Free Black Onyx by Victor Methos Page A

stood and went out to the garage. The suit was there, in the corner. He went up and touched it before going back inside and having a shower. Then he came out wearing just sweats and a T-shirt. The suit opened for him and he got inside: the rush of power causing butterflies in his stomach.
    He opened the garage, ensuring no one was on the street, grabbed the gym bag he had prepared the night before, and then rocketed into the sky. He was easily two hundred feet up when he stopped and looked down to the little island that had been his home for so long. It was quiet up here, quieter than anywhere else he had ever experienced in his life, and he enjoyed the silence a bit before placing the strap of the gym bag around his chest and then drifting forward. He straightened out, and began gaining speed.
    Before he knew it, he was over Japan, and then China, and then India, and then the Arabian Peninsula. He would stop every so often and check the GPS on his iPhone to ensure he was heading the right way, but his flight was surprisingly accurate for how quickly he was moving. It was almost as if the suit knew where he wanted to go and took him there.
    Africa appeared different than everywhere else. It had every environment of every other country. Deserts and mountains covered in ice and snow, and thick jungles and forests and rocky , almost alien, terrain. To someone that’d never been here before it could be like going to Mars.
    But Dillon knew the Congo well. They’d been here before but had been denied access in Zaire to going anywhere near the diamond mines.
    Diamonds are one of the most abundant minerals on earth. They are, in reality, worthless. But because the De Beers company had stockpiled them and worked out monopolies with foreign governments, they cut supply and increased demand, making diamonds more expensive than gold.
    And to the tribes and warlords that were granted protection and mining contracts with De Beers in the third-world countries they mined, it was a fortune. One that had caused slaughter and mass rape and genocide. And they guarded their fountains of wealth viciously.
    Dillon knew exactly where he was going. A mine near Zaire, known to only a few. James—and his contacts in the Congo—were some of those few.
    Dillon found the large mountain shaped like an ice cream cone, covered in lush green vegetation , the sun bright in the sky. He put away his phone in the gym bag and slowly made his way down. On the far side, crowds of men worked in the large mine. He could see children hauling supplies in and out of the mine, their faces caked in dirt and sweat. Some of them unable to afford shoes, their feet leaving bloody tracks in the dirt paths.
    Dillon took a deep breath and closed his eyes. What the hell am I doing? he said to himself. Getting rich , was the reply.
    He jumped off the mounta in in a free dive, headfirst, and gained speed as his chest was several inches from the jagged rocks below. Then he pulled himself up and twisted around, aimed directly at the entrance of the mine. He pointed himself like an arrow and shot inside the mine, a gust of wind and a blur the only things the miners experienced.
    The mine was lit with lamps. He navigated the narrow corridors until he came to a large vein that several miners were busy at. He slowed, but couldn’t stop.
    “Whoa…whoaaaaa—”
    He slammed into the stone wall, massive chunks of stone breaking away and the space filling with dust and dirt. Dillon found himself on his back and he slowly rose. The miners were coughing and running: they thought it was a collapse.
    Dillon turned to the vein and could see enormous chunks of pure diamond. He began tearing them out of the wall like a bulldozer and s hoving handfuls into his gym bag. He was able to tear into the walls in a way the miner’s machines weren’t able to. He felt grumblings underneath his feet and knew that the mine was weak, set up with just enough precautions so they could get the diamonds but