38
Off the coast of Sierra Leone, June 26
DJEMMA GARAND STOOD
near the edge of the helipad on the false oil platform given the
number 4. This platform contained the control center of his weapon
and would be his command post if he ever needed to use
it.
The control center
sat three stories above the helipad, the glass enclosure of its
main room jutting out like the bridge on a ship. At the moment
Djemma’s attention lay elsewhere.
He stood, leaning up
against a rail, in the shadows, his eyes hidden behind the
ever-present green shield of the Ray-Bans he wore. Out in the
center of the helipad, wilting under the blazing equatorial sun,
stood the captured scientists from the various teams who had
flocked to the lure he’d offered. The Azorean magnetic
anomaly.
Djemma smiled at his
own cunning. So far, all things were falling in line with his
plan.
With the scientists
forced to line up as if for inspection, he waited. Each time one of
them tried to sit or get out of line, Andras or one of his men
would march out and threaten them with reprisals far worse than
standing in the sun. At all times a few men roamed the perimeter
with machine guns in their hands.
Finally, when the
moaning and complaining began to lessen, Andras came over to where
Djemma rested in the shade.
“Leave them out there
any longer and you’re going to fry their brains,” Andras said.
“Which, if I’m not mistaken, isn’t what you brought them here
for.”
Djemma turned to
Andras. He would not respond to the man’s questions.
“There were
thirty-eight experts in superconduction, particle physics, and
electromagnetic energy on Santa Maria,” he said. “I count only
thirty-three prisoners. Explain the discrepancy.”
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.