Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

Ten miles away, later that day

MERCENARY CAPTAIN RUPERT Gurney pulled a large steel locker from under his cot. He dialed the combination on the lock and opened the heavy lid. The locker was packed nearly full with stacks of United States currency, neatly wrapped. From a canvas sack, he added that day's delivery, adding a few thousand dollars more to the pile—enough to cover salaries for his men and a tidy skim for himself.

He counted the new money carefully, checking for broken seals, making sure that the couriers had not taken more than their assigned cut. He understood that lugging cash through the Congo was a dangerous business, and the runners definitely deserved their commission—but not a dollar more.

Satisfied with the take, Gurney secured the locker and slid it back under the cot. He nodded to the guard on his way out of the large tent and stepped out into the blazing sun. He immediately began to sweat through his dark-green uniform. Black patches spread under his arms and across his broad chest. He wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead.

Gurney hated the jungle. Hated everything about it. The heat. The bugs. The lizards. The rain. The dank, unrelenting stench. But the money was too good to turn down. And he'd run out of more comfortable options.

He walked across a broad clearing, past a row of smaller tents and a tin-roofed hut that served as the unit's bar. Above the hum of portable generators, he could already hear supervisors shouting through bullhorns in the distance.

"Faster! No stopping! No resting!"

As he got closer, Gurney could hear that the loudest shouts were coming from Hemple, his second-in-command. Hemple was British, like Gurney himself. Both had been classmates of Prince William at Eton. Hemple was a total psychopath, like most men in the unit, but a good fighter. And, as it turned out, an excellent production manager.

Gurney walked to the edge of the clearing. Hemple stood with his legs apart, cigarette dangling from his lips, AR-15 braced on his hip.

"Morning, sir!" he shouted, offering a sloppy and superfluous salute.

Gurney didn't even bother to return the gesture. He stepped onto a wooden platform and stared down into a bustling abyss. He was fifty feet above a rough-edged pit about half the size of a football field. The hole had been created by earthmovers. The massive scrape marks were still visible in the soil, but the big machines were long gone.

Now the pit was swarming with humans. Hundreds of them. Men, women, and children. All recruited from nearby villages. They worked with shovels and picks and smaller tools, digging and probing in rock walls and small offshoot tunnels. Their clothes and faces were coated with so much dust and grime that they blended in with the earth.

The prize they were digging for was not gold or diamonds.

It was copper.

Gurney had no idea who had owned the mine before. Not his concern. Capturing it on his sponsor's behalf had been child's play—a surprise attack in the middle of the night, with minimal ammunition expended. The previous overseers were rotting in a much smaller hole nearby. Now the humans in the pit worked for him.

A gunshot cracked.

Gurney looked across the pit, where ten of his men ringed the rim. One of them had just fired a warning shot behind the heels of a slacking worker. The terrified man lifted the handles of his wheelbarrow and moved quickly toward one of the tunnels.

Nearby, Hemple finished guzzling a liter-sized bottle of water, then tossed the empty into the pit. He laughed as a half-dozen scrawny kids dived for the bottle and fought over the last few drops.

"Hey, boss!" A voice from behind.

Gurney turned. Two of his men were holding a young Black woman by the arms. She carried an infant on her back.

"Look what just walked out of the bush," said one of the men.

"Catch of the day," said the other.

Gurney stepped down from the platform and looked the woman over. She was clearly terrified. Probably still a teenager. She was coated in sweat, and so was her baby, mewing softly as he clung to his mother's neck.

Gurney grabbed a water bottle from a case near the platform. He uncapped it and held it out to the woman. She shook loose from the men and grabbed it with both hands. She took a long, deep gulp, almost draining it, then slid her baby off her back and poured the remaining ounces through his lips. The overflow bubbled out of his tiny mouth and down his cheeks.

"Clean?" Gurney asked. It was unit protocol to check all indigenous intruders for hidden weapons and suicide vests.

His men nodded.

Gurney took a step closer to the woman. She looked up and stood her ground.

"Can you work?" he asked. The woman just stared at him. He tried Swahili. "Unaweza kufanya kazi?" This time she gave him a single nod.

Gurney pulled the empty water bottle from her and reached into a wooden tool bin near the platform. He handed her a metal spade, then pointed toward the winding dirt ramp that led down into the pit.

The woman stared for a few moments at the filthy chaos below. Then she swung her baby back onto her shoulders with her free arm and headed down the ramp. The orange dust began to coat her feet and bare legs.

"Jina lako nani?" Gurney called after her.

The woman turned back. "Vanda."

"Vanda," Gurney repeated. He turned to the two men who'd found her. "Put her on the payroll."

Gurney's assignment was to make the mine as productive and profitable as possible, and he knew the natives wouldn't work for nothing. Just close to it.

He took one last look at Vanda as she reached the bottom of the pit. She was young and strong.

Definitely worth fifty cents a day.