The workers were bent over in the extreme heat, laboring with pickaxes and sieves. Most of them were up to their waists in muddy brown water.

Some looked to be about the size of grammar school kids, and as far as I could tell, that's what they were. I kept thinking about the Kanye West song “Diamonds from Sierra Leone,” hearing the rap lyrics in my head. Damon used to listen to the tune a lot, and I wondered now if he or his friends ever considered the true meaning of the words.

Security up top was surprisingly light at the mine. Dozens of stragglers hung around the perimeter, working deals or just watching, like me.

“You a journalist?” someone asked from behind. “What you doin' here?”

I turned around to find three older men staring hard at me. All three were “war” amputees. They were probably not soldiers, but some of the thousands of civilians who had suffered a kind of trademark brutality during Sierra Leone's ten-year conflict, largely over control of the diamond industry.

Diamonds had already done to this country the kind of thing that oil was poised to do to Nigeria. There was no harsher reminder of that fact than the men standing in front of me right now.

“Journalist?” I said. “No, but I would like to speak with someone down there in the field, one of the workers. Do any of you know who's in charge?”

One of them pointed with the rounded stub of an elbow. “Tehjan.”

“He won't talk to journalist,” said one of the others. Both of that man's shirtsleeves hung empty at his sides.

“I'm not a journalist,” I repeated.

“It don't matter nutting to Tehjan. You American, you journalist.”

Given the kind of press coverage I'd seen about these mines, the sensitivity was almost understandable.

“Is there anyone down there who will speak to me?” I asked. “One of the workers? You know any of these men? You have friends down there?”

“Maybe tonight at the hall in town,” said the first man who'd spoken to me. “After the keg comes 'round, tongues loosen up.”

“The town hall? Where would that be?”

“I can show you,” said the most talkative of the amputees. I looked at him and as he held my stare, I wondered how it was that paranoia hadn't eaten this part of Africa alive. And then I decided to trust him.

“I'm Alex. What's your name?”

We shook left hands. I am Moses., he said.

I had to smile at that and thought of Nana. She would have smiled too and patted him on the back.

Show me the way, Moses.

Chapter 55

I WAS ON the job now, definitely working the case I had come here to solve.

The walk into town took about an hour. Moses told me a lot on the way, though he said he'd never heard of the Tiger. Could I believe him about that? I couldn't be sure.