[Archer chances upon Maddy Bowen in a schoolroom, typing on her laptop]
Archer:
[reads screen from just behind her] "In the 90-degree heat, Solomon Vandy drops to his knees rattling the wire with his powerful hands." [Mandy gets miffed at him] What?
Maddy:
Nothing. Do you think I'm exploiting his grief? You're right. It's shit. It's like one of those infomercials. You know, the little black babies with swollen bellies and flies in their eyes. So here I've got dead mothers, I've got severed limbs, but it's nothing new. It might be enough to make people cry if they read it, maybe even write a check, but it's not gonna be enough to make it stop. I am sick of writing about victims, but it's all I can fucking do. Because I need facts. I need names. I need dates. I need pictures. I need bank accounts. People back home wouldn't buy a ring, if they knew it cost someone else their hand. But I can't write that story until I get facts that can be verified which is to say, until I find someone who will go on record. So if that is not you and you're not really gonna help me, and we're not really gonna screw then why don't you get the fuck out of my face and let me do my work?
Archer:
Hmm wow. [chuckles] Do you know that Solomon thinks his son's gonna be a doctor one day? Maybe his baby dies in that camp. Maybe his daughter gets raped. Who knows, maybe both. Do you realize that that diamond is the only chance he has of getting his family out?
Maddy:
You don't give a rat's ass..
Archer:
Do you understand that?
Maddy:
... about his family.
Archer:
Listen, I need to get to Kono, all right? The only way is with the press convoy. I'm a journalist, and he's my cameraman, all right?
Maddy:
No.
Archer:
Please, Maddy. Please. [puts hand on her shoulder]
Maddy:
NO! [shakes him off]
Archer:
[goes to window] After I smuggle the stones across the border, local buyers get them to a middleman in Monrovia.
Maddy:
[interested at what he just said] Go on.
Archer:
He pays off Customs and then certifies that the diamonds were mined in Liberia. That way, they can be legally exported. Now, once they've reached the buyers in Antwerp, [closes classroom door as he explains] diamonds are brought to the sorting tables, no more questions are asked. By the time they get to India, the dirty stones are mixed with the clean stones from all over the world, and then they become like any other diamonds.
Maddy:
And Van De Kaap knows about all this?
Archer:
When I get to London, I meet with Simmons. Supply and demand. You control the supply, and you keep the demand high. Now, there's an underground vault, where they put all the stones they buy up to keep off the market, so they can keep the price high. If rebels wanna flood the market with a billion dollars' worth of rough, a company like Van De Kaap, who says that they're rare, they can't afford to let that happen. Especially when they're telling some poor sod he's supposed to shell out three months' salary for an engagement ring. Now, technically speaking, they're not financing the war but creating a situation where it pays to keep it going. You understand?
Maddy:
Yes. And where's my proof?
Archer:
[shows her a black book, pointing out contents] Names, dates and numbered accounts. You publish one word of this story before I give them the stone and I'm dead, huh? After I give it to them, then... I leave this continent forever.
Maddy:
If you don't come out with the diamond?
Archer:
Then write whatever you want. I'm already dead.
