Brotherhood and Others (15 page)

Monarch used the outhouse, and then went to the basin. As he washed, he heard Lieutenant Zed and Gahji talking in a language he did not recognize. His mind coursed through what little was known about the founder and self-proclaimed lieutenant of the Congolese Liberation Army.

Lieutenant Zed's real name remained a mystery. But the piebald man was somewhere in his late teens when he first surfaced in the late 1990s, calling himself “Private Zed” and “William Zed.” A self-proclaimed orphan of the genocides that wracked Central Africa, Zed fought with several different rebel factions during the first and second Congo Wars.

But he refused to lay down his arms along with other rebels as part of the general ceasefire in 2003, and fled into the jungle. About a year later, Zed promoted himself to lieutenant, and began recruiting orphan boys to his cause. The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo did not take Zed seriously until he emerged from the jungle in late 2004 with raw diamonds that he used to buy weapons for his burgeoning army.

Even though efforts were under way by that time to curb the African arms trade through bans on so-called blood or conflict diamonds, the stones that Zed brought were of such high quality that weapons dealers willingly traded with him.

Over the next twenty-eight months, Zed regularly exchanged small lots of diamonds for supplies, weapons, food, and ammunition. These diamonds came to the attention of Monarch's superiors at the CIA because they were some of the most perfect ever seen, almost flaw—

“Are you done?” Bergenheim called, shaking Monarch from his thoughts.

“A moment,” Monarch said, wiping his face and hands with the towel.

He came around the bamboo screen. The Belgian, obviously in some kind of gastric distress, jumped by him, and disappeared toward the outhouse. As Monarch walked back toward the veranda, he looked to his right, back toward the shanty bivouac where the boy soldiers lived.

He stood there a moment, watching the boys, wondering if the rumors
were
true. CIA informants in the region had reported brutality on Lieutenant Zed's part. Although many boys were joining his army voluntarily, there were allegations that others had been kidnapped into service. Boys who tried to leave were reportedly enslaved in a secret mine. Those who tried to escape ended up disappearing.

Were they in the crocodile pit?

Monarch walked back to the veranda feeling sour, thinking that eventually all gangs or boys' armies, or whatever you wanted to call them, evolved toward violence and tyranny.

He glanced down at his forearm. Didn't his tattoo prove the point?

*   *   *

In Monarch's mind, he saw Julio the way he was a few weeks after he and Claudio had lied about the number of gold coins they'd stolen from a wealthy attorney. It was late afternoon, the dead of winter, and the leader of La Fraternidad was lying on his belly on a Buenos Aires rooftop, watching the comings and goings at a jewelry manufacturing company across the street. Robin lay to his left, Claudio to his right.

Claudio had been scouting the jewelry factory as a possible target for several months, and had told Julio about it the day before over Robin's objections.

For the past year, he and Claudio had been working as a team of two, with rare appearances by Julio or another member of the Brotherhood. But once he heard about the target, Julio had insisted on being part of the planning, which had made Robin uneasy. He and Claudio had done three jobs since the gold coin burglary, and each time they'd withheld a significant part of the take.

Was Julio suspicious? If he was, he was a good actor. But Robin could not shake the sense that the gang leader wanted in on this job to make sure he got the lion's share.

“I count twelve people who work inside,” Julio said.

“I told you that,” Claudio said. “I know everything about this place.”

“Where's the safe?” Julio asked.

“On the rear wall, set in reinforced concrete,” Claudio replied. “All windows, all doors, are rigged for alarm.”

Julio looked at Robin, said, “How are you going to do it?”

Robin hesitated, and then told him.

When he and Claudio were done explaining what they had in mind, Julio rested his head in his palms, propped up on his elbows so he could see the loading dock and the rear door of the factory. After several long moments, he said, “It could work. I think it will work. But only if we get that cooperation.”

“We've watched him,” Claudio said. “We know his routine.”

“Okay,” Julio said. “I'm in.”

“This is a two-man job,” Robin said. “We have the best chance—”

“We have the best chance if this becomes a three-man job,” Julio said in a cold, hard voice, staring at Robin with the flat, lethal look he got when anyone challenged him. “Three men can carry more than two. Am I right?”

Robin glanced at Claudio, who said, “Sounds like a plan, brother.”

*   *   *

Fasi and several other pygmy men brought bowls of food to the table on the veranda. It all smelled delicious to Monarch, who had not eaten much since the evening before at the safe house across the border in Rwanda. But when Gahji had announced proudly that the featured dish was barbecued bush pig, Sing and Chatterjee looked mildly horrified.

Bergenheim, who did not seem well at all, grew angry. “I cannot eat swine. I wish to see the stone, give you my thoughts, and either bid or leave.”

Lieutenant Zed looked insulted, pulled off his sunglasses, said, “Soon.”

Monarch was never one to pass up a perfectly good meal even if it was barbecued bush pig. He spooned a generous portion onto a plate of rice, and dug in. After several bites, he drank from his water, and smiled at Sing and Chatterjee.

“Really good bush pig,” Monarch remarked. “You shouldn't miss it.”

Over Lieutenant Zed's shoulder he saw Fasi almost smile.

Reluctantly, the man from Hong Kong and the Indian joined Monarch, who ate ravenously before asking, “Where exactly did you find it, Lieutenant?”

Lieutenant Zed said, “I imagine all of you are interested in seeing the location?”

“Only if it is as flawless as you say it is,” Sing said.

“My sentiments exactly,” the Indian said.

Bergenheim nodded, muttered, “I don't want to stay another minute in this hellhole if it's not worth it.”

“I heard that,” Lieutenant Zed said sharply. “And you're right, this is a hellhole. My entire country is a hellhole. But you will help us change that.”

He looked at Gahji and nodded.

The boy soldier got up, and went inside the plantation house. Not long after, he returned with six armed boy soldiers. Gahji carried a finely-carved wooden box about the size of a toaster, and set it before Lieutenant Zed, who smiled, said, “And now what you have traveled so far to see.”

He lifted the lid, set it on the table beside him before removing a heavy object wrapped in black cloth. Putting it on the table, he unwrapped the bundle and turned over the last piece of fabric.

Gasps went up from the three other bidders. Monarch knew next to nothing about diamonds, but there was no doubt that this one was exceptional.

“That's not possible!” Chatterjee cried.

Sing jumped up so fast to see the gem better that he knocked over his chair. Bergenheim just sat there, transfixed by the jewel.

“What is the weight?” Sing asked.

Lieutenant Zed smiled, knowing he had a captive audience now. “We await your tests, but we've measured it at seven thousand carats.”

“Seven thousand!” Chatterjee marveled. “The Cullinan was what in rough?”

“3,106.75 carats,” Bergenheim mumbled. “532.2 carats cut

“Cut?” Sing said. “What would you cut? It's like God did the job already!”

It was true. The crystal was shaped less like a conventional gem than an eight-sided translucent sculpture of a giant's teardrop or a dinosaur's egg. The more Monarch looked at the stone the more he was mesmerized by it.

Lieutenant Zed said, “Mr. Monarch?”

“Absolutely beautiful,” Monarch said, using the camera in his knapsack to take pictures.

“More beautiful than any woman,” the rebel leader boasted. “Why do you think I sleep with it?”

They examined the stone over the course of the next hour. Sing weighed it at 7,002.2 carats. Chatterjee tested it for thermal conductivity and found it astonishingly high. Despite physical distress that had him disappearing to the outhouse three times, Bergenheim donned loupes on both eyes and pored over the natural facets from all sides while shining a high-intensity light through it and measuring it with a portable spectrometer.

“I'm finding no lattice defects, and zero impurities,” he said in disbelief.

“No boron?” Sing asked. “No nitrogen at all?”

“Zero,” Bergenheim replied. “It has the highest refractive index I've ever seen and the facet edges are as sharp as the best-cut jewels anywhere on earth. The luster is just extraordinary.”

“Mohs scale?” Chatterjee asked.

Bergenheim looked like he'd been slapped. “Are you mad? No one would dare run a sclerometer across something like this.”

Lieutenant Zed said, “So you agree that it is flawless?”

“Well,” Sing said, “the only absolutely positive way to know is to run X-rays through it.”

“Which I can do,” Monarch said, reaching for his case.

“You have an X-ray machine with you?” Bergenheim said, astonished.

“You don't?” Monarch said, unlocking the case. “This one's state of the art. But X-rays are X-rays. Lieutenant, unless you have a lead shield handy, you and your boys should probably back off in case the diamond throws the rays wild.”

Lieutenant Zed grimaced, but then barked something in that Congolese dialect at the armed boys. They all moved off the veranda and into the yard behind the plantation house. Fasi followed them, stood off to one side. The three other potential bidders did the same, but not before Bergenheim said, “What about you?”

“The case is lead lined,” Monarch replied, and then set up the laptop on the table beside the diamond with the case in front of it.

With a thin cable he attached the nozzle-like camera with the bug-eye lens to the computer. “Ready?” Monarch murmured.

“When you are,” Barnett whispered in his earbud. “And make damn sure you point that thing away from you.”

He clucked with his tongue in agreement, pushed the massive diamond over on its side, and reached around from behind the case to press the bug-eyed lens to the surface of the stone. With his other hand, he hit the return key on the laptop, which caused a split-second hum as X-rays spit out.

Monarch glanced over at the screen, seeing the diamond in black with the lattices exposed as thin white lines.

“They want three more perspectives,” Barnett said.

Monarch clucked and did as she'd asked. When he was finished, he murmured, “Good?”

“More than good,” she said. “They say it's for real. No detectable flaws whatsoever. Which means you are a go for phase two.”

“Gotta check out the mine first,” Monarch muttered as he disconnected the miniature X-ray camera from the computer.

“What did you find?” Lieutenant Zed was walking back to the veranda.

“Look for yourself,” Monarch said, turning the laptop screen to face the others who were coming back to the veranda. “It's perfect.”

*   *   *

“Nothing's perfect, Robin,” said Claudio after they'd left the rooftop across from the jewelry factory and Julio, who'd gone off in search of Inez. “We'll just have to deal with him.”

“Julio knows,” Robin said, leading them down an alleyway.

“I don't think so,” Claudio said.

“We have to assume he does,” Robin insisted. “And act as if he doesn't.”

The older boy looked pained, and nodded unhappily.

“What's the matter?” Robin asked.

“Julio,” Claudio said. “He rescued me from the
ano,
the same way I rescued you from the
ano
. And this is how I repay him?”

“I have repaid him for four years,” Robin shot back.

“What about me?” Claudio demanded.

“I can never repay
you
in full. You know that.”

“This is how I feel about Julio sometimes,” Claudio moaned, and then rubbed his head. “Why can't I just be by myself and paint?”

Robin felt bad, and said, “Maybe we will take enough from the factory to buy you the things you need to be a painter.”

Claudio's jaw loosened. “You mean like canvases? Easels? Paints. Brushes?”

“Why not? We have no idea what's really in there, do we? For all we know there could be a king's ransom.”

*   *   *

In Monarch's earbud, Barnett asked, “How are you going to steal it?”

“I haven't figured that out yet,” he muttered as he followed Lieutenant Zed, Gahji, and the three diamond experts across the canal bridge.

He set his case on the pad by the helicopter with the others, and then followed them toward a wide path that led up the hillside.

“Slattery's telling me that it's crucial to national security that we control that diamond,” Barnett said.

Jack Slattery was Monarch's new boss, an abrasive guy, but smart and well connected within the upper echelons of the agency. Monarch clucked his tongue twice to indicate he understood.

As it had been explained to Monarch, American scientists had been searching for flawless diamonds for years so that they could be used to exponentially increase the power of lasers. Opposing mirrors made of flawless diamond crystals, they theorized, would allow lasers to be developed that would use X-rays instead of light waves as their energy source.

An X-ray-based laser would allow chemists, biologists, and physicists to study all sorts of things at their subatomic level. It could also be used by doctors to pinpoint and kill cancerous cells, and by engineers to create lighter, stronger substances.