All The Big Ones Are Dead

by Christopher A. Gray

  That was why DeCourcey's office and Interpol were involved. In the last year the poachers had reached new records in kills, and new records in undetected shipments delivered to an ever-expanding customer base in east Asia, south Asia, the U.S., and elsewhere. NSA signals intelligence was pervasive and intrusive. It kept turning up new players and kept running into increasingly advanced communication encryption that was proving to be a problem. British, French and German sigint operations were just as busy and running into the exact same problems. Poaching had become a billion-dollar business, with Powderhorn controlling 70% of it in central and west Africa. But Powderhorn isn’t bloody well distributing anything. As far as anyone knows, Powderhorn poaches ivory and rhino horn, breaks down the raw product for shipment, then hands it off to another third party. And until an informant in Lagos gave up Fabrice Masiki, and until Bishop squeezed Masiki for his contact in Douala, neither I nor anyone else at Interpol or any other agency had ever tracked a shipment directly from a major poacher this far. The goods were being sold, and the money was being fed to some of the worst terrorists in history. DeCourcey did not feel well at that moment.

  He reached into his desk drawer for the amphetamines. He knew that taking one would alleviate his headache. He also knew that he now had to take the pills more frequently to get relief. He briefly debated going cold turkey, but he was scheduled to give a presentation to his team in five minutes.

  He had formed the core Working Group two months ago. Their communications and security consultant, Max Gauss had rejoined the team the previous day after basically running into a brick wall in France and another one back in New York. Max had been working with half a dozen communications specialists in Europe, another two dozen analysts in New York, and had even tapped into some low-level contacts prowling the darknets in a serious effort to try and crack the poaching comms and the shadowy couriers and contacts with whom they seemed to be regularly talking. He’d gotten nowhere and had rejoined DeCourcey’s group to contribute what he could and request additional resources for his work. DeCourcey and Linders had briefed Gauss on the latest developments, but DeCourcey would need to make this morning’s briefing a little more detailed than usual. He opened the bottle and took a pill, washing it down with a drink of bottled water. Linders walked in just as he put the water down on his desk. DeCourcey put the pills back into his desk drawer.

  “Headache,” he said. “Are you here to drag me to the meeting?”

  “To the meeting you called, yes,” Linders had managed a glance at the prescription bottle before her boss put it away. “I can chair it if you like, while you take a call from Senator Keaton.”

  “Putain de merde,” DeCourcey said a little too loudly. “I’m in no mood for Keaton.”

  “He’s returning your call. You want a favorable vote on our budget allotment request to the Treasury. Keaton’s admin seemed to think he’d be calling you about now,” Linders looked at her watch as DeCourcey’s mobile phone rang. “You’d better answer it.”

  DeCourcey looked at Linders for a moment. No other assistant had ever been so direct with him. He appreciated it, especially with his workload, because she helped him prioritize.

  “He’s arrogant,” DeCourcey stated flatly, staring at the far wall of his office. “Running his own political game. He lets me see just enough of it to understand that he likes to see other people dance to his congressional and security committee strategies.”

  Diane started to sigh, but stopped herself in time. She’d heard this line from her boss on several occasions over the past two years. Everybody on both sides of the Atlantic knew that Keaton had dirty hands, but his influence in Congress and his control of key financial resources desperately needed by the perpetually begging Interpol in western Europe, plus the fact that Keaton also seemed to be supporting the right efforts was enough to keep scrutiny of his actions perpetually on the back burner.

  “Time enough for political mistakes to catch up with the good senator,” Diane said, looking directly into DeCourcey’s eyes. “One way or another though, keeping Keaton waiting is not going to help matters.”

  DeCourcey nodded. “Let’s walk. I’ll speak to the Senator on the way to our meeting.” DeCourcey swiped Answer on his phone’s screen as he got up. Linders fell in behind as they exited the office.

  “This is bullshit, DeCourcey.” His mobile phone was set to minimum volume, yet he had to hold it a couple of inches away from his head to listen without pain. Senator Keaton listed the usual difficulties he faced as a member of several standing committees. Linders could hear most of what the man was saying, and she winced at his shrill voice. She and DeCourcey were tasked with leading a classified operation in Africa with all the usual difficulties of dealing with corrupt third-world regimes, while at the same time having to smooth the ruffled feathers of a Senator who sat on both a Treasury Department foreign allocations committee and on several security committees. Senator Keaton was senior, he’d won his fifth consecutive term by a landslide, and he was jacked into most of the secrets on the Hill. Interpol and section chief DeCourcey in DC had no choice but to tolerate Keaton. They just didn’t have to like him.

  DeCourcey exhaled as they got on the elevator. Linders had been working for DeCourcey for two years. She found him to be a capable leader who managed to get results when dealing with difficult people like Senator Keaton, but only up to a point. Linders sensed that Keaton was about to get an earful from DeCourcey.

  “Would you care to elaborate, Senator Keaton?” DeCourcey deadpanned. Linders knew he was making a great effort to control his temper with this attempt at a civil response to the irrational Senator.

  “You’ve repeatedly asked my committee for more money,” Keaton continued. “We have given you our answer. No additional funds will be allocated this fiscal year. If you have gone over budget, make some cuts at your end.”

  “Senator Keaton, I have explained to you that we have a bare-bones team as it is. In order to be effective—”

  “DeCourcey,” the senator interrupted, “I’m as appalled at the illegal wildlife trade as the next guy. My granddaughter has a panda doll, and my grandson’s class just did a project at school on the disappearing rainforest. I don’t want rhinos to go extinct. Or elephants. Or tuna fish. But you need to understand that my government has more pressing environmental concerns at home. Oil price fluctuations have thrown our revenues and therefore our budgeted allocations completely out of whack. And after the EPA burns billions to produce what will likely be a co-opted and long-promised study on fracking to investigate its possible effect on drinking water, all new projects are frozen. The depth of the money well is not infinite. I’d love to help, but no standing committee has any headroom anymore. Homeland Security is siphoning money left and right to harden national security and chase terrorists, and that leaves the rest of us with nothing. And you want us to allocate more funds to save the rhino, in some park in Africa? I’m sorry, but you have your budget. Work with it.”

  “Senator, did you read my latest report?”

  “Not this time. I now have a dozen reports sitting on my desk, from various—”

  “I suggest you give it a read, sir,” DeCourcey increased the volume of his voice to cut off Keaton. “In my report, you will see that terrorist groups including Da’esh—that’s Isil to you—al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram have recently diversified their funding interests. With the increasing scarcity of large horned and tusked animals, prices for traditional folk medicines have skyrocketed. Black market prices for even tiny ivory carvings are in the tens of thousands of dollars. A number of those high-demand junk medicines and quack treatments and folk medicines used in parts of China, south Asia, and in the populations that have emigrated to the U.S. and western Europe and formed communities, are based on ivory, rhino horn, bear gall bladders and other parts of animals you don’t want to think about. People are paying thousands for a single tiny vial of powder that contains little more than a fraction of a percent of tusk or horn or b
ear gall. It’s nothing more than rubbish manufactured from endangered species. It’s awful. Those terrorist groups are capitalizing on superstitious beliefs and profiting enormously from the illegal rhino and elephant hunt.

  “I know that. I—” Keaton tried to regain control of the conversation, but DeCourcey kept going, talking over him.

  “Just a little heads up, Senator. DTRA and Homeland Security have read my report. They’ve both reached out to me to ensure we’re doing something about it. They won’t fund me directly yet, but they are quite seriously interested, they’ve loaned some back-end resources to me which you very well know, and they’re looking at what progress we’ve made. You know that DHS has been in touch with me. Depending on what your office decides, history will look upon you as either a champion of the homeland who incidentally helped cut off a major source of terrorist funding, or the Senator who sat, unmoved, while the extremists cashed in on this season’s hunt that would have netted them somewhere above 200 million dollars. That’s 200 million dollars this year alone, to feed, train, and arm their soldiers for attacks on the West. That’s a hell of a lot of bullets, RPG’s, fuel and explosives, Senator.”

  DeCourcey paused. The Senator was silent for a moment, but finally recovered as DeCourcey and Linders got off the elevator. “I’ll read your report, DeCourcey. It had better be what you say it is. You’ll have my answer within six hours.”

  “Thank you, Senator. I look forward to it.” DeCourcey moved his phone away from his ear and was about to end the call when he heard Keaton’s voice again.

  “One more thing. I hear that your man Bishop took out a poaching party. If that's true, it could make—”

  “Only half the party. And it was in self defense.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind if their ambassador calls the State department and the Secretary calls me. Where is Bishop now?”

  “Senator, you know I can’t tell you that.”

  “Huh. Just keep Bishop out of trouble, DeCourcey,” Keaton rapped. “Consider there are walls even I can’t break down. You and Interpol want a large allocation, but you’re making very negative waves that draw attention. Consider sitting on Bishop until after the allocations have been drawn.”

  “I’ll do what I can do about that,” DeCourcey said, frowning, suddenly clear about the quid pro quo that Keaton had just tossed at him. And I’d surely like to know how Keaton knew Bishop’s name? I will have to look into that.

  “That is all,” Keaton said, then hung up.

  ***

  DeCourcey was still frowning when he and Linders met a man who had been waiting for them at the door to the conference room.

  “Good to see you again, Max,” Linders said. “Glad you’re back.” The man nodded a greeting to Linders as he opened the door for DeCourcey.

  She knew Max originally from a conference on organized crime they had attended the year before. After the first conference day had ended, Max had asked her out for a drink which she had politely refused. Max Gauss had taken the rejection in good humor.

  “Your conversation was unmistakable, Richard,” Max said quietly. “Keaton is an interesting character.”

  “He may be a greater burden to the American people than he is to Interpol, or to me,” DeCourcey replied. “But his reactions are curious. I provide him with all the ammunition needed to secure the appropriate level of allocation, yet his first reaction is to balk. He places his personal reputation and his congressional influence before even his patriotism, but uses that very patriotism to stonewall as a first response.”

  Their conversation stopped abruptly as they walked into the conference room. The two other expected participants were present.

  “Good morning,” DeCourcey said as he sat down at the head of the table, opposite Linders. “I want to welcome our newest member of the team, Max Gauss. Max is our security and telecomm consultant. He has a graduate degree in mathematics. After leaving Army intel, he spent several years in the private sector working with some top-tier names in the encryption and network security business. Max, this is Brock Philips and June Alla. Welcome to Operation Fraction. You are the Working Group for this operation. Are we recording?” He directed the question to a recording secretary sitting at the back of the room.

  “Yes,” the woman replied.

  Gauss nodded in acknowledgement to the two other members of the group as DeCourcey continued speaking while Linders distributed some information folders.

  “Inspector Linders is the Task Force leader on this project. She’ll be directing this working group and a protection and security team.” He looked around the room and received acknowledgments from everyone.

  “I draw your attention,” DeCourcey went on, “to the security seal on your folders. You all know what your security clearances demand of you.”

  “After Linders and I briefed Max last month on our problem, he suggested someone at Columbia University who might be useful. A civilian. But more on that in a moment. Linders, please turn on the display.” Diane used the remote control to activate the large flat screen monitor on the wall. A map of Africa appeared, showing several countries highlighted in red.

  “After the William Ling incident, we realized there has been a massive jump in sophistication on the part of the poachers’ handlers,” DeCourcey said, “not to mention a massive jump in violence. Despite our best efforts, the illegal trade in animal parts, in endangered species, has only increased in recent years. Various African nations have been persuaded to make an attempt to preserve the remaining rhino and elephant populations, mainly for tourism purposes. It’s been a losing battle, on many fronts. Linders?”

  Diane took DeCourcey’s cue and gestured towards the screen. “Thank you, sir. With an emerging middle class eager to join the ranks of the privileged, the demand in China for traditional Asian medicines and ivory sculpture has increased to the point where prices have tripled in less than two years. More poachers are willing to risk their lives to obtain horns and tusks that are worth much more than their weight in gold. That, coupled with the positioning by Boko, al-Qaeda and Da’esh of direct contacts in the poaching gangs has helped them attract even worse fanatics.” Various images of dead rhino and elephants flashed on the screen. It was a gruesome sight. Using axes, the fore-skulls of dead or near-dead rhinos were split at the brow ridges, skinned, and removed with the horn intact. It was absurdly bloody work. Phillips looked as if he was on the verge of being sick, but he kept himself under control. Linders spoke as she cycled through additional images showing dead elephants and piles of tusks.

  “Some countries are still shooting poachers on sight, but others surreptitiously allow the hunt. Government corruption is now rampant. Park rangers, police, and government officials are paid off by the poachers to allow the hunt to continue. Collectively, the United States Government and the EU have always encouraged conservation and have assisted in the establishment and finding at least partial financing for protected parks and education programs to help local authorities in their efforts to preserve the wildlife, but as Director DeCourcey indicated, it has not been effective. Recent reports indicate poaching has increased to an industrial scale, and the worst of the radical Islamists are heavily involved.”

  “Bottom line,” DeCourcey interjected, “is that the elephant tusk and rhino horn trade is almost as lucrative for the terrorist groups as stealing oil. Agencies within national governments, or individual influencers in government, or both, in more than half a dozen west African countries, are turning a blind eye. The bribes are enormous. The trade is more profitable than kidnapping, extortion, and even drugs. As demand rises and the increasingly scarce elephant and rhino populations are reduced even more, prices have nowhere to go but up. Local poachers get paid in pride, reputational elevation, swagger, a little bit of money, free weapons and ammunition, while the already huge profit margins for the smugglers and the people who own the product processing operations keep getting bigger. Not to mention the funds fed back to the well-known terrorist
organizations that feed the poachers with free weapons and ammunition in the first place.”

  “This is Michel Mkutshulwa,” Linders nodded to a fuzzy image of a man in camouflage fatigues. “Until yesterday morning, he was the leader of most prolific poaching group in Africa.”

  “What happened to change that?” Alla, sitting to Linders’ right, asked.

  “He was taken out by our man in the field,” DeCourcey answered, with a trace of regret.

  “I didn’t know we were authorized to terminate poachers,” Gauss said. “I thought that was an internal policy. Local governments only?”

  “We’re not authorized,” DeCourcey said. “Bishop overstepped. Some of the authorities there are collaborating with the poachers, and they’re now making noise about our agents running out of control.”

  “Will it be necessary to replace Agent Bishop, sir?” June Alla asked, looking up from the dossier.

  “With whom? I just got off the phone with Senator Keaton. Now that Homeland Security is looking over our shoulder and seeing some things it likes, we may eventually get additional funds. For now though we don’t have the budget or the time to bring a new agent in and get him up to speed. Besides that, this plan originated with Bishop. The assistant director knows that as well as us. So, no. Bishop stays. I’ll explain to him the necessity of keeping a low profile. Now, to the reason I’ve assembled you here today.” DeCourcey got up from his seat and walked over to the window. The meeting room on the thirty-fifth floor of the Lower Manhattan building gave an impressive view of the East River.