Zara made no reply. Instead she sat, rigid, in the dark. Pensive. Sam rolled over. Happy to leave the conversation alone for the night. To a small degree, he still felt a certain level of guilt that he hadn’t planned his mission better. If he could have communicated with his team on board the Maria Helena they would all be out of this mess by now.
The ground was hard and uncomfortable. Sam had slept in worse places over the years, but his mind struggled to switch off. After about five minutes the silence was broken.
Zara asked, “What do you think happened to your agent?”
Sam paused. “Who?”
“The diamond smuggler.”
Sam didn’t wait to think about it. “He would have been executed.”
“How do you know he was killed?”
“Because he didn’t show up at the rendezvous point in Morocco.”
“So you think General Ngige’s men got to him?”
“I’m certain of it. Satellite images showed his forces in pursuit the day before we lost contact with him.”
“So maybe they captured him and he’s still alive?”
“No. General Ngige doesn’t take prisoners unless they’re valuable. And the General didn’t make any requests, so we know he didn’t keep our man alive. Simple as that.”
She asked, “What was he like?”
Surprised by the question, Sam thought about it for a moment. Zara didn’t strike him as being a sentimental kind of woman. There was no reason he could see that she would be interested in an American agent. “I don’t know. I never met the man. I got out of the military years ago.”
She laughed. “That’s right. You’re here, strictly as a treasure hunter.”
“Right,” Sam confirmed.
“What do you know about him?”
“Nothing.” Sam thought about it for a moment. “Not much. He held dual citizenship with the U.S. and Egypt. His brother still lives and works in the region. His father was a desert dweller. A Saharan nomad, who’d survived by trading throughout a series of sandy outcrops. We know nothing about his mother. She probably died when he was very little.”
“What was his name?” She spoke the words softly. There was a little tenderness that he hadn’t heard in her voice before.
“Mikhail. I don’t know his last name. He had an excellent reputation in the region.”
She made a sound. It was barely audible. But in an instant, it told him all he needed to know – and why she was so interested in the man.
Sam said, “You knew him?”
He felt Zara throw her arms around his neck and hold tight. Wet tears rolled onto his neck.
She said, “Yes he was my lover.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Mikhail stood up to stretch. There was a slight bend in his spine, but it was as close to freedom as he would receive during his stay at the Lake Tumba Lithium Mine. He’d lost count of how many days he’d been there. None of it mattered to him. Inside the mine life and death came around every other day. If he wanted to live, he would have to beat everyone around him. He’d lost a lot of weight. If he lost any more strength he might not make it. Few people lasted in the mine very long. Those who did had to make friends fast, or beat some very powerful enemies.
Dikembe was one such friend Mikhail had made. He was the largest man Mikhail had ever met. He had to be almost seven foot tall and solid. Rations were served to those who pulled the most amount of lithium brine out from under the mountain. Dikembe, who was the largest, had been pulling massive amounts of the liquid brine for many years. He was given whatever rations he required.
In order to keep control of his slaves, General Ngige provided the same amount of food and water to the men of the mine every twenty-four hours. The prisoner count fluctuated somewhere between five hundred and a thousand men. It didn’t matter if this number increased or decreased, the same amount of rations would be provided, so long as the prisoners carried the required amount of lithium brine to the surface.
All lived below the cold sunken earth, in a labyrinth of mine shafts, tunnels, and excavation sites. There were eighty-four individual levels. Mines involved shafts which were vertical and tunnels which were horizontal. It had a series of mine shafts driven along opposing arms, so that there would be plenty of additional ways to reach the surface if a cave-in occurred along any one tunnel or shaft.
The Lake Tumba Lithium Mine had existed for nearly four decades as a gold mine. When the gold veins ran out, or were no longer profitable the mine was sold multiple times until it failed to find a bidder.
Once there, it sat dormant until General Ngige discovered a new purpose for it. A working mine has always been useful as a prison. It served as a deterrent and for the purpose of producing gold. Only, now it served an additional benefit of providing the highest yielding stores of lithium brine in any mine in the world – which made it one of the most valuable pieces of soil anywhere in the world.
If the legends were to be considered true, General Ngige and Dikembe both had an intricate knowledge of the mine, after being forced to work it nearly twenty years ago as children. Both men vowed to change the world they lived. Dikembe prayed to make it a better place, while Ngige wanted nothing but revenge.
Mikhail watched Dikembe finish his bowl of food. Rice, mixed with fish. He ate like an animal. Quick, without leaving a scrap of food and ravenous.
Mikhail said, “Now what?”
Dikembe stood up. His hunched shoulders, striking the tunnel’s ceiling. “Now we rest so we can perform tomorrow.”
Mikhail had heard the argument many times before. The man had the patience of Gandhi. “What about the plan?”
“When the time is ready.”
“And when will that be?” Mikhail looked at some of the other men who laid on the floor, no longer able to support their failed bodies. “Your men already have the weapons they were promised. When will we attack?”
“When the time is right and all is ready.”
If the guy wasn’t twice his size, Mikhail seriously considered hitting him. “Can’t you see? Dikembe, your men are dying around you. Their once strong and healthy lives, withering away to greet death, for nothing!”
Dikembe walked away, descending further into the mine, silently.
“You owe them a better death?” Mikhail stopped him, by reaching the giant’s massive shoulder with his hand. “And you owe me a better explanation, after all I have done for your cause.”
Dikembe looked at him. His gray-blue eyes somehow ghoulish in the poor light. “You don’t know a thing about this mine, do you?”
“No. But I know I don’t intend on dying here for no purpose at all, while a coward waits for his own oblivion.”
The giant stopped. He turned around abruptly. For a second Mikhail thought the giant was going to kill him with his bare hands. Instead the man looked to the ground below. With his massive finger, he drew a series of horizontal and vertical lines. There were four separate mines, each one extending miles upon miles in a series of tunnels, spanning every direction. The four mines were all joined by a rectangular tunnel that formed at level ten. And above that, three tunnels traverse in an ascending direction, until all three joined together and finally reached the surface.
Dikembe said, “This is the Lake Tumba Lithium Mine. There are eighty-four levels. As you know, throughout a twenty-four hour cycle we need to extract a total of ten tones of lithium from inside this maze. That includes both the metal separated from other elements in igneous minerals and the lithium salts extracted from water and brine pools.”
Mikhail nodded and said nothing. Dikembe wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.
Dikembe drew a line across the top levels of the mine. “At night time, Ngige’s men lock gates at this section, keeping us trapped below level ten.”
“Yes, but give me enough time and I’ll break through those grates.”
Dikembe ignored his request. Instead he drew the three main tunnels that led to the single tunnel that extended
all the way to the surface. He then met Mikhail’s eyes. “Do you know what’s directly above these three tunnels?”
“No.”
“Lake Tumba and nearly three hundred million gallons of water.”
Mikhail nodded. If anyone tried to tunnel out, they would have no way of knowing when or where they would reach the bottom of the lake. Even if they didn’t try to escape, General Ngige must have ordered dynamite to be drilled into the ceiling of one of those tunnels. At the first sign of a revolt, the dynamite would be blasted and all of them would drown below.
“There must be something we can do?” Mikhail said. “Maybe we could somehow build our own barrier. Or find another tunnel out?”
Dikembe nodded. “It will be hard. The work needs to be undertaken after lithium has been extracted for the day. And it needs to be done so quietly. Using a chisel only, to carve a fault in the tunnel’s roof. And it needs to be completely invisible by the time the first guards enter the tunnel in the morning.”
“But it must be possible!”
“It’s possible. Of that I’m certain.” Dikembe spoke with the slow, deep and almost reverent voice of a spiritual leader. A man born to lead men to greatness. “It’s taken nearly a year. But the work will be complete by the end of the week.”
Chapter Forty-Seven – Malta
Nestled on the eastern side of Malta’s Grand Harbor, the Maria Helena casually swung a hundred and eighty degrees on her anchor, as the peak tide turned. The outward appearance suggested she was once little more than an icebreaker, more recently retrofitted to meet the demands of her wealthy owner who wished to play mariner at all ends of the globe. A large helipad stood out on the aft deck, and several weather and navigational instruments were visible above the four story high bridge. Otherwise, the ship was relatively barren. It had a reinforced steel hull with sharp, angular lines, making her exceptionally stable at sea.
Along her hull were the words, Deep Sea Projects.
Inside, she contained some of the most advanced marine and submarine equipment available. To manage this equipment and support the range of deep sea projects around the globe, was a unique team of highly intelligent people, all specialists in their respective fields. After three weeks at harbor, most of these experts had passed the point of enjoying their reprieve and were now finding they were thoroughly bored.
The eastern wall of Malta’s Grand Harbor turned gold as the setting sun struck it. Sitting alone at a workstation inside the bridge, Elise pulled up the GPS tracking chart. Stared at it for a few moments and then checked the previous forty-eight hours to confirm her concerns.
She gently bit the top corner of her lip. Sighed and then called out. “Matthew, get your ass in here.”
“What have you got?” Matthew, the ship’s skipper, replied as he climbed the steel steps up from the deck below.
She didn’t wait until Matthew was on the bridge to explain. “This is the GPS tracking beacon Sam’s been using. Either he’s completely lost focus and direction, walking around aimlessly, or his sat phone is on his camel and he’s lost his camel.”
Matthew smiled reassuringly. “I wouldn’t worry, too much – Sam hates riding. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t do something stupid like get rid of his camel because he couldn’t handle the damned thing.”
Elise asked, “He hates riding camels?”
Matthew nodded. “Horses, camels, donkeys. We’ve tried him on all of them over the years. Can’t relax you see. Hates to lose control. He’ll be fine. He’d have to do something pretty stupid to run into trouble in the middle of nowhere.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“And that’s what Tom’s doing there – making sure he keeps Sam in check.”
Elise brought up the image of the last waterhole where the camels had taken a direct route three days ago. “We know someone was guiding the camels at this point. The lines are too direct to be accidental. Afterwards, they seem to go around in circles before repeatedly returning to the same oasis.”
“Where’s the oasis?”
“It’s called mini Bilma Oasis. Somewhere in Niger, bordering with Chad.”
“Okay, can you get me current satellite imaging?” he asked.
“I’m already on it. The computer’s currently communicating with the satellites overhead. I’ll have an image for you any second now.”
Three separate images appeared on her screen. Each taken from a separate satellite and representing a single snapshot of the location. Elise clicked on the first one. The image blurred for a moment while the resolution finished pixilating.
The image became instantly clear. Elise stared at it for a few seconds and then her eyes met Matthew’s. His hazel eyes had the kind of steely resolve of a man with decades of command under his belt. The sort of person who knew when it was his job to make decisions that might cost the company a fortune for nothing, or worse still, the lives of his people.
Matthew depressed the microphone for the internal speaker system. “All right, team. Vacation’s over. I want everyone on the bridge right now.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Elise waited until the last person from the crew entered the room before she spoke. She looked around the room. Veyron, their engineer, Genevieve their chef and general jack-of-all-trades, and Matthew, their skipper. All professionals. Every one of them the best in their respective fields. Disciplined. Tenacious. Exacting individuals capable of achieving anything they set their minds to. Elise smiled as she recalled how she’d come to be part of such a team.
She was by far the youngest person in the room. Most people guessed she was in her mid-twenties. Elise didn’t know her exact age. She’d been orphaned at birth and years later had been picked up by a random IQ and cryptic reasoning test the CIA had run through all schools and public child centers. Her results had been off the charts and the CIA had taken her in and raised her as their own. Their very own weapon to beat the next generation of computer hackers. She instantly related to computers and evolved with them at a time when the internet was slowly being introduced to homes around the world. One day she decided she didn’t want to work for the CIA anymore and simply wrote herself a new identity. That’s how she came to be working for Sam Reilly on board the Maria Helena.
And now Sam Reilly and Tom Bower were in serious trouble.
Despite her age, people listened when she spoke. “Three days ago we lost track of Sam and Tom. Somewhere deep in the Saharan desert. The last time we had photographic surveillance of both men they were about two hundred miles south of Libya, bordering Niger and Chad at an oasis, enjoying an afternoon swim.”
Elise opened the first of the images on the overhead projector. It showed the small jellybean shaped oasis in the middle of a sea of sand dunes. There were five palm trees. Next to the water on the northern side, were several pieces of rubbish and debris. She enhanced that section of the image and the bodies of two people were clearly visible. They wore the jungle camouflage uniform of any number of rebel forces found much further south in the Sudan, Congo, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, or even the Democratic Republic of Congo.
No one spoke.
Elise clicked to further enhance the image of a third deceased person on the southern side of the oasis. “This is where my day really turned bad!”
The dead man was lying on his back and his uniform, despite being quite reddened had an emblem of a snake holding an AK-47. It was almost cartoonish, if it wasn’t so serious. It was the sign of the African United Conquerors. And if they were that far north it meant only one thing. They knew about Sam Reilly and were coming to stop him.
“Ah, shit!” Veyron was the first to recognize the significance. “When do we leave to go get them?”
Elise looked at Matthew. “Do you think the Secretary of Defense would authorize help from the USS Mississippi? It’s currently stationed in the Mediterranean Sea.”
“Are you kidding me?” Matthew shook his head. “With a covert operation like
this, she’d have to sacrifice her agent. Even if she was the one to recruit Sam as her personal problem solver.”
“We have to go after Tom and Sam,” Genevieve said. “Their own government can’t – so if they’re in trouble, we need to be their solution.”
Elise said, “There’s one other thing I haven’t mentioned. A massive hoard of General Ngige’s men is out there in the desert. They’ve been slowly heading south through the Erg of Bilma. The good news is that while they’re on the move, they don’t yet have Sam and Tom. The bad news is we don’t have a clue why the General would risk moving so many of his soldiers this far away from the Democratic Republic of Congo. But we have to assume he had a damned good reason. The most likely, being that he knows about Sam Reilly coming for the diamonds.”
Genevieve nodded. She’d heard every word and none of it made a difference to her. “Okay. Matthew, take us in as close as you can to the Libyan coast without getting us killed. I’ll pilot the Sikorsky. We’ll mount two Browning machine guns in case we get into any trouble. Veyron and Elise, you’ll arm the machine guns and we’ll go in and get our boys back.”
No one had a better idea.
Elise smiled. This is why she loved her family. These people would shift the world to help each other. There was no discussion about whether the U.S. government would approve of their rescue attempt. Heck, even flying a heavily armed helicopter over Libyan airspace was likely to have them shot down and start a war, but the team could get around that. She would have to hack into the Libyan Civil Aviation Authority and write a special permit for approval to fly within the airspace. Perhaps she could associate the helicopter to one of the oil companies inside Libya. They would be screwed if someone actually looked at their helicopter and its armaments, but it would be enough to stop the Libyan Airforce from shooting them out of the sky within the first few minutes of entering Libyan airspace.
It could be done.
Matthew stood up. He was by far the most conservative on board the ship. Everyone looked at him. He was the only one who might consider objecting. Certainly the most likely to find legitimate reasons to object. And there were many.
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2 Page 67