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was conveyed along a belt, it would be scrutinized under fluoroscopic light. The diamonds, because of their elemental makeup, would be easily distinguishable. They would show up in various bright shades of blue, green, yellow-orange, or icy white and could, therefore, easily be picked out.
    A scale model of the proposed installation was shown to the members of the Central Committee Secretariat, so that they understood how extensive a project this would be. Its structures would cover an area of nearly thirty acres.
    So everything would be under one roof, even whatever was needed for cutting and polishing the diamonds?
    No. There’d been no allowance for those finishing phases. Why shouldn’t the cutting and polishing be done someplace with a more compatible climate, in Kiev or Minsk or possibly even some place as far south as Tbilisi?
    Tbilisi? The Secretariat scoffed at the suggestion of mixing Georgians and diamonds, the Georgians with their well-founded reputation for, to put it tactfully, sleight of hand. The unanimous decision of the Secretariat was that the finishing of the diamonds should be done on the spot. The Siberian remoteness would in itself serve as a security measure. Employees would not be going in and out every day the way they did at other workplaces. Mind, at some regular factories in Moscow and Leningrad the pilfering rate ran as high as 10 percent. Such wrongdoing, though not sanctioned, was tolerated, since it increased the workers’ satisfaction with their jobs. However, to tempt them with diamonds would be a different matter altogether, actually unfair.
    Agreed.
    Approved.
    The installation at Aikhal got off the ground.
    Literally off the ground. The entire thing, except for the mine-shaft enclosure, had to be constructed on pilings that extended twelve feet above the surface. Enormous steel beams were sunk twenty feet deep into the permafrost and held in place by the almost instantaneous freezing of the slush that was filled in around them. More solid than concrete. The pilings were essential to keep human-generated heat from melting the ground and making the installation sink. It was not uncommon in northern Siberia to see wooden houses sunk down into the tundra to their windowsills.
    The enormous energy and millions of rubles the Soviets invested in the Aikhal installation were well spent. In 1971, its first year of operation, it came up with two million carats of diamonds, of which 37 percent were gem-quality stones. Soon thereafter, other installations similar to Aikhal were built in and around the Vilyui River Basin. However, Aikhal continued to be the richest deposit. By 1975 Aikhal was producing five million carats a year and showing no signs of depletion. Unlike most diamond-bearing pipes, those at Aikhal seemed to yield more as they were dug deeper.
    Typically, the Soviets kept their production figures secret. Why should they let anyone know they were stockpiling? In 1977, the United States Bureau of Mines estimated diamond production of the entire world at just under forty million carats, or almost nine tons. Only slightly more than 25 percent of this production was said to be of gem quality. Little did the bureau know. The Soviets could have tacked on another fifteen million carats. Three and a half tons. The Russians were up to their beards in diamonds.
    The old axiom that says timing can be everything was never more fitting.
    The period during which the Russians were enjoying such success with their Siberian mines coincided almost to the very year with the time when the System lost its control over its diamond holdings in Africa. By then, 1978, Rupert Churcher had been at the head of the System for six years. While coping with Africa he’d kept an eye on the Russians and was aware of the small amounts of high-quality diamond rough they were bringing to the market every once in a while. Churcher did not know for certain what quantity of such rough the Russians were capable