Mission of Honor

Chapter Nine

The hut was bank-vault dark, and the air was as stuffy and still. The swamp gave up the heat it had accumulated during the day. It was no longer as open-oven hot as it was under the sun. But it was still humid, especially inside the small hut. However hot he was, though, Henry Genet was certain of one thing. The stubborn Father Bradbury was warmer.

Dressed only in briefs, the bald, five-foot-nine-inch Genet sat down on the forty-eight-inch canvas cot. The bed was surrounded by a heavy white nylon lace mosquito net that hung from a bamboo umbrella and reached to the wooden floor. Genet pulled it shut. Then he eased onto his sunburned back. It had been too hot to keep his shirt on, and the sun had managed to find him, even through the thick jungle canopy. Beneath him was a foam mattress and pillow. They were not the king-size bed and down pillow to which he was accustomed, but both were surprisingly comfortable. Or maybe he was just tired.

The trappings were completely alien to the Belgian native. So was this remote swamp, this distant nation, this vast continent. But the fifty-three-year-old was thrilled to be here.

He was also thrilled to be doing what he was doing.

The son of a diamond merchant, Genet had lived in and around Antwerp most of his life. Situated on the busy Scheldt River, Antwerp was Europe's chief commercial city by the mid-sixteenth century. The importance of the Belgian city declined after its sacking by the Spanish in 1576 and the subsequent closing of the Scheldt to navigation. Its significance to modern times dates from 1863. Kings Leojpold I and Leopold II undertook a massive industrialization program and a modernization of Antwerp's port. Today, it is a very modern city and a major center of finance, industry, and the diamond trade.

For all of that, Henry Genet did not miss it.

Despite the history, the culture, and the conveniences, Antwerp existed for finance. So did most of Europe these days. So did Genet. Though he loved acquisition, it had ceased to become a challenge. That was why he had put together the Group. The others were as bored as he was. And boredom was one of the reasons they had come here.

In Botswana, the mentality was far different than it was in Antwerp. For one thing, the age of things in Africa was measured in eons, not in centuries. The sun witnessed the rise and fall of mountains and plains, not improvements in buildings and streets. The stars looked down on the slow workings of evolution, not the life span of civilizations. The people had a monolithic patience that was unheard of in Europe.

Here, Genet had found himself thinking bigger thoughts but with European impatience.

As ancient as this world was, it was also fresh and uncomplicated. There was a clarity of purpose. For the inhabitants it was dance or die. The predators had to kill their prey. The prey had to elude the predators. That simplicity also suited Genet's partner Beaudin. Unlike Europe, where there were attorneys and financial institutions to protect him, the risks here were intense and exciting.

It had been two days since Genet first arrived to oversee the expansion of the ministry. What he had discovered was that even sleeping here was a challenge. The noises, the heat, the mosquitoes that lived in the shallow waters on the shore of their little island. Genet loved being challenged like this.

Especially when the Belgian diamond merchant knew that, if he needed it, escape was just a few dozen yards away. Genet could always use the Aventura II to fly back to his private airstrip and then to civilization. He wanted excitement, but he was not delusional.

Not like Dhamballa. He was an idealist. And idealists, by their nature, were not realists.

Genet used the edges of his pillow to wipe sweat from his eyes. He turned gently onto his belly so the perspiration would run out on its own. Then he thought about Dhamballa, and he had to smile. This operation could not have been easier from conception to launch. And for all Dhamballa's ideas, for all his insights about faith and human nature, he had no idea what any of it was really about.

Eight months before, Dhamballa had been associated with Genet in a much different capacity. Then, the thirty-three-yearold Botswanan was known as Thomas Burton. He was a sifter in a mine Genet visited each month to do some of his buying. Sifters were men who stood beside the mining flumes-long wooden troughs with running water. These troughs were located inside the mines where the lighting could be kept constant. There were screens at different intervals. The water went through without a problem. Small rocks and dirt were trapped by the screen. If the sifters did not see any diamonds, they moved the screen so the detritus could be washed along. Each successive screen had a finer mesh than the one before. And each successive sifter was trained to spot diamonds of decreasing size. Even diamond dust had value to scientists and industrialists. Those people used the dust in microtechnology as prisms, cutting surfaces, or nano-thin switches. The diamond dust was removed from the sand by a fan operator, who blew the fine powder away from the significantly heavier grains.

Thomas had worked at the very end of the trough line. And he had a voice that could be heard over the rushing water and the hum of the fan. Genet knew this because every day, promptly at two o'clock, Thomas would speak about the agesold teachings of Vous Deux or "You Two." While continuing to sift, the young man would extemporize on the beauty of life and death and their relation to the universe.

He would talk about the greatness of the snake, which cast off its skin and died without dying. He would explain how men could cast off death if they took the time to find their own "second skin."

The mine operators allowed Thomas to speak. The other sifters enjoyed hearing him, and they always worked more energetically after his ten- or fifteen-minute inspirational talks. During one visit, Genet listened to what Thomas had to say. He spoke about the gods and how they favored the industrious. He talked about "the white arts," the doing of good deeds, and how it spread light on those whom the practitioner loved. And Thomas spoke of the strength and character that was indigenous to the people of Botswana. It was all very general and very uplifting. It sounded to Genet as if Thomas's words could have come from any faith-Christian, Hindu, Islam.

It was only upon his return to Antwerp that Henry Genet discovered what Thomas Burton was talking about. Who and what he really was. As Genet drifted into sleep, he recalled how, over dinner, he had been discussing the speeches with five other businessmen. When Genet was finished, one of the men, Albert Beaudin, sat back and smiled. Beaudin was a seventy-year-old French industrialist who had his hand in a variety of businesses. Genet's father had invested heavily in several of his enterprises.

"Do you have any idea what you witnessed?" Beaudin asked.

"I don't understand," Genet told him.

"Do you know what you saw in Botswana, Henry? You saw a papa giving a sermon about Bon Dieu," the elderly industrialist explained.

"Who was doing what about whom?" asked Richard Bequette, one of the other merchants.

"A papa is a priest, and Bon Dieu is his supreme deity," Beaudin said.

"I still don't follow," Genet said.

"What you heard were lectures in Vodunism, the religion of white and black arts," Beaudin said. "Of good magic and evil magic. I read about it in National Geographic."

And suddenly Genet understood. Vous Deux was better known by its Anglicized name, voodoo.

Henry Genet and the other men at that meeting also understood something else. That what the Belgian had witnessed was like the mines he visited. The voodoo faith was deeper, older, and richer than most people knew. All it needed was for someone to tap its wealth. To speak directly to its traditional adherents and potential converts. To unleash its power.