy Ramage was in rough shape after the long haul from the wilds of upper Congo.

Greg Adamson was waiting, having received Travis's call from Masindi some nine hours earlier. Adamson looked haggard from the wait, knowing a desperate situation was only being made worse with each passing hour. When the officials finally released the plane and its contents onto Egyptian soil, Adamson whisked Ramage off to his residence without saying more than two sentences to Travis.

“Here's my address. Be there in three hours.” Then Adamson and his assistant were gone. Three hours to the minute later, Travis was standing on the doctor's doorstep, at a striking home in the fashionable district of Mohandiseen, and he was taken aback by its opulence. Egyptian artifacts adorned the pedestals and tables, while more contemporary art graced the smooth white walls. An interesting mixture, but one that worked. The money to purchase the house and all its trimmings had been generously donated by the American government, Adamson informed Travis, after assuring the ex-SEAL that Ramage was out of danger.

“One very high, and I mean very high, ranking government official had a mistress. He got pissed at her one night and beat her up pretty badly. They called me in to fix her up—save her life actually—then paid me off afterward.” The young doctor waved his hands around, gesturing to the expansive house. “And this is what I bought with the money.” He escorted Travis from the main living area of the house to an interior room in the basement. Travis was impressed with what he saw. A complete operating theater with equipment some cash-strapped hospitals only dreamt of having was laid out in front of him. Off to the right was a recovery room, where Troy Ramage lay quietly on clean linens, breathing regularly.

“How bad was he?”

“Almost didn't make it. The slug through his abdomen wasn't the problem, nor was the one that ripped through the muscle in his leg. The one in his shoulder was a different story. It lodged in such a way that when I took it out, it severed an artery. If he had been anywhere but here or a hospital, he'd be gone.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Travis said. “What do we owe you?”

“I take donations, Travis. Whatever you can afford.”

He thought back to the man footing the bills: Patrick Kerrigan. The man who had unleashed Mugumba and his troops on them. Travis still had access to the funds Kerrigan had made available for the team. He wrote a number on a piece of paper and held it up for Adamson to see. The doctor grinned and nodded.

“I'll bet charities get in fistfights to land on your doorstep. In fact, for that amount, I'll take care of getting Troy back to the U.S. when he's able. That way you can concentrate on whatever it is you're up to.”

McNeil thanked the doctor and returned to their modest apartment, to wait and regroup. It was not a short wait. Three days passed, and Travis, Alain and Samantha began to adjust to the climate and the food of the Egyptian capital. With the exception of visiting the Banque Masr to secure Adamson's fee, they hadn't ventured far from the safety the villa-style apartment provided them. The Lear pilot who had flown the final leg from Khartoum into Cairo owned the apartment and used it when he deadheaded in Egypt. His flight itinerary had taken him on to Venice the day they arrived, so he'd flipped them a key in consideration of twice the rent he could ever have hoped to garner from the villa. A win-win situation that gave what was left of the team safe quarters for a few days while they tested their options. And at present their options were limited.

Kerrigan had set them up, of that they were sure. But he had failed, and in doing so had lost both Mugumba and the location of the formation. The only people still alive who knew how to access the diamonds were Samantha and Travis. And they were reasonably sure that Kerrigan knew that. Which meant he would be coming for them. Cairo was a huge city, its population base immense. But keeping under cover from someone of great wealth and resources, even in a city as densely populated as Cairo, was tricky. That Kerrigan was wealthy was a known fact, and if he was involved in shady deals to uncover hundreds of millions of dollars in precious stones, the chances were pretty good that he was well connected enough to eventually ferret them out. It was a waiting game, and the longer they stayed put, the greater the chances were that Kerrigan would find them.

“We've got to lay down a plan of action of some sort,” Travis said, pacing the main room of the apartment like a caged animal. “We can't go home, and we can't just stay here indefinitely. Either way Kerrigan is going to find us, and I'd rather have the element of surprise on our side, not his.”

“I've been monitoring the business section of the
NewYork Times
via the Internet in case Gem-Star makes an announcement of a major find in Africa. Nothing so far. If he's managed to figure out where the diamonds are, that will take some of the pressure off us. If not . . .” Samantha let the sentence trail off.

“Let him come,” Alain Porter said sharply. “It's not like we're helpless here.” He walked over to the far wall and yanked open a crate. He lifted a Vector MINI from inside and held it up. “We managed to get two of these and a CR21 Assault rifle onto the chopper. And Travis had the Sako sniper rifle with him as well. We can take care of ourselves.”

“We're short on ammunition, Alain,” Travis reminded him. “We've only got the clips that were in the guns, plus what we had strapped to our belts. And that's not much. Two hundred rounds, tops.”

Alain looked thoughtful. “That's not enough. A firefight lasting less than two minutes will chew that up. We need to find more bullets.”

Travis nodded, then turned to Samantha. “You brought some diamonds out with you. Can I see them?”

“Sure,” she said, disappearing into her bedroom for a moment, then returning with the small suede bag. She carefully shook the contents onto the coffee table. “There are forty-seven in all,” she said, anticipating the next question. “Thirty-two stones, nine shapes, two cleavages and four macles.” Travis looked bewildered. “They're all diamonds, right?” She nodded. “Then they're all stones, aren't they? That's what they call diamonds—stones. Like that movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.”

“
Romancing the Stone?
”

“Yeah, that's it.”

“Hollywood takes liberties with things when it's convenient. And the stone in that movie wasn't a diamond. It was sapphire or topaz or something like that. Anyway, stones, shapes, cleavages and macles are names used when sorting roughs, as we refer to uncut diamonds, for size and value.” She grinned as Alain reached over and picked up the largest diamond on the table. “That's a cleavage. One of the least valuable roughs in the lot.”

“But it's the biggest,” he protested.

“Ah, the male thought pattern that size means everything. Well, in diamonds size is important, but not necessarily the crucial element in determining value. If you look at that particular diamond under magnification, which I have, you'll see that it has no crystallographic features. It's imperfectly formed, and has numerous fractures running through it. If you tried to cut this diamond, it would likely shatter. You'd be left with plenty of tiny diamonds for engagement rings, but nothing of real substance.”

“What about this one?” Travis lifted a triangular-shaped diamond from the bunch.

“That one is a macle, even more useless than a cleavage. The problem with macles is they usually have a seam running through the twinned octahedron. That one is thick enough to cut into a decentsized brilliant, but only if it doesn't split when the cutter makes his first point cut.”

“I'm getting confused,” Alain said, setting the cleavage back on the table. “What's a brilliant?”

“It's a method of cutting the rough to produce a finished stone. There are lots of ways to cut a diamond. Venetians have been cutting diamonds since the early 1300s. Most of the cutting and polishing is done in Antwerp now. They've been at it since sometime in the fifteenth century.” She picked up an average-looking rough from the pile and held it up for Travis and Alain to see.

“Now this stone has value, great value. A talented cutter could probably fashion a brilliant square cut, or Barion cut as we geologists refer to it, from this rough. It will have twenty-five facets on the crown,” she pointed at the top of the rock, “and an additional twenty-nine on the pavilion. The cutter will lose very little of the original weight, and the fire will be absolutely stunning. This, gentlemen, is a milliondollar diamond.”

“A million dollars? Are you serious?” Alain asked, taking the stone from her outstretched hand.

“Minimum. And the majority of the diamonds in that pile are comparable in quality and size. You're looking at over twenty-five million dollars in diamonds, once they're cut.”

Both men sat in silence. In less than three hours, Samantha Carlson had picked up or chipped from the exposed rock face a fortune in precious stones. In less than three hours. The enormity of the find staggered the imagination. What could a fully equipped mining operation glean from the find? Five hundred million, perhaps a billion? Enough to destabilize the world diamond market? Possibly. Probably. No wonder Patrick Kerrigan was relentless in his search for the holy grail of the diamond world. The possibility for one man to dictate terms to the Diamond Trading Company was unheard of, until now. Travis sighed and shook his head in disbelief.

“Is this formation capable of affecting the world market?” he asked.

Samantha didn't answer immediately. She rose from her chair and walked softly to the window that looked over the inner courtyard. Travis's question was a tough one, and not one she took lightly. She was a geologist, not an economist, but the tightly controlled diamond trade was well known to those involved in the industry. And as she mentally presented the arguments, one important question shot to the forefront. What was Kerrigan's ultimate plan? Did he intend to flood the market with high-quality stones, driving the price into the toilet? Doubtful. Or was it simply the money he was after? Perhaps. Or did he want it all? Was his quest to control the world's most lucrative natural resource, with the possible exception of oil? A market that had resisted every parry and thrust of a hostile takeover since the inception of De Beers in 1888. It was ludicrous, but the more she dwelled on it, the more real it seemed.

Kerrigan was already a very wealthy man; Farid Virgi had confirmed that. It made sense that his quest would be more for power and control than simply for money. But that line of thought ran into a major snag. It wasn't Kerrigan who controlled the expeditions, but Gem-Star. Kerrigan drew a healthy salary and bonuses for managing the operations, but the real benefit was to the corporation. Sam thought back to the meetings in New York at Gem-Star's corporate headquarters. Kerrigan's corner office with the eclectic décor of more than fifty countries, the waterfall with the rough diamonds in the reception area where Kerrigan had met her on her first visit. Meeting Travis, and the three of them discussing the mission. Then suddenly it hit her. Maybe there wasn't a snag. Maybe it
was
Kerrigan who controlled things in New York. She turned back to Travis and Alain.

“One thing before I answer.” She leaned on the sill as she spoke. “Did you ever meet Davis Perth, Gem-Star's CEO?”

“No. He was sailing in the South Pacific, somewhere near Borneo.”

“All your dealings were directly with Kerrigan?”

Travis nodded.

“Did you ever get an expense check or plane tickets, or anything from any other Gem-Star employee?”

“No. I dealt with Kerrigan, no one else.”

Sam nodded. “Then the answer to your question is yes. I think the formation we discovered could not only affect the global market, I think it could give Kerrigan control over it.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don't think Gem-Star has any knowledge of this expedition, or the last one, for that matter. I think this is Kerrigan's baby. Neither you nor I had any contact with any Gem-Star employees, other than through the main switchboard. He even met me in the reception area the first day I came in to see him. He financed our expedition, and looked to the rewards as personal gain, not corporate. And it doesn't make sense for a successful, private corporation that's been profitable for decades to kill their contract geologists. I think it's Kerrigan, and I doubt it's the first time he's done it.” She went on to explain what Farid had discovered about Kerrigan, from teetering on the brink of financial disaster to multimillionaire within seven short years. All while on a fixed salary.