African Ice (39 page)

“Oh, you know me. Too paranoid to have a normal phone circuit. The one into the house is patched through a satellite network and is totally untraceable. It'll come up with a different number and area code each time you called. None of them remotely close to where we are.”

“I'm impressed, Basil,” Samantha said.

“How are things going with the box?” Travis asked.

“Good on the box, not so good on the synthetic diamonds. Here, come with me and I'll show you.” Basil took his tea and headed for the basement. At the bottom of the steep stairs, he pulled a string and a lone bulb flickered on, revealing a small, cramped dugout with earthen walls and floor. The air was damp and smelled musty. He crouched low to keep his head from hitting the ceiling joists while he moved to the far corner of the hole. A lone shelf, covered with paint cans and stacks of old newspapers, clung to the wall. Basil fiddled with a paint can, then pushed on the shelving unit. A section of the wall swung in and he disappeared into the darkness. A moment later, light flooded the secret doorway and he popped his head back out and waved them in. Samantha trailed Travis into the room and stared, her mouth agape.

She was surrounded by a state-of-the-art laboratory. Beakers, burners, centrifuges, isolation chambers, and a hundred pieces of equipment she had never seen before. Three long benches provided the working space for various ongoing experiments, and she noticed the metal box sitting near the end of the closest bench. She walked over and picked it up, scanning the exterior for signs it had been tampered with. She saw none. She set the box down on the counter and watched Basil as he retrieved a metal container from a small blast furnace in the distant corner.

“This is your zircon,” he said, opening the thick latches on the heavy box and taking out a piece of silver metal. The chunk was translucent, with varying shades of blue cutting through it. “Zirconian silicate, specific gravity between 4.2 and 4.86 with a hardness of 7.5. Commonly referred to as Matura diamonds, as it's the closest thing to real diamonds that occurs naturally. And,” he dropped it on the bench with a thud, “totally fucking useless.”

“What are you talking about? You said it yourself; it's the closest thing to a real diamond.”

“I can't keep it in a liquid form,” Basil said. “The melting temperature of zircon is 1852 degrees Celsius. Usually you can find some sort of solvent-catalyst to reduce the melting temperature, but not here. I tried tungsten, no luck. Then tantalum, tungsten's periodic-table neighbor with a less stable carbide. I managed to get the temperature down to 1472 degrees Celsius. That's the best I could do.”

“Holy shit,” she said quietly. “I could never touch the box, let alone carry it, at that temperature.”

“I do have another idea, one that I know will work,” he said, picking up a second container from the bench and handing it to her. “Cubic zirconia.”

Samantha shook her head. “No way. You can fool some yokel in a bar with cubic zirconia in an expensive setting, but we're talking the top diamond experts in the world. They'd laugh at the attempt, then ask for the real diamonds back.”

Basil grinned at her. “What are the major differences between real diamonds and cubic zirconia?”

“Density is the greatest. Cubic zirconia is almost double the density of a natural diamond. You can measure the density by dropping the stones in methylene iodide. The diamond will take at least twice as long to float to the bottom of the jar.”

“Not a problem. What else?”

Samantha stared at the man for a minute, trying to decide whether or not to take him seriously. Anyone related to geology or chemistry knew that cubic zirconia was the closest simulant to real diamond ever produced. Given the right circumstances, it was difficult to tell them apart. But there were a handful of clues that consistently revealed the forgery. And density was the greatest. Yet this ragtag of a man, with a chemistry lab in the basement of his London flat, was telling her that density was not a problem. Any chemist who could alter the density of cubic zirconia to mirror that of real diamond was brilliant, and destined to be very rich.

“All right, we'll skip over the density issue. How about its refractive index?”

“That is a little trickier, but I think I have it figured. Next?”

“Thermal conductivity.”

“Piece of fucking cake.”

“Thermal conductivity tests are completely reliable. You can't alter the nitrogen levels in the cubic zirconia enough to make the fake stone cool like a diamond.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you can't.”

“Yes, I fucking can.”

“No, you
fucking
can't!” She was shouting now.

Basil's face sported a huge grin and he turned to Travis. “I fucking love this woman.”

“Yeah, me too.” Travis stood up from the stool he'd been sitting on. “Basil, why don't you take a few minutes and tell Sam exactly how you're going to do all these wonderful things.”

Basil nodded. “The problem with pure zirconia is that the cubic arrangement of atoms is stabilized by either calcium oxide or yttrium oxide. That lowers the symmetry of the crystal enough to cause double refraction, high density, heat retention, and increase its reflection coefficient. Look here, Sam, and you'll see what I've done to alter the chemical makeup of the . . .”

Travis retreated to the stairs and climbed back to the main floor. He had no idea what they were talking about, nor did he care. Chemistry wasn't his strong suit. He poured another cup of tea and added a touch of milk. He lit a cigarette and sipped on the English staple. Time was ticking as they approached the day Kerrigan would present the diamonds at the Antwerp sight. It was midmorning Friday, and both Samantha and he were well rested after flying into London from Rome the previous evening, and finding a private bed and breakfast in Whitechapel. The Antwerp sight was set for next Wednesday. The rate at which Basil was moving along with the box was encouraging. Travis knew the man well enough to feel confident that he would have it ready for Sunday or Monday at the latest. But that only took care of one part of bringing Kerrigan to his knees. They desperately needed to speak with Davis Perth, to try and convince the man that the president of his company was a remorseless murderer.

There was an option that precluded Davis Perth, but he didn't like it. Contacting the FAA and the FBI and detailing exactly what they knew about the Cranston Air 111 crash was risky at best. Travis was positive Kerrigan had friends in high places, and moles in low places. Both agencies would deal with the information through the proper channels, which would mean slowly and methodically. They would demand to meet with Sam and him, and that would open them up to Kerrigan again. No, it was much better if they could convince Perth to take care of that end of things for them. He was a man of influence and that would fast-track an FBI investigation. He jerked around, startled, as Sam and Abercrombie came up from the basement. They were both smiling.

“My head hurts,” Samantha said lightly. “Is it safe to take a walk?”

“Sure.” He ground out his cigarette and followed her to the door. “You going to be here?” he asked, and Basil nodded. They left the flat, walking hand in hand up the hill toward some shops they had seen when the taxi dropped them off earlier. The day was pleasant for late spring, the sky clear with only an occasional hint of cloud. Walk-up townhouses lined both sides of the street, some well kept with new wrought-iron railings and ornate Victorian moldings, others in ratty condition with peeling paint and cracked windows. They reached the crest of the hill and began peering through the windows into the various shops. Samantha broke the silence.

“Now he,” she said, referring to Basil, “is an interesting fellow. Where and how on God's green earth did you meet him?”

“Absolute luck, nothing else,” he said. “I was in London catching a bit of R&R between SEAL assignments and I stopped in at a pub for a drink. While I was enjoying a pint of lager and lime, this guy gets in an argument with a group of skinheads. All six of them pulled knives on him. Well, it was an obvious injustice that had to be taken care of.”

“So you relieved the skinheads of their knives?”

“God no, that would be dangerous. I just happened to have a gun with me. I pulled it out and threatened to shoot them. They left.”

“And the guy you saved was Basil.”

“Yup. He'd had a few too many pints, and I helped him home. When he found out what I did for a living, he insisted I have a look at his setup in the basement, so I did. I came back the next morning to make sure he was all right. He didn't even remember showing me the room. He was freaked that I knew what he had down there. It was awkward at first, but we've developed a great friendship over the years.”

“Whom does he work for? That equipment is worth hundred of thousands of dollars, maybe over a million.”

“The British Government. Only two people in the secret service know who he is. One deposits checks into his Swiss accounts, and the other fields requests from various departments and passes them along for Basil to work on.”

“He's absolutely brilliant. In three days, he managed to figure out how to modify the chemical makeup of cubic zirconia to match that of real diamonds almost to a tee. There is one downside to his work that would make it useless on the world market, but that won't affect us.”

“What's that?”

“By altering the molecular bonding, he weakened the structure. It's far too brittle to ever withstand a sharp blow. It would just shatter.”

“That won't be a problem?”

“Not at all. The tests the experts in Antwerp will run on the fake diamonds don't involve hitting them with a hammer. They'll test for heat conductivity, density, refraction index and a few other subtle things. Basil's modified cubic zirconia should test very well.”

“I don't get it,” he said, stopping in front of a fish-and-chip store. “You want them to discover that Kerrigan brought fake diamonds to the sight, but now you're telling me that Basil has perfected this to the point where they won't be able to tell the difference. How does that destroy Kerrigan's professional reputation?”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “You've got to learn to listen, Travis. If I were to exchange the real diamonds with standard cubic zirconia, the experts would just laugh. The fakes have to be as close to authentic as possible. It has to look like Kerrigan really thought he could get away with it.”

“And what happens if the fakes actually fool all the experts? He walks.”

“Hardly.” She grinned.
“I'll
hit one of them with a hammer. By accident, of course.”

They continued until they reached a corner pub. It looked quaint and quiet and they opted for a beer, even though it wasn't quite noon. It was a victory drink, of sorts. After all, it was starting to look like they might have a shot at derailing Patrick Kerrigan.

Garret Shaw stood in the middle of Trafalgar Square, marveling at the number of pigeons that called the infamous square home. They were everywhere. From the tip of Lord Nelson's cap to the thousands of tiny alcoves in the monolithic National Gallery, they found places to nest. He looked around the open-air aviary, thinking that trying to find one particular pigeon was akin to his task of locating McNeil and Carlson in London. They had effectively vanished into the historic city without a trace. Kerrigan's moles in the NSA and CIA had picked up their flights out of Athens and Rome within minutes of customs swiping their passports through their computers. Kerrigan had passed the information along to him, but he physically couldn't catch up with his prey. They had landed at Heathrow three days ago, late Thursday evening. Since then, nothing.

He pulled his mobile phone from his vest pocket and checked the signal. The battery was charged and the phone was roaming properly, but no call from the U.S. Damn it. He needed some sort of direction if he was to find them—direction that had to come from Kerrigan. He pulled his macintosh up around his neck against the cool spring air that had descended on London late the previous evening. It was cold and he was tired. Tired of searching the haystack for two needles that were proving themselves to be very worthy foes.

The assassin dialed Kerrigan's New York number and listened to it ring. Kerrigan answered on the third ring.

“Anything new?” Shaw asked.

“About two hours ago, my CIA connection managed to pull the phone logs from their hotel room on Rhodes. Three of the calls were to Gem-Star.”

“What?” Shaw said. “Why are they calling you?”

“They're not calling me, you fool. They're looking for Davis Perth.”

“What do they want with Davis?”

“They must have figured out we're acting independently of Gem-Star. Davis would be interested in their story. We've got to find them before they can reach him.”

“When's he back?”

“When I found out they had phoned here looking for him, I called him on his satellite phone. He's docking in Nuku'alofa on the island of Tonga tonight to restock, heading for Samoa tomorrow. He's completely out of the picture for at least three weeks.”

Shaw was puzzled. “If he has a satellite phone, he's reachable.”

“I'm the only person with the number,” Kerrigan said.

“Three weeks is an eternity. They'll be fish food long before that. What else did you get from the phone logs?”

“They made four other calls, all over the globe. One each to Switzerland, Russia, Canada and Australia. My guy is getting names and addresses on each one.”

“Don't bother,” Shaw said, walking through Trafalgar. “They made four calls to different area codes, but not one to London. Then they left Rome for London and disappeared. The four calls were all to London, Patrick. Whoever they called is using a scrambler to bounce the signal off a satellite.”