Blue fire, p.1
Blue Fire, page 1
BLUE FIRE
An Alex Graham Novel
Katherine Prairie
Stonedrift Press Ltd
Kingston, Canada
Copyright © 2018 Katherine Prairie
All rights reserved.
Published by Stonedrift Press Ltd.
First Canadian edition
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, organizations, and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Front cover image: Bespoke covers
Illustrated maps: Margaret Kernaghan
Stonedrift Press Ltd.
Box 22031, RPO Cataraqui
Kingston, ON K7M 8S5
www.stonedriftpress.com
ISBN 978-0-9949377-5-9 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-9949377-7-3 (epub)
Printed and bound in Canada
For Bill
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought.
— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
1
Teófilo Otoni, Brazil
Alex Graham hurried across the cobblestone to meet a man from her past, the one person who might help her.
She skirted a throng of men who thrust folded white packets toward a middle-aged couple in their midst. Their excited voices spurred others to leave their shaded spots and scurry across Teófilo Otoni’s centre square. Elbow to elbow, they pushed for a spot closest to the woman, vying for her attention. Soon other visitors would arrive in this Minas Gerais town, the Brazilian hub of the coloured gem trade, but for now this couple, European from the chic look of their clothing, was the prize attraction.
Alex brushed close enough to a balding man shouting to be heard to catch a glimpse of polished green gemstones nestled in the folds of white paper held open in his palm. Emeralds. Or perhaps less-valuable tourmalines, those chameleons of the gem trade that could pass for the rubies and emeralds these men purported to sell. Even if these were real emeralds, this couple would be no match for the dealers here. These Brazilians knew the precise carat value of each gemstone in their carefully folded paper packet, and they had already decided what the black-haired woman and her attentive husband might pay.
There were no deals to be had here in the square. It was more likely that this woman in her crisp linen tunic would pay hundreds of dollars over the true value of a stone — worse, she might take home a fake or flawed stone. A single chip or the slip of the cutting blade would drop the value of an emerald dramatically, but neither could be seen with the naked eye. The woman would learn the truth only later when she took her emeralds to a jeweller to be made into a necklace or earrings.
The voices faded when Alex turned the corner to a leafy street that was barely awake. Steel doors rolled open on cement-floored spaces that looked more like garages than the shops they were. She smiled at a woman straddling baskets of glassware using a tall pole to hook a t-shirt hanger on wire hung across the doorway. On another day, Alex might have stopped to browse, but not today. Instead, she hurried down the sidewalk toward an open-air cafe, its half-empty chairs mercifully shaded from the scorching heat.
Scott Miller stood as she drew near, and as always, her heart fluttered at his smile. Each time they met, she felt as though they might pick up where they’d left off five years ago, when they’d bonded over their shared obsession with precious metals and gemstones at a Houston mining conference. They’d managed to meet a few times since that conference, but the timing never seemed right for her and the Denver-born geologist. It was no different this time, not with Eric Keenan in her life.
“Always a pleasure Alex,” he said as he folded her hands into his.
“How long has it been? A year?” He slipped into his chair, watching her do the same. “Maybe that restaurant in Rio last fall?”
She remembered that evening in Rio de Janeiro well — too well — and quickly changed the subject. “Have you been home since then, Scott?”
“Not often. These days Brazil feels more like home than Denver. I’m working almost exclusively down here now … enough that it made sense to buy an apartment in Buenos Aires.”
“Really?”
For him to settle in one place surprised her. Mining geologists like them went where the mineral trail led, and that was often a lonely valley far from civilization. If they were lucky, they’d find a bad motel along the highway with a shower that worked. Usually a nylon tent served as home, slim protection from the heat of the Amazon jungle and African grasslands or the frigid cold of the Canadian north and Siberia. Only their discoveries — gold, silver, diamonds, and more — made it all worthwhile.
“Loft with a great kitchen, terrace … the works.” Scott’s wistful smile said almost as much as his next words. “Not that I spend much time there. You know how it is.”
“No kidding. Hell, sometimes I wonder why I even bother to unpack.” It had been five weeks since she’d set foot in her Vancouver condo, but she wasn’t about to tell Scott that she’d been working here in Brazil.
“So—”
The arrival of coffee, dark and fragrant, and icy glasses of water broke their conversation. Alex reached for her wallet, but Scott had already handed rainbow-coloured Brazilian reals to their server, a young woman dressed in a skimpy tank top and body-hugging shorts.
“I took the liberty … double-shot espresso, if I remember correctly,” Scott said. “But I thought in this heat you might want something cold too.”
An intimate gesture, one that brought a smile to her lips.
Alex wrapped her hand around the ice-cold glass, resisting the urge to press its coolness to her chest. “I don’t ever get used to the heat when I’m in South America.”
“You just have to spend more time here.” Scott smiled. “Or better yet, in Buenos Aires.”
With me. She finished his thought, one made clear by the way he looked at her. She shifted in her chair, unsure of how to respond, grateful when he jumped in as though realizing his mistake.
“Although I’m sure you’ve been spending all your time up near Nelson working the Donnovan claims … or should I say your claims? Quite the coup you pulled off.”
“I’m still a little in shock over it myself.” She cocked her head. “And a little surprised that you know about it.”
He spread his hands wide. “What can I say? Baxter Donnovan’s collection of silver claims in the Slocan Valley is legendary. Lots of people were keeping an eye on them, waiting for his widow to put them on the market.”
Her finger traced the rim of her water glass. She wasn’t about to elaborate and fill in the gaps about how Sylvia Donnovan had quietly come to her seven months ago to offer the claims to Alex first. That small act to honour Baxter’s wish that Alex be the one to take over the claims had nearly cost Alex her life. But it also led her to Eric, a gift she still didn’t quite believe.
Realizing that she wasn’t about to say anything more, Scott changed the subject. “Your message said you were looking for tourmalines. Anything in particular?”
She sipped at her drink, trying to shut out her dad’s warning, his insistence she not share a single detail about this project.
Drop everything. Mosi will meet you in São Paulo day after tomorrow with details. Critical that you keep this to yourself.
From that cryptic message alone, she suspected her dad had made a new discovery, and for him to dispatch Mosi Ongeti from Tanzania meant it was something big. Alex had booked the first flight out of Vancouver and quickly handed off her projects to another of the geologists at Graham and Company without explanation, not that they needed one.
Every one of the men had worked alongside her dad long enough to expect almost anything. From maps scribbled on the back of paper napkins to intricate computer-generated models, last-minute business class flights to Moscow to harrowing prop-jet journeys to obscure landing strips in the Gobi Desert — they’d experienced it all. Brian Graham was a crackerjack mining geologist with a talent for finding what others missed, so they embraced his unorthodox style and forgave his idiosyncrasies. As did she.
But the news Mosi delivered put her in a tailspin and sent them chasing down one dead-end path to another. She’d known Scott was in Brazil and that this gem hunter might help, but she’d fought the urge to involve him, afraid of the trouble it might bring his way. Until he was their only option.
“Pinks.”
“Specimen or facet grade?”
“Specimen,” she said, referring to the gemstones displayed on countless museum and collectors’ shelves rather than a jewellery-quality stone. “My client is looking for a piece for his new office reception area … you know the sort of thing.”
“Eye-stopping…” Scott stretched a hand above his head. “And as big as possible.”
“You got it.” She tried to laugh, but it came out forced, like a cough on a dusty road.
Breathe, Alex. You’re halfway there.
She dropped her gaze to th e table and watched the trail left by her finger in the sheen of water that coated her glass. Last night, she and Mosi had spent hours working out an angle, a way of getting the information they needed without revealing too much to Scott. Now her story sounded flimsy, too rehearsed, but it was all she had.
“Anyway, he wants something deep pink,” she continued. “He likes the look of tourmaline, especially the raspberry rubellite variety, which as you know isn’t that easy to find. My dad found a few pieces in Tanzania, but they weren’t quite what my client is looking for. I’m hoping for better luck here.”
Her words tumbled out, but if Scott thought her behaviour strange, he gave no indication. Instead he leaned forward, his eyes bright with excitement.
“The dealers here have a few nice pieces, but I have to take you to the Cruzerio mine. I can get us in there this afternoon.” He was already pulling out his phone. “Alex, you’re not going to want to leave once you’ve seen their super pockets of tourmaline crystals. It’s a little like they’re digging into a room full of glistening rainbow-coloured rock.” He grinned like a child who first realizes the vastness of starry sky and dreams of adventure. “You’re not going to leave without buying one — although you’re more likely to fill your suitcase with these babies.”
She had to smile. She’d dangled an irresistible temptation in front of a man obsessed with gems, and he could focus on nothing else.
Now or never.
“What about the mines up near Coronel Murta?” Her hand tightened around her glass. “I heard that the Novoteras mine might be worth a visit.”
Scott shook his head. “Off-limits to visitors.”
“But surely you’ve been in the mine?”
“No, and I don’t know anyone who has, not even the GIA.”
Every company knew the benefit of opening their mine to organizations like the Gemology Institute of America. With so much interest in ethically sourced gemstones, the stamp of approval from the GIA was only good business. But a privately held mine didn’t have to open its door to anyone except regulators.
“I can get you into a Paraíba tourmaline mine, and that’s definitely worth a visit. Have you seen the stone?”
“Paraíba?” She pictured the tourmaline gemstones she’d seen, trying to place this particular variation in the colour spectrum. Scott saved her the trouble.
“Blue tourmaline. Brilliant blue, almost neon. Spectacular. Just spectacular.” Coffee cup raised, he gave her a sly smile. “Anywhere from sixteen thousand to one hundred thousand dollars per carat.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you kidding? What’s the price of a quality diamond right now … five or six thousand a carat?”
“A bargain, right?”
“No kidding.” Safely tucked inside a rosewood box in her Vancouver condo were a pair of diamond earrings and some pearls that had become hers when her mom died. Otherwise, Alex owned little valuable jewellery and nothing nearly as expensive as the Paraíba tourmaline Scott described.
“We can stop by the Cruzerio mine this afternoon, and then pick up a flight north … we enjoy a nice dinner and visit a Paraíba tourmaline mine tomorrow morning.” He picked up his phone. “A couple of quick calls and I can set it up.”
“Yes to the Cruzerio mine, but I’ll have to take a rain check on the Paraíba mine … I’m tight on time.”
She’d known that visits to other mines would be necessary, if only to cover her interest in Novoteras, but she couldn’t afford two days — not now. And she needed Scott to make a different phone call.
“Do you know anyone connected with the Novoteras mine?” she asked. “My client seemed convinced there were deep red tourmalines being pulled from that mine, some unique pieces.”
“Not from that mine, not from what I’ve heard.” He touched his phone, lighting its dark surface with a vibrant photo of an emerald. “I’m sure they find a few nice specimens, a few facet-quality stones, but that’s not what’s keeping the mine profitable. They have a thick vein of average-grade tourmaline, the stuff the Chinese snap up for their carving and bead market.”
It doesn’t add up. The money poured into security alone suggested the Novoteras mine produced something far more valuable.
“Could they be going offshore for their mineral-specimen buyers too?” She fingered her coffee cup. “My client has ties to Asia, so maybe someone overseas mentioned this particular mine to him?”
“Maybe, but I’m skeptical.” He shrugged. “You know how it is … people who work at these mines talk. If they found a pocket of large tourmaline gems at the Novoteras mine, the news would spread like wildfire, but I haven’t heard anything. Not even a rumour.”
Damn. She’d hit a dead end. One that left her with a single option — a move that squeezed her heart with fear.
2
Araçuaí, Brazil
Alex slipped into a wicker chair across from Mosi Ongeti. He’d chosen a table in a quiet spot near the edge of the courtyard of this pousada, a twenty-room Araçuaí inn that had served as their home for the past two weeks. The location, two hours away from the Novoteras mine, made for plenty of driving, but the steady trickle of overseas tourists shielded them from interest.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
“No.” His brown eyes met hers. “I had hoped for better news when you returned from Teófilo Otoni.”
She sighed. “So did I. I—”
A couple strolling arm-in-arm along the pathway that wove through the courtyard garden approached, shutting down their conversation. The grey-haired woman smiled at Alex, but thankfully she offered nothing more than a simple hello in accented English. It was only after the couple disappeared through the glass doors of the lobby that Mosi spoke.
“I worry.” He turned to her, his eyes soft. “This friend of yours, this Scott, are you sure he does not suspect?”
The same question had stolen her sleep. Again and again, she replayed their conversations at the cafe and later in the two tourmaline mines they visited. She thought about Scott’s words, pictured his expressions. His excitement at sharing these Brazilian mines with her had been as obvious as his disappointment when she turned down his dinner invitation.
“He can’t … he doesn’t. We spent hours together, and he didn’t ask a single question about the Novoteras mine.”
“He never asked why you were here?”
She smiled. “He knew better than to ask.” They might be friends, but she and Scott were still competitors in a cutthroat business. “Even if he didn’t buy my story about the client, he probably thinks I have a lead on a tourmaline deposit that would make a good mine.” She shook her head. “Nothing he’d be interested in. Emeralds are his focus right now — at least that’s what he said.”
Whether she believed Scott or not didn’t matter. As long he ignored the Novoteras mine, he’d stay out of their way. Out of danger.
Mosi turned his dark-skinned face up to the morning sun, the way he always did when deep in thought, as though he sought answers there. The creases that etched his forehead, the ones that gently reminded her that he was ten years her senior, all but disappeared in the bright sun. In this moment she instead saw the young man she had met when she was a child, someone as close to a brother as she ever had.
“I talked to my dad. He managed to get into one of the Colombian mines yesterday, and he doesn’t think the geology is right for tanzanite.”
Tanzanite. The rarest gemstone on earth, found in just one location: the Merelani Hills of Tanzania. If her dad was right, there was another deposit here in South America in one of the mines owned by Tabitha Metals. A mine worth killing for.
“And the other two?”
“No progress.” She shook her head. “But he said that he might have a lead on a consulting engineer who works at one of them. I wish we could say the same.”
Of the fifteen mines owned by Tabitha Metals, four in Colombia and one in Brazil seemed most likely. Brian Graham started in Colombia, and she and Mosi planned to join him there once they finished with this mine. But it wouldn’t be necessary.
Novoteras. A mine they were convinced held the tanzanite they sought.
