Deadly Diamonds (28 page)

“I know it well. What about it?”

“I nosed around a little. Just a little. I don't mess around much with them RUF guys.”

“Come on, Jimbo. What?”

“I'm sorry, Bantu. After you got out of there, you know, they couldn't find them stones you had. Someone must have overheard he was your brother. Anyway, they figured he let you go with the stones.”

“And? Come on, Jimbo.”

“They strip him down to search. They couldn't find them stones. They gave him some beatin'. But they keep him alive. He don't tell ‘em nothin' ‘bout you. That's what I hear.”

“Where is he now?”

“They don't trust him. So they just use him. They got him workin' in a diamond pit like they had you all them years.”

Bantu's mind was rocking. He had received a phone call on his
cell from Declan O'Connor in Ireland before he left the Lungi Airport. He now knew that Salvatore Barone, who had purchased and taken his bag of diamonds on the promise to pay one million euros, was found dead in America. That meant that there was no chance of getting the money he had counted on to buy his father's freedom from the RUF. It was even less likely that he'd get back the diamonds.

His next thought was that it now almost ceased to matter. His only thread of contact for assurance that his father was still alive, and where he was being kept, had been his brother.

He set down the rum. He had to keep his head clear.

His first words were to Morty Bunce. “You have another shipment. When do you want me to leave?”

Morty was caught off guard. “Um, tomorrow. Today. As soon as you're ready. We'll do it the same way.”

“I'll do it. But not tomorrow. I need a few days.”

“All right. I'll set it up.”

“There's something else, Mr. Bunce. This is part of the deal. I need money now. In advance.”

Morty got a bit edgy. “Really. How much?”

“I need six hundred euros. Right now.”

Morty's mouth dropped in semimock surprise.

Jimbo jumped in. “Get off your ass and get him the money, Morty. He just make you rich. Gonna do it again in a few days. Where you find the likes of him you can trust?”

Bantu stood as if to leave. “This is not open to debate, Mr. Bunce. In a week or two it may not do me any good. Maybe even not now. But I've got to try. Yes or no?”

Morty got up with a grin. “Sweet crap in the mornin'. I see how you deal with those Irish. So that's how you make me rich. All right. But it comes out of your commission next time. Yes?”

Morty went into the next room to his safe, being careful to close the door behind him. Jimbo walked up close to Bantu and whispered. “Whachu gonna do, Bantu?”

“Not me. We. You've got to help me.”

“Me? What the hell. You gonna get me killed?”

“I hope not. You want to sit around the Beach Bar wasting away in a jug of rum? Or you want to do something heroic?”

“Between those two, a jug of rum looks good.”

“The hell it does. Besides, you'll just be backup. It'll be a piece of cake.”

“Piece of cake, eh? You gettin' to sound like them Irish now. Okay. Keep talkin'.”

Bantu whispered directly into his ear. “There could be some good stones in this for you too.”

Jimbo smiled. “If I do this, I do it for my friend. But them stones don't sound too bad either.”

Bunce came back and counted out six hundred euros on the desk. Bantu picked them up and shook hands with Bunce.

“Thank you, Mr. Bunce. I'll be back in a few days. You want a receipt?”

“Why do I need a receipt? I got eyes and ears all over this jungle. I can find you if I have to. Besides, I never use this word, but I think I trust you.”

Bantu rode with Jimbo in his Jeep to the Mammy Yoko Hotel on Lumley Beach outside the city. He was still in European clothes when he checked in. He and Jimbo found seats in a deserted section of the bar.

“So, tell me. Whachu got in mind for Jimbo's tired old body?”

“Tell me this first. Do you know which diamond pit they have my brother working?”

“Yeah. 'Bout four, five mile from that town you just barely got out of last time.”

“Can you find it?”

“I can find every ant mound in Sierra Leone.”

“Is there a road for a small truck?”

“If you got a good driver. Like me.”

“Good. Can you have a small truck at the front door here at eight tomorrow morning?”

“I guess.”

“All right. That's the easy part. I want you to arrange a meeting for me. Tonight. Not here. Alex's Bar on the beach.”

“Who you want?”

Bantu told him. Jimbo broke into a grin. “Hot flyin' monkey shit. This gonna be interestin'.”

Bantu was sitting at the bar in Alex's when he saw Jimbo walk in with a white man in a dirty white Panama suit with no shirt. Between the shaggy gray hair and the full scruffy beard, only the beady eyes gave a clue to his expression.

Jimbo led him to a far end table. Bantu got a bottle of good rum and three glasses from the bartender. He noticed that when he approached the table, the suited man got edgy. The bottle Bantu set on the table took his attention and seemed to distract some of the edginess.

Jimbo did the honors. “My friend. This here the man you was askin' to see. I'd introduce you, but you ain't neither gonna use your right names anyway. So, what the hell. Besides, we talkin' cash deal here, right?”

Bantu sat. He addressed the man directly. “Cash it is. This is what I need. And I need it in one hour. Are you ready to deal?”

The little man's eyes narrowed. He squinted as he peered into Bantu's eyes. His high-pitched voice had a nondescript, vaguely Middle Eastern accent. “What's the big hurry? I don't know you.”

Bantu leaned over. “I don't know you either. And I don't want to. We do this deal for cash to be paid tonight. Or not. Your choice. Then we part company. Forever. I want four items. You know what they are. One hundred euros each. Cash on delivery in one hour. Yes or no?”

The man's eyes shifted from Bantu to Jimbo and back. Bantu gripped his arm. “You're dealing with me. I'm the one with the cash. It's a simple proposition.”

His beady eyes narrowed. “One hundred and fifty.”

“One hundred. If you had another cash customer for more than that tonight, you wouldn't be at this table. I'll throw in another
twenty euros for four large wooden crates. I don't have playtime. You're not the only dealer in town. Again, yes or no?”

The man looked at Jimbo. “Hey, Jimbo. Your friend here. He's not too friendly, is he? Like he's got a cockroach up his ass or something. He doesn't make me comfortable.”

Jimbo just raised his arms as if to say, “He is what he is.”

Bantu's patience was being assaulted from many directions. He got the man's attention with a tap on the arm. “Listen. And don't let this affect your business decision. I detest every minute of this conversation. You deal in death and pain and misery for people who never harmed you. And you do it for money. If I seem less than affectionate, it's because I find you a lower species than that cockroach you thought I had up my ass. But that's all irrelevant. Let's not make this more than it is. Do you want to make four hundred and twenty euros in the next hour for that crap you sell or don't you? Just answer the question.”

The man's mouth was hanging slightly open when he looked back at Jimbo. Jimbo stood. He reached over and gently lifted the man out of his seat by his elbow.

“Don't waste my friend's time. You know sure's hell you gonna do it. Come on. I drive. We pick up the merchandise, and I give you the money.”

Jimbo held out his hand, and Bantu gave him a roll of bills.

When Bantu was alone, he scanned the bar for a likely prospect for one last essential ingredient. There was a table of rowdy RUF boy soldiers at one of the tables, but they were not what he was looking for. He noticed a pair of slightly older teenage RUF soldiers in uniforms that indicated that they were high-ranking officers. They were sitting alone at one section of the bar. He had his target.

It was nearly midnight. Bantu noticed that while the two were both drunk, one was more deeply into intoxication than the other. Bantu approached the bartender and whispered a message while his hand slipped a bill under a napkin on the bar. The bartender picked up the napkin and approached the two officers at the other end of
the bar. He spoke quietly to the less-intoxicated officer. The officer looked aggravated. He slipped unsteadily off the bar stool and made his way out into the street in search of his car.

Bantu moved fast. He slid in next to the officer left at the bar. He used a bit of small talk to get as much of the officer's attention as had not been drowned in alcohol. He went on the hopeful assumption that if the RUF officer had been on guard at the diamond pits, there was a good chance he had palmed a stone or two from the daily take for his personal enrichment.

Bantu held the soldier's glassy-eyed attention with an exorbitant offer for rough stones. He quietly flashed the corner of the roll of euros he had left.

The officer was drunk enough to lose caution, but not too drunk to show a glint of greed. The officer fumbled inside his shirt to take out a small pouch. Bantu put his hand over the pouch and whispered, “Not here. Outside. Come on.”

Bantu had to help the officer navigate the path across the floor to the back door and out into the darkness. When the hot humid air hit the officer, he tumbled off the small landing and rolled across the flat ground. He came to rest in a total state of alcoholic unconsciousness against a garbage bin.

The stage was set. The props and wardrobe were in place. Bantu forced a few hours of restless sleep by trying to banish from his mind every thought of how much of what mattered in his life depended on what would happen in the next twelve hours.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It was barely past dawn when Jimbo was wheeling a medium-size canvas-covered truck around the ruts and washouts of a road that was all but recaptured by jungle overgrowth. Each glance at the passenger to his right gave him the shivers.

“You know you creepin' me out, don't ya?”

The uniform of the RUF officer was ill fitting on Bantu. The build of the officer in the beach bar the previous night had been shorter, and more evident of an appetite seldom left unsatisfied than Bantu's taller, trimmer frame. On short notice, it was the best he could do. He thought if he stayed in the shadows, it might pass.

“Just keep your eyes on the road, Jimbo. When we get there—if we get there—you'll thank God for this uniform.”

It was dusk, and the shadows were long when the truck approached the guards at the perimeter of a slime pit about the size of the one to which Bantu had given nine unimaginable years of his youth.

Three human forms in RUF soldier's uniforms who had been lounging under banana trees at the perimeter of the pit snapped to their feet. Bantu estimated their age at about fifteen years, given the aging effects of drugs and atrocities.

One stood flat-footed in front of the truck. A second walked up to the passenger side beside Bantu. The third approached the driver's window. The AK-47s in their hands were all steadied on the human targets in the truck.

Jimbo tightened his grip on the wheel with his left hand and rapped Bantu's leg with his right fist. “Oh shit, oh dear. What the hell we got here?”

Bantu whispered without changing his expression or his focus
straight ahead. “Don't say a word. Keep your hands on the wheel. Don't obey their orders. I do the talking. No matter what.”

The man at the driver's side gave the window frame a sharp rap with the barrel of the rifle. “You! Get out of the truck! Now!”

“Don't move an inch. Look straight ahead.” The words hissed through Bantu's locked teeth. His whisper froze Jimbo in place.

Jimbo whispered without moving his lips. “Yeah, sure. While this bastard shoots my ass off. Do you mind if I shit my pants?”

“I'd rather you didn't. We have a long ride back.” The calm tone partly settled the panic in Jimbo's stomach. He started to say, “Can you come up with—?”

He got that far, when Bantu threw open the passenger door. It caught the boy beside him square in the midsection and knocked him back a few steps. By the time he recovered and leveled the rifle, Bantu was out of the car. He walked straight at the boy who was now gawking at the officer's insignia on his uniform.

Bantu slapped the rifle away. He grabbed the boy by the front of his shirt. He threw him sprawling in the direction of the wooden bar across the road to the pit. “Open it!”

The boy scrambled to his feet. “Open it! Now!”

The boy stared for a second without moving. Bantu turned to the other two guards. “Take him! Throw him into the pit. Let him work with the slaves till he learns to respect an officer.”