TD smiled, then spoke to somebody on the ground over her headset to receive final landing instructions. The plane banked, turning westwards. The distant beauty of the delta was replaced by…

“Bloody hell,” muttered Chase. “That’s an eyesore.”

“I’m afraid environmentalism and diamond mining don’t mix,” Sophia said.

Nina couldn’t agree more. Ahead, growing rapidly as the plane descended, was Yuen’s diamond mine, a colossal crater gouged out of the earth. Nina could make out yellow vehicles moving up and down the long paths spiraling down to the base of the giant pit; she did a double take when she realized they were still miles from the hole. The trucks were enormous, in keeping with the terrifying scale of the mine itself.

Beyond the pit were numerous warehouselike buildings and cylindrical towers, all on the same massive scale. The whole complex of pit and support buildings spanned over a mile, and the distant fences around the mine suggested plenty of room for expansion.

The Twin Comanche made a bumpy landing, taxiing to the end of the runway and being directed into a large parking area off to one side. There were already numerous other aircraft on the ground, ranging from small chartered props to corporate jets. It was clearly a major event.

With equally major security.

Chase, Nina and Sophia-TD remained in the plane-were met at a cordon by a group of unsmiling armed men. Private security, not Botswanan armed forces. It took Chase only a moment’s observation to tell that they had military training. Their stance, alertness and hold on their weapons a dead giveaway. As he approached, he deliberately relaxed his own stance, trying to look as undisciplined as possible as he shambled up to the checkpoint with two heavy bags of equipment.

One of the guards held up a hand, his companions subtly shifting position to cover the new arrivals. “Good afternoon, welcome to the Ygem diamond mine,” he said mechanically. “May I see your visitor passes and identification, please?”

Sophia spoke for them, aristocratic accent to full commanding effect. “Good afternoon. I’m Sophia Black, from the CNB news bureau in Cape Town. This is Ed Case, my cameraman, and Nina Jones, my sound engineer.” She gave the guard the documents that TD had obtained.

He checked them against a list on a clipboard and made an approving noise. “Thank you,” he said, returning the documents. Another man ran an electronic wand over their bodies, detecting innocuous items like keys and coins. The first man went through their luggage. “Can you switch this on, please?” he asked of the bulky video camera he took from one of Chase’s bags.

Chase obliged, the camera coming to life. The guard peered through the viewfinder to be sure, even opening the tape door to check inside. “Camera, battery packs, spare tapes, boom mike, sandwiches,” Chase said, pointing out each item in turn. “Hey, you mind if I get some footage of you guys? You know, for background color?”

“Yes, I do mind,” the guard told him firmly. As Chase repacked his gear, the man looked through Nina’s little backpack, finding only the binder. He flicked through the first few pages of her handwritten notes with no interest, then returned it and went on in a bored voice, “It is the policy of the Ygem diamond mine to remind all visitors that diamond theft is an extremely serious offense, which will be punished by the full force of Botswanan criminal and civil law. Thank you, you can now enter. Please wait over there for the bus.” He pointed to some covered benches beside the nearby road, where other people were already sitting.

“Cheers, mate,” Chase said, picking up his bags. “Ed Case?” he hissed to Sophia as they walked away. “Very bloody funny. Makes me sound like a nutter.”

“Just my little joke.”

“At least they got us in,” Nina said.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Chase put a hand on Sophia’s shoulder. “Good work.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

After a few minutes, a bus pulled up, and those waiting-all members of the international press corps-boarded. Chase took a seat near the back of the bus, and Sophia sat down next to him. Feeling slightly left out, Nina settled in the row behind. A few minutes later, another small group of people boarded, and the bus moved off.

Once he was sure that nobody was watching, Chase took the long tubular boom mike from his bag and pried it open to reveal that it was hollow, his disassembled Wildey pistol and its holster crammed inside. He quickly reassembled the big gun, then donned the holster, slipped the weapon into it and put his leather jacket back on to hide it.

“I thought you were trying to cut down on shooting people,” said Sophia.

“Well, it’s kind of like a diet-you know, you stick at it for a while, then…” Chase joked, before his face hardened. “And after what happened to Nina, somebody deserves to get shot.”

Nina said nothing, somewhat affronted that it had taken him this long to remember she was with him.

The bus slowed. Looking ahead, she saw they were approaching a checkpoint, a high corrugated metal fence topping a berm of bulldozed earth running off in each direction. But that wasn’t what seized her attention. “Tanks?”

“Must be here as part of the presidential guard. Bit of a show of force to let everyone know how seriously they look after their diamond mines,” Chase observed. The two tanks in mottled brown desert camouflage flanking the gate were Leopards, a relatively old German design long since superseded in the West by more modern weapons, but still formidable.

“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.