Digging Deeper: An Adventure Novel (Sam Harris Series Book 1) by PJ Skinner

round is it anyway?’
    ‘Get them in Bob, it’s your turn.’
    They went back to the serious business of getting drunk.

VI
    Several days later, a discovery in the riverbed of one of the new diversions engineered by Jorge raised moral in Kardo.
    'We found a great big pothole, Sam,’ said a jubilant Jorge.
    Jim slapped him on the back.
    ‘You found it, Jorge.’
    ‘Is that the same as finding one in an alluvial gold deposit?’ asked Sam
    'Exactly the same.  These potholes can act as diamond traps because diamonds have a high specific gravity like gold.  This means that they tend to sink to the bottom of the river gravel and into any crevice or pothole that exists on the riverbed.  The best news is that finding a pothole often means a production bonanza and one hundred percent bonuses all around.’
    Sam was not thrilled about the bastards in the management team getting one hundred percent bonuses but she tried to be pleased for Jorge.
    ‘The number of diamonds being processed means that it's time to move some of them to Mondongo,’ said Jim.   ‘Sam, I need you to go tomorrow as you aren't vital to production.’
      She was still unsure what she was required to do as diamond courier.  The procedure was known as an export.  As with other procedures in Gemsite, it was all word of mouth.  Everyone assumed she knew what to do and Jim had already told her she just had to be there as a witness so she did not ask him again.  She really needed to get away for a day or two after her humiliation in the bar, and this was ideal.
    ‘Be in the recovery plant at five,’ said Jim.
    Sam got up before dawn and went to the recovery plant half-asleep and very hungry.  The canteen did not open until five-thirty, and no mercy was shown to earlier risers.  Sam and the security officers had to wait outside the plant for over an hour for the SDM delegation to arrive from the airport.  SDM was the government diamond agency which supervised all transport and deposits of diamonds in Mondongo.
    Sam was crabby and jumpy.  She kept quiet, as she did not need anyone to know how nervous she was or that she was prone to verbal diarrhoea.
    When the men from SDM arrived, they all went through the usual routine in the dark passageways and entered into the gloom of the sorting rooms.  The diamonds were still being soaked in hydrogen fluoride for cleaning.  They needed to be taken out of the acid, washed and sorted into size fractions for weighing and counting.   It was a tedious process.  They had to be weighed twice, first by the Gemsite management and then by SDM.
    After the checking process was completed, the diamonds were loaded into a portable safe and then placed in the boot of a new Toyota jeep, which had been driven to the door of the recovery plant.  Jim came up to Sam and shook her hand.
    ‘Okay, Sam, have fun and see you tonight.  All you have to do is follow the safe to the bank and sign it over.  Don’t look around right now but the guy on the left is Eduardo.  He was a garimpeiro not so long ago.  I expect he will ask you to lunch.  You may go but whatever you do, don’t give him any information about production.’
    As she had not been allowed anywhere near the production figures, Sam did not think there was a big danger of her telling Eduardo anything useful but she nodded and looked around so that she would recognise him.
    Jim continued, ‘The government is desperate to know our real production figures and Black is just as determined that they won’t learn them.  So be careful.’
    Sam got into the car with the SDM representatives.  It was a tight squeeze. The big black men were squashed up against the windows like livers in a jar.  They were driven through Kardo behind a truck of heavily armed police, who sat at the back of their pickup thundering along the bumpy road with their machine guns pointing at the vehicle they were supposed to be protecting.  Sam hoped that their safety catches were on.  It