Devil's Gate (NUMA Files 9)

Andras turned his head, spit over the side of the rig, and looked back at Djemma. “The French team took a core sample of the tower. It could have blown the whole operation before we made our move. I had to eliminate them. The Russian expert turned out to be a spy. She tried to escape twice. I killed her as well.”

Andras did not blink as he spoke, but he did not seem to like explaining himself.

“And Mathias?” Djemma asked.

“Your little key master forgot his place,” Andras said. “He questioned me in front of the others. I couldn’t allow that.”

For a moment Djemma was angry. He’d placed Mathias with Andras to watch him, perhaps to keep him under control. No doubt that was half the reason Andras had killed him.

Still, Djemma could not show his anger. Instead he began to laugh. “What leader could afford such insolence?”

He pushed off the rail and stepped away from Andras, walking out into the hot sun to address the assembled group.

By the time he’d reached a spot in front of them a trickle of sweat was running down the side of his face. The scientists looked as if they might soon pass out. Most were from cooler climates, America, Europe, Japan. Seeing their weakness, he took his sunglasses off. He wanted them to see his strength and the fire in his eyes.

“Welcome to Africa,” he said. “You are all intelligent people, so I will dispense with the games and secrecy. I am Djemma Garand, the president of Sierra Leone. You will be working for me.”

“Working on what?” one of the scientists asked. Apparently, they hadn’t steamed the starch out of everyone yet.

“You will be provided with the specifications and requirements of a particle accelerator I have built,” Djemma said. “You will have a single job: to make it more powerful. You will of course be paid for your work, much as I was once paid for working in the mines. For your efforts you will each receive three dollars a day.”

To his right one of the scientists, a man with short gray hair and uneven teeth, scoffed.

“I’m not working for you,” he said. “Not for three dollars a day or three million.”

Djemma paused. An American of course. No people of the world were less used to being powerless than Americans.

“That of course is your option,” he said, nodding to Andras.

Andras stepped forward and slammed a rifle butt into the man’s gut. The scientist crumpled to the deck, was dragged away toward the edge of the platform, and summarily thrown off.

His scream echoed as he fell and then stopped suddenly. The water was a hundred twenty feet below.

“Check on him,” Djemma said. “If he lived, renew our offer of employment.”

Andras motioned to a pair of his men and they double-timed it over to the stairwell. Meanwhile, the rest of the scientists stared at the edge over which their associate had just been thrown. A few covered their mouths; one of them went to her knees.

“In the meantime,” Djemma said, quite pleased that someone had been stupid enough to resist right off the bat, “I will explain our incentive program. One I know you will find most generous. You will be divided into four groups and given the same information to work with. The group that comes up with the best answer, the best way to boost the power of my system, that group will get to live.”

Their eyes snapped his way.

“One member from each of the remaining groups will die,” he finished.

With that, Djemma’s men moved in and began to separate them.

“One more thing,” Djemma said loudly enough to stop the proceedings. “You have seventy-two hours for your initial proposal. In the event I have no satisfactory answer by then, one member of each group will die, and we shall start again.”

As the now thirty-two members of the world’s scientific community were separated and hustled toward the waiting elevators in the center of the rig, Djemma Garand smiled. He could see the shock and fear in their faces. He knew that most, if not all, would comply.

He turned to Andras and another African man in uniform, a general in his armed forces.

“Get back to the Onyx,” he said. “Get her into position.”

Andras nodded and moved off. The general stepped up.

“It is time, old friend,” Djemma said. “You may begin to take back what is rightfully ours.”

The general saluted and then turned and was gone.