Msizi is afraid of getting caught. He is 13 years old, sitting cross-legged in the red dust and white sand outside a diamond mining town on Southern Africa's Atlantic coast. In his lap he holds a pigeon. The bird's name is Bartholomew, and he coos as the child strokes it with his one good hand. Msizi works in the De Beers diamond mines — and he uses his bird to smuggle out illicit gemstones. The child coughs up blood. Diamond dust is embedded in the pink muscle tissue of his lungs. For the rest of his life, short or not, he will have difficulty breathing.