Scott Mariani 2-book Collection: Star of Africa, The Devil’s Kingdom. Scott Mariani

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       Chapter 28

      Jude held the diamond out on the flat of his palm. It was as if the canteen lights had suddenly grown brighter. A hush fell over the table. Tuesday boggled at the sight of it, and almost spilled his coffee in his lap.

      ‘That’s not real,’ Jeff said, gaping. ‘No bloody way.’

      Jude quickly explained how he’d taken it from Pender, and how Pender had later accidentally allowed Khosa to see it when they were all on deck. ‘They murdered him for it like stepping on a beetle.’

      ‘He had it coming,’ Gerber muttered.

      ‘May I?’ Ben took the diamond from Jude and examined it. He’d never seen anything like it before. ‘I’d say it’s real, all right.’

      ‘Oh, so you’re the big expert now,’ Jeff said, without taking his eyes off it.

      ‘People are liable to start massacring each other over a lot of things,’ Ben said. ‘But a lump of cut glass isn’t one of them.’ He handed it back to Jude.

      ‘What would it be worth?’ Jude asked.

      Jeff whistled. ‘If you have to ask, mate, you can’t afford it. Millions? Tens of millions?’

      ‘Hundreds of millions,’ Ben said. ‘Question is, where did it come from?’

      ‘I think Pender stole it,’ Jude said. ‘Who from, I have no idea. Someone in Oman, I thought. That would explain why he was on the ship, why he bribed his way on board incognito. He needed to get out of the country unnoticed.’

      ‘To Dar es Salaam?’ Jeff said. ‘Or Mombasa, maybe?’

      ‘Except he had no intention of going that far,’ Jude said. ‘He could have disembarked at Djibouti just as easily, but he didn’t. He wanted to disappear into thin air with the diamond. That’s why he set up the attack, to intercept us midway.’

      ‘A staged pirate attack,’ Ben said. It made an awful lot of sense. But it also raised more questions, and he could see from Jude’s expression that he had already figured that much out for himself.

      ‘Question is, why he’d need to get away in the middle of the Indian Ocean,’ Jude went on, frowning. ‘Why not just wait until we hit port? It doesn’t add up. Unless maybe he was scared that the police were on to him and would be lying in wait to grab him at the docks.’

      Ben could see another possibility. ‘Or unless there was a third party involved. If we can suppose that Pender was the active partner in the robbery, the one who did the crime and took the biggest risk, it would make sense that maybe someone employed him to snatch it and deliver it to them, either at Mombasa or Dar es Salaam.’

      ‘A sleeping partner,’ Jeff said, cottoning on to the idea. ‘Mister Big. The head honcho.’

      ‘Who at this point may not even realise that Pender was planning to cut him out and do a runner,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.’

      Gerber took a noisy slurp of coffee. ‘Here’s another question for you, folks. If this Khosa character and his boys aren’t Somali pirates, then who and what in hell’s name are they?’

      ‘Not Somalis, for a start,’ Ben said. ‘They speak Swahili among themselves.’

      ‘You speak it?’ Gerber said, surprised.

      ‘Some,’ Ben said.

      ‘So they’re from Kenya?’ Jude asked.

      ‘Possibly. Or Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, the Congo; pretty much anywhere in central or south-east Africa. It’s not where they’re from that concerns me. It’s what they do for a living.’

      ‘Boosting ships?’ Gerber said.

      Ben shook his head. ‘No. Jude’s right. These guys are in a whole other line of work. They’re PMCs. Private military contractors. Professional guns for hire, most or all with some kind of army or militia training, or what passes for that in Africa.’

      ‘Freakin’ mercenaries?’ Condor gasped, almost letting go of his stomach contents.

      Ben nodded. ‘That’s who you’d approach if you were planning something like this, or at least, I would. Someone who could bring the necessary firepower to the table and get the job done quickly and effectively. Or at least more quickly and effectively than a band of complete amateurs. All it really takes is a few guys who can yank a trigger, aren’t afraid of a little blood and won’t run away if anyone starts shooting back. But it seems that Pender slipped up. He obviously didn’t reckon on what his mercenaries would do to him if they got an inkling of what this was really about. I’ve come across men like this Khosa before. Pender made a big mistake with him.’

      ‘And then some,’ Condor groaned. ‘Jesus Christ. Mercenaries. I heard about these fuckers, man. They’d slit their own sisters wide open from ass to eyeball for something like this.’

      ‘That’s right,’ Gerber said, scratching his beard. ‘The world’s chock full of evil sonsofbitches who’d do anything for even just a few bucks, let alone a rock like that. I wouldn’t feel safe with it, that’s for sure.’

      Jude blanched and stared at the diamond in his hand. ‘I can’t stand hanging onto this thing any longer. It’s too much responsibility for me.’ He thrust it towards Ben. ‘You take it.’

      ‘What makes you think I want it?’ Ben said.

      ‘It’d be safer with you.’

      ‘Safest place for it would be at the bottom of the sea,’ Ben said. ‘That’s the only way you can guarantee it won’t do any more harm.’

      Jeff interrupted. ‘Gents, I hate to break in on this sociological, philosophical or whatever-the-fuck-it-is discussion, but we need to talk about what we’re going to do with the prisoners. If we’re right and it now looks like we’re dealing with a bunch of hardcore warriors led by some nutjob who’s pretty highly bloody motivated to slaughter every single one of us on board to get his mitts on a bobby dazzler the size of Manchester, we need to be taking every possible precaution. That storage locker they’re in isn’t secure enough and I don’t feel good about having two inexperienced sailors down there on guard duty. No offence.’

      ‘None taken,’ Gerber said. ‘I was in the Corps myself, back in the day, final rank of staff sergeant. Most of these boys couldn’t guard a Quakers’ convention.’

      ‘Jeff’s right,’ Ben said. ‘Ideas?’

      Jeff shrugged. ‘What about all these containers up on deck? Those things are built like tanks. Empty one out, dump whatever cargo’s inside and bung the bastards in there in its place.’

      ‘Sounds good to me,’ Ben said.

      ‘In this weather?’ Jude objected. ‘What if it breaks free and goes overboard? That can happen. We almost ran into a forty-footer floating adrift just after we left Djibouti. They’d drown СКАЧАТЬ