She curled into a cross-legged position on the ground across the fire from Mercer. There was a trace of blush on her cheeks. She’d been aware of his gaze.
“We’re heading back to Badn this morning,” Mercer announced, and he could see relief in her eyes. The pace he had set for the past days had been brutal, and they all anticipated at least a small break in the tiny hamlet. “I want to hire those nomads again to return to Nacfa and have them guide the excavator here.”
Both Habte and Selome gaped at him. It was Selome who found her voice first. “You found the mine?”
Mercer looked at her sharply, then dashed her hopes with a quick shake of his head. “No, not yet, but the rains are coming soon, and if we don’t get the excavator across the Adohba River now, we may never be able to. There aren’t any bridges across it strong enough to take the weight of the tractor trailer and crawler.” Disappointment made her face collapse. “However, I do have good news.”
He went to his tent and returned with his notebook and the now dog-eared photographs. He spread the material on the ground, anchoring the corners of a rolled-up map with fist-size rocks. Habte and Selome clustered over his shoulder while Gibby made himself busy breaking down their camp. “Since my Global Positioning Satellite receiver was left in Asmara, all the reference marks on the map are just estimates. They could be off as much as a mile or two, and a margin of error that big doesn’t help our cause.”
He pointed at a spot twenty miles north of Badn. “We’re roughly here now. The asterisks on the map represent sites where I’ve taken samples.” There were dozens of such notations. Despite the seemingly random route Mercer had taken, the marks were laid out in perfect symmetry, each about half a mile from its neighbor in every direction. Habte and Selome were impressed by his orienteering skills. “The marks in red show where I discovered traces of garnet and ilmenites that may or may not mean the presence of diamonds. The problem is their quantity. There doesn’t seem to be enough for me to believe the kimberlite pipe ever reached the surface to be eroded down and its contents spread by these ancient water courses.” He pointed at several twisting lines he’d drawn on the map, certain the others hadn’t been aware that they’d traveled in any streambeds, such were the changes wrought in the millions of years since they’d been carved. “If the pipe’s still buried under the surface, we may never find it.”
“So what is our next move?” Habte asked.
Mercer thumbed through his notebook until he came to a pencil sketch of a buttress of rock bisected by a deep valley. Through the valley’s sheer aperture, an open plain beyond was revealed in detail. The drawing was harsh in its economy of line, but there was a depth of skill and just a bit of evocative emotion in its composition. “This is the best I can deduce from the surface details revealed by the Medusa pictures. They weren’t calibrated when the shots were taken, and the above-ground features suffered the most from this. But this is what the area around the kimberlite pipe should look like from ground level. I wanted to have this drawing finished a while ago, but it wasn’t until last night that I was finally satisfied with the results. If the pipe exists, it’s going to be behind these ramparts in the valley. Habte, do you recognize any features like this?”
Habte would have easily remembered because the drawing’s detail made it very recognizable. But he had never seen the sheer mountain wall with such a narrow ax-stroke cut in its face. “No, but we can show it to the nomads in Badn; they may know of it. I’m guessing this is farther north, near the Hajer Plateau.”
“Do you know the region?”
“Bad country up there. Shifta control much of the area. The government doesn’t even bother to patrol that far north. During the war the whole area was heavily mined by the Ethiopians to prevent us from using Sudan as a safe haven. It is not safe to leave the road that passes through Itaro to the east. The nomads and shepherds avoid the area, but still a few are killed or maimed by mines every year.”
Mercer cursed because of the added danger. Military planners called them “perfect soldiers.” Once planted, landmines sat silently, effective for decades, waiting long after the wars were over. It took only a few pounds of pressure to set one off, detonating a measure of high explosive that caught its victim unaware. Children usually found and triggered the devices as they played far from their villages.
“Is there anything else up there?”
“There’s a monastery. It was abandoned during the war, but I think the monks have come back.”
The mines would never be deactivated, Mercer knew, for the cost was astronomical. Northern Eritrea would be contaminated for decades, as lifeless and unsafe as the environs around Chernobyl. “We don’t have a choice. If any of you want to abandon the search, I’ll understand, but I am going on.”
“We’re with you,” Selome said quickly, and Habte and Gibby nodded.
“Thank you.” The two men were risking their lives for him, and Mercer was deeply touched by their dedication. They barely knew him, yet were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Selome, on the other hand, was on her own mission, and her willingness to continue gave him a glimpse of her commitment. “I’m going to take a chance and ignore the desert between us and the Hajer Plateau. To get the excavator up here, we can use the main road as far north as Itaro, and the nomads can guide it to this point here.” He used his pencil to circle the village of Ila Babu on the Adobha River. “Now, let’s get going.”
The Toyota was sputtering when they entered Badn, its body so dusty it looked as if it had been painted with a desert camouflage pattern. There were only a couple of permanent structures in the village. The rest of Badn was mostly mounded tents of coarse fabric stretched over wooden frames. On the open plain, they resembled loaves of bread with the sun setting behind them. The town’s natu rally fed well was its only raison d’être. Nomads from all over the Barka Province used the waters for their camels and goats.
Habte recognized the tent of the family he had hired to fetch gasoline from Nacfa and steered the Land Cruiser to the rude compound. Bundles of firewood stood a little way off from the central tent, and in the shimmering distance a caravan of camels was returning from a foray with more. From this range, their misshapen bodies appeared to float in the chimera of rising heat. Several of the bawling beasts were pegged near the camp, their soft eyes regarding the truck with ill-disguised contempt. Behind the faggots of desiccated wood sat a pile of plastic jerry cans filled with their gasoline.
Their return was seen as an opportunity for the nomad headman to throw a party. He was in his sixties with a booming voice and a backslapping greeting that, had Mercer not been prepared, would have driven him to the ground. “Fuck, fuck,” he smiled, demonstrating his command of English. “Fuck.”
“And fuck to you too.” Mercer grinned.
The chieftain turned to Habte and spoke in rapid fire, motioning for a translation for Mercer’s benefit. “He says you are welcome back to his humble home and hopes that our travels have been profitable. He also hopes you have brought him his money to cement his friendship.”
Mercer reached into one of his vest pockets for a sheath of ten-dollar bills and handed the entire roll across. The money represented more cash than the family saw in a year. The nomad smiled again, slapping Mercer soundly on the shoulder. The few teeth remaining in his smile were jagged yellow stumps that had been filed to points so their sharpness made up for their diminished numbers. “Fuck.”