Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

CHAPTER 17

It was a test.

If, like Nietzsche’s superman, Wilson was (as he believed) “beyond good and evil,” then any remnants of “conscience” he might have were artifacts – the detritus of his own evolution. Static.

If he thought about it, he could probably work out an equation for it. A formula for the moral equivalent of the signal-to-noise ratio.

The idea, of course, was to shed his conscience as if it were a snakeskin. Just walk right out of it and keep on going. If anyone came after him, they’d see it in the grass, a ribbon of scales – and they’d wonder: Was Wilson nearby? Was he hunting?

It was important to Wilson – essential, really – that he should be comfortable with the violence inside him. And so, the boy…

His eyes rolled back as Wilson approached, cigarette lighter in hand. He stood in front of the kid for what seemed like a long time, waiting for him to look up from the ground. That was a part of it – having the strength to look his victim in the eye, embracing his fear, while accepting the injustice that was about to take place.

The boy must have sensed this as well, because he kept his eyes on the ground for what seemed like a long time. When, finally, he shook himself from what seemed like a waking swoon, and looked up, Wilson met his gaze for an instant, then spun the lighter’s little wheel and lit him up.

The kid came alive in a rush, darting this way and that, engulfed in flames and trailing a veil of acrid black smoke. Militiamen leaped out of his way, laughing, as if they were playing a game of blind-man’s bluff. Every so often one of the soldiers would spin him around with a kick in the ass or a tug on the tire. But the game didn’t last long. It was over in thirty seconds. Though Wilson couldn’t be sure, it seemed to him that the boy had a heart attack. One minute he was running around, making noises, and the next…

There was a sort of clumsy pirouette that ended with the boy sinking to his knees, clawing at the tread. Then he stiffened, and that was that. Like a tree, he toppled sideways, and lay in the dirt, smoking.

By then, Wilson himself was breathing hard, as if he were the one who’d been running around. Which was funny, because he hadn’t actually done anything. Just spun a little wheel, and pressed it to the boy’s chest.

He searched his heart for what he felt and, to his surprise, found that there was nothing there. The kid was dead, that’s all.

Shit happens.

But that was yesterday, and now Wilson had his own problems.

Commander Ibrahim had arranged for a technical to take him to the Ugandan border, near Fort Portal. There, an armored car would be waiting to drive him to Kampala. From the Ugandan capital, he could catch a plane to London, and before he knew it, he’d be in Antwerp.

Wilson declined the offer. Entering Uganda from the Congo in an armored car would attract too much attention, he said. He told the militiaman that he and Hakim had discussed it in Baalbek. And they’d decided that he should go to Bunia. Hakim’s friends would arrange for a boat. He’d cross Lake Albert at night, avoiding the Customs’ police and soldiers. In Uganda, Wilson and his party would travel by motorcycle along bush roads to the main highway, and from there to Kampala. Zero and Khalid would be with him all the way, providing a measure of security.

Ibrahim was skeptical, but in the end, it wasn’t his problem. He had his guns. Wilson could do what he pleased.

“Is there a bank in Bunia?” Wilson asked.

“Of course,” Ibrahim replied.

Wilson thanked him. “I’ll need a safe-deposit box until the boat leaves.”

“No problem.”

In reality, of course, there was no boat, nor were there any “friends.” Bunia was simply Plan B, a way for Wilson to rid himself of Ibrahim while finding a buyer for the diamonds he could no longer sell in Antwerp.

Because whoever was sending messages from Bobojon’s computer was undoubtedly holding Hakim as well. If Wilson showed up at De Witte Lelie Hotel, he’d probably be “renditioned.” The moment he walked in, the CIA, FBI – whoever it was – would take him down. They’d stab him with a needle and that would be that. He’d wake up with a hood on his head, chained to a seat in Terrorist Class on his way to a prison that didn’t exist.

Thus, Plan B.

The capital of the Congo’s most dangerous province, Bunia was the African equivalent of Deadwood. A swarming dystopia, ripe with garbage, sewage, and disease, the city was a crumbling slum of three hundred thousand people – many of whom were starving, sick, and desperate. Not far from Lake Albert, it was a little piece of hell in an otherwise heavenly setting.

The diamonds Commander Ibrahim had turned over in exchange for the arms – more than three pounds of preselected “rough,” ranging in size from three to five carats – were concealed in a beautifully carved ironwood head, hollowed out for the purpose. There were 7,263 carats, and every one of them was of gemstone quality. Commander Ibrahim guaranteed it, and Wilson took the militiaman at his word. And why not? Ibrahim and Hakim were in business together, while Belov and Wilson were merely their agents. The business was as bloody as it was lucrative, and it was built on trust. If you asked either man why he trusted the other, he would talk about Allah, and the cause they shared. He would invoke the Umma of Muslim solidarity, and allude to a decade of secret operations in which the two of them had been engaged. But in the end, both men knew that their trust was held together by something even stronger than Islam. It was held together by one man’s gun and the other man’s knife, and by each man’s certain knowledge that the other could reach out and touch him, wherever he might be.

So if Ibrahim said the diamonds were good, the diamonds were good.

Even so, Wilson had done a bit of reading, and he’d learned that the diamond industry was an interesting one. Among other things, it was the quintessential cartel.

For more than a century, the price of gem-grade diamonds has been controlled by the South African DeBeers company and its partners. The firm accomplished this by creating a vertically integrated monopoly that enabled it to limit the supply of diamonds. It was able to do this because DeBeers owned all or part of nearly every diamond mine in the world. Those gems that it did not produce it bought through a subsidiary, the so-called Diamond Corporation.

In this way, the market was cornered.

Each year, some 250 “sight-Holders” were invited to London by the Central Selling Organization, or CSO. This, too, was a DeBeers creation, candidly referred to by Israeli diamond buyers as “The Syndicate.”

In London, sight-Holders were permitted to buy presorted parcels of diamonds at fixed prices, usually $42,500 each. The parcels could not be examined until after they were purchased, and so were something of a pig in a poke. If a sight-Holder didn’t like what he got, he was free to reject a parcel. But if he did that, he’d soon be out of business. No further invitations would be forthcoming from the CSO.

So the sight-Holders accepted what they’d been given, trusting DeBeers in much the same way that Wilson trusted Commander Ibrahim.

After buying their parcels, sight-Holders would resell them to wholesalers on the diamond exchanges of Antwerp, Amsterdam, New York, and Ramat Gan (Israel). Meanwhile, an artificial scarcity was maintained by the Diamond Corporation, which bought surplus diamonds wherever they might be found. These diamonds were stored by the kilo in London vaults, or left in the ground to be mined at a later date (if ever).

Conflict diamonds were the wild cards in the game. These were gems mined by the supernaturally violent rebel militias in Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Congo. Wrested from jungle riverbeds by de facto slaves earning sixty cents a day, “blood diamonds” made their way to the world’s exchanges by irregular routes, without the intervention of the Syndicate.

Because these conflict diamonds fueled wars throughout West Africa, while undermining the price of diamonds sold by the CSO, DeBeers worked to establish protocols that would ensure that “legitimate diamonds” came with a certificate of origin.

There was an ironic symmetry in this, Wilson thought. End-user certificates were forged or bought to enable the sale of arms to third parties like Commander Ibrahim, whose militia presided over a slave colony charged with mining diamonds in the jungle. Why, then, shouldn’t the diamonds require a certificate of their own, one that rinsed the blood from the stones by creating a phony paper trail all the way from Africa to the bride’s ring finger?

Though blood diamonds were no different from others, except in the violence of their provenance, they were sold at a discount to their counterparts from South Africa, Australia, and Siberia. According to Hakim, Wilson’s diamonds would fetch about four million dollars, about half of what they’d bring if DeBeers was marketing them.

The only problem, now that Hakim was hanging upside down in the hold of an aircraft carrier, was finding a buyer. With June 22 looming closer and closer, Wilson had no time to lose.

They got into Bunia a little after noon, pulling up in front of the heavily sandbagged Banque Zaïroise du Commerce Extérieur. While Zero and Khalid waited outside, Wilson went in to meet the manager.

Mr. Bizwa was an East Indian gentleman in his late forties. He sat behind an ornately carved Empire desk, beneath a portrait of the president, Joseph Kabila. Greeting Wilson with a firm handshake, he gestured to a chair and asked how he could be of help.

“I need a safe-deposit box,” Wilson told him. “For this!” He produced the ironwood head, swaddled in cloth, and set it on the desk.

“May I look?” Bizwa asked. Wilson nodded, and the bank manager unwrapped the sculpture.

“I think it’s probably pretty valuable,” Wilson said.

Bizwa frowned. “Well,” he said, “it’s certainly… very nice.”

“I bought it in Uganda,” Wilson told him. “Helluva good deal.”

There was a weak smile from Bizwa as he folded his hands, and tried to look helpful.

“I figured, since I’m in the neighborhood, I’d come over here. See what I can see.” He winked.

Bizwa looked puzzled. “You mean, diamonds?”

“Bingo!”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place.”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“But you’re not in the diamond business yourself?” Bizwa asked.

Wilson shook his head. “No, I’m a coffee buyer.”

Bizwa snorted with laughter. “You came to Bunia to buy coffee?”

“No, no,” Wilson said. “Like I said, this is just a side trip.”

“I see,” Bizwa replied, though he clearly didn’t.

Wilson glanced over his shoulder, then leaned forward. In a whispery voice, he confided, “I was hoping you could help me out. I’ll want to buy a diamond. On account of I’m getting married,” Wilson explained.

“How nice!”

“So I was thinking… three, maybe four carats, rough. They say the rough diamonds, when they’re cut, lose half their size. So that would be, what? One and a half to two carats.”

“Mmmmnnn.”

“You think it’s doable?”

Bizwa nodded. “Yes. Quite doable.”

“But illegal, n’est-ce pas?”

The banker smiled. “Well, I don’t think you’ll have any difficulties. To begin with, there aren’t any police. Just traffic people who haven’t been paid for a long time.”

“What about the UN? I saw-”

“Uruguayans, Bangladeshis… they have a pretty full plate. And then, of course, what you’re suggesting… it’s what people do here.”

“Is it? Tell me about that. What do they do?”

“They buy and sell diamonds. It’s the entire economy.”

“Ah!” Wilson pretended to think about that. Then, he said, “So you could recommend someone! A diamond salesman?”

Bizwa gave him a hapless look. “Well, of course, but… they’re everywhere. Every taxi driver has a diamond to sell, or knows someone who does. Every militiaman, every – The thing is, it can be a bit dangerous. They could take advantage of you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Wilson told him. “I could be taken to the cleaners!”

“My best advice would be to stick with the dealers who have shops. They’re Lebanese, mostly. And having a shop means they’ll be there the next day. The cabdriver might not.”

“And they’re Lebanese, you said?”

Bizwa shrugged. “Almost all of them. There’s a Chinese gentleman, but I wouldn’t recommend that you do business with him.”

“Why not?”

Bizwa looked uncomfortable. “Well, he’s more of a wholesaler, and…” Bizwa made a face.

“What?” Wilson insisted.

“He has a reputation,” Bizwa said.

“I see.”

They sat without speaking for a moment, listening to the whir and click of the ceiling fan.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find something,” Bizwa told him.

“Thanks. And one more thing… can you recommend a hotel?”

Bizwa winced. “The only real hotels are closed, I’m afraid. But I’m sure there’s room at the Château.”

“Château?”

“Lubumbashi House. It was the governor’s mansion, once, I wouldn’t call it a ‘mansion,’ really. It’s more of a bungalow. A large bungalow.”

“What happened to the governor?”

Bizwa frowned. “Passed away.”

“I’m sorry. Must have gotten sick, huh?”

Bizwa shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t say he was sick. Healthy as an ox, actually.”

Wilson nodded thoughtfully. “But this hotel… it’s safe, right? I mean, for someone like me?”

Bizwa pursed his lips. “Yes, I think so. Journalists seem to like it. Visiting NGOs, government people – there’s quite a bar scene.” He smiled. “A safe-deposit box might be a good idea.”

Lubumbashi House was a rambling bungalow whose stucco walls were filigreed by not-so-long-ago gun battles. A graceful shambles, the villa sat in ruined gardens, surrounded by an eight-foot wall whose gray surface danced with lizards. At the side of the house was an empty swimming pool with a crater in the deep end.

“What happened to the pool?” Wilson asked as he filled out a registration form for himself and his companions, paying for the first night in cash.

The manager, a tired-looking Belgian with alcohol on his breath, shrugged. “Mortar attack. Two years ago.”

“Anyone killed?”

The manager shook his head. “Not in the pool,” he said, and handed Wilson a pair of keys. “No sheets or towels, I’m afraid. Maybe tomorrow. If you’d like a complimentary drink…?” He gestured to an adjacent room.

Wilson thanked him. Zero and Khalid demurred. They wanted to see their room.

The “bar” was actually a sort of living room, with couches and easy chairs scattered across polished wood floors. Ceiling fans turned slowly overhead, driven by a generator rattling in the garden. Besides himself and the waiter, who doubled as a bartender, Wilson was alone in the room with a burly Portuguese who might have been sixty years old.

“Frank d’Anconia.”

“Da Rosa. Jair da Rosa.”

Wilson dropped into a leather club chair, and signaled the waiter. “Gin and tonic,” he said. “And whatever my friend’s drinking.”

Da Rosa smiled. “Merci.”

“And what do you do, Mr. da Rosa?” Wilson asked.

“Me? I organize. I am an organizer of outcomes.”

Wilson looked puzzled. “What sort of outcomes?”

“Military ones.”

Wilson laughed. “And how’s business?”

“Good! It’s always good in Africa, though I think, maybe not so good as last year or the year before.”

“I’m sorry.”

The mercenary made a gesture, as if to say, C’est la vie. “I have hopes. These things turn around. They always turn around.”

The waiter arrived with a tray, holding two gin and tonics. The Portuguese raised his glass in a silent toast, revealing a small tattoo between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Three blue dots that formed a triangle. “Chin-chin!”

Wilson took a sip. “So, business was better… before?”

Da Rosa’s cheeks inflated for a moment. He blew a little puff of air across the coffee table between them. “Business was great,” da Rosa replied. “There was an African World War.”

The expression was new to Wilson, and he must have shown it.

“Nine nations, twenty militias, four million dead,” da Rosa explained.

“Four million?!”

Da Rosa made a rocking motion with his right hand. “A hundred thousand, this way or that.”

“I had no idea.”

“Blacks,” he said, as if that explained everything. “And it wasn’t all at once. It took four or five years, so I think, perhaps, you missed it. But yes, four million. It was really something.”

Wilson didn’t know what to say. Sipped his drink.

“And you?” da Rosa asked. “What about you? You’re a tourist? An opera singer? What?”

Wilson chuckled. He was unsure how much to say, and decided to stick to the story he’d given at the bank. “I’m a coffee buyer.”

Da Rosa pursed his lips, and nodded. “Interesting business. Arabica or robusta?”

Wilson blinked.

Da Rosa laughed. “Diamonds, then.”

Wilson shrugged.

“Buying or selling?” da Rosa asked.

He thought about it. “I guess that depends. Are you in the market?”

Da Rosa snorted. “No! Too dangerous. But you should visit Lahoud – Elie Lahoud. He’ll give you a good price and, if you mention my name, maybe there’s something in it for me. Who knows?”

“Lahoud… he’s Lebanese?”

“They’re all Lebanese,” da Rosa assured him.

Wilson frowned. He wanted to avoid the Lebanese, some of whom might have crossed paths with Hakim and his friends. The last thing he needed was Zero and Khalid chatting with their countrymen. The less they knew, the better. In fact… “Someone said there’s a Chinaman.”

Da Rosa grimaced. “Yes, of course – Big Ping! Has a shop on the Rue de Gaulle. Wear Kevlar.”

Wilson laughed. “That bad?”

Da Rosa shook his head. Drained his drink, and rattled the ice. “No, he’s okay. But you don’t go to Big Ping for a couple of diamonds. He’s more of a wholesaler.”

“I thought they were all wholesalers,” Wilson said.

“Well, they are. Only Ping, he’s dealing directly with the militias, so he’s comfortable with big loads.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Not for him.”

“Why not?” Wilson asked.

“Because he’s a triad,” da Rosa told him. “Sun Yee On.”

Wilson frowned. “Which is what?”

Da Rosa pursed his lips. “Fifty thousand gangsters, working as a team. Like Wal-Mart, but with guns.”

Wilson went looking for Big Ping’s shop the next morning, following a crudely drawn map that the hotel’s manager had given him. Even with the map, it wasn’t easy. Most of the streets were unmarked, and the buildings were unnumbered. He could have asked someone on the street, How do I get to Big Ping’s? But if da Rosa was right, that would be like asking the way to Al Capone’s.

So they walked. And walked some more.

Zero and Khalid did their best to look mean. That was what they did – that was their whole thing – and they glowered with the best of them. But Wilson could tell they were scared. There were lots of AKs on the street, and everywhere you looked, there were people with handguns in the backs of their jeans. Walking a step behind Wilson, Khalid grumbled, “I thought we’d be in Europe now. Hakim said-”

“I thought so, too,” Wilson lied. “But there’s special business.”

Khalid was silent for a while, peering at the signage, and eyeing a gang of nine-year-olds that trailed behind them. “Hakim never said anything about ‘special business.’”

Wilson glanced over his shoulder. “That’s why it’s special.”

Suddenly, Zero let out a bark, and pointed to a sheet-metal sign hanging above a heavily carved wooden door at the end of a narrow alley.

777 EX-IM 777

PING LI ON, PROP.

An Asian man sat on a stool beside the door, a shotgun resting across his knees. The moment Wilson entered the alley, the man got to his feet and waved his forefinger from side to side. Wilson hesitated, and then he understood. He turned to Zero and Khalid. “Wait here.”

Big Ping’s office was cool and dimly lighted, with a couple of small glass cases holding a modest display of cut and uncut diamonds. Overhead, a bank of fluorescent lights buzzed noisily, while a table fan turned left and right atop a painted Chinese chest. A heavily carved ivory screen stood by itself in the far corner of the room.

An elderly Chinaman waited behind one of the counters, his face blank. Nearby, a handsome young Asian in a white linen suit sat on a folding chair with his elbows on his thighs, flipping through a tattered copy of Hustler.

Wilson looked into the old man’s watery eyes. “Mr. Ping?”

The old man’s face twisted into a frown. “No Ping!” He hesitated for a long moment. Eventually, a smile flickered under a tangle of nostril hairs. “You want buy diamond?”

Wilson shook his head.

The smile vanished as the old man snorted in contempt. “So! You sell diamond!”

Wilson gave him an incredulous look. “That’s amazing! You should be a private eye.”

The old man wasn’t laughing, but the guy in the white linen suit cracked a smile. Dropping the magazine, he got to his feet. “I’m Ping.”

Wilson turned to him. Offered his hand. “Frank d’Anconia.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. You’re the one who set the kid on fire…” With a gesture of his hand, he led Wilson behind the ivory screen, where a massive iron door was bolted into the wall. Beside the door was a nickel plate with the outline of a hand engraved on its surface. Ping pressed his own hand into the engraving. A diode flared, and the door sprung open on its hinges. “In here…”

The doorway led to a windowless room – a vault, of sorts, where the air was heavy with cigarette smoke. Two men sat at a heavy wooden table that was covered in green baize. The men were drinking tea.

One of them looked like an oversized Buddha with beige teeth. The other man was da Rosa, who glanced over his shoulder with a laugh and said, “What took you so long?”

Wilson frowned. He didn’t like being played.

The fat man chuckled, and lighted a foul-smelling Gitane. As a gesture of goodwill, he made an effort at English: “Good night!”

Da Rosa laughed. “I see you’ve met Little Ping.”

Wilson glanced at the young man in the white suit.

The young man smiled. “My father’s English isn’t very good. But, please, have a seat.” He gestured to a chair. Wilson took it.

The fat man – Big Ping – leaned forward: “American?”

Wilson nodded.

“We don’t see a lot of Americans here,” da Rosa said. “You’re like a celebrity.”

Big Ping’s eyes widened. His great head nodded, as if to confirm some astonishing insight. “You CIA?!”

Wilson shook his head. “No.”

Big Ping looked disappointed. Said something to his son in Chinese.

Little Ping translated. “He says, if you’re CIA, we could do some good business.”

“I’ll bet we could. Only… I’m not.”

“Too bad. You want some tea?” Little Ping asked.

Wilson shook his head.

Big Ping’s brows collapsed into a chevron. Leaning toward Wilson, he demanded, “Qui vous-êtes? Que voulez-vous?”

Wilson turned to Little Ping. “Tell your father that I don’t speak French.”

Little Ping shrugged. “He wants to know who you are, what you want.”

Wilson sat back in his chair. Then he glanced from Big Ping to da Rosa, and back again. The silence began to peal. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked.

Finally, Big Ping smiled, as if he’d just had another realization. With a look of great contentment, he placed his hands palms-down, fingers spread, on the baize-covered table. Little Ping remained where he was, hands crossed in front of his crotch.

It took Wilson a moment, and then he saw it. All three of them had the same tattoo: a triangle of little blue dots between the thumb and forefinger. Wilson glanced at da Rosa.

The mercenary smiled. “I was born in Macau.”

Big Ping nodded.

Little Ping said, “Mr. da Rosa’s a good friend. We don’t have secrets from him.”

Wilson thought about it some more, and decided he didn’t have much choice. With a sigh, he said, “Okay, I’ve got a couple of diamonds to sell. Quite a few, actually.”

To Wilson’s surprise, da Rosa said something in Chinese. Big Ping replied, and da Rosa laughed. Turning to Wilson, he said, “He says he doesn’t see any diamonds. He wants to know if you’ve stuck them up your ass.”

Wilson acknowledged the bon mot with a weak grimace. “No,” he said. “I decided to use the bank. It seemed more professional, somehow.”

Little Ping laughed as da Rosa translated.

Wilson complimented him. “You speak Chinese. I’m impressed!”

Da Rosa shook his head. “It’s not Chinese. It’s Fuzhou.”

When da Rosa failed to elaborate, Wilson turned to Little Ping.

“My family’s from Fujian,” the younger Ping explained, “so the Fuzhou dialect comes naturally. Most Chinese don’t understand it, so it’s like talking in code. Good for business.”

Big Ping looked uncomprehendingly from Wilson to da Rosa to his son. Then he stubbed his cigarette out, and cut loose with a burst of incomprehensible lingo.

Little Ping nodded, and turned to Wilson. “My father says you should go to the bank, and bring the diamonds here, so he can evaluate them. He’s a good appraiser, and he’ll give you an excellent price.”

Wilson dismissed the idea with a bored nod. “Right! But you know what? I don’t think we’ll do that. Because it occurs to me that maybe – just maybe – something might go wrong, and, well, I could be robbed. So we’ll do something else. But before we do anything, there’s a couple of things I need to know.”

Little Ping translated for his father. Finally, he said, “Yes?”

“If we agree that four million dollars is a fair price, can you handle it?”

Suddenly, Big Ping gave up the pretense of not speaking English. With a wave of his hand, he interrupted his son’s translation, and said, “Of course.”

Wilson turned to him. “Good. And if we do business, you can wire the money to my bank?”

“Oui,” Big Ping replied. “If everything is in order, we can make the transfer through the HongShang Bank.”

“Great! So we’ll do it like this: We’ll go to the Banque Zaïroise, and take a look at the diamonds. They have a private room available for box holders, and you can bring any equipment you need.”

“Then what?” Big Ping asked.

“If we’re in agreement, you ask your bank to make the wire transfer to my bank. Not the one in Bunia, but a British bank. Isle of Man. I’ll wait with you until my bank confirms the funds are in the right account. Then we’ll go to the Banque Zaïroise a second time. I’ll give you the diamonds, and… bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye,” Big Ping repeated.

“And there’s one other thing,” Wilson said.

“There’s always ‘one other thing,’” da Rosa observed.

“I’ve got two friends outside…” Wilson told them. Big Ping raised his eyebrows in a way that was meant to be a question. “I want to make sure they’re taken care of.”

Big Ping cocked his head, and frowned. Little Ping looked bewildered. After a moment, he said, “I think it’s better – you pay your own people.”

Wilson shook his head. “That’s not what I mean,” he said. “What I mean is, I want you to take care of them. Can you do that?”

Silence. Da Rosa looked puzzled. Big Ping stroked his chin. After a moment, he turned to da Rosa with a grin and said, “Flyswattah! He means: flyswattah!”

It went down exactly as Wilson expected.

In the morning, he went to the bank with the Pings, who brought along a kit with a felt cloth, a small microscope, and an array of loupes. The three of them sat at a small iron table in a glorified broom closet for nearly three hours, looking at the diamonds, one by one. Eventually, Big Ping got to his feet, and announced they had a deal. There would be no bargaining. He would pay four million dollars, as Wilson suggested.

Less a finder’s fee for da Rosa, he added. Plus a second fee for the wire transfer, and a third fee for what he called “the other business.” Wilson agreed with a hurried “Okay, okay!,” sealing the deal before the Chinaman tacked on a value added tax and cab fare.

In the end, Wilson would receive $3.6 million by wire transfer from Hong Kong to St. Helier.

He handed the Chinaman a piece of paper with the transfer codes he needed, and promised to meet him at his office the next day. Zero and Khalid would accompany him. In the meantime, it was decided that he would stay in his hotel, where Ping and his friends could keep an eye on him. Once the wire transfer came through, he would accompany Ping to the bank and give him the diamonds.

That night, Wilson treated the boys to a dinner of elephant steaks, washed down with a bottle of what was alleged to be Dom Pérignon, but which tasted suspiciously like Asti Spumante.

He told the two of them that he’d spoken to Hakim by satellite phone from Big Ping’s office, and that the old man was delighted with the way things had gone. He had reservations for each of them on a flight from Kampala to Antwerp in two days’ time. Big Ping’s people would take them to Kampala, and Hakim would meet them at the airport in Antwerp. And there was one other thing, Wilson said. He had a surprise.

Khalid’s eyes widened. “What?” He looked like a kid, coming downstairs to a Christmas tree.

“You’re getting a bonus,” Wilson told him.

“A bonus?”

Wilson nodded. “Ten thousand dollars.” He paused for a second, and added, “Each.”

Khalid gasped.

Zero looked from one man to the other, then tugged at his friend’s galabia, demanding that he translate. Khalid spoke softly in Arabic, and a look of ecstasy came over them both. For a moment, Wilson was afraid Zero might burst into tears.

So he slapped him on the back with a laugh, and basked in his bodyguards’ delight. They were good kids, and it was nice to see them happy.

Da Rosa sat by himself at a separate table, nursing a gin and tonic. As he watched the celebration unfold in front of him, he shook his head in disbelief. This guy, d’Anconia, was a piece of work.

Little Ping was notified of the wire transfer by e-mail at eleven a.m. the next morning. Wilson confirmed the transaction in a call to the St. Helier bank twenty minutes later. At noon, he met the Pings at the Banque du Zaïroise du Commerce Extérieur. Together, the three of them went into the bank, leaving their bodyguards outside, warily eyeing one another. It was, Wilson reflected, quite a crowd. Zero and Khalid on one side, and on the Pings’ behalf, their counterparts: four young gunmen in T-shirts and sunglasses, none of whom was old enough to drink in California.

Inside the bank, the older Ping examined the diamonds for a second time. When he’d confirmed that this was the same batch that he’d seen the day before, he moved the diamonds, head and all, to a second safe-deposit box – one that he’d rented for the purpose. With a satisfied look, he shook Wilson’s hand. “That’s that,” he said.

Wilson cocked his head. “Except for that other thing…”

Big Ping nodded. “Of course,” he said, and beckoned Wilson to follow him. “We take care of that now.” Together, they walked back to the Chinaman’s office.

Wilson didn’t know what to expect. He had very mixed feelings about what was going to happen. He liked the boys, he really did. But their loyalties were to Hakim, not to him, so they were a danger to him now. Hakim’s associates would soon come looking for their money, and when they did, it would be a whole lot safer for Wilson if Zero and Khalid weren’t around to help them.

Which was too bad. Terrible, really, but that’s the way it was. Great men did terrible things. How else were they to accomplish their dreams? That was the tragedy of the world-historical man. He sacrificed his humanity to the greatness of his vision and, in doing so, condemned himself to a kind of solitary confinement, sealed off from the rest of the human race by the impenetrable barrier of his own greatness.

You don’t blame a lion for killing a gazelle. It’s what the lion does.

When they arrived at the door to the office, Little Ping took Wilson by the arm, and nodded toward Zero and Khalid. “Tell them to wait here.”

Khalid heard and understood.

Little Ping had sodas and chairs brought to them. Zero thanked him effusively, and the boys sat down outside the heavily carved wooden door, just under the sign with the lucky numbers.

Going up the stairs to the second floor, not knowing what to expect, Wilson stood before a window, watching the alley with Little Ping. Soon, Big Ping huffed up the stairs, talking quietly on a cell phone.

Zero and Khalid were talking and laughing when a dusty pickup truck with improvised armor appeared at the end of the alley. Zero got to his feet, shooing the truck with his hand. The driver ignored the gesture, and began to back into the alley, ever so slowly. As he did, the truck began to emit a slow beep, warning people out of the way. Beep beep beep.

Khalid jumped to his feet with a shout, yelling angrily at the driver to get out of the alley. Beep beep – Khalid fired a warning shot into the air. And then the truck accelerated.

There was nowhere for them to go. The truck was almost as wide as the alley. In a panic, the boys fumbled with their guns, finally getting off a burst of shots, as they staggered backward into the concrete wall of Big Ping’s emporium.

There was a shriek of panic, and one of them (Wilson thought it was Khalid) screamed “Mr. Frank!” Then the truck slammed into them, cutting Zero in half and mangling Khalid from the hips down.

The building shook, but Wilson couldn’t take his eyes away. Watching the scene in the alley was like watching an anaconda devour a pony. It was horrible and mesmerizing all at once. The truck rolled slowly forward a couple of feet, its tailgate dripping. Khalid lay writhing on the ground, his right arm thrashing uncontrollably, as the driver shifted into reverse. Beep beep – The truck rolled over them, and the building shivered a second time.

The warning signal stopped as the truck rolled back the way it had come out, and stopped. The driver’s window rolled down, and da Rosa stuck his head out from behind the steering wheel. Seeing the mess at the end of the alley – his handiwork – he gave the men on the second floor a thumbs-up.

Big Ping nudged Wilson with his elbow and, grinning, said, “Like… flyswattah!”