The Tomb of Hercules_A Novel

by Andy McDermott

  “I’m not surprised,” said Sophia. “Three-quarters of Botswana’s export earnings come from diamonds.”

  Chase grunted. “Never saw the appeal myself. ‘Ooh, look, it’s so sparkly!’ Yeah, that’s well worth a month’s pay. Might as well polish up a bit of glass.”

  “Right,” Nina said sarcastically. “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a glass ring.”

  “I didn’t know you were bothered about stuff like that. I didn’t think you were, anyway.” Chase’s tone was cutting.

  “Eddie,” Sophia warned. Chase frowned and fell silent as the bus passed through the gate, Nina fuming behind him.

  Inside the fence, the bus drove along a road skirting the side of the enormous pit. Nina could barely take in its sheer size—or its utter ugliness, countless millions of tons of earth just ripped away as the massive excavators dug ever deeper. Mine workers in vivid orange safety jackets directed the bus well clear of the other traffic using the road—giant dump trucks. Calling them house-size wouldn’t be an exaggeration, Nina decided.

  Almost twenty-seven feet high and barely short of fifty-three feet long, with a fully loaded weight of well over six hundred tons, the Liebherr T282B was one of the world’s largest trucks, costing over three million dollars. And the Ygem mine had more than thirty of them, a constantly moving convoy making its laborious way up the huge spiral path from the bottom of the mine to the processing plant at the top, then returning to be loaded up once more. In diamond mining, bigger was always better; the more raw earth and rock that could be moved in one go, the more diamonds could be extracted at a time—and the more money could be made.

  Chase watched one of the empty juggernauts rumble past on its way back into the pit, moving surprisingly quickly for something so huge. “Bloody hell. Better than a Tonka toy any day.”

  The bus passed under a huge banner bearing the Botswanan flag, the Ygem logo and the slogan “The Biggest, the Best: United in Prosperity.” Beyond was their destination, a covered stage that had been erected close to the mine’s administration buildings, faced by rows of stadium-style seats. An enormous marquee stood off to the side, waiters and waitresses in white uniforms bustling in and out between it and several catering trucks parked alongside.

  Chase checked his watch. “What time’s this whole thing supposed to kick off?”

  “Two o’clock,” Sophia told him.

  “So we’ve got about an hour to find Dick before he gets up onstage with the president, which is when it gets kind of hard for us to have a word in private. I’m guessing he won’t be hanging about afterwards.”

  “Hardly,” said Sophia. “If I remember our original itinerary, my husband wanted to get out of Botswana so quickly that he even had a helicopter laid on just to get back to the runway and the company jet as soon as the official function ends.”

  “Where were you due to go next?” Chase asked. “I mean, if we miss him here we’re probably buggered, but we might get a second shot.”

  “Switzerland. But he may have changed his plans since I left.”

  The bus stopped beside the marquee’s main entrance. Chase picked up the bags. Leaving the vehicle, they were directed into the huge tent. Its walls were lined with large poster displays showing off the mine’s technological prowess; the giant trucks, the even bigger excavators that filled them, the security systems monitoring and protecting the precious stones, even an airship used to survey the Okavango for more diamond veins. Around two hundred people were already inside, buffet tables set out and staff serving drinks. There was also a clear social division: two-thirds of the interior was occupied by the attending media and the apparently less influential attendees, with a smaller roped-off VIP area at the far end.

  “Uh-oh,” Chase said quietly as they moved through the throng, lowering his head and gesturing for Sophia to do the same. “You see who I see?”

  “I do,” she replied. Nina looked down the tent and spotted Yuen through the crowd, standing laughing with a small group of men in the VIP section.

  But it wasn’t Yuen who caught her eye. “Shit,” she whispered, lowering her own head and summoning Chase closer. “That’s him. That’s the guy who took the other pages!”

  Chase cautiously followed her gaze. “The guy with the ponytail?”

  “That’s Fang,” said Sophia. “Fang Yi, my husband’s … I suppose enforcer would be the most accurate term.”

  Nina tried to get a better look. Fang was standing slightly apart from Yuen, something about his body language suggesting suppressed impatience, waiting for his boss to finish his conversation. He had his black cane in one hand, and in his other was a briefcase—which, Nina saw with a sudden jolt of excitement, was handcuffed to his wrist. Exactly how the Brotherhood had brought the Hermocrates text to New York.

  “Oh my God,” she said quietly. “I think he’s got the pages in that briefcase.”

  “He’s got something important in there, that’s for sure.” Chase surveyed the rest of the tent. “Bollocks. I don’t see an easy way to get to him. There’s too many goons around.” The rope dividing the marquee was guarded by several security men, all with pistols on their belts.

  “We might be able to catch Richard before the tour,” Sophia suggested. “I know him: he’ll want to take a few minutes to meditate and put on a clean shirt for his speech. He’ll probably get changed in the administration building.”

  “Which means we need to get out of here and into the admin block,” Chase said. “Okay, let’s check out the catering entrance over there, see if we can sneak out. Say we need to use the loo or something.”

  “Subtle as ever,” said Sophia with amusement as Chase led the way across the tent. None of the other guests or staff seemed interested in them. He checked that nobody was watching, about to dart through the door—

  “Wait, wait!” Nina said. “Look!” She indicated the VIP area. Yuen had finally ended his conversation, and Fang was taking him off to one side. He held up the briefcase and opened it. Inside was …

  Nina’s breath caught as she watched Yuen carefully lift something out of the case, turning his back to shield it from the sight of the other people nearby. But she didn’t need a good view to know what it was.

  The missing section of the book. The stolen pages of Plato’s Hermocrates.

  The rest of the map that would lead her to the Tomb of Hercules.

  “That’s it, that’s the book!” she said in a high-pitched whisper, barely able to contain herself. “It’s here, he brought it!”

  “All right, calm down, you’ll have an aneurysm,” Chase told her dismissively. She huffed, then looked back at Yuen and Fang. Yuen examined the pages, then returned them to the case and said something to his henchman. Fang nodded, closed the case and walked away. A guard stepped aside to let him through an exit at the rear of the marquee.

  “We’ve got to go after him!” said Nina. “We’ve got to get the other pages!”

  Chase frowned. “Wait, we came here to get Yuen, remember?”

  “No, Eddie, she’s absolutely right,” Sophia said. “Fang has the book—and he doesn’t have any guards. All the security will be concentrated around my husband, and the president when he arrives. We can get the book—and then we don’t need to do anything else, except get back to the plane.”

  Chase looked from Yuen to the exit through which Fang had departed, then let out a breath between his teeth. “Okay, let’s bag him. But we’ll have to shift to catch him.” He put down the bags, then ducked through the door.

  They emerged by the catering trucks. A couple of uniformed staff looked at them disinterestedly before carrying on with their food preparation. The reason for their lack of surprise soon became obvious. The marquee was a no-smoking area; from the number of cigarette butts on the ground, this was the only place where the media could grab a smoke.

  Chase led the way along the side of the tent and peered around the corner. There was another security guard outside the exit through which Fang had l
eft, but his back was to Chase as he watched a pair of men carrying a set of wooden steps into an open area marked by a circle of white tape. They were preparing for the arrival of a helicopter, presumably President Molowe’s.

  Chase spotted Fang, heading for a line of white Toyota Land Cruisers alongside the nearby administration building. “I see him,” he told the two women. “Looks like he’s going for a drive.”

  “What if he’s leaving already?” asked Nina, worried. “If he drives back to the airfield—”

  “Follow him,” Sophia said. Chase checked that the guard was preoccupied, then crossed the few yards to take cover behind a parked bulldozer at the end of a row of similar machines. Sophia and Nina quickly joined him.

  Fang got into one of the Land Cruisers and reached up to slide the keys out from the sun visor. He started the 4×4, orange warning lights on its roof flashing.

  Keeping low, Chase hurried along the row of earth-movers until he reached the last one. He leaned out from behind it to watch as Fang set off. The Land Cruiser skirted the landing area—there was a second helipad farther away, occupied by a Jet Ranger sporting the Ygem logo—and passed out of sight behind the marquee.

  Chase popped open the leather strap holding his Wildey in its holster, then gestured for Nina and Sophia to hurry to the nearest Land Cruiser. He kept his eyes on the guard as they crossed the gap, one hand on his gun, but the man’s attention was still elsewhere. Once the women were in cover, he ran to join them.

  “Okay,” he said, opening the driver’s door, “I’ll drive.” Sophia went to the front passenger door, again leaving Nina to sit on the row behind. Once inside, Chase tipped down the sun visor, the keys dropping into his hand. “Guess they don’t have much of a chav problem around here. Do this in England, your car’d be gone in six seconds, never mind sixty.”

  “We are twenty miles from the nearest town,” Sophia pointed out. Chase grinned and started the engine.

  “Ahem,” said Nina. Chase and Sophia looked around to see her holding up two white hard hats. “These might make us a bit less conspicuous.”

  Sophia looked impressed. “Good idea.” She donned one of the plastic helmets, Chase grunting as he tried to force the other onto his head. Nina took a third hard hat as Chase set off.

  He was briefly worried that he might have lost track of Fang, but the other Land Cruiser came back into view once they were past the marquee and the neighboring stage. They didn’t seem to be attracting any undue attention from the mine workers they passed.

  Chase followed Fang’s vehicle, keeping down to the thirty-kilometer-per-hour speed limit and staying well clear of the passing dump trucks. When they approached the road leading to the airfield, he was surprised when Fang didn’t turn onto it. “Hello, where’s he going?”

  Nina followed the path of the road. “Down into the mine, it looks like.”

  Chase reduced speed slightly as he continued after Fang, not wanting to get too close. Not that it would be possible to hide that he was following him—apart from the giant trucks, there was little else in the way of traffic. He looked at Sophia. “What’s down here?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “Wearing a hard hat doesn’t make me an expert in diamond mining.”

  They continued down the long spiral deeper into the pit. The dump trucks took the longest, shallowest route, but Fang guided his 4×4 down steeper inclines cutting between levels. Chase followed a few hundred yards behind. They were getting close to the bottom of the crater, which was a scene of constant mechanized activity.

  Giant mobile excavators, dwarfing even the dump trucks, tore away at the walls of the pit with enormous rotating scoops resembling the blade of a circular saw. The rubble was transported back along conveyors to be collected in hoppers, which then spewed out hundreds of tons at a time into the back of each waiting truck. The noise was horrendous, and clouds of dust swirled in the vortex of wind caused by the crater itself. “Jesus,” said Chase, carefully following Fang’s path between the colossal machines. “They should have these on Robot Wars.”

  “Just don’t get too close,” Nina said, cringing at the thump of rock on metal as a boulder larger than their Land Cruiser dropped into the back of one of the trucks. “I don’t want to end up as a red spot on somebody’s wedding ring.”

  “A literal blood diamond,” commented Sophia, making Chase laugh. Despite all her other concerns, Nina couldn’t help feeling annoyed that she hadn’t thought of the joke first.

  It had been awhile since she’d made him laugh…

  All such thoughts vanished in an instant when Chase said, “He’s stopping.” She squinted through the patina of dirt now smearing the windshield to see the other Land Cruiser pull up by a tunnel entrance at the muddy bottom of the pit, away from the roaring machines.

  “A mine shaft,” said Sophia, puzzled. “Why would there be a mine shaft? This is an open-cast mine.”

  “I thought you weren’t an expert,” Nina said, hardly concealing her sarcasm.

  “I’m not, but I do know the definition of ‘open-cast.’” Sophia’s tone was similarly derisive. “This shouldn’t be here.”

  “Well, it is,” Chase stated, “and he’s going into it.” They watched as Fang, still holding the briefcase, put on a hard hat and went quickly to the tunnel entrance, where he was met by another man. They exchanged words, then disappeared inside.

  Chase stopped next to Fang’s 4×4. “So, what do we do? Wait for him to come out so we can grab the map, or go in after him?”

  “We go in,” Sophia said firmly. “Whatever’s in there, it must be connected to whatever my husband’s doing. It’s too out of place to be a coincidence. And Fang might have gone in there to give the pages to someone else. If we lose track of them, we may never get them back.”

  “All right. But you two should wait for me in here.”

  “I don’t think so,” Nina protested, pointing at the excavators.

  “What if the foreman comes over to ask what we’re doing? If someone calls for security, we’re screwed—there’s only one way out of this hole.”

  Chase nodded begrudgingly. “Okay, okay. Just… be careful. And if it looks like there’s going to be any trouble, run right back to the car and get out of the pit.”

  “What, and leave you behind?” said Nina.

  He took out his gun and gave her a patronizing look. “I can take care of myself.”

  “And I can’t? Not that I had much choice the other day, seeing as how you’d run off to the other side of the planet—”

  “I don’t think this is the appropriate time,” Sophia interrupted sharply. She opened her door and stepped out, forestalling any further discussion. Chase frowned at Nina, then got out himself.

  Left alone, Nina banged her fists on her seat in exasperation before she too exited the Land Cruiser.

  The tunnel entrance before her was about ten feet wide, an almost perfectly circular hole disappearing into the dusty brown earth. Faint, widely spaced lights hung from the ceiling. It brought back unpleasant memories of the tunnels beneath New York. She tensed at the thought.

  “You all right?” Chase asked. He put a hand lightly on her arm.

  “I’m fine,” she said, shrugging him away and shouldering her backpack. “Come on. Let’s get my map.”

  10

  Chase led the way, using the wooden props supporting the tunnel as cover to check ahead. Fang and the other man were already lost in the darkness.

  The ceaseless noise of the excavators faded as they went deeper underground, but Nina heard more mechanical clamor ahead.

  “At least nobody’ll hear us coming,” Chase remarked. He could see lights in the distance, a larger space that was the source of the rumbling. Fang and his companion were briefly silhouetted against the electric glare, then they rounded the far end of the tunnel and passed out of sight. “Okay, I think we can move now. But keep to the sides, just in case.”

  He increased his pace to a jog, every so often looki
ng back to make sure nobody had entered the tunnel behind them. It didn’t take long for them to reach the other end.

  Chase warily peered around the last prop to see a large rectangular chamber. Three more circular tunnels led in different directions deeper underground. How they had been dug was now obvious; a large boring machine squatted on caterpillar tracks near the chamber’s center, its complex array of interlocking conical drill heads covered with jagged metal studs to rip apart the rock and earth.

  But that wasn’t the machine responsible for the noise.

  Conveyor belts emerged from each of the three tunnels, depositing the clumps of rubble they carried onto a single, broader conveyor that ascended almost twenty feet in the air to feed a huge crusher below. The pulverized ore then entered what Chase took to be some kind of processor. He couldn’t see what went on inside it, only that most of the ore was discarded, spat onto a large pile in one corner of the chamber. Whatever was being mined ended up in black metal drums, a number of which were arranged on a pallet.

  Behind the whole affair were several portable cabins, stacked on two levels. A series of yellow-painted catwalks connected them to the crusher assembly.

  “What the hell is this?” Chase wondered. “Why would you hide a diamond mine in a diamond mine?”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with diamonds,” said Nina. She crouched, using her thumb and forefinger to pry something out of the wall.

  “Jesus,” Chase gasped. Nina held a stone about the size of a pea. It was rough, uncut… but unmistakable.

  A diamond.

  “I just saw it, right there.” She moved a few feet back down the tunnel, then pointed. “And there’s another one.”

  “My husband always did brag about this being the richest mine in the country, maybe even the world,” said Sophia. “If diamonds are that easy to find, it seems he wasn’t joking.”

  “But these have just been ignored,” Nina pointed out. “Whatever they’re mining in here, it must be more valuable than diamonds. But what is?”