When Robert returned to the conference room, all appeared normal.

Who would benefit if the deal falls through, he thought, looking around at each man in turn. The Arabs? No. They transferred the money to the bank, the account has been checked, so everything is good there. They rejected the idea of cash right away. Everything is clean there. The Russians? The diamonds are here. Everything was thoroughly checked in advance, and double-checked for compliance of the stones with the certificates. Mr. Zimme praised the quality of the diamonds yesterday at the restaurant. He said that every stone was worth at least fifty percent more than what the Russians were asking. This gemologist, Kone, is also a reliable expert. It was the Arabs who found and vetted him. Seems like everything is clean here too.

Robert, however, knew that if Mr. Zimme had been poisoned, then his illness and replacement with another gemologist were links in a single chain. It all looked very suspicious. The 5 % penalty clause for breaking the deadline was a demand of the Russians, the seller.

Robert looked around the room again. Everybody was talking quietly and waiting for the gemologist to finish. He looked intently at the gemologist and was suddenly struck by a strange idea. He had to test it, but not raise suspicion.

He approached Kone and asked in Bambara[18]: “E be moun fo, a kani?[19]” Robert decided to ask a question in the language Trevor from his dreams was fluent in. He had never used this language, but if Kone was who he said he was, then he must understand him. Almost everybody in Conakry speaks Bambara, as well as French.

However, Kone did not reply. He held a big round diamond in his hands and acted as if he hadn’t heard Robert.

“A be dioli soro sissan?[20]” Robert asked and drew closer to Kone.

The gemologist remained silent, looking intently at the diamond through his loupe, as if nothing had happened.

The Arabs noticed the gemologist’s unresponsiveness and fell silent. The Czechs, it seemed, grew nervous and one of them picked up his phone and quickly exited the room.

A bank officer entered and asked Robert what had happened.

Robert stared at Kone, still waiting for answers to his questions, but Kone remained silent. He was still examining the same diamond. Rather, he was not so much examining is as simply staring at it. And he seemed to have stopped breathing.

One of the Czech men broke the silence. With a common Czech accent he said hesitantly: “Everything is fine. Some just can’t take it they see those diamonds. Big money, big anxiety."

Mehmet approached Robert and asked what happened.

Robert looked at the sheikh, then at Mehmet, and answered in Arabic: “No, not alright, gentlemen. This man is not who he says he is. He is not Guinean. And most likely his name is not Kone. I was just informed that our gemologist, Mr. Zimme, was poisoned."

The sheikh nodded and one of his bodyguards approached the Czech and the other – the gemologist. The bank officer called the bank’s security.

Dumbfounded and sweating profusely, Kone looked around and with trembling hands lowered the stone into the metal box, as though defeated.

The scam was simple, but daring and craftily elegant.

Mr. Zimme, whom the Arabs trusted fully, had performed the first examination of the diamonds. Then he was sidelined. Poison was the simplest way to go and, seeing as Zimme was polite and friendly, did not require additional preparation. While he was distracted by conversation, someone slipped a small dose of poison into the gemologist’s food.