St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

asked.
    “Barter, not cash.” Neto leaned back in his chair and massaged his right forearm just above the prosthesis.
    “With what?”
    “Blood diamonds, stolen oil, coltan—”
    “What is coltan?” Thomas asked.
    Rand went back to reading. Unlike the future TV audience, Rand already knew more than he wanted to about the “black stone” that was the basis of modern electronics.
    Yet he couldn’t help listening to the events that had caused his brother’s death.
    “Coltan is mucked out of the ground by independent miners, rebels, and men with legitimate Camgerian licenses,” Neto said. “There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when coltan was worthnearly as much as solid native copper and was much easier to find. The rebels who confronted the Camgerian government five years ago used coltan to finance the purchase of arms. They bartered sacks full of it for AK-47s.”
    Rand saw the words as a series of pictures, vivid as only a flashback could be.
    Bulging gunny sacks lined up along the dirt runway.
    Sweating black rebels unloading wooden crates of high-tech death.
    A Russian turboprop.
    The Siberian.
    Blood.
    Reed’s blood.
    Everywhere.
    “The guns were stolen or purchased in Eastern Europe, from Soviet, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian arms depots,” Neto said. “Then they were flown south to equatorial Africa and traded for coltan, which could be easily monetized in the world market.”
    “Monetized?” Thomas asked right on cue.
    “Sweat and blood and coltan turned into hard currency,” Neto explained. “Victor Krout, now called Andre Bertone, was one of the leading forces in this illegal trade. He used his ties to the Russian military-industrial establishment to organize what had been random smuggling into a coordinated, very profitable business. I estimate he made one hundred and fifty million dollars over the ten years he was active in the illegal arms trade. Much of that money was wrung from the blood and bones of Camgerians. I will get it back on their behalf. With that money we will dig village wells and vaccinate children, build schools and clinics and hospitals. For millions of Camgerians, that money is the difference between continuing stability and the atrocities of war.”
    “Can you retrieve that money legally, under international law?” Thomas asked.
    Rand’s mouth flattened. If international law worked reliably, St. Kilda would be out of business. Transnational criminals weren’t stupid. Bertone was nothing short of brilliant. Courtroom proof was hard to find when everyone who stepped forward was murdered.
    And that was what Krout/Bertone did.
    “Yes, we will prevail,” Neto said, “but it will be difficult. Bertone, as he is known today, has long since put his disreputable past behind him. Using money gained from bringing war where peace had been, he has become a very wealthy oil broker, a middleman between renegade African regimes and rebel armies on one side and some of the world’s leading oil companies on the other. Bertone has a whole list of former arms clients who are tied to him—rebels who used his weapons to overthrow governments and governments who used Bertone’s arms to suppress rebellions.”
    “You’re saying that money, rather than any kind of idealism or politics, motivated Bertone in the arms trade,” Thomas said.
    “Idealism?” Neto laughed bitterly. “Bertone could not find it in the dictionary. Yet, or perhaps because of that, he has many powerful allies in Africa, Russia, Brazil, France, and even the United States. That is why you had to come to Canada to talk to me. My request for a U.S. visa was turned down.”
    Rand waited for the next, obvious question: Why would the U.S. refuse Neto entrance?
    Instead, Thomas went back to the sexier, safer, far more visual subject of arms, diamonds, oil, and violence. Rand could practically see the montage of film clips that would be used to help the viewer understand that Bertone’s profits could be measured in suffering as well as dollars.
    Faroe gestured to Rand.
    Rand closed the computer and walked to the suite’s smalldining area, where a portable fax had been set up. “Scrambled?” he asked Faroe softly.
    “What do you think?”
    “Like eggs at a buffet.”
    Faroe looked at his watch. The fax began spitting out papers. He handed them to Rand and waited for the explosion.
    “Application accepted?” Rand asked in a rising voice. “Invitation included? Frigging parking permit? You mean there really