by Dan Fletcher
Tall trees lined the banks of the river, a mixture of cedar, juniper and the odd weeping willow. White-bellied Go-away-birds made repeated calls of ‘gwa, gwa’ as they flew from tree to tree.
Suddenly the rat-a-tat of machine guns firing in the distance sent the birds squawking from the canopy. David stopped and held his arm up, waiting for another volley so he could get a bearing. Seconds later there was another burst, the familiar sound of an AK47, it confirmed his fears that it was coming from further down the river.
He threw Damo a worried look. “Tell Chege to radio it in and catch us up, sounds like they’re four or five miles south of here. Tell them we need the spotter plane.” He guessed that the shots were coming from about two miles further southwest than he had seen the elephants earlier. Near the point where a large sweeping bend took the river into Tanzania for a few miles before turning back across the border. David didn’t wait for the order to be passed on. He started running towards the gunfire.
Although only five miles as the crow flies the twisting route they were forced to take along the river was almost triple that. David checked over his shoulder at regular intervals to make sure that the men following him were keeping up. He needn’t have worried. They were conditioned to running with their twenty-five kilogram loads and took on water from the flasks in their webbing as they went. His legs were burning and a patch of sweat covered his back by the time they found them. Almost three hours after the shots were fired.
He saw the vultures first, circling above a clearing next to the banks. Then he rounded the bend and could see the carnage spread out before him.
They had left the calf alive, barely six months old she still had her milk teeth. Her tusks wouldn’t start to grow and replace them until she was twelve months old so they had saved their bullets. She nudged the butchered carcass of her mother with her trunk, trying to get her to wake up.
David had seen dead bulls a few days after their tusks were removed, deflated skin and bones once the scavengers were finished. But never a whole family freshly slaughtered like this. Even the foot long stumps of the two-year old calves had been cut from their bullet-ridden corpses. As he got closer the stench of death got worse, the bloated bodies emitting foul smelling gasses as they quickly expanded in the heat. The earth around them was stained with blood, pools of the stuff collecting around trunks. Bellies covered in urine and excrement where the great mammals had defecated for the last time.
The legs of the younger elephants were sticking up in the air where the poachers had rolled them onto their backs to get at the ivory more easily. In order to save time they had mutilated them, hacking back half their faces with machetes and axes to get at the roots of the tusks. One of the elder cows’ trunks had been sliced off completely. Presumably it had been in the way, hanging over the overgrown incisor that was both the elephant’s greatest asset and her Achilles’ heel.
Nature’s opportunists had beaten them to it. A pack of black-backed jackals and dozens of vultures were already tearing at the carcasses. Snapping and pecking at each other to get their heads and necks into the gaping wounds and soft grey underbellies of the elephants.
David swallowed the excess saliva his mouth was producing and the urge to vomit. He fired a single round into the air that sent the jackals scampering for cover and the vultures into flight.
He turned to face the others. Chege, usually the most jovial of the group, was openly crying, silent tears running down his flat cheeks. David felt a lump in his throat and realised that his eyes were also threatening to overflow. He wiped at them with his sleeve.
“Chege call in the location and ask them where the hell the spotter plane is. Damo you come with me. The rest of you spread out and find the trail, they can’t have got far.”
Weighing over sixty kilos each the matriarch’s tusks would need two strong men to carry them. David walked with Damo along the bank near to the killing ground. It didn’t take them long to find the tracks. As he feared they headed across the river. Around twenty men carrying heavy loads, their feet had sunk deep into the sand. Two of the men had dragged a large tusk behind them as they struggled through the mud on the other side of the shallow water.
David stared across the bank and then made up his mind. He took a step forward but felt Damo’s hand on his shoulder holding him back.
“Don’t even think about it David.”
He pulled away from his friend’s grip, “I can’t just let them go, not this time.”
“You have to,” said Damo softly. “Orders are orders. If we get caught it’ll start an international incident. Besides, there’s just too many of them.”
He knew that Damo was right but that didn’t make it any easier. David could feel the tightness in his chest, the bile rising up from his stomach. He fell to his knees and was violently sick.
CHAPTER THREE
Kilindini Port, Mombasa
August 10th, 1996
Maliki turned his back to the cargo ships and peered up at the industrial estate behind the port. He smiled to himself, thinking how much the landscape had changed and how different his life was since the first time he arrived in Mombasa over thirty years ago. The fields and the shepherd’s hut he had sheltered in after jumping from the train were long gone. The land between Kilindini Harbour and the town was now filled with row upon row of new warehouses, even the abandoned kerosene store that he lived in with Jozi for over a year had been torn down and replaced.
His smile evaporated as he checked the time on his gold Rolex, Gupta was late. The corner of his mouth twitched where the scar met his lip. A sure sign that he was irritated. He looked at his reflection in the window of the Mercedes saloon. The welts on his face were pronounced purple lines that stretched the skin around them making it itch constantly. He rubbed his cheek to relieve the sensation, the scar tissue dead to his touch. The three parallel ridges of puckered darker flesh that marked the passage of the lion’s claws ran from above his right ear down to his chin. The top one only just missed his eye and ended level with his nose, the bottom one passed where the tip of his ear used to be.
As if on cue the first of the Bedford trucks appeared at the top of the causeway and headed down towards the docks. Gupta waved as they drove past him into the open warehouse. Maliki nodded to Lembui, one of his personal bodyguards, and then followed them in. Lembui stayed a few dutiful paces behind him, his right hand resting on the Glock hidden under his undersized sports jacket.
‘EAST AFRICA TIMBER COMPANY’, one of his many legitimate enterprises, was emblazoned in bold red letters on a yellow background. Both on the sides of the trucks and above the roller shutter doors. Deepak Gupta jumped down from the cab of the last truck and dusted of his dirty white robes. The electric motors whirred into action as the doors were shut behind him, the strobe lights flickered before illuminated the huge warehouse in a harsh glow.
Gupta smiled, tobacco stained teeth above a straggly grey beard that tapered off to a point where it touched his chest. Yellowed around his mouth from excessive smoking. “Peace be with you my friend.”
“You’re late!” grunted Maliki. “Where the hell have you been?” Maliki didn’t trust the turbaned fool as far as he could throw him. Their relationship was based on mutual greed and fear, Gupta’s fear. He was pleased to see the man flinch and shrink away from him.
“The rains have washed away some of the roads near Moshi. One of the trucks got stuck and it took us hours to find another way around.”
Maliki knew the roads south of Mt Kilimanjaro better than anyone having made the trip many times himself in the early years. The foothills of crumbling volcanic rocks were treacherous during the rainy season, landslides commonplace. But it avoided the busier route through Nairobi and was the quickest and safest way to get their precious cargo to Mombasa. He could have used the port in Dar-es-Salaam but that would have meant employing a third party and losing a good chunk of the profits. As well as control, which was something Maliki cherished. He preferred
to keep their operations based in Kenya where his influence extended deep into the government.
“Any problem with the border guards in Holili?”
“No they were expecting us as you said.”
Maliki nodded. Fifty thousand shillings, just under one thousand US dollars, was a small price to pay for safe passage across the border. A fortune to the two guards it was split between, the cash equivalent to three months regular wages.
“Good.” Maliki gestured towards the trucks, “How was the hunting?”
“Plenty of ivory.” Gupta looked at his feet nervously, “But we didn’t see any rhino this time.”
Maliki’s lip started to twitch, “I told you what I needed? What the buyer wants?”
“Yes,” his pupils dilated and Gupta started to tremble. “You also told me that there would be no Rangers in the area. Otherwise we would have stayed longer.”
“Rangers...did you see them?” The news surprised Maliki. According to his sources the nearest member of the Kenyan Wildlife Service should have been twenty miles further north, at their base camp in the middle of the Masai Mara triangle.
Gupta shook his head slowly, “No but we heard them fire a shot less than an hour after we left the elephants. We were only a couple of miles away.”
That was too close for comfort, the last thing Maliki needed was for Gupta to get caught. The man would probably sing like a canary to save his own skin. Maliki made a mental note to ensure that it never happened again. He would speak to his informant when he got back to Nairobi in the morning.
“What were they shooting at?
Gupta shrugged, “Who knows? At least it wasn’t us.”
Maliki was suspicious but he let it go for the moment, they needed to get the shipment inspected before loading it on to the container. “Tell your men to hurry up, the ship starts taking on cargo in six hours.”
“Chop, chop!” Gupta clapped his hands and shouted, “Or nobody gets paid.”
The seven men were working as fast as they could, the first pallet already being unloaded by a forklift from the back of a truck. Nevertheless the men undoing the canvas seemed to move quicker with the ropes and another scurried across the loading area to start the other forklift.
Maliki walked around to the other side of the trucks. Aisles of timber where stacked out on pallets before him disappearing off into the warehouse, a bounty of hardwood ready for export to China, including iroko and bubinga but mostly mahogany.
Next to them an empty container sat on an eighteen-wheeler ready to be driven out into the port once it was full. The first pallet of six by two inch timber planks was put down for inspection. Maliki waited for the men to cut the steel straps and remove the top few layers of planks before walking over.
One of them used a crowbar to open the crate that was hidden inside. What looked like a full pallet of stacked timber really consisted of two rows of planks either side of the crate and short cut pieces at the ends.
The crate inside the pallet was filled with ivory. Each one was a different size and shape, a mixture of creamy alabasters and pearlescent whites. Patches of blood bore evidence of the violent way in which they had been removed from their owners. Nearly all of them measured less than a meter, taken from females or young males, a few just over a foot in length that once belonged to calves. Only one pair of scimitar shaped shafts belonged to an older bull, worn with age and stained dark with vegetable juices.
Maliki nodded and the crate was re-sealed and placed into the container whilst the next one was dropped onto the ground and made ready to be checked.
Each truck carried four pallets. In all but one there was around half a ton of ivory. The last one contained thirty-three rhino horns. The buyer had asked for thirty-five. Maliki would have to make it up in the next shipment, there were none left in their stockpile in Karatu.
Since branching out into the pharmaceutical business Wei’s lust for rhino seemed insatiable. Maliki allowed himself the briefest of smiles. A bit like the horny little bugger’s appetite for sex, the market for Viagra was expanding at an exponential rate. Rhino horn was the key ingredient.
“Everything OK, boss?”
He turned to face Gupta, “So far.”
Maliki remained poker faced, hiding his excitement well. The price would be comparatively low because of the amount of poor grade immature ivory but he should still get $120 per kilo. Nine hundred thousand US dollars, but the rhino horn was where the real money was. One crate of the black gold was worth more than the fifteen crates of ivory put together. Taking an average price of $30,000 per horn he would get $990,000. He smiled, why not call it a cool million, he was sure that Wei wouldn’t protest. He knew the greedy little bugger would get as much as ten times that on the black market in Guangdong. Where it would be sold to one of the many carving factories owned and run by the Chinese government.
Minus his costs, which included Gupta and his gang’s $80,000 fee, he should make a tidy profit of 1.75 million dollars. Maliki rubbed his hands together, not bad for one shipment. Wei would transfer half the money to his Swiss bank account once Maliki confirmed that the ‘VENTURA’ had left port, a Spanish registered ship out of Barcelona. The remaining half would be wired to him once the cargo reached the docks in Hong Kong, by way of Singapore.
After three hours of going through the inventory they resealed the final crate and the pallet was loaded with the others into the front part of the container. The empty space was then filled with normal pallets of wooden planks. Any Customs officer outside either his or Wei’s payroll who decided to inspect the container would probably give up before reaching the hidden treasure.
Maliki watched the steel doors get bolted shut and the padlock put in place before he turned to Gupta.
“I guess you want paying?” Maliki reached inside his Brioni suit jacket. The Italian cerruti cloth was tailored to fit his long sinewy arms and legs perfectly. Gupta cowered and took a step backwards. Maliki grinned with pleasure. He could feel himself getting hard. “Don’t worry it’s only your money.”
He produced the thick manila envelope containing forty thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills and held it out towards Gupta. The man’s eyes lit up and he held his palms together as if in prayer.
“Thank you boss,” Gupta put both hands on the packet and tried to take it. Maliki didn’t let go.
He stared into the man’s eyes, “Next time make sure that you bring me more rhino horn or I won’t be happy.” He spoke slowly and softly to emphasise his words, Gupta’s arms started to tremble. “Do you understand?”
The idiot bobbed his head repeatedly and Maliki let go of the envelope. Gupta had better deliver next time or his body would be dumped into Kilindini Harbour and one of the other men promoted to fill his boots. They both knew that rhino were scarcer and harder to find than elephants. Gupta was concentrating on ivory, as it was quicker and easier for him to fill the crates.
Maliki nodded towards the door, “Now get lost and move those trucks out the way.” Gupta was counting the money. “I said get lost!”
Gupta stuffed the money back inside the envelope and it magically disappeared inside the folds of his robes. He put two fingers in his mouth and made a loud wolf whistle.
Most of the men were already waiting in the trucks but the ones that weren’t put out their cigarettes and jumped inside. Engines sparked into life, exhausts coughed and spluttered. Gupta hurried over to join them.
Lembui opened the doors and within minutes they were gone, nothing but diesel fumes in the warehouse to mark their presence. Maliki walked over to the doors and took one last look back at the container. A pair of the factory’s regular employees would be along in a couple of hours to drive the trailer out onto the docks, completely unaware of the more precious cargo hidden inside.
Maliki glanced out across Kilindini Harbour to Mtongwe where the ferry was docking, a mixture of a dozen cars and small trucks on its open deck ready to disembark. Dancing lights reflected on the water fr
om the expensive villas that occupied the shoreline on the other side of the half-mile expanse of the water. Behind them the lighter coloured tin roofs of the shantytown glowed brighter than their neighbours. The rusty red and grey-white buildings were squeezed so close together that they appeared to be one continuous patchwork quilt stretching off into the distance.
Without warning the wind suddenly picked up and the taller palm trees began to sway back and forth above the port. Clinging on to rocky slopes for dear life. Maliki could feel the change in pressure and smell the rain on the air before the monsoon hit. Within seconds thick black clouds covered the moon and the heavens opened up. Huge globules of water the size of his thumbnail combined in such numbers that they formed an impenetrable wall, pelting the pavement with rapid-fire.
Sabore, his other Maasai bodyguard and driver, appeared through the downpour with an umbrella. He held it above Maliki’s head and escorted him back to the car. He felt safer once he was shut inside the bulletproof glass and armour plating. The S500 was kitted out with a 5.0L V8 engine to pull the extra thousand kilograms of weight. The modifications had cost Maliki $120,000 but they were worth every cent. A close range assassination attempt by the Kiambu Mafia earlier in the year would have succeeded if it weren’t for his shrewd investment.
A bright flash lit up the sky as lightning struck land somewhere beyond Mtongwe, followed by a long rolling rumble of thunder seconds later. The cannon-like explosion and raindrops beat out a staccato rhythm on the roof of the Mercedes as it accelerated along the dockside. The loading of food and supplies for the crew of the VENTURA was already under way. Spanish deckhands in their Sou’westers and locals dressed in robes leaning against the wind in the torrential rain to get the job done. The cargo ships at anchor and dhows unlucky enough to be caught out in the storm had disappeared from view. Swallowed up by a black shroud of water.
