Black Order

by James Rollins

  Gray decided to try the rear window. It faced west, leaving the roof in shadow this time of day. Also, that side of the row house was on fire. Their attackers might be less attentive to it.

  Gray hopped from rafter to rafter. He could feel the heat from below. One section of insulation was already smoldering, the fiberglass melting.

  Reaching the window, Gray checked below. The roof pitch was such that he could not see into the courtyard behind the shop. And if he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see him. Additionally, smoke roiled up from the broken windows below, offering additional cover.

  For once, the fire was to their advantage.

  Still, Gray stood well to the side as he unhooked the window latch and pushed it open. He waited. No gunshots. Sirens could now be heard converging on the street outside.

  “Let me go first,” Gray whispered in Fiona’s ear. “If all’s clear—”

  A low roar erupted behind them.

  They both turned. A tongue of flame shot out of the heart of the burning insulation, licking high, cracking and smoking. They were out of time.

  “Follow me,” Gray said.

  He edged out the window, staying low. It was wonderfully cool out on the roof, the air crisp after the perpetual stifle.

  Buoyed by the escape, Gray tested the roof tiles. The pitch was steep, but he had good grip with his boots. With care, walking was manageable. He stepped away from the shelter of the window and aimed for the roofline to the north. Ahead, the gap between the row houses was less than three feet. They should be able to leap the distance.

  Satisfied, he turned back to the window. “Okay, Fiona…be careful.”

  The girl popped her head out, searched around, then crept onto the roof. She stayed crouched, almost on all fours.

  Gray waited for her. “You’re doing fine.”

  She glanced over to him. Distracted, she failed to spot a cracked tile. Her toe shattered through it. It broke away, causing her to lose her balance. She landed hard on her belly—and began to slide.

  Her fingers and toes fought for purchase, but to no avail.

  Gray lunged for her. His fingers found only empty air.

  Her speed increased as she skated over the tiles. More tiles broke away in her frantic attempt to halt her plummet. Shards of pottery chattered and bounced ahead of her, becoming an avalanche of roof tiles.

  Gray lay splayed on his belly. There was nothing he could do to help.

  “The gutter!” he called after her, forgoing caution. “Grab the gutter!”

  She seemed deaf to his words, fingers scrabbling, toes gouging out more tiles. She bumped over on her side and began to roll. A fluttering scream escaped her.

  The first few broken tiles rained over the edge. Gray heard them shatter to the stone courtyard below with firecracker pops.

  Then Fiona followed, tumbling over the roof edge, arms flailing.

  And she was gone.

  3

  UKUFA

  10:20 A.M.

  HLUHLUWE-UMFOLOZI GAME PRESERVE

  ZULULAND, SOUTH AFRICA

  Six thousand miles and a world away from Copenhagen, an open-air Jeep trundled across the trackless wilderness of South Africa.

  The heat already sweltered, searing the savanna and casting up shimmering mirages. In the rearview mirror, the plains baked brilliantly under the sun, interrupted by thorny thickets and solitary stands of red bush willow. Immediately ahead rose a low knoll, studded thickly with knobby acacia and skeletal leadwood trees.

  “Is that the place, Doctor?” Khamisi Taylor asked, twisting the wheel to bounce his Jeep across a dry creekbed, the dust rising in a rooster tail. He glanced at the woman beside him.

  Dr. Marcia Fairfield half stood in the passenger seat, her hand clamped on the windshield’s edge for balance. She pointed an arm. “Around to the west side. There’s a deep hollow.”

  Khamisi downshifted and skirted to the right. As the current game warden on duty for the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Preserve, he had to follow protocol. Poaching was a serious offense—but also a reality. Especially in the lonelier sections of the park.

  Even his own people, his fellow Zulu tribesmen, sometimes followed the traditional way and practices. It required even fining some of his grandfather’s old friends. The elders had given him a nickname, a word in Zulu that translated as “Fat Boy.” It was said with little outward derision, but Khamisi knew there was still an undercurrent of distaste. They considered him less a man for taking a white man’s job, living fat off of others. He was still a bit of a stranger around here. His father had taken him to Australia when he was twelve, after his mother died. He had spent a good portion of his life outside the city of Darwin on Australia’s north coast, even spent two years at university in Queensland. Now at twenty-eight, he was back, having secured a job as a game warden—partly from his education, partly from his ties to the tribes here.

  Living fat off of others.

  “Can’t you go any faster?” his passenger urged.

  Dr. Marcia Fairfield was a graying biologist out of Cambridge, well respected, a part of the original Operation Rhino project, often called the Jane Goodall of rhinos. Khamisi enjoyed working with her. Maybe it was just her lack of pretense, from her faded khaki safari jacket to her silver-gray hair tied back in a simple ponytail.

  Or maybe it was her passion. Like now.

  “If the cow died birthing, her calf might still be alive. But for how long?” She pounded a fist against the edge of the windshield. “We can’t lose both.”

  As game warden, Khamisi understood. Since 1970, the population of black rhinos had decreased ninety-six percent in Africa. The Hluhluwe-Umfolozi reserve sought to remedy that, as it had the white rhino population. It was the chief conservation effort of the park.

  Every black rhino was important.

  “The only reason we found her was the tracking implant,” Dr. Fairfield continued. “Spotted her by helicopter. But if she gave birth, there’ll be no way to track her calf.”

  “Won’t the baby stay close to its mother?” Khamisi asked. He had witnessed the same himself. Two years ago, a pair of lion cubs had been found huddling against the cold belly of their dam, shot by a sport poacher.

  “You know the fate of orphans. Predators will be drawn by the carcass. If the calf is still around, bloody from birth…”

  Khamisi nodded. He punched the gas and bounced the Jeep up the rocky slope. The rear end fishtailed in some loose scree—but he kept going.

  As they cleared the hill, the terrain ahead broke apart into deep ravines, cut by trickling streams. Here the vegetation thickened: sycamore figs, Natal mahogany, and nyala trees. It was one of the few “wet” areas of the park, also one of the most remote, well away from the usual game trails and tourist roads. Only those with permits were allowed to traverse this section under strict limitations: daylight hours only, no overnight stays. The territory ran all the way to the park’s western border.

  Khamisi scanned the horizon as he inched the Jeep down the far slope. A mile away, a stretch of game fencing broke across the terrain. The ten-foot-high black fence divided the park from a neighboring private preserve. Such reserves often shared a park’s borders, offering the more affluent traveler a more intimate experience.

  But this was no ordinary private preserve.

  The Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park had been founded in 1895, the oldest sanctuary in all of Africa. As such, the neighboring private reserve was also the oldest. The chunk of family-owned land predated even the park, owned by a living dynasty of South Africa, the Waalenberg clan, one of the original Boer families, whose generations stretched back to the seventeenth century. This particular reserve was a quarter the size of the park itself. Its grounds were said to be teeming with wildlife. And not just the big five—the elephant, rhinoceros, leopard, lion, and cape buffalo—but also predators and prey of every ilk: the Nile crocodile, hippo, cheetah, hyena, wildebeest, jackal, giraffe, zebra, waterbuck, kudu, impala, reedbuck, warthog, b
aboons. It was said that the Waalenberg preserve had unknowingly sheltered a pack of rare okapi, well before this relative of the giraffe had even been discovered back in 1901.

  But there were always rumors and stories associated with the Waalenberg preserve. The park was only accessible by helicopter or small plane. The roads that once led to it had long since returned to the wild. The only visitors, occasional as they were, were major dignitaries from around the world. It was said Teddy Roosevelt once hunted on the reserve and even fashioned the United States national park system after the Waalenberg preserve.

  Khamisi would give his eyeteeth to spend a day in there.

  But that honor was limited only to the head warden of Hluhluwe. A tour of the Waalenberg estate was one of the perks upon acquiring that mantle, and even then it took a signed affidavit of secrecy. Khamisi hoped one day to achieve that lofty goal.

  But he held out little hope.

  Not with his black skin.

  His Zulu heritage and education might have helped him get this job, but even after apartheid, there remained limits. Traditional ways die hard—for both black and white men. Still, his position was an inroad. One of the sad legacies of apartheid was that an entire generation of tribal children had been raised with little or no education, suffering under the years of sanctions, segregation, and unrest. A lost generation. So he did all he could do: opened what doors he could and held them for those who would come after.

  He would play the Fat Boy, if that’s what it took.

  In the meantime…

  “There!” Dr. Fairfield shouted, startling Khamisi back to the tortuous unmarked track. “Make a left at that baobab at the bottom of the hill.”

  Khamisi spotted the prehistoric giant tree. Large white flowers drooped mournfully from the ends of its branches. To its left, the land dropped away, descending into a bowl-shaped depression. Khamisi caught a sparkle of a tiny pool near the bottom.

  Water hole.

  Such springs dotted the park, some natural, some man-made. They were the best places for a glimpse of wildlife—and also the most dangerous to traverse on foot.

  Khamisi braked to a halt by the tree. “We’ll have to walk in from here.”

  Dr. Fairfield nodded. They both reached for rifles. Though both were conservationists, they were also familiar with the ever-present danger of the veldt.

  As he climbed out, Khamisi shouldered his large-bore double rifle, a.465 Nitro Holland & Holland Royal. It could stop a charging elephant. In dense brush, he preferred it to any bolt-action rifle.

  They headed down the slope, prickling with basket grass and shrubby sicklebush. Overhead, the higher canopy shielded them from the sun but created deep shadows below. As he marched, Khamisi noted the heavy silence. No birdsong. No chatter of monkeys. Only the buzz and whirring of insects. The quiet set his teeth on edge.

  Beside him, Dr. Fairfield checked a handheld GPS tracker.

  She pointed an arm.

  Khamisi followed her direction, skirting the muddy pool. As he stalked through some reeds, he was rewarded by a growing stench of rotting meat. It didn’t take much longer to push into a deep-shadowed copse and discover its source.

  The black rhino cow must have weighed three thousand pounds, give or take a stone. A monster-size specimen.

  “Dear God,” Dr. Fairfield exclaimed through a handkerchief clutched over her mouth and nose. “When Roberto pinpointed the remains by helicopter…”

  “It’s always worse on the ground,” Khamisi said.

  He marched to the bloated carcass. It lay on its left side. Flies rose in a black cloud at their approach. The belly had been ripped open. Intestines bulged out, ballooned with gas. It seemed impossible that all this had once fit inside the abdomen. Other organs were draped across the dirt. A bloody smudge indicated where some choice tidbit had been dragged into the surrounding dense foliage.

  Flies settled again.

  Khamisi stepped over a section of gnawed red liver. The rear hind limb appeared to have been almost torn off at the hip. The strength of the jaws to do that…

  Even a mature lion would’ve had a hard time.

  Khamisi circled until he reached the head.

  One of the rhino’s stubby ears had been bitten off, its throat savagely ripped open. Lifeless black eyes stared back at Khamisi, too wide, appearing frozen in fright. Lips were also rippled back as if in terror or agony. A wide tongue protruded, and blood pooled below. But none of this was important.

  He knew what he had to check.

  Above the scum-flecked nostrils curved a long horn, prominent and perfect.

  “Definitely not a poacher,” Khamisi said.

  The horn would’ve been taken. It was the main reason rhino populations were still in rapid decline. Powdered horn sold in Asian markets as a so-called cure for erectile dysfunction, a homeopathic Viagra. A single horn fetched a princely sum.

  Khamisi straightened.

  Dr. Fairfield crouched near the other end of the body. She had donned plastic gloves, leaning her rifle against the body. “It doesn’t appear she’s given birth.”

  “So no orphaned calf.”

  The biologist stepped around the carcass to the belly again. She bent down and, without even a wince of squeamishness, tugged a flap of torn belly up, and reached inside.

  He turned away.

  “Why hasn’t the carcass been picked clean by carrion feeders?” Dr. Fairfield asked as she worked.

  “It’s a lot of meat,” he mumbled. Khamisi circled back around. The quiet continued to press around him, squeezing the heat atop them.

  The woman continued her examination. “I don’t think that’s it. The body’s been here since last night, near a watering hole. If nothing else, the abdomen would have been cleaned out by jackals.”

  Khamisi surveyed the body again. He stared at the ripped rear leg, the torn throat. Something large had brought the rhino down. And fast.

  A prickling rose along the back of his neck.

  Where were the carrion feeders?

  Before he could contemplate the mystery, Dr. Fairfield spoke. “The calf’s gone.”

  “What?” He turned back around. “I thought you said she hadn’t given birth.”

  Dr. Fairfield stood up, stripping off her gloves and retrieving her gun. Rifle in hand, the biologist stalked away from the carcass, gaze fixed to the ground. Khamisi noted she was following the bloody path, where something was dragged away from the belly, to be eaten in private.

  Oh, God…

  He followed after her.

  At the edge of the copse, Dr. Fairfield used the tip of her rifle to part some low-hanging branches, which revealed what had been dragged from the belly.

  The rhino calf.

  The scrawny body had been shredded into sections, as if fought over.

  “I think the calf was still alive when it was torn out,” Dr. Fairfield said, pointing to a spray of blood. “Poor thing…”

  Khamisi stepped back, remembering the biologist’s earlier question. Why hadn’t any other carrion feeders eviscerated the remains? Vultures, jackals, hyenas, even lions. Dr. Fairfield was right. This much meat would not have been left to flies and maggots.

  It made no sense.

  Not unless…

  Khamisi’s heart thudded heavily.

  Not unless the predator was still here.

  Khamisi lifted his rifle. Deep in the shadowed copse, he again noted the heavy silence. It was as if the very forest were intimidated by whatever had killed the rhino.

  He found himself testing the air, listening, eyes straining, standing dead still. The shadows seemed to deepen all around him.

  Having spent his childhood in South Africa, Khamisi was well familiar with the superstitions, whispers of monsters that haunted and hunted the jungles: the ndalawo, a howling man-eater of the Uganda forest; the mbilinto, an elephant-size hippo of the Congo wetlands; the mngwa, a furry lurker of coastal coconut groves.

  But sometimes even myths came to li
fe in Africa. Like the nsui-fisi. It was a striped man-eating monster of Rhodesia, long considered a folktale by white settlers…that is, until decades later it was discovered to be a new form of cheetah, taxonomically classified as Acinonyx rex.

  As Khamisi searched the jungle, he recalled another monster of legend, one that was known across the breadth of Africa. It went by many names: the dubu, the lumbwa, the kerit, the getet. Mere mention of the name evoked cries of fear from natives. As large as a gorilla, it was a veritable devil for its swiftness, cunning, and ferocity. Over the centuries, hunters—black and white—claimed to have caught glimpses of it. All children learned to recognize its characteristic howl. This region of Zulu-land was no exception.

  “Ukufa…,” Khamisi mumbled.

  “Did you say something?” Dr. Fairfield asked. She was still bent down by the dead calf.

  It was the Zulu name for the monster, one that was whispered around campfires and kraal huts.

  Ukufa.

  Death.

  He knew why such a beast came to mind now. Five months ago, an old tribesman claimed to have seen an ukufa near here. Half beast, half ghost, with eyes of fire, the old man had railed with dead certainty. Only those as old as the leathery elder took heed. The others, like Khamisi, pretended to humor the tribesman.

  But here in the dark shadows…

  “We should go,” Khamisi said.

  “But we don’t know what killed her.”

  “Not poachers.” That’s all Khamisi needed or wanted to know. He waved his rifle toward the Jeep. He would radio the head warden, get the matter signed off and settled. Predator kill. No poaching. They’d leave the carcass to the carrion. The cycle of life.

  Dr. Fairfield reluctantly rose.

  Off to the right, a drawn-out call split through the shadowy jungle—hoo eeee OOOO—punctuated by a high-pitched feral scream.

  Khamisi trembled where he stood. He recognized the cry, not so much with his head as with his bone marrow. It echoed back to midnight campfires, to stories of terror and bloodshed, and even further back, to something primeval, to a time before speech, where life was instinct.