988 Cooperation
"Please forgive me for my rudeness, General. I have not shown my dark side so far
because I thought you respected me. Now, however, I see that I was wrong," said Li Du,
looking back at Remonin without any intention to retreat.
"I have always respected you. I hope to gain your friendship and become your business
partner. But what about you? You have been provoking me!" said Remonin.
Once again, he looked at the lion hunter, his eyes full of resentment.
Apparently, he thought that the lion hunter was careless to have let Li Du in with the
grenade.
The lion hunter was scared to death. He did not expect that Li Du would be so angry,
and most certainly did not expect him to use a grenade.
He had thought that Li Du was a very typical Chinese man, polite, gentlemanlike and a
little cowardly, which was what he had said about Li Du to Remonin.
Facing Remonin's accusing look, he baffled. He could never have thought that Li Du
would smuggle in a grenade.
They did not fly here directly by helicopter. There was an exit inspection process before
that. The South African border customs officials checked them and the helicopter, and
the inspection was strict. However, they did not find the grenade.
Musa took advantage of the chaos to slip out of the guard's grip. He ran behind Li Du,
pulled on his clothes and hid behind him like a child.
The guard wanted to shoot, but Li Du stared straight at him. The guard swallowed and
lowered the muzzle of the gun.
He was afraid that if his bullet happened to hit Li Du, a grenade would explode, and no
one would escape. They would all be buried with the diamonds.
Facing Remonin's anger, Li Du said, "I would like to cooperate with you, but if you mean
to treat me as a business partner, you have to set aside your warlord style."
"I'm not a warlord, I'm a tribal general! I didn't have much education, but that doesn't
mean you're allowed to think I'm a savage! Just because we're in Africa, it doesn't mean
that anyone with a gun will be called a warlord!" cried Remonin.
Li Du raised a hand and said, "OK, sorry. I apologize General. I misunderstood you."
"Why do you think I want to cooperate with you? Sell diamonds to buy guns and fight
government forces? Am I damn crazy? Can my few hundreds of tribesmen hold off
hundreds of government tanks?" Remonin demanded.
"I want to get money, protect my tribe, improve my tribe's conditions, and at the same
time use my money to get into the politics of Mozambique. That's what I want!" he
concluded indignantly.
Then he repeated, "I am not a warlord! I am not an anti-government fool!"
The lion hunter stood beside him, looking as if he were in a panic, and muttered, "How
did this happen? How did we get into this?"
Li Du breathed a sigh of relief and said, "General. I apologize again. Let's calm down.
Actually, we have now discovered something positive."
"Positive?" Remonin smiled and the guards held their guns nervously.
Li Du nodded calmly and said, "Yes, this argument was actually a good thing. We
misunderstood each other before, but now we have cleared things up, and our
relationship can go on in the right way.
"Your tribe is shunned by the mainstream of the country. You want to enter politics, but
you don't have the money, and now that you have happened to find this mine, you want
to find someone to sell your diamonds to, right?"
Remonin thought for a moment and nodded. "Something like that."
"Good. I have the money. We can work together," said Li Du.
"That easy?" said Remonin suspiciously. "How would that work? Can Harry Winston
pass government approval?"
Li Du smiled. "Why government approval? Why don't we just bypass it?"
Remonin's problem was that the government had a bad relationship with him and
wouldn't give him a license for the Kimberley Process rough diamond international
certificate, which was necessary for his diamonds to enter the international market.
Therefore, the best solution would be to work around that and send the diamonds to any
qualified mine.
However, Mozambique only had a handful of diamond mines in the entire country, and
the government controlled them all. Remonin could not send his diamonds to any of
them.
The lion hunter's diamond mines did have this qualification, but they could not export
the diamonds. South Africa had very strict border patrol, so smuggling the diamonds
would be extremely difficult.
Therefore, he turned to Li Du's Harry Winston group to see if the world's top luxury
diamond company could find a way to buy his diamonds.
Remonin knew what he meant at once and asked, "How are you going to get them out?
Neither I nor the lion hunter can –do this, but… how did you bring the grenade in?"
Li Du smiled and said, "You've got it. That's it. I would get the diamonds out the same
way I got the grenade in."
The lion hunter's eyes lit up and he said, "Hey, Li, if you can only get the diamonds to
South Africa, I can solve the problem of where they came from."
Li Du shook his head and said, "No, I can do it myself."
If the diamonds passed through the lion hunter's hands, he would want a share of the
profits.
"Are you sure you're not fooling me? Believe me, I am not a warlord, but I won't easily
be taken in either. You saw how those who try to cheat me end up."
Li Du knew, of course, that the swindler was lucky, and that Remonin wanted to get his
four hundred and fifty thousand dollars back from him, so he just put him in jail.
Otherwise, he figured the cheater would have turned into spear-ant dinner.
"In order to earn your trust, General, I will compensate you for the loss of the four
hundred and fifty thousand dollars that swindler stole from you. Actually, I will make it
half a million as a token of my sincerity," said Li Du.
Remonin's eyes lit up and he said, "Do you mean that? I trust you, Li, of course, I do."
Li Du held out his hand to shake Remonin's and said, "Thank you for your good faith,
general. You give me a bank account, and I will ask my men to transfer the money to
you. For now, the diamonds are in your hands."
It would be easy to take the diamonds away. He could just put them in the black hole
space.
The budding conflict between the two sides melted away. Remonin put his arm around
Li Du's shoulders with brotherly affection.
A guard asked, "General, what about this Musa fellow?"
Remonin waved and said, "Pull it out…"
Li Du said, "General, can you hand him over to me? Let me deal with him. To be
honest, I'm interested in pygmies."
Remonin thought for a moment, smiled indulgently and said, "Yes, ha. So you wanted to
have the little fellow all to yourself?"
Li Du smiled, and let him guess what he would.