With about ten minutes before his appointed contact time, he activated the satellite phone and it rang almost immediately. Startled and wondering why the contact had come early, he pressed the button for the receive mode. “Mercer.”
“Dr. Mercer, it’s good to hear your voice again.” It was the man who’d spoken to him in Asmara. Mercer hoped he’d been killed in the Sudanese attack on the Ambasoira Hotel.
“Can’t say the same,” he replied bitterly.
The caller ignored Mercer’s quip. “I’ve tried calling several times, but your phone was deactivated. We have a great deal to discuss. Much has happened since our last conversation.”
Maybe it was that he was standing near the mine’s entrance and had already done what was demanded of him or maybe it was because he’d been pushed too far, but Mercer couldn’t hold back his anger, couching it only slightly in sarcasm when he spoke. “Yeah, like you getting your ass kicked by a couple of amateurs trying to steal my underwear. They’d tried the night before. Fortunately, the maid scared them off with her mop. Looks like kidnapping defenseless old men is about the limit of your abilities. Maybe you ought to practice a bit more. Try taking candy from babies for a while — I hear it’s tougher than it sounds.”
“Your humor is strained,” the voice said. “Perhaps this will dry it up entirely. Listen very carefully.”
There was a short pause and Mercer heard a new voice. Harry! He sounded distant, as though he had been recorded and the tape played into the phone. Through the distortion, Mercer could still feel the terror in the old man’s voice. He sounded as if he’d been through hell.
“Mercer, you’ve got to find that diamond mine. They’ve told me that if you don’t reach it in the next two weeks, they’re going to start cutting me.” Harry’s voice quavered. “They’re keeping me in a rat hole with some shit that’s worse than Boodles. I don’t know how much of this I can take.” Harry was cut off and the terrorist returned to the phone. “That should satisfy you that your friend is still alive. I’m maintaining our end of the bargain, how about you?”
“What did Harry mean about two weeks? I thought I still had four.”
“Not anymore. You will give us the mine’s location in two weeks or Harry White will be killed.”
“I’m not even close yet,” Mercer lied, looking at the black silhouette of the mine’s head gear in the moon glow. Two weeks? That wasn’t enough time to come up with any sort of workable plan and he knew it. Shit.
“That is your and Mr. White’s problem, not mine.”
“I have a lead,” Mercer offered, adding a pleading note to his voice. “From a nomad family I met a couple of days ago, but I need more time. For Christ’s sake, this is a big country! You’ve been reasonable until now. Give me an additional week. In three weeks I’ll have the mine’s location, I swear.”
“You have two.” There was a finality in the reply. “Now, there’s the problem of what happened in Asmara that we have to discuss.”
“I didn’t kill your man.”
“I know that, Dr. Mercer. As we both now realize, there is another party interested in our activities, and it may become necessary for me to protect you and your team. You will tell me where you are right now.”
“Do you really think I am going to trust your sudden concern in our well-being?”
“Our interest in your welfare is well documented. Hence the two dead Africans I left in your hotel room,” the caller said placidly. “I consider you an employee and I want you to succeed. Tell me where you are.”
“No. You want that mine and I want Harry White. That’s our agreement, and you’re going to leave me alone until I find it.” Mercer’s voice hardened.
“And the Sudanese?”
“I’ll worry about them myself.”
“You know I can’t make you tell me,” the other man conceded. “But when we next speak, I will have another tape recording and you’ll hear Harry White losing his left hand.” The phone went dead.
“Shit!” Mercer punched off and then dialed the satellite phone he’d given to Habte.
“Selam?” Habte answered immediately. As discussed before they separated, he’d been waiting for Mercer’s call.
“Habte, it’s me. I think I just screwed up with the kidnappers. They’re making some threats and I believe them.” Mercer was replaying the conversation in his head when he considered something odd Harry had said. Some shit worse than Boodles. What the hell was the old bastard talking about? “Listen, I’m not going to say too much, but I’m going to need that excavator sooner than planned. Can you start at first light?”
“Yes, the vehicle’s owner has been working here repairing roads, but he told the city’s council that he would have to leave at a moment’s notice.”
“Making a little money on the side?”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that. Nacfa is in disrepair and excavating equipment is rare in Eritrea.”
“As long as he’s got full tanks when you get here,” Mercer cautioned.
“He will. We also have the other equipment you had me pick up before you arrived in Eritrea.”
“Good. We’re going to need that generator and the portable floodlights.” While the sat-phones were not secure from eavesdropping, Mercer felt sure that no one was listening to this particular frequency at this particular time. However, he wasn’t going to take any unnecessary risks by broadcasting their location in clear. He gave Habte map coordinates roughly ten miles from the Valley of Dead Children, planning to send Gibby to guide them in the last few miles. “What’s your ETA?”
“It will take us at least a day. That’s rough country and the Adobha River may already be flooded. It would be best if Gibby met us at noon the day after tomorrow to be certain.”
“Understood,” Mercer said, still thinking about Harry White. Boodles was a brand name of gin. What was he doing with gin if his captors were Muslim and thus forbidden alcohol? Obviously, Harry was trying to tell him something, but Mercer was too tired to put it together.
Mercer woke Gibby as soon as it was light enough to see. He’d gotten just enough sleep to satisfy his body’s immediate needs, but he felt slow and lethargic in the mounting heat of the dawn. Gibby agreed that he could stay in the valley assisting Mercer until the following morning and still make the rendezvous with Habte, Selome, and the bulk of their equipment.
After a quick breakfast, Mercer inspected the head gear’s framework while Gibby unpacked all the rope they had brought with them. The rust on the steel struts was only surface accumulation; the metal underneath still appeared strong. There were only three fifty-foot lengths of rope in the Toyota, but if they attached them to the tow cable on the Land Cruiser, they would have enough to get Mercer to the bottom of the shaft.
He rigged a series of pulleys using the metal frame, wrapping the struts with wads of tape and smearing them with oil drained from the Toyota’s sump to prevent the sharp metal from fraying the rope. He showed Gibby how to belay the harness Mercer had fashioned and devised a quick series of verbal and tugging signals for communication.
“Remember, Gibby, you’re all that’s keeping me from a quick drop to hell,” Mercer warned, standing at the threshold of the old mine opening. Gibby had proved to be an able assistant, but Mercer still didn’t like the idea of trusting his life to the teenager. The black pit seemed to want to suck him into its depths.