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churches of Saint George are here. Twelfth-century. Carved out of the rock. Judd, you should come see them. You and Jessica together. Bring the boys.”
    “I will, Papa. I’ve never been,” Judd said. Jessica nodded in agreement. “
We’ve
never been. Is this your first time?”
    “I was here many years ago,” said Papa. “It’s been a long time. Things have changed.”
    “Well, enjoy it while you can,” said Judd, moving out of the screenshot. “
Au revoir
, Papa.”
    “
Au revoir
, my friend.”
    Jessica blew Judd a kiss and then turned her attention back to the computer screen.
    As he left the bedroom, Judd stole one last glance at Jessica, her high cheekbones, perfect coffee-colored skin, and bright, dark eyes. Papa was right, in fact. Judd had heard it often: He was a very lucky man.
Jessica’s way out of my league.
    Judd closed the door and walked down the hall to check on Toby, who had just turned six, and Noah, their mischievous three-year-old. Thankfully, both were still sound asleep.
    Judd took his coffee downstairs to a stool in the kitchen by the window looking out on the back garden. He checked his BlackBerry again, scrolling through the dozens of messages about overnight events around the world. A Greek bank collapsed. North Korea tested a missile in the Sea of Japan. A British journalist was imprisoned in Moscow. An American tourist committed suicide in Zimbabwe by jumping off a bridge at Victoria Falls. Nothing out of the ordinary.
    Time to prepare for his meeting at eight a.m.—and hope it worked.

2.
    Eastern Highlands, Zimbabwe
Thursday, 1:12 p.m. Central Africa Time (7:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)
    W
ang ba!”
the operations director shouted, a Chinese insult the old man didn’t understand. “
Wang ba!
Don’t make me call the army boss man again!”
    The old man, wearing a tattered shirt made of burlap, bowed his head and mumbled a weak apology:
“Ndine urombo.”
    “English! Speak English,
Wang ba!
”
    “Sorry, sorry. I work now,” said the old man, shuffling away.
    The manager stood on the edge of a giant hole, scanning the workers below. They functioned in small teams of six, each working a designated area, the same hierarchical model the company used at its mines in Burma. The youngest member of each team swung a pickax, breaking up the soil and rocks. The second youngest worked the shovel, loading wheelbarrows, while the next three pushed their cargos up the circular paths out of the great hole and to the adjacent sifting camp. The last and always most senior member served as captain, ensuring the team stuck to its designated zone and met its load quota. These captains all reported to the operations director.
    Despite the clear design, the director was not happy. The teams were working too slowly, and his bonus was based on volume. “Lazy,” he scoffed. These workers reminded him of the carpenter ants he had watched as a little boy in his village in northeastern China. The ants he liked to stomp.
    The operations director was also bitter because he knew the real money, the
big
money, from this mine was being made by his joint partners, the men who watched over him. In well-pressed Zimbabwe National Army uniforms, they hovered over everything, watching from an observation deck outfitted with fans and refrigerated sodas. Like the pit bosses in the casinos of Macao, they scrutinized every detail as teams picked amid the gravel and mud for small specks of light, tiny fragments of compressed carbon. The army made the big money because they controlled the diamonds.
    The military men also, naturally, handled mine security. The ZNA bosses deployed regular units around the perimeter of the mine and along the main road toward town, all the way up to the large roadside sign warning: PROPERTY OF THE EASTERN HIGHLANDS MINING COMPANY: ACCESS RESTRICTED, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PUNISHED . More troops patrolled the border with Mozambique, just a few kilometers away. The boundary was porous and