Rogue Angel 47: River of Nightmares (17 page)

Chapter 28

At the bottom of the rope ladder, Mitch tied her hands together with a thin cord. She saw fresh wildflowers on the oldest grave, in place of the wilted ones she’d noticed before. Of the three bodies, one had meant something to somebody at the camp. Three buckets were filled to the brim with emerald chunks. No one else was in the chamber, but she heard music and the constant clanking coming from the corridor. Mitch had a gun to her back and pushed her forward. She was still sore, but it wasn’t terrible. She healed quickly, and this time was no exception.

The mine was better lit than on her previous foray. Four large battery-powered lanterns in this chamber, and as she walked by the light made her shadow dance on the opposite wall. More light came from the corridor ahead.

She could take her escort, whirl and grab the gun and turn it on him. She wouldn’t even need the sword. But she decided to play along. She wanted to find Moons and Edgar. Besides, she wanted to talk to Dillon.

As she was prodded along, Annja discovered that Dillon was the source of the music. He was singing as he worked the pick against the wall. Three other miners worked farther down. Dillon had a good voice, but the words sounded haunted in the close confines of the tunnel. The tink-tink-tink oddly syncopated accompaniment.

She’d heard it before, an old Swedish hymn that mentioned the pearl of great price.

He finished and smiled sadly at her. “In a church in Melbourne, there is a remarkable stained-glass window depicting Jesus and the parable of the pearl.” Dillon’s eyes took on a rheumy look, as if he was lost in a memory. “Nancy and I were vacationing in the city. Nancy was my wife for eighteen years. She was devout and insisted on attending church, that one because of its windows. Incidentally, that day, the pastor included that verse in his sermon. Do you know the one?”

Annja didn’t answer.

The silence seemed to not sit well with Dillon. “I’ve memorized the lines,” he said, and quoted them to her. “In that time, pearls had a much greater value than today, but it means—”

“I know what it means. It illustrates the value of finding your way to the kingdom of heaven, and that the merchant gave up everything to get there, to be closer to God and to be saved.”

“If you believe in God and that sort of thing, Miss Creed. If God and heaven exist, I suspect I’ll see neither, given the things I’ve done in my life, especially recently. No matter, I have found my pearl of great price here in the Amazon. It is right here, and it is an emerald. My deal of a lifetime so to speak.” Dillon tapped the wall with the vein he’d been mining.

“This belongs to Brazil. You’re poaching.”

“Do you know much about gemstones, Miss Creed?” He waited for an answer. “No? I didn’t either initially, but my wife knew a lot, and through our years together she shared her knowledge. I used to call her my magpie because she adored shiny baubles. Every birthday, anniversary, was a reason to add another piece of jewelry to her cabinet. In the lean years, it was small things.” Again Annja saw Dillon become lost in a memory, but the wistfulness left and his eyes took on a bitter shine. “Let me explain then why this is my pearl. The clarity of the stones in this vein is amazing, the color intense. But what makes this find so staggering is the size of the pieces we’re pulling from these walls.”

He reached into the bucket and held one up, shining the light from his helmet so she could get a better look. It was thick, bright and beautiful.

“If a one-carat stone is of such a quality that it sells for six thousand, some would think that a five-carat stone would sell for thirty thousand...five times the initial amount, right? No. The larger stone is far rarer, and it would instead be worth ninety thousand. The stones we are pulling, Miss Creed, a few of them are five carats. Only a few. Ten carats, twenty carats, thirty...most of them fall into that range.”

Annja looked past him and watched the men carefully chipping away, putting emerald chunks in their bucket. There was more clanking coming from where the tunnel narrowed and curved. How many men did he have working down here?

“The largest jeweler-cut emerald that I know of is called the Mogul, at two hundred and seventeen carats. In the Viennese Treasury sits a vase carved from a single emerald, that’s more than two thousand carats. An uncut crystal from Colombia sits at nearly fourteen hundred carats. And most impressive is the Bahia emerald, an eight-hundred-and-forty-pound cluster. There’s more.”

She noticed that his voice grew louder, the words carefully spaced out as if he placed importance on each syllable and wanted her to miss nothing.

“Much more, Miss Creed.”

“I get it,” Annja said flatly. “You’re getting stinking rich.”

“Our first shipment brought us forty million.” Dillon had a smug look on his face. “Forty million.”

Annja knew he wanted her to acknowledge his prowess. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

“I have three more shipments of equal size ready to go. Packed. Waiting. And I’ll have more and more after that, the good lord willing as they say, and the Amazon doesn’t rise and drown us. Though you have thrown an unfortunate wrinkle into our work. You’ve made things less certain.”

Mitch pushed the gun against her back. “Yeah, now we’re working fast. Real fast, since we don’t know how much longer we’re going to have this place.”

Dillon set his pick down. “Who have you told, Miss Creed?”

Annja mulled her answer. If she said no one, they wouldn’t need her alive, or need Moons or Edgar. He probably intended to kill her anyway, as much as he’d shown her about his illicit operation. “What makes you think I even knew about this mine?”

“You didn’t notice the security cameras, Miss Creed? I trust my men, I really do. But...one can never be sure with all these emeralds. I saw you on the footage, snooping down here, creeping like some spy. I know the lighting isn’t the best, but you’re the only blue woman I’ve seen since setting up my camp. There’s no mistaking it. You were here yesterday.”

She hoped Roux had gotten through to someone on the satellite phone, and that the authorities were indeed sending someone out here. Time to change the subject. “Becca Mooney and her friend Edgar. Are they here?”

Dillon wanted to talk about emeralds. “I have a fellow in Belém, my partner, who is custom-cutting some of the stones for us. We’re using my company to get the emeralds out, his connections to sell everything. He is passionate about his art.”

Annja at least understood that part. She was passionate about staying alive.

“Let me show you one of his finished pieces.”

“Is this one of those before-I-kill-you moments?” Annja had held her tongue long enough. “Because that is what you’re going to do with me.”

He ignored her and reached into the collar of his shirt, tugging up a leather cord. Dangling from it a woman’s gold ring with a large emerald anchored into a simple setting. “I had him make this, a keepsake for me, something I would have given to Nancy. I thought I should have something both of this place and to remind me of her. It will be the only emerald I intend to keep, actually, a ten-carat fancy cut. The rest of this...I am trading for money.” The light played along the ring and set dizzying spots of green reflecting like a prism. “My pearl of great price, Miss Creed, is not just this emerald keepsake, but this entire emerald mine.”

“And what great price are Becca and Edgar paying?”

Dillon pointedly dismissed her. “The emeralds in this vein, in all the veins we’ve mined down here, are special. Their color and clarity certainly, but it goes beyond that. And it took my partner in the city to point it out. Come, let me show you more. Mitch, if you’ll bring her along?”

Dillon turned sideways to squeeze past his men. When he reached the narrowest part he slowly forced his way through.

Annja felt the sword hovering, knew she could use it to cut the cord that tied her wrists. This could be a good place to strike, where it was so narrow that only one man could get to her from either side. Those odds would be in her favor. She could cut down as many as she had to here. Yet she waited, curious. She needed to find Moons and Edgar.

“How did you find this place?” she asked. “I suspect you weren’t looking for it.”

Dillon motioned for Annja to come forward through the narrow passage. “It was an accident. My wife, Nancy, found it, actually. We were clearing some scrub to put up a tent and the ground gave way beneath her.”

“The grave with the flowers.” Annja walked into a large chamber, the floor of which sloped down.

“Yes. We thought she might survive the fall. She lived nearly an entire day afterward. Hammond was a medic, and took good care of her. But there was internal bleeding.”

“You could have called a helicopter, gotten her to a hospital.”

“It wouldn’t have come in time. The cost you pay for working in such a remote place.”

“A high cost for your ‘pearl of great price,’” Annja said. Despite the poor light she saw Dillon’s angry expression.

“This way.”

Mitch nudged her.

The tinking sound was loud now and there was more light ahead, around an outcropping. On the other side, the chamber stretched away into darkness. But the part she could see—illuminated by three more battery-powered lanterns and the helmet lights of the miners—was staggering.

The very large emeralds Dillon had mentioned...the piece they were carefully working their way around well might exceed any he’d described.

“My pearl of a very, very great price,” he said proudly.

Picking at the wall were five of his men in the customary coveralls and with hard hats. Working with them was Moons and Edgar. A sixth henchman had a gun pointed at the couple.

“This pearl is priceless,” he said. “This emerald is like no other in all the world.”

Chapter 29

“Can you possibly imagine what an emerald weighing hundreds of pounds would be worth, Miss Creed?” He let the thought hang for a moment. “My men and I will never want for anything. I will set them up for the rest of their lives. Half divided by them, half for me and my partner. All that money—”

She thought the faraway look in his eye was like a man gazing on his beloved. She shuddered.

“You’ll never get a stone that big out of here.” She’d remembered the size of the shipping crates.

“We just have to get it up top, Miss Creed. Two days ago I took pictures and my partner has sent them on to our bidders, and terms of the sale require the buyer to come get this monster. Men with the money to buy this...they have the resources to come in here, whether they have to grease the government’s sweaty palms or use other means. We’ve teased our bidders with these photos. We’ve had on nibble as high as four billion. So many zeroes.” The faraway look intensified. “Of course, selling this will be the last thing we do before we pull up stakes.”

The noise continued—the sound of the pickaxes, the water dripping, the labored breathing of the henchmen, all added to the greedy scene Dillon had orchestrated. Annja’s head ached and she mulled over the possibilities of how to best these men without putting Moons and Edgar in jeopardy.

“This will not go unfound,” she said. Conversation...she wanted to keep Dillon talking, get as much information as possible. “Somehow word of all of this will get out, your buyers, the laboratories you’ve been using to help smuggle the poached stones. And the money—that much money is going to be noticed by someone. Brazil, America, you’ll be hunted and arrested. Besides, you have blood on your hands—”

He beamed. “Blood emeralds. I like the sound of that, Miss Creed. Not the same connotation as blood diamonds, and a far better ring to it, don’t you think?” He fingered the ring hanging from his neck. “Oh, I know word of this monster gem will surface. But my men and I have no worries about ever being caught. My partner has all the contingencies covered. I chose him well. No law will be able to reach me.” He took a step closer and she smelled him, sweat mixed the heady loam of the rainforest, and under that an expensive cologne. “There are places in this world, opulent, civil places that will welcome us. My money is already safely there, waiting for me, waiting to be added to. I’ve a place in mind where there is no extradition, where I will be embraced and protected, and where I will live like an emperor.” He tucked the emerald ring back under his shirt.

He would kill her, and Moons and Edgar, maybe some of his men in the mix before it was all done. Arthur Dillon might not have started out evil. She remembered that on their first meeting he’d talked about a brother dying of bone cancer, his grandfather with Alzheimer’s, and that he’d melanoma himself. He might have started out altruistic, truly searching for cures in the rainforest. But the glitter of the emeralds had wholly corrupted him.

Now it was a matter of finding the right opening to take him down.

“And so I am presented with the complication of you.” Dillon stroked his chin. “I value life, Miss Creed. I truly do. Life is so very short as it is, and I hate to even contemplate the prospect of taking anyone’s last breath. You say I have blood on my hands. Maybe? But not of my doing. A few natives...but they forced the issue, and I didn’t pull the trigger.”

He turned away from her and Annja felt the sword in her mind, considered this an opportunity. But there was the henchman watching Moons and Edgar, and one man still held a gun to her back.

She would have to wait, biding her time.

Dillon stepped between two of his men and touched the massive gem in the wall. “I wonder how deep it goes into the rock? How big she really is and how many billions she will bring?” He retreated so the men could continue chipping away. They were all being so careful, even Moons and Edgar, Annja noticed. None of them wanted to mar the stone. The radio at his waist crackled and he answered it. He spoke softly, but Annja caught some of it.

“How many—”

A crackling response she couldn’t make out.

“—are you sure there’s only one?”

Another indecipherable response.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dillon grumbled. “Be certain there’s only one. Be certain! Bring him down now.”

One more response.

“Yes. Alive.” He hooked the radio to his belt and spun. “Another complication.”

“Let them go,” Annja suggested, nodding toward Moons and Edgar. “You don’t need any more blood on—”

“I really don’t want to kill anyone,” Dillon said. The look in his eyes seemed chaotic as he glanced around the cavernous chamber, his finger circling the button on the radio like it was a worry stone. “Diseases kill enough people. Cancer.”

“I thought you were hell-bent on finding a cure for cancer and Alzheimer’s. Don’t those things matter to you anymore?”

His expression of anger sent a shiver down her back. “I intend to use some of my money to pursue those cures, Miss Creed. Green is the answer, the right amount of money, the right plants. I will not give up while I breathe. I will find cures. All this money...it will make everything easier, finding the solutions for the world’s most horrible diseases, and in the process I’ll live like a king. Life will be much more pleasant all the way around, eh?” He rubbed his chin again and Annja noticed scars there and on the side of his face, souvenirs of his melanoma. “I don’t want to kill you.”

But he was going to try, she thought. Still, now wasn’t the time to make a break for freedom, as Moons and Edgar likely wouldn’t fare well. She had to put them first. “Then keep them here, Moons and Edgar, helping you with the emeralds.” She inclined her head toward the two. “Keep them until you quit the mine. When that giant emerald gets air-lifted out of here, you could let them go.”

“I’d like to do that,” Dillon said. “Truly, I would. And I had considered that. But they’re such troublemakers. I think I will have to—”

Moons turned and Annja saw that her dirty face was streaked from where she’d been crying. Edgar stopped for just a moment, but then kept going with the pick. The other miners hadn’t missed a beat either.

“We won’t be trouble, me and Edgar. We won’t say anything. I promise. I don’t care about your emeralds. I was only worried about the forest. Don’t you see—”

Dillon let her prattle on. Moons started crying again, and Edgar hesitated, but kept working. There were footfalls nearby, shuffling and cursing.

“Regardez salaud! Vous porcs immondes!”

Annja’s throat tightened. That was Roux’s voice. He’d followed her to the camp, just like he’d followed her to Brazil. When he emerged through the narrow opening, she noted his bruised and scraped face, wrists bound in front of him and hands bloody—it threw another wrench into the situation. Hammond was behind him, a sneer on his hard face, two Taurus pistols in his hands, and helmet light shining in her eyes.

“Here’s your other complication, Mr. Dillon. He was alone. And, yeah, I’m sure of it.”

Annja squinted through the light and got a closer look at Roux. They’d beaten him. Roux could well hold his own in a fight, and he’d certainly done some damage to Hammond. The thug’s lip was swollen and the nose canted to the side—broken. Dried blood was caked under his nostrils. No doubt he’d cleaned himself up a little before coming down here. Roux had done a number on him.

“Guy wouldn’t give a name, but I figure he was with the television woman.”

“Miss Creed,” Dillon said. “Call her Miss Creed, Ham.”

“He has to be with her. Just look at him, groomed, like he’s a producer type. Never saw him on their boat.” Hammond clocked Roux hard enough on the back of the head to drop him. Roux landed on his knees and let out a groan. Annja wanted to shout at her friend.
Why did you come here? Why didn’t you protect yourself, stay hidden until the authorities arrived?
But she kept her mouth shut and focused on the sword, keeping it at bay.

She mentally calculated the distance to Hammond, to the guy watching Moons and Edgar, figuring angles of attack and likely outcomes. Moons and Edgar could be shot before she could get to the gun pointed at them.

Moons was still blabbering away. “In fact, we’ll keep mining for you. We’re young and able. Look how we’ve helped so far.”

“Shut up,” Edgar whispered.

“We’ve been working nonstop since—”

“Enough!” Dillon shouted. The workmen stopped, too.

Annja felt the gun pressed harder into her back.

“I don’t want your blood on my hands, sir. So I’m not going to kill you,” Dillon said. “I’ll let the river do that.” He motioned to Hammond who tugged Roux to his feet. The other henchmen grabbed Moons and Edgar.

Had she waited too late to act? Moons and Edgar were forced down the passage first, then Roux with Hammond behind him. It had to be now, she thought. In a heartbeat the sword was in her hand. And in the same heartbeat the butt of the gun was slammed into the side of her head.