Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

Sophia spoke for them, aristocratic accent to full commanding effect. “Good afternoon. I’m Sophia Black, from the CNB news bureau in Cape Town. This is Ed Case, my cameraman, and Nina Jones, my sound engineer.” She gave the guard the documents that TD had obtained.

He checked them against a list on a clipboard and made an approving noise. “Thank you,” he said, returning the documents. Another man ran an electronic wand over their bodies, detecting innocuous items like keys and coins. The first man went through their luggage. “Can you switch this on, please?” he asked of the bulky video camera he took from one of Chase’s bags.

Chase obliged, the camera coming to life. The guard peered through the viewfinder to be sure, even opening the tape door to check inside. “Camera, battery packs, spare tapes, boom mike, sandwiches,” Chase said, pointing out each item in turn. “Hey, you mind if I get some footage of you guys? You know, for background color?”

“Yes, I do mind,” the guard told him firmly. As Chase repacked his gear, the man looked through Nina’s little backpack, finding only the binder. He flicked through the first few pages of her handwritten notes with no interest, then returned it and went on in a bored voice, “It is the policy of the Ygem diamond mine to remind all visitors that diamond theft is an extremely serious offense, which will be punished by the full force of Botswanan criminal and civil law. Thank you, you can now enter. Please wait over there for the bus.” He pointed to some covered benches beside the nearby road, where other people were already sitting.

“Cheers, mate,” Chase said, picking up his bags. “Ed Case?” he hissed to Sophia as they walked away. “Very bloody funny. Makes me sound like a nutter.”

“Just my little joke.”

“At least they got us in,” Nina said.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Chase put a hand on Sophia’s shoulder. “Good work.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

After a few minutes, a bus pulled up, and those waiting-all members of the international press corps-boarded. Chase took a seat near the back of the bus, and Sophia sat down next to him. Feeling slightly left out, Nina settled in the row behind. A few minutes later, another small group of people boarded, and the bus moved off.

Once he was sure that nobody was watching, Chase took the long tubular boom mike from his bag and pried it open to reveal that it was hollow, his disassembled Wildey pistol and its holster crammed inside. He quickly reassembled the big gun, then donned the holster, slipped the weapon into it and put his leather jacket back on to hide it.

“I thought you were trying to cut down on shooting people,” said Sophia.

“Well, it’s kind of like a diet-you know, you stick at it for a while, then…” Chase joked, before his face hardened. “And after what happened to Nina, somebody deserves to get shot.”

Nina said nothing, somewhat affronted that it had taken him this long to remember she was with him.

The bus slowed. Looking ahead, she saw they were approaching a checkpoint, a high corrugated metal fence topping a berm of bulldozed earth running off in each direction. But that wasn’t what seized her attention. “Tanks?”

“Must be here as part of the presidential guard. Bit of a show of force to let everyone know how seriously they look after their diamond mines,” Chase observed. The two tanks in mottled brown desert camouflage flanking the gate were Leopards, a relatively old German design long since superseded in the West by more modern weapons, but still formidable.

“I’m not surprised,” said Sophia. “Three-quarters of Botswana’s export earnings come from diamonds.”

Chase grunted. “Never saw the appeal myself. ‘Ooh, look, it’s so sparkly!’ Yeah, that’s well worth a month’s pay. Might as well polish up a bit of glass.”

“Right,” Nina said sarcastically. “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a glass ring.”

“I didn’t know you were bothered about stuff like that. I didn’t think you were, anyway.” Chase’s tone was cutting.

“Eddie,” Sophia warned. Chase frowned and fell silent as the bus passed through the gate, Nina fuming behind him.

Inside the fence, the bus drove along a road skirting the side of the enormous pit. Nina could barely take in its sheer size-or its utter ugliness, countless millions of tons of earth just ripped away as the massive excavators dug ever deeper. Mine workers in vivid orange safety jackets directed the bus well clear of the other traffic using the road-giant dump trucks. Calling them house-size wouldn’t be an exaggeration, Nina decided.

Almost twenty-seven feet high and barely short of fifty-three feet long, with a fully loaded weight of well over six hundred tons, the Liebherr T282B was one of the world’s largest trucks, costing over three million dollars. And the Ygem mine had more than thirty of them, a constantly moving convoy making its laborious way up the huge spiral path from the bottom of the mine to the processing plant at the top, then returning to be loaded up once more. In diamond mining, bigger was always better; the more raw earth and rock that could be moved in one go, the more diamonds could be extracted at a time-and the more money could be made.

Chase watched one of the empty juggernauts rumble past on its way back into the pit, moving surprisingly quickly for something so huge. “Bloody hell. Better than a Tonka toy any day.”

The bus passed under a huge banner bearing the Botswanan flag, the Ygem logo and the slogan “The Biggest, the Best: United in Prosperity.” Beyond was their destination, a covered stage that had been erected close to the mine’s administration buildings, faced by rows of stadium-style seats. An enormous marquee stood off to the side, waiters and waitresses in white uniforms bustling in and out between it and several catering trucks parked alongside.

Chase checked his watch. “What time’s this whole thing supposed to kick off?”

“Two o’clock,” Sophia told him.

“So we’ve got about an hour to find Dick before he gets up onstage with the president, which is when it gets kind of hard for us to have a word in private. I’m guessing he won’t be hanging about afterwards.”

“Hardly,” said Sophia. “If I remember our original itinerary, my husband wanted to get out of Botswana so quickly that he even had a helicopter laid on just to get back to the runway and the company jet as soon as the official function ends.”

“Where were you due to go next?” Chase asked. “I mean, if we miss him here we’re probably buggered, but we might get a second shot.”

“Switzerland. But he may have changed his plans since I left.”

The bus stopped beside the marquee’s main entrance. Chase picked up the bags. Leaving the vehicle, they were directed into the huge tent. Its walls were lined with large poster displays showing off the mine’s technological prowess; the giant trucks, the even bigger excavators that filled them, the security systems monitoring and protecting the precious stones, even an airship used to survey the Okavango for more diamond veins. Around two hundred people were already inside, buffet tables set out and staff serving drinks. There was also a clear social division: two-thirds of the interior was occupied by the attending media and the apparently less influential attendees, with a smaller roped-off VIP area at the far end.

“Uh-oh,” Chase said quietly as they moved through the throng, lowering his head and gesturing for Sophia to do the same. “You see who I see?”

“I do,” she replied. Nina looked down the tent and spotted Yuen through the crowd, standing laughing with a small group of men in the VIP section.