African Ice (14 page)

“Makes sense. De Beers is the big boy on the block.”

“Huge. They control the market. They have since 1888, when Cecil Rhodes consolidated a bunch of smaller companies to form De Beers Consolidated Mines.”

“Who's Cecil Rhodes? I thought it was the Oppenheimer clan that controlled De Beers.”

“Ahh, very good, Mr. McNeil,” Samantha said, raising an eyebrow. “He kills crocodiles and understands the intricacies of the diamond cartels as well. Impressive. The Oppen-heimers have headed De Beers since 1929, when Ernest Oppenheimer was appointed chairman. He lasted until 1957, and then his son Harry took over. They were the brains behind controlling production and keeping global sales channeled through the Diamond Producers' Association. It was brilliant marketing. Hell, it still is.”

“Okay, Doc, enough history. We're not following any rivers back to their sources, are we?”

“We don't have to. According to Kerrigan, the last expedition narrowed the area where the pipe is located to the seventy square miles we're having Billy Hackett recon. And look at this,” she said, unrolling one of the numerous topographical maps that seemed to accompany her everywhere. She stabbed the atlas with her finger. “This region to the northeast is the most promising, with nine of the seventeen targets in this four-square-mile block. And you'll notice that there is no river originating farther up the mountains and flowing down through this area. So that would explain why no alluvial diamonds have been found below the pipe. There's no water to wash them out of their formation and push them down onto the flats.”

“So the diamonds have remained undiscovered over the centuries because there've never been any clues to their existence,” Travis said, and she nodded. “They must be well hidden.”

“Nature is a master of disguise. You've probably walked on or over more money in rare stones or oil and gas in your life than you could ever imagine. What appears to be a simple hill to the average person is an anomaly of some sort to a geologist. We always question why it's there.” A beep interrupted her, and Sam turned quickly to the bank of equipment behind her. She slipped on a set of earphones and flipped a switch. “Go ahead, Billy.”

Travis could barely hear the helicopter pilot's voice over the static. “Hi, Sam. I'm set up to start transmitting if you're ready.” She okayed the download, saying all was ready at the base camp. “I'm sending in blue-six.”

“Roger,” she answered, then turned to Travis. “Billy and I divided the seventeen targets into three areas, and then numbered and color-coded them so I know which one he's filming. He's sending me the images live now, not prerecorded.” She watched the monitor as it came to life, filling the screen with the lush green of the rain-forest canopy. Hackett kept the progress of his machine slower now, as the grid was much smaller. After about thirty seconds, the camera swung up for a moment, showing only sky as Hackett turned the chopper around. Then he was back on the grid again, moving parallel to the first swath, one hundred feet to the west. Sam watched the feed intently.

“Shit,” she said, reaching for the transmit button on the Panther unit. “Billy, drop the grid; this one's being fed by a spring.” Acknowledgement came across the unit a moment later and the pilot headed for the next set of coordinates. She replayed for Travis the portion of the second pass the chopper had made. “Watch the left side of the screen. Right here. You can see a spring bubbling up through this gap in the canopy. The spring water is mineral-rich and that would cause the difference in the color of the canopy. That one is off the list.”

“That's not so bad,” he said. “It's better to eliminate them from base camp than to hike through the jungle for nothing.”

Sam agreed. “What are Mugumba's guys up to?”

“I talked to Billy before he went up this morning. He's got a handful of village kids watching the soldiers and reporting back to him. They've accounted for eighteen of his men as of this morning. They're just lying about town, taking it easy. Mugumba is checked into the best suite in the hotel and spends most of his time there.”

She did some quick math. “When we were in Rutshunt, you said his force numbered twenty-three including him. Then he lost one man when the truck went over the cliff. That leaves twenty-one soldiers, and you said the village kids know the whereabouts of eighteen. Where are the other three?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? I'm not too worried about three guys. I'll get worried when the lot of them leave Butembo en masse.”

They both looked back to the communications station as Hackett's voice came over the Panther. He was in position to start the grid for the next location. Sam watched as the real-time video began to play. She was engrossed in the footage and didn't notice Travis leave. Ten minutes later, she radioed Hackett that she had successfully received the information and he could head to the next location. She logged the time and location into her notebook, flipped the CD from the write drive and labeled it. This was the part of mining exploration she hated—the tedious, methodical grunt work that laid the foundation for the real prospecting.

It was pointless to head into thousands of square miles of dense jungle and hope to find a target that could be as small as fifty feet across. Sheer lunacy. Sam knew this all too well, and although she hated the dull nature of the work, she realized its importance. The glory that came from announcing a major geological find was always backed by countless hours bent over maps, core samples and essayer's reports. Proper groundwork paid off, and she suspected that if they could locate this play, it would pay off big.

She turned her attention to the Panther as Hackett checked in again. She radioed back for him to begin the new grid, then cross-checked the location against her list of seventeen possible targets. They were making progress. Two hours later, Travis showed up again to see how things were going. The live feed from Hackett's helicopter was beginning again. The earphones crackled and Samantha slipped them on, giving Hackett the okay to start his transmission. Travis waited until the feed was downloaded before he spoke.

“Are you getting anything concrete from this?” he asked, indicating the bank of electronic equipment sitting in stark contrast to the primitive jungle surrounding them.

“It's going well. I've managed to eliminate almost every target in the south; they're all fed by springs. The ground must be quite porous to the south and the west. I think our formation is going to lie up in this area.” She traced her hand across the crest of the Ruwenzori Mountains, letting her finger rest on the leeward side of the range. She looked thoughtful for a moment. “It's up there somewhere, Travis. I feel it.”

“You'll find it,” he said confidently. “And when you do, I think things will get very interesting very quickly.”

Fifteen of the possible seventeen locations were out of the running. Over the past twelve days, Samantha had led the expedition deeper into the primordial jungle, and ever closer to the base of the Ruwenzori. They had covered the shortest possible route as they crisscrossed the western flank, eliminating zones as they moved. One porter had fallen prey to a forest cobra, the bite from the slim brown and black snake fatal within seconds as it shut down the man's nervous system. The antidote, administered within thirty seconds of the puncture, was too late. A somber grouping had lit the funeral pyre and danced the Ezengi for the dispatched soul. The man's Zengi, or spirit, was released by the dance of the dead, and they departed quickly after the service so his soul would be left in peace. It was on the thirteenth day they ran into the pygmies.

Samantha was huddled over the Panther unit as Hackett zeroed in on the final two formations, when a pygmy scouting party broached the perimeter of the camp. Their faces were painted, the bright colors contrasting sharply against the black of their skin. The advance party totaled six men, serious-looking and heavily armed. They carried crossbows and blowguns, both loaded with projectiles tipped in deadly poison. Hal met them face to face as they reached the center of the encampment.

He exchanged words and gestures with the leader of the pygmies, their voices rising on occasion, their hands aping the verbal confrontation. At a seemingly crucial point, Hal acceded to the pygmy negotiator by kneeling and inclining his head slightly to the man. He returned to his feet, spoke a few more words, and then turned to Sam and McNeil, who had gathered, along with the entire crew, to watch the show.

“They are the scouts for a war party,” Hal informed them. “These guys are not to be trifled with. They're Zande, from the Haut-Uele region—very independent and quite savage when provoked. And someone has recently provoked them. A neighboring tribe attacked their village when they were out hunting and stole three of their women. When they find the people responsible, they will kill them and take their Zengi. The last thing we want to do is get in their way.”

“Okay,” McNeil said. “Why did you kneel in front of him?”

“He was getting very upset with us being so close to their village. He was beginning to talk of attacking us. It seemed the logical thing to submit. I'm sure you don't want to fight these guys.”

“No, of course not,” McNeil agreed. “Did he give you any idea of how large their war party is?” Hal shook his head. “Alain, when Hal gets rid of these guys, set up a tighter perimeter. Keep the main body from advancing any closer than three hundred yards. Break out the Remingtons, one per man. Leave the assault rifles packed. It looks like Hal can probably handle this diplomatically, but I just want to be prepared. Keep in mind that they're not after us; it's some other tribe that's got them pissed off.”

“We're vulnerable here,” Dan Nelson said, his forearm resting comfortably on his pistol stock. “I've scouted outside our perimeter and there's a grove that backs onto a sheer rock wall about six hundred yards east. We could make it in three or four hours.”

McNeil eyed him. “Three or four hours to go six hundred yards, Dan. What are we going to do, crawl?”

“There's a slight obstacle in the way,” he answered.

An hour later, the team leaders stood on the edge of “Dan's Precipice,” as they had decided to call it. Plunging hundreds of feet straight down, the bottom of the gorge was invisible to the naked eye. The distant sounds of rushing water indicated a stream coursed through the narrow gap. The jagged gash in the earth was only thirty yards across, but it may as well have been a thousand miles. The crevice was impassable.

“Well, this is fucking great,” Troy Ramage said, giving Dan an evil look. “Now we've got our backs to a bottomless pit. Any other equally brilliant ideas?”

“There's a bridge,” Nelson replied, pointing to the thick underbrush to the left. “About sixty yards or so. Let me see if I can find the path Hal and I hacked out yesterday when we were poking around.”

Dan Nelson found the cut marks in the dense jungle and slipped his machete from its case, slashing the residual undergrowth as he made his way toward the bridge. Travis followed immediately behind him, then Samantha, Troy and Hal. Alain remained with the porters at the chasm edge. It was slow going through the tangled mess of vines, and the humidity was intense, drops of water forming on the plant leaves. A family of mangabeys watched the procession from their position halfway up a giant phrynium. The monkeys chattered relentlessly, irritated by the disruption to their daily schedule of gathering bananas and mangos. A few minutes later they broke into a small clearing next to the rift. “The bridge,” Dan said, pointing at it triumphantly.

McNeil just stared. “That's not a bridge. That's a quick way to die.” The v-shaped bridge connected the edges of the gap, but the structure looked anything but sturdy. It was a variation on a suspension bridge, made entirely of vines. Small tree trunks recklessly lashed together formed a narrow base to walk on, and a few interwoven strands created handgrips. The vines were wrapped around nearby trees on each side, securing the entire framework from dropping into the chasm. The knots that anchored the vines appeared loose and the vines themselves frayed. Travis turned to Dan.

“How the hell can you call that thing a bridge?”

“It meets the definition of a bridge.” Dan defended his find. “It crosses the gap; therefore it's a bridge.”

“It is a pretty shitty one,” Samantha said. She looked to Hal for an alternate solution. “Are there any other ways of crossing?”

“About twelve miles south, there's a real bridge. It's wooden, with footings and a roadway. But it's a long way through the jungle. Perhaps two or three days.”

“Which direction is the pygmy village?” Travis asked. Hal pointed back, away from the chasm. “So if we cross here, we'll be putting distance between us and the war party.” Hal nodded. Travis turned to Samantha. “The final locations you've mapped out from Billy's info, are they on the other side of this thing?”

“Yes, and almost due east of here. If we head south to the more stable bridge, we'll be losing four or five days, not just two or three. And we'll risk running into the pygmies.”

He surveyed the bridge again, this time studying the structure carefully. Maybe it would work. With some modifications to strengthen it, the bridge might hold. He sent Hal and Dan back to wrap up the camp and move the men forward. Troy and Samantha stayed to help him shore up the span as best as possible. They found a good source of fresh vines close to the clearing, and cut them into useable lengths. Travis secured himself around the waist with a thin but strong vine, and inched his way onto the bridge. He began wrapping the fresh lengths of vine at the suspected weak points, entwining the new over the old. By the time Hal and Dan showed up with the camp in tow, Travis's hands were knotting up from the tedious task of reinforcing the bridge, and Troy and Samantha were dripping sweat from cutting and stripping the vines. Hal looked beat from the trek, and collapsed on the edge of the clearing with his pack still strapped to his back.