asked.
'Seven out of ten percent,' Liz replied.
'That doesn't exactly put cult leaders in an exclusive club,' the computer expert continued.
'I never said it did,' Liz told him. 'But there may be records that we can get our hands on. The Botswana government might be interested in helping shut down a cult before it can get started.'
'He was never shrink-wrapped,' J2 declared.
The others looked at him.
'According to Mr. Burton's employment file, he was a line leader in the mine,' the young man said. 'That meant he was the last person to see the diamonds before they left the mine. I'm looking at the qualifications IODM has on their employment site for double is. They can have no criminal record. No
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immediate family members can have criminal records. And there must be zero history of treatment for mental problems.'
'Also, according to a footnote in this file, the Botswana average for psychiatric care is far below the international average,' Mae added, still studying her own computer screen. 'According to the WHO, shrinkage in Botswana amounts to three in ten people. And most of those folks are white-collar workers and military personnel.'
'They probably can't afford psychiatric care,' Hood said.
'Government subsidies are available,' Mae said, still reading.
'Maybe I ought to move there,' Stoll said.
'Well, I still want to try to get as much information on Dhamballa as possible,' Liz said. 'If we can come up with a reliable profile, we can make some intelligent guesses as to what his next moves will be. You'll need that, Paul, if this goes on for any length of time.'
'I agree,' Hood said.
'You know, people, there's also the whole voodoo angle to this thing,' Stoll said. 'I did some research on the net. It was recognized as the official religion of Benin in 1996. It also has an extremely large following in the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Haiti, Togo, and various places around the United States including New York, New Orleans, and Miami,' Stoll said, as he read from the screen. 'It's also widely recognized throughout South America, where there are a variety of sects like Umbanda, Quimbanda, and Candomble.'
'Impressive,' Liz remarked.
'Shows how parochial we are here,' Hood said.
'The essence of it seems to be very similar to Catholicism, actually, except that the spiritual figures dwell in the earth instead of in Heaven,' Stoll went on. 'Both religions worship a supreme being and believe in a spiritual hierarchy. In Vodun the big guns are called loas, and in Catholicism they're saints. The loas and the saints each have attributes that are unique to them. Vodunists and Catholics believe in an afterlife, in the notion of resurrection, in the ritualistic consumption of flesh and blood, in the sanctity of the soul, and in- cleaT^cut forces
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of good and evil, which they refer to as white and black magic.'
'Interesting,' Rodgers said. 'And it makes sense.'
'What does?' Hood asked.
'It helps to explain why Catholicism took hold in nonIslamic sections of Africa back in the seventeenth century,' Rodgers said. 'In the absence of a national Vodun church, Africans would have found the structure of the Catholic church familiar and comforting.'
'The food and wine the missionaries brought probably didn't hurt their cause,' Stoll said.
'That would have gotten people to sit down and pay attention,' Rodgers said. 'But I've seen army recruiters at work. You need more than a buffet to get people to actually commit to something.'
'So now Dhamballa wants his people back,' Hood said.
'That could well be the limit of Dhamballa's ambition,' Rodgers said. 'The larger question is what Beaudin wants. And what his associates may have promised Dhamballa.'
'What would they want from him that they can't get now?' Liz asked.
'A puppet leader,' Hood said.
'Or maybe they don't want anything from him per se,' Rodgers suggested. 'Maybe it's destabilization of the region that they're after.'
'Possibly,' Hood agreed.
'There's also the chance that Dhamballa is just doing a job for pay,' Viens remarked.
'The voodoo equivalent of a televangelist,' Stoll said. He shook his head. 'That's pretty sad.'
'Yes, but I would not spend too much time looking into that idea,' Rodgers said.
'Why not?' Hood asked.
'Let's assume that Beaudin or someone else is underwriting the Vodun movement,' Rodgers said. 'They aren't
