There was no way the mine could be worthless, he thought. Enrico had been sure there were diamonds in the area, had died believing it. Gianelli had always felt that if his uncle’s plane hadn’t been shot down during the war, he would have given the family proof. Mercer hadn’t taken enough time to properly explore the subterranean tunnels, he told himself, nor did he have the proper equipment for a thorough search. The diamonds were here.
“Yes, sir,” the South African replied uneasily. “Ah, Mr. Gianelli, I’d like to know how you want to handle this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Now that we’re here, do you want me to take charge of the men, or are you going to be issuing the orders?”
Gianelli’s laugh was a quick barking sound. “Joppi, my friend, I am one of those people who knows how to hire others for their knowledge and abilities. I’m paying you because you know how to extract minerals from the ground, an art that I know nothing about. From now on, you are in complete control. However you want to handle this operation, whatever steps you feel necessary, are fine. Consider me nothing more than an interested observer.”
Hofmyer turned away, more disturbed by Gianelli’s sudden bonhomie than he cared to admit. “Okay, you fookin’ kaffirs,” he bellowed at the Sudanese troopers clustered near the trucks. “Until those refugees get here, you bastards are going to be miners. You take orders from Mahdi, and as of this moment Mahdi takes orders from me. Once I get the checklist, I want ten men unloading the camp stores and setting up the tents.
“I want the rest of you unloading the mining gear, separating underground equipment from surface stuff. If you don’t know what something is, ask either me or one of the other white miners and don’t forget to call him Baas.” The four other South Africans grinned at this. “You boys,” he said to the whites, “I want the explosives off-loaded and placed in a protective redoubtment no closer than five hundred yards from the mine or the camp. Now, someone bring me the three kaffirs who were already here when the scouts arrived.”
Habte sat handcuffed in the shade of the scout’s Fiat with the two Eritrean equipment operators. Neither of the hired workers understood what was happening. Their fear was palpable, but ever since Asmara, Habte had been expecting something like this. He figured that these men were allied to the ones who had attacked Mercer and Selome in the market square. As of yet, the Caucasians he had seen at the Ambasoira Hotel had not made their appearance. When they did, he knew that he could expect little help from them. This time the enemy of his enemy was not his friend.
Two Sudanese rebels approached and gestured with their rifles for the trio to follow. Led back to the open mine shaft, Abebe began praying aloud. Habte had faced death many, many times before, and he would not let his own fear show.
Joppi sauntered over a few moments later, his gut sagging over his belt. With an expert eye he looked over the three captives, fixing his gaze on Habte, recognizing him as their leader. With a casualness that belied the brutality of the act, he stepped forward, planted his hands on Abebe’s shoulders, and shoved him into the pit.
Abebe’s scream echoed up from the shaft, diminishing like a siren until it was cut off with an undeniable finality. Habte didn’t so much as blink when Joppi’s eyes bored into his, waiting for a reaction that the Eritream refused to give. They were locked in this frozen tableau for several breaths.
“Oh, you’re an uppity nigger, aren’t you?” Hofmyer finally said. “You want me to push your other friend in as well, or do you want to start answering some questions?”
Habte willed himself not to say that the South African hadn’t asked any, knowing such a retort would cause the murder of the other equipment operator. He allowed his eyes to drop in a pose of submission that Joppi interpreted as a victory. Like many others from his country who hadn’t taken the time to understand traditional African ways, Joppi believed Habte’s silence connoted acceptance. “That’s better, now. Why don’t you tell me what you were doing at the far end of the valley?”
Balancing his desire to defy the Boer and his realization that the longer he was alive the better his chances were for escape, Habte told Hofmyer everything.
An hour later, the trucks rumbled away from the Italian mine so they could set up their camp a short distance from the ancient one.
The Open Desert
In hindsight, Mercer felt he should have chanced the mine field again after the Sudanese had withdrawn in order to recover any useful equipment from the burned-out Land Cruiser, especially canteens. Or his sat-phone. Though he continued to carry the single backpack, everything in it was worthless for the ordeal to come. With nightfall only an hour away and their bodies ravaged by thirst, those short few yards through the mines could have made the difference between survival or perishing in the desert.
Without food, they could last for a couple of weeks, but a lack of water would kill them long before starvation. Mercer’s mouth was beyond dry. His tongue felt like the scaly body of some desert reptile. The last time he was able to swallow, hours ago it seemed, his throat screamed in desiccated protest, as if lined with ground glass. While a woman’s body was better suited to survival situations, Selome wasn’t faring well either as they trudged under the unrelenting African sun. Inventorying their condition, Mercer judged that they would be dead in twenty-four to thirty-six hours if they couldn’t find water. Selome’s revelations, about herself, her mission, and the King Solomon mine had buoyed him for a while, but now his mind focused only on the miles.
With the setting sun at their backs, the desert bloomed crimson, painted in shades and shadows that made the steep mountains look like fairy-tale castles, heavily turreted and remote. The sight would have made them pause under normal circumstances, but as night deepened, they simply continued to walk, their pace slowing with each footfall.
Selome and Mercer used scraps from their clothing to fashion rudimentary sun protection for their heads and breathed through their noses to reduce fluid loss. They tried every survival trick either had ever learned, and still their efforts were falling far short. Had either of them carried a compass or knew celestial navigation, they could have walked in the coolness of the night. As it was, they were forced to march in the daylight, the sun as their only guide. And after just one day, with an unknown number more to go, it was clear that they would die.
“The sun’s almost behind the horizon.” Mercer spoke for the first time in nearly six hours. “It’ll be cooler in just a little while.”
“And I’ll be dead in just a little while, too.” Selome managed a smile, though her voice scratched like an old phonograph record.
“That’s the spirit,” Mercer rasped. “Nothing like a positive attitude.”
His grin cracked his dry lips and a tiny bead of blood quivered at the corner of his mouth. He surveyed the terrain around them. The landscape was spiked by mountainous ramparts that grew from the desert floor with brutal regularity, forcing them to follow a meandering route as they tracked eastward toward the Adobha River.
They continued on, their steps less sure, fatigue and dehydration taking their toll. Just before total darkness set in, Mercer steered Selome to one of the countless kopjes, rocky hillocks similar to the buttes that dot the American Southwest, and led her into one of the hundreds of caves that pocked the cliff, riven out of the stone by eons of erosion. Too exhausted to speak, they tumbled to the floor and soaked up the cave’s chilled air. A full half hour passed before Mercer felt he had the energy to sit up and press his aching back against the rock wall. He tried to use his pack as a pillow but its contents were even harder and more jagged than the stone.