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Excerpt: The Heartless Stone

A broken engagement spurred journalist Tom Zoellner to travel the world investigating the darkest corners of the diamond pipeline and the forces responsible for making diamonds the defining symbol of love, romance and commitment

By Tom Zoellner – July 25, 2006

One

October 9, 2002
Dying Stars
Central African Republic

They had come across the river that morning, he said, as he took the stones from his pocket.

He set them in a line on the patio table. They looked melted and yellowish, as if someone had put them to a blowtorch. The smuggler and his three friends studied me as I held one up to the sunlight and tried to peer into it. We're going to have to make this quick, said the man who owned the house. The police could come in, and then we'd all be in jail....

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