Viens glanced over as the trio entered the room.
"Good afternoon, everyone," Hood said. "What have you got for us, Mr. Viens?"
"A photo ID from the files of the IODM," Viens replied. "That's the International Organization of Diamond Merchants. I figured your guy must have had a job before he became a cult leader."
"Good job, Stephen," Hood said.
"Thank you," Viens replied. "The IODM had his personnel file on-line, as required by law. The computer says that the guy in the three-year-old ID photograph and the guy in that Vatican photograph you sent over are an eighty-nine percent match."
"The differences being some apparent weight loss around the cheekbones and neck, different hair length, and a change in the bridge of his nose," Stoll added. "Possibly due to a break."
"I'm very comfortable with that match," Hood said.
"It's a good one," Rodgers agreed.
"We hacked the tax records in Gaborone and got lucky right away," Stoll said. "Your man is named Thomas Burton. Until four months ago, he was a mine worker in Botswana."
"Did he mine industrial diamonds or gems?" Liz asked.
At her station, Mae Won wriggled the bare fourth finger of her left hand. Hood smiled at her.
"Yes, diamonds," Viens replied.
"There's the connection between Dhamballa and Henry Genet," Rodgers observed.
Hood looked at the ID on Viens's screen. There was a color picture attached to it. Below it was a photo Edgar Kline had sent over. "Are you sure this is the same guy?"
"We're sure," the heavyset Stoll said from his keyboard.
"I've got a small on-line newspaper report of the Dhamballa guy's first mention," J2 said. "It matches the time Thomas Burton stopped making calls from his home phone."
"I had a look at those phone records," Mae added proudly.
"Where did Burton live?" Rodgers asked.
"In a town called Machaneng," Viens told him. "They've got an industrial mine about five miles out of town."
"According to the file from Mr. Kline, that was where the rally photo was taken," Stoll pointed out.
"Anything else?" Hood asked.
"Not yet," Viens replied.
"We've only had Mr. Kline's file for about thirty-five minutes," Stoll reminded Hood. "Like Stephen said, we got lucky."
"Believe me, Matt, that wasn't a knock," Hood told him. "You guys worked a miracle. I appreciate it."
J2 and Mae each slapped the air, giving one another an across-the-room high five.
"Will you be able to access any of this man's medical records?" Liz Gordon asked.
"Yes, if they're in a computer file and that computer has an Internet link," Stoll said.
"Looking for anything in particular, Liz?" Hood asked.
"Psychiatric care," Liz said. "Nine out of ten known cult leaders were treated, according to the last World Health Organization study."
"That's compared to what percentage of the non-Wacobound populace that's had their heads shrunk?" Stoll asked.
"Seven out of ten percent," Liz replied.
"That doesn't exactly put cult leaders in an exclusive club," the computer expert continued.
"I never said it did," Liz told him. "But there may be records that we can get our hands on. The Botswana government might be interested in helping shut down a cult before it can get started."
"He was never shrink-wrapped," J2 declared.
The others looked at him.
"According to Mr. Burton's employment file, he was a line leader in the mine," the young man said. "That meant he was the last person to see the diamonds before they left the mine. I'm looking at the qualifications IODM has on their employment site for double is. They can have no criminal record. No immediate family members can have criminal records. And there must be zero history of treatment for mental problems."
"Also, according to a footnote in this file, the Botswana average for psychiatric care is far below the international average," Mae added, still studying her own computer screen. "According to the WHO, shrinkage in Botswana amounts to three in ten people. And most of those folks are white-collar workers and military personnel."
"They probably can't afford psychiatric care," Hood said.
"Government subsidies are available," Mae said, still reading.
"Maybe I ought to move there," Stoll said.
"Well, I still want to try to get as much information on Dhamballa as possible," Liz said. "If we can come up with a reliable profile, we can make some intelligent guesses as to what his next moves will be. You'll need that, Paul, if this goes on for any length of time."
"I agree," Hood said.
"You know, people, there's also the whole voodoo angle to this thing," Stoll said. "I did some research on the net. It was recognized as the official religion of Benin in 1996. It also has an extremely large following in the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Haiti, Togo, and various places around the United States including New York, New Orleans, and Miami," Stoll said, as he read from the screen. "It's also widely recognized throughout South America, where there are a variety of sects like Umbanda, Quimbanda, and Candomble."
"Impressive," Liz remarked.
"Shows how parochial we are here," Hood said.
"The essence of it seems to be very similar to Catholicism, actually, except that the spiritual figures dwell in the earth instead of in Heaven," Stoll went on. "Both religions worship a supreme being and believe in a spiritual hierarchy. In Vodun the big guns are called loas, and in Catholicism they're saints. The loas and the saints each have attributes that are unique to them. Vodunists and Catholics believe in an afterlife, in the notion of resurrection, in the ritualistic consumption of flesh and blood, in the sanctity of the soul, and in- cleaT^cut forces of good and evil, which they refer to as white and black magic."
"Interesting," Rodgers said. "And it makes sense."
"What does?" Hood asked.
"It helps to explain why Catholicism took hold in nonIslamic sections of Africa back in the seventeenth century," Rodgers said. "In the absence of a national Vodun church, Africans would have found the structure of the Catholic church familiar and comforting."
"The food and wine the missionaries brought probably didn't hurt their cause," Stoll said.
"That would have gotten people to sit down and pay attention," Rodgers said. "But I've seen army recruiters at work. You need more than a buffet to get people to actually commit to something."
"So now Dhamballa wants his people back," Hood said.
"That could well be the limit of Dhamballa's ambition," Rodgers said. "The larger question is what Beaudin wants. And what his associates may have promised Dhamballa."
"What would they want from him that they can't get now?" Liz asked.
"A puppet leader," Hood said.
"Or maybe they don't want anything from him per se," Rodgers suggested. "Maybe it's destabilization of the region that they're after."
"Possibly," Hood agreed.
"There's also the chance that Dhamballa is just doing a job for pay," Viens remarked.
"The voodoo equivalent of a televangelist," Stoll said. He shook his head. "That's pretty sad."
"Yes, but I would not spend too much time looking into that idea," Rodgers said.
"Why not?" Hood asked.
"Let's assume that Beaudin or someone else is underwriting the Vodun movement," Rodgers said. "They aren't likely to have gone out and cast the role of a religious leader. Training someone and convincing others that he's the real thing is tough and time consuming. It's like gathering HUMINT. Infiltration doesn't work as well as finding an individual who is already on the inside and turning him. What's more likely is that someone spotted Burton or Dhamballa, heard him preaching, and saw an opportunity. They found a way to dovetail his beliefs into a project that was already in the works."