Digging Deeper: An Adventure Novel (Sam Harris Series Book 1) (4 page)

‘There is always a problem with landing in MARFO territory.  The blacked-out landing is done to avoid being shot down by a shoulder-launched missile.  The guerrillas need a visual on the plane to fix an approximate direction for the heat-seeking missile to home in on its target, so the plane has to land blind.’

     Sam was taken aback by this explanation.  She was having serious doubts about the wisdom of accepting her new job location but there was not much she could do about it at two in the morning. 

Deafened and shaken, they tottered down the steps of the plane onto the gravel and had to carry all their bags for some way across the sandy apron to migration.  The airport buildings consisted of a zinc hangar with a brick hut attached, which served as the customs post.  Drunken migration officials were carousing with local girls in its gloomy interior.  Sam staggered into the hangar with her heavy bags, her rucksack sliding down her arm, impeding her progress.

‘Papers, please.  All visas and flight permits must be shown,’ said a jaundiced looking security officer.  He fussed about, trying to find something wrong.  Eventually, the lateness of the hour defeated him, and the Gemsite workers were allowed to leave with minimum hassle.

Sam’s spirits rose as they entered the compound in Kardo. The streets were lined with huge mango trees full of swollen fruit.

‘This looks pretty civilized,’ she remarked to Jorge.

‘Yes, it’s a bit run down but it’s not bad for a mining camp.  It’s a Portuguese mining village from the 1950’s.  It’s arranged on a grid system of streets lined with these sturdy looking brick bungalows with zinc roofs.’

‘Who lives in the bungalows?’

‘Those are for senior staff like you.’  He grinned. ‘The more junior staff members live in prefabricated housing blocks contained in the same grid.  The more junior the position, the more people there are to a room.’

They dropped Jorge and Dirk off at one of the nicer looking prefabs and then Sam was taken to a house near the canteen, which would be her dwelling for the interim.  The streets were empty.  All the houses had padlocked outer fencing.  There was a padlocked outer door to get through before entering the manager’s house through the padlocked inner door, which was a clear illustration of the level of crime around the village.

‘Whose house is this?’ asked Sam

‘Pat Murphy used to live here before they fired him,’ said the driver who was fighting to get the padlocks to open.

‘Why do the padlocks had metal sleeves?  Doesn’t it make them even more difficult to open?’

‘It’s to prevent people shooting them off,’ he said. 

‘Oh, well, thank you for dropping me off.’ Great, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

However, when the door was opened, she saw what looked like a coffee table on a cheap Persian-style rug.  A stereo system blinked at her, and she immediately regretted that she had sent her music CDs by freight to Mondongo and not brought some in her luggage.  The house was spacious and looked comfortable despite being sparsely furnished.  The main bedroom was at the back of the house. She put her suitcase on top of a chest of drawers and rummaged in it for the alarm clock.  Luckily it was still near the top as she had used it in Johannesburg.  She set the alarm for six o’ clock, hung her mosquito net over her bed on a pair of crossed wire hangers that she found in the wardrobe, slipped underneath and went to sleep.

Crawling out of bed a few hours later, Sam discovered that there were no towels anywhere in the house.  She had a shower anyway and dried herself with a T-shirt.  She dressed and then sat on the sofa in the front room, waiting to be picked up by Jim Hennessy, the general manager of Kardo, who was to be her mentor for the next month or two.  The journey to Kardo had taken it out of her and she tried to snatch a nap while she waited.  It was hard to relax, though, as she kept waking up and wondering whether they had forgotten about her.  

Eventually Jim arrived in his jeep and beeped the horn.  Sam tried to hurry out but opening the padlock in its protective sleeve was time-consuming.  Leaving in a hurry was going to be a problem but it would be as hard for any assailant to get in too.  She felt flustered when she got to the car but tried to appear relaxed.

Jim leaned out of the window and shook her hand.  He was a small, neat man with a bristling moustache and looked like he might have a quick Irish temper.  Sam took to him immediately.

‘So, you got here in one piece then?’ said Jim.  ‘How did you like the landing?  Not what you’re used to, I suppose?’

‘I missed the inflight safety briefing and then I spilled my gin and tonic on landing.  But I’ll get over it.’

Jim laughed.  He took her over to the management office at the other side of the compound.  It was set on a ridge with a view over the valley of the Chimbo River on a road with other houses and offices.  The offices were basic with cement floors and cheap desks and chairs.  Sam could only see one computer in an office to the right of the main room.

‘Whose office is that?’ she asked

‘It belongs to the site geologist, Fred.  He’s always off somewhere when you don’t want him to be,’ said Jim. ‘I don’t think he works more than a couple of hours a week but he always has some excuse for why he isn’t available when I need him.  He’s responsible for controlling the material that gets mined on site and for collating the information about the diamonds recovered from the mining operations.  The only time you’re likely to come across him is in the canteen.  He never misses a meal.’

‘I don’t see any other computers in the office,’ said Sam. ‘Do you have internet?’

‘Ha! Black won’t let us have internet.  It’s too expensive.’

‘So how do we communicate with our families?’

‘You have to book time on the satellite phone if you want to make a call.  You get thirty minutes a week on a line that cuts off every two minutes.’

‘Is there any television?’

‘Yes, there’s one which gets the sport channels on satellite television.  Apart from that the only news of the outside world comes from the Mondongo office or on the BBC World Service radio station.’

A couple of the senior staff members were already in the office.  Jim wandered off without introducing her and left her standing in the middle of the room. To make it worse, neither of these men left their desks to introduce themselves to her.  Sam made an awkward circuit of the desks shaking reluctant hands and trying to catch mumbled names and downcast eyes.

‘Hi, I’m Sam Harris.’

‘Bob Norton, Engineering.’

‘Sam Harris.’

‘Brian Lynch, Security.’

She got the distinct impression that they were not happy to see her.  The only person unaffected by this reluctance was Jorge.  He arrived at the office shortly after her and shook her hand effusively, chatting in Portuguese and beaming at her.  He was not a handsome man but he was attractive in a healthy, swarthy way.   Sam was struck by the way he accepted her at face value.

Sam noticed the sullen looks that their conversation caused.  She asked Jorge in his own language, ‘Am I the only one in management that speaks Portuguese?’

‘Yes, no one else can be bothered.  Some of them have worked here over ten years.’

‘I see. ‘Well, I'm happy to practice with you as I'm not very fluent.  We can speak Portuguese whenever you like, if you don’t mind my mistakes.’

Jim reappeared at Sam’s elbow. ‘Let’s go then.’

‘See you later,’ said Sam to an office of unsmiling blank faces.  She had the feeling that they were waiting for her to step out so they could discuss her.

***

No sooner had Sam, Jorge and Jim set off for the diamond fields than work in the office stopped completely.

‘Well, there you go, Bob, there’s the new spy.  Black must think that we're complete tossers.’

‘I couldn’t believe it when Pat Murphy called me and said that Black had hired a woman.   Do you think she’s for his own personal use?’

‘Don’t be an arsehole all your life.  Black doesn’t like fat women.  He prefers them more like boys – Filipino style.’

‘I wouldn’t say that she was fat.  She didn’t seem too bad. Maybe it’s not true about her spying for Black.  Murphy isn’t the most reliable source, you know.  He’s bound to be paranoid with all the booze he puts away.’

‘Of course it’s fucking true, you moron.  Don’t get all pussy whipped on me at this early stage.  Didn’t you see her showing off and speaking Portuguese to Jorge?  She was supposed to work in Mondongo.  Instead she’s here to spy on us all and report back to Black.  It’s up to us to force her out.  She won’t last a month by the time we’ve finished with her.’

***

The first stop on their drive around the concession area was the small headquarters of Grey’s security force, where Sam was to be given a safety briefing by Potty, the aptly named head of the regional security unit.

‘Grey’s is the security company that patrols the licence area and keeps the MARFO rebels away,’ said Jim.  ‘It's a Mondongo-based joint venture company run by General Fuego, a famous Tamazian soldier.’

Jorge interjected, ‘General Fuego is a hero of the Tamazian revolution and independence from Portugal.  He played football with Eusebio at Benfica Football Club in Lisbon as a young man.  He ran away to Cuba to join Che Guevara and Castro when he got a tip that he was about to be arrested for involvement in conspiracies to separate Tamazia from Portugal.  He fought in the Cuban revolution with them.  After Tamazian independence he came back to Tamazia and was nominated as the head of armed forces and the lead negotiator on the peace agreement with MARFO.  He's Tamazia’s US ambassador and has a house in Washington.

‘He set up Grey’s to profit from the precarious security situation in the diamond mining areas.  He hired several South African mercenaries, who work at Kardo. They are ex-South African army and fought alongside MARFO in the early days but now they were fighting against them.’

No wonder MARFO thought that the West had betrayed them.   Sam inspected the mercenaries as they went about their business in Grey’s compound. Most of them were very large, handsome South African men with broken noses, brutal eyes and shark smiles. 

Potty said, ‘Our job is to patrol the area and prevent incidents with garimpeiros, the illegal diamond miners, and MARFO.  We used to shoot garimpeiros. If they aren't stopped, they tunnel under the gravel at great danger to themselves to steal diamonds from the concession.  The government decided that we should stop killing them unless we had to, even though it’s quite legal to do so if they were stealing diamonds.’

Sam found Potty’s detachment chilling.

He continued, ‘Your job is to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.  Have you prepared an emergency rucksack yet?’

‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t.  I didn’t realise that I’d need one.’

‘You must do it tonight.  Everyone must have a rucksack with emergency supplies of water, malaria tablets, a mosquito net and repellent.  You can add other things if you like.  I put chocolate in mine.’

‘Okay, I’ll do the same.  And some tins of tuna.’

‘If there is an attack, Frik here will find you and take you to safety.  You must always have your emergency rucksack ready.  You won’t have time to pack if something happens.’

Frik was a fat, bald fellow with strands of yellow hair combed across the top of his head and a belly on which she could have balanced a couple of pints of beer.  He was like a frog among princes.

Just my luck to get the runt of the litter.  Could this man run at all?  Surely he'd be impeded by his stomach?  If he can’t keep up, I’m not waiting for him. 

She smiled and said, ‘Excellent. I’ll be ready if he comes for me.’

Frik beamed.  Potty nodded and went back to work.

After the visit to Grey's, Sam, Jorge and Jim drove though the village of Kardo, which was built along the road into the compound.  The tattered mud huts with roofs made of palm leaves followed the local road until they petered out into the red dust.

‘Does the company provide electricity or water to the village?’ she asked Jim.

‘The generators can’t cope with the demand.   They already conk out all the time as you’ll see.  There’s no way we can also generate electricity for the village.  Anyway, they don’t have any wiring.’

‘And where do they get their water?’

‘Normally the women bring water up from the Chimbo River for cooking.  However, there’s a large water pipe running through the village to our compound.  About twice a month, someone breaks the pipe so that they have water in the village without having to trek down to the river.  The compound has to do two days without water whilst it is fixed.  It’s a complete pain.’

‘Why don’t we just put in a standpipe off the main water line for the village to use?  I don’t think it would be difficult.’

‘Black won’t let me do it.  He says that we’re not a charity.’

‘I guess not.’

‘Well, that was Kardo,’ said Jim. ‘Thirty thousand garimpeiros, who sneak onto mining areas and mine out the high-grade areas.’

‘Isn’t that illegal?’ she asked.

‘Is the Pope a Catholic?   One hundred garimpeiros recently stole a big patch of pre-stripped high-grade gravel at night from the rich terrace Gemsite had been exploiting.  Black almost had a coronary.’

‘How did they know where to dig?’

‘The local diamond pickers you’ll see in the sorting house are a direct source of information for the garimpeiros.  When there are a lot of diamonds coming out, the pickers tell the garimpeiros about the rich gravel.  The garimpeiros bribe the truck drivers to tell them from which separation plant they collected the diamond concentrate.  It's not rocket science to work out which of the terraces being exploited near the separation plant with the best concentrate.  It’s impossible to police.  We just have to get the material before they do.’

‘And why don’t the night shift guards stop them?’

‘Everyone around here has an AK47 and knows how to use it.  Guards take their share of the booty rather than a bullet.’

They descended from the village of Kardo down into the valley of the Rio Chimbo.

‘Are there any animals in the river?’ Sam asked Jim.

‘Of course.  We don’t use any chemicals in the process so the river is clean.  It is full of hippopotami, crocodiles and tiger fish.  Nobody can swim there.  It is too dangerous. The diamonds are buried in the river terraces, which are eroded from Kimberlite rocks over millennia.  The terraces are easy to mine using excavators and trucks, and their bases can be very rich in diamonds.'  

There was fresh material and footprints around some of the garimpeiro pits in the terraces where they were walking, indicating that they were close, if not watching, to Sam, Jim and Jorge.  This was not a very comforting thought.  Standing exposed on a mound of gravel in bright sunlight, Sam wondered just how easy a target she was for a disgruntled garimpeiro. 

Jim gave Sam a tour of the various work sites in the Kardo mining concession starting with a quick summary of each location and its place in the operation, and Jorge added asides in English and Portuguese.

‘Only vehicles and people who work on the Gemsite projects can use the roads within the concession boundaries,’ said Jim.

‘But I've seen several women carrying large baskets on their heads,’ said Sam.

‘The women of Kardo are an exception to the rule.  Black has tried to prevent them from going to the river, on the pretext that they were stealing the diamonds, but this is ludicrous, because they have to get water, so we let the women in and out every day without a fuss. They plant cassava tubers, which are the staple diet of their families, all over the concession area.  They come at dawn, carrying their laundry on their heads in big metal basins.  At the end of the day, they walk out again with the shared basins filled with clean laundry, firewood, water and cassava.  They can carry the most extraordinary weights balanced on their heads, but the hard work ages them.  Those tiny old ladies who you'll see tottering in last to Kardo in the evenings are only about fifty.'

It was a hot day.  Sam struggled to adjust to the punishing heat.  She was puce and sweaty and strands of her hair were sticking to her cheeks.  All the local unpaved roads were covered in a thick layer of fine red dust.  In some places, the car lost all power as it ploughed through the dips in the road filled with this red flour.  There was no air conditioning in the battered jeep, so they drove with the windows down. Very soon, they were all covered in the red dust.  Jim’s car had a severe mechanical problem of some sort and slid from side to side as it shot down the shimmering roads at speeds reminiscent of a rally.