Diamond Hunters Part 8

Johnny checked the grub box, and they climbed into the open Land-Rover.

"Where are we going?"Tracey asked.

"Inspect the watchtowers along the sandspit."

"Watchtowers?"

"We've put up a line of fifty-foot wooden towers along the beach. From them we will take continual bearings on Kingfisher when she is working offsh.o.r.e. By radio we will be able at any time to give her the exact position over the bottom to within a few feet, as a check to the computer."

"My, you are clever." Tracey fluttered her eyelashes at him in mock admiration.

"Silly wench," said Johnny, and let out the clutch. He swung down past the radio shack on to the hard wet sand at the edge of the lagoon; accelerating he hit second then third and they went away around the curve of the lagoon, headed towards the great yellow wind-carved dunes that lined the coast.

Tracey stood up on her seat, clutching the edge of the windscreen, and the wind s.n.a.t.c.hed at her hair. She pulled the retaining thong from it, and shook it out into a shiny black flag that snapped and snaked behind her.

"Look! Look!" she cried as the flocks of startled flamingoes lurched into flight, streaming white and pink and black over the glossy silver water.

Johnny laughed with her, and swung the Land-Rover towards the dunes.

"Hold on!" he shouted, and she clung to the Windscreen, shrieking in delicious terror as they flew up the steep side of a dune, spinning a cloud of sand from the rear wheels and then dropped over the crest in a stomach-churning swoop.

They crossed the sandspit and hit the beach, racing along it, playing tag with the waves that shot up the sand.

Five miles up the beach Johnny parked above the highwater mark and they ate cold chicken and drank a bottle of chilled white wine sitting side by side in the sand, leaning against the seat cushions from the Land-Rover. Then they went down to the edge of the sea to wash the chicken grease from their fingers.

"Yipes! It's cold." Tracey scooped a double handful of sea water.

Then she looked at Johnny and her expression became devilish.

He backed away, but not quickly enough. The icy water hit him in the chest, and he gasped.

"War!" It was their childhood cry.

Tracey whirled and went off long-legged along the beach, with Johnny pounding after her. She sensed him gaining on her, and shouted.

"It was a mistake! I didn't mean it! I'm sorry!" At the last moment as he reached out to grip her shoulder, she jinked and ran knee-deep into the sea.

Turning at bay to face him, she kicked a spray of water at him, shouting defrance and laughter.

"All right, come on then!" Braving the flying spray, he reached her and picked her up kicking and struggling and waded out waist deep.

"No, no - please. Johnny. I give in - I'll do anything." At that moment a freak wave, bigger and stronger than the others, knocked Johnny's legs out from under him.

They went under, and were rolled up the beach, to stagger out, completely soaked, clinging together, helpless with laughter.

They stood beside the Land-Rover trying to wring the water out of their clothing.

"Oh, you beast!" sobbed Tracey through her laughter. Her hair was a sodden ma.s.s, and drops of sea water clung in her eyelashes like dew.

Johnny took her in his arms and kissed her, and they stopped laughing.

She went loose against his chest, her eyes tightly closed and her lips, salty with sea water, opened against his.

The radio telephone in the Land-Rover beside them began to bleat fretfully, flashing its little red warning light.

They drew apart slowly, reluctantly, and stared at each other with dazed, bemused eyes.

Johnny reached the Land-Rover, unhooked the microphone and lifted it to his lips.

"Yes?" his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and repeated.

"Yes?" The foreman's voice was distorted and scratchy through the speaker.

"Mr. Lance, I'm sorry to have " he was clearly about to finish interrupted you." But he stopped abruptly, and began again. "It's just that I think you should know we've had a gale warning. Northerly gale building up quickly. If you want to get back to Cape Town You had better get airborne before it hits us - otherwise you could be shut in for days."

"Thanks. We'll be back right away." He hung up, and Tracey smiled shakily. Her voice was also husky and unnatural-sounding.

"And a d.a.m.n good thing too!" Tracey's hair was still damp, and the borrowed poloneck jersey swamped her. The grey trousers were also borrowed, rolled up to show her bare feet.

She sat very quietly and thoughtfully in the pa.s.senger seat of the Beechcraft. Far below them a small fishing vessel lay with a white cloud of seabirds hovering over it, and she watched it with exaggerated attention. There was a heavy feeling of restraint between them now, they could no longer meet each other's eyes.

"Pilchard trawler."Johnny noticed her gaze.

"Yes," said Tracey, and they were silent again.

"Nothing happened."Johnny spoke again gruffly.

"No," she agreed. "Nothing happened." Then shyly she reached out and took his hand. Lightly she rubbed the stump of his missing finger.

"Still friends?" she asked.

"Still friends." He grinned at her with relief, and they flew on towards Cape Town.

Hugo Kramer watched the aircraft through his binoculars, balancing easily against the roll and pitch of the bridge.

"Police patrol?" asked the man at the helm beside him.

"No," Hugo replied without lowering the gla.s.ses. "Red and white twin Beechcraft. Registration ZS - PTB. Private aircraft, probably one of the diamond companies." He lowered the gla.s.ses, and crossed to the wing of the bridge. "Anyway, we are well outside territorial waters."

pope The drone of the aircraft engine faded away, and Hugo transferred his attention to the frantic activity on the deck below him.

The trawler, Wild Goose, lay heeled over under the weight of fish that filled her purse seine-net; at least a hundred tons of seething silver pilchards bulging the net out alongside the trawler into a round bag fifty feet across.

While above it a shrieking canopy of seabirds swirled and wheeled and dived, frantic with greed.

Three of the crew on a scoop-net which hung from the overhead derrick were dipping the fish out of the net, swinging a ton of fish at each scoop over the side, and dropping them like a silver cloudburst into the trawler's hold. The donkey engine on the winch clattered harshly in time to their movements.

Hugo watched with satisfaction. He had a good crew, and although the fishing was only a cover for the Wild Goose - yet Hugo took pride in his teutonic thoroughness which dictated that the cover should be as solid as possible.

In any case, all profits from fishing were for his personal account. It was part of the agreement with the Ring.

He packed the binoculars carefully into their leather case, and hung them behind the chartroom door. Then he clambered swiftly down the steel ladder to deck level, moving with catlike grace despite the heavy rubber hip boots he wore.

"I'll take her here for a while," he told the man at the winch controls. He spoke in Afrikaans, but his accent was shaded with the German of South West Africa.

Wide-shouldered under the blue fisherman's jersey, he worked with smooth economic movements. His hands on the winch control were rough and reddened by wind and sun, for his skin was too fair to weather.

The skin of his face was also red, and half-boiled, peeling so there were pinky raw places on his cheeks and black scabs on his lips.

The hair that hung out under his cap was white as bleached sisal, and his eyelashes were thick and colourless, giving him a mild near-sighted look. His eyes were the palest of cornflower blue, yet without being weak and watery as those of most albinos; they were slitted now, as he judged the roll and dip of the boat - engaging the clutch to meet the movement, or pulling on the drum brake.

"Skipper!" A shout from the bridge above him.

"Ja." Hugo did not allow his attention to waver as he replied, "What is it?"

"Gale warning! There is a northerly buster building up."

And Hugo grinned, pulled on the brake and shut the throttle.

"All right, clean up. Cut the purse rope, let the fish go free."

He turned and swarmed up the ladder to the bridge, and went to his chart table.

"It will take us three hours to get in position," he muttered aloud, leaning over the chart, then he barged out on to the wing of the bridge again to chase up his crew.

They had cut the purse rope on the net, allowing the net to fall open like a woman's skirt, and the fish were pouring out, a dark spreading stain through the gap. Two men had the pressure hose on, washing loose fish from the deck into the sea, others were slamming the hatch-covers closed.

Within forty minutes Wild Goose was running south under full throttle to take up her waiting station.

The diamond coast of South West Africa lies in the belt of the Trades. The prevailing wind is the southeaster, but periodically the wind system is completely reversed and a gale comes out of the north, off the land.

It is a Scirocco-type wind like the "Khamsin" of the Libyan desert, or the "Simoom'of Tripoli.

It was the same searing dry wind out of the desert, filling the sky with brooding dust and sand clouds, smothering everything beneath a h.e.l.lish pall like the smoke from a great battlefield.

The dust clouds were part of the design, the Ring had taken account of them when they planned the system - for the north wind lifted into the sky Such a quant.i.ty of mica dust that the radar screens of the diamond security police were cluttered and confused, throwing up phantom echoes and making it impossible to pick up the presence of a small airborne object.

Turn Back Point was three miles inland, and sixty miles north of the Orange River. The name was given by the first travellers, and expressed their views on continuing a journey northwards. Those old travellers had not known that they + stood in the centre of an elevated marine terrace, an ancient beach now lifted above the level of the sea, and that it was the richest prospect of an area so diamond-rich that it was to be ring-fenced, patrolled by jeep and dog and aircraft, guarded by gun and radar, a laager so secure that a man leaving it would have to submit to X-ray, and take nothing out with him but the clothes he wore.

At Turn Back Point was one of the four big separation plants where all the gravel from the big Company's workings from miles around was processed. The settlement was comparatively large, with plant, workshops and stores, and accommodation for five hundred men and their families.

Yet not all the Company's efforts to make it attractive and liveable could alter the fact that Turn Back Point was a h.e.l.l-hole in a savage and forbidding desert.

Now with the north wind blowing, what had been unpleasant before was almost unbearable. The buildings were tightly sealed, even the joints around the windows and doors were plugged with cloth or paper and yet the red dust seeped in to powder the furniture, the desks, the bed linen, even the interior of the refrigerators, with a thin gritty film. It settled in the hair, was sugary between the teeth, clogged the nostrils - and with it came that searing heat that seemed to dry the moisture from the eyeb.a.l.l.s.

Outside the dust was a red glittering fog which reduced visibility to a dozen yards. Men who were forced out into that choking dry soup wore dust goggles to protect their eyes, and the mica dust covered their clothing with a shiny coating that glittered even in that dun light.

Beyond the settlement a man moved now through the fog, carrying a small cylindrical object. He leaned forward into the wind, moving slowly away into the desert. He reached a shallow depression and went down into it.

Setting his burden on the sand, he rested a moment. Then he knelt over the cylinder. He appeared monstrous under his leather jacket and cap, his face covered by goggles and a scarf.

The fibre-gla.s.s cylinder was painted with yellow fluorescent paint. At one end was a transparent plastic bubble which housed an electric globe, at the other end was a folded envelope of rubberized nylon material attached to the cylinder by a stainless steel coupling, and linked to the coupling was a small steel bottle of hydrogen gas.

The whole a.s.sembly was eighteen inches long, and three inches in diameter. It weighed a few ounces more than fifteen pounds.

Within the cylinder were two separate compartments.

The larger contained a highly sophisticated piece of transistorized electronic equipment which would transmit a homing signal, light or extinguish its lamp on long-distance radio signal command, and also at command it would control the inflow of hydrogen gas into the nylon balloon through the connecting coupling.

The smaller compartment held simply a sealed plastic container into which were packed twenty-seven diamonds.

The smallest of these stones weighed fourteen carats, the largest a formidable fifty-six carats. Each of these stones had been selected by experts for colour, brilliance, and perfection. These were all first-water diamonds, and once they were cut they would fetch in the open market between seven hundred thousand and a million pounds depending on the skill of the cutting.

There were four members of the Ring at Turn Back Point. Two of them were long service and trusted diamond sorters employed behind the guarded walls of the processing plant. They worked together, to check each other, for the Company operated a system of employee double check which was completely useless when there was collusion.

These men selected the finest stones and got them out of the plant.

The third member of the Ring was a diesel mechanic in the Company workshops. It was his job to receive ant] a.s.semble the equipment which arrived concealed in a marked drum of tractor grease. He also packed the stones into the cylinder and pa.s.sed it on to the man who was now kneeling out in the desert, preparing to launch the cylinder into the swirling dust fog.

His final check completed, the man stood up and went to the lip of the depression and peered out into the dust storm. At last he seemed satisfied, and hurried back to the yellow cylinder. With an incisive twist of the bevelled release ring he opened the valve on the bottle of hydrogen gas. There was a snakelike hiss, and the nylon balloon began to inflate. The folds of material crackled as they filled. The balloon lifted, eager to be gone, but the man restrained it with difficulty until the balloon was smooth and tight. He let go, and the balloon with its dangling cylinder leapt into the sky, and almost instantly was gone into the dust clouds.

The man stood with his face lifted to the dark furnacered sky. His goggles glinted blindly, but his att.i.tude was one of triumph, and when he turned away he walked lightly with the step of a man freshly released from danger.

"One more package" he promised himself. "Just one more, and I'll pull out. Buy that farm on the Olifants River, do a bit of fishing, take a shooting trip every year-" He was still dreaming when he reached the parked Landrover and climbed into the driver's seat. He started the engine, switched on the headlights, and drove slowly down the track towards the settlement.

The sign on the rear of the departing Land-Rover was in white paint so that it showed clearly through the haze of red dust.

SECURITY PATROL," it read.

Wild Goose lay on station, with her diesels throbbing softly, ticking over to hold her head into the wind. Even twenty miles out at sea the wind was searing hot and the occasional splatter of spray on Hugo's face was refreshing.

He stood in the corner of the bridge where he could watch the sea and the helmsman, but he was anxious. Wild Goose had been lying. on station for fifteen hours now, during ten of which the norther had howled dismally through her rigging.

He was always anxious at the beginning of a pick-up. There was so much that could have gone wrong, anything from a police sweep to a tiny electrical fault in the equipment.

"What time is it, Hansie?" he shouted and the helmsman glanced up at the chronometer above his head.

"Three minutes after six, skipper."

"Dark in half an hour," Hugo grunted disgustedly, slitted those pale-lashed eyes into the wind once more, then shrugged and ambled back into the bridge house.

He stopped at the console beside his chart table. Even to an experienced eye the machine was an ordinary "Fishfinder', an adaptation of the old wartime anti-submarine device, the ASDIC, to the more prosaic business of plotting als beneath the the depth and position of the pilchard sho surface.

However, this model had undergone a costly and specialized conversion. The Ring had flown an expert out from j.a.pan to do the work.

Now that the set hummed softly, its control panel lit soft green by the internal light, but the sound was neutral, and the circular gla.s.s screen WAS blank.

"You want some Coffee, Hansie?" Hugo asked the old coloured man at the wheel. His crew were handpicked, loyal and trusted. They had to be - one loud mouth could blow a multi-million pound business.