Crys didn’t know what to say, so she kept her mouth shut.
‘And it fits with what Johannes heard Anton say,’ Mabula continued. ‘That Chu Nhan said the deal was off. Chu Nhan’s not his real name, but we believe it’s the nickname of the boss of the cartel in Vietnam.’
‘So, Anton was selling horn illegally to the Vietnamese, who were smuggling it out through their usual routes,’ Søren said. ‘What made you suspect Tshukudu in the first place?’
‘Just bits and pieces we picked up from informers. But we had no real evidence. We have now, but it’s rather late in the day…’
‘End Extinction also had information that some horn was leaking from South Africa – not poached, but smuggled from the farmers,’ Søren said. ‘We had no information pointing here specifically, but this is the biggest farm, and there were rumours it is in financial trouble. So, we had our suspicions.’
Crys remembered that her bungalow had been searched after she’d asked Anton about Michael. Afterwards, she’d found Anton standing outside the house smoking and making up stories about fireflies. Now Crys thought she knew the answer. He had to know if she was who she said she was, or if she was investigating the rhino-horn smuggling in some way.
‘There’s a diary upstairs that I found in the safe. It documents the money Anton took from Pockface and his gang,’ Crys said.
‘So, you went through the safe too,’ Mabula growled. ‘I’m not sure why we bother to have police at all.’ He couldn’t keep a straight face, however.
The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes. Eventually Crys asked, ‘But how does Dinh fit in? And Nigel Wood?’
It was Søren who answered her. ‘I told you we believed that there was something very strange about Rhino International. And I’ve been puzzled about why Wood would go to such lengths to find out about what Chu Nhan’s group was up to. I started thinking he and Dinh might be connected somehow to a smuggling mafia different from this Chu Nhan. After you and I spoke the other night, I warned Colonel Mabula that if I was right, Wood might have an ulterior motive. Obviously, he’d be happy about Chu Nhan losing men and money and face, but there was another possibility. If he somehow knew about the deal with Anton, and could get his hands on that horn, it would be a huge coup for him. Millions of dollars of horn for hardly any money.’ He looked around. ‘I must say that, after Michael’s story, it doesn’t seem as likely that Wood is involved. Maybe he was also duped by Dinh. As Michael was.’
‘Where is Wood now?’ Crys asked.
‘We’re holding him,’ Mabula replied. ‘If he had contact with Dinh last night, and we can prove that through cell-phone records, we’ll be able to arrest him. And, of course, we have Dinh. He’s facing a murder charge now. I’m sure we can persuade him to cooperate. We’ll find out the truth about Nigel Wood. And about Michael Davidson.’
They heard another helicopter approaching.
‘That’s the medivac chopper back,’ Mabula said. ‘It can take Davidson and Malan. I have a transport chopper coming for the rest of us from Phalaborwa. It should be here in about an hour.’
Crys just nodded, lost in her own thoughts.
She’d probably never know whether Nigel was completely above board. And now she knew that Michael was willing to compromise the principles he was always so strong on, and maybe discard them altogether.
She stood up and went to the window.
But could she judge him when she’d also done things she wasn’t proud of?
She turned back to face the others. ‘What will happen to him?’ she asked.
‘Davidson?’ Mabula said. He shrugged. ‘Depends. We don’t really have much, and Dinh’s word will be worth nothing. If he has a good lawyer and sticks to his story, maybe he goes home. Maybe he even gets to keep the ten thousand dollars. I don’t think he gets to keep his reputation though.’
She nodded and went to tell Michael that the medivac had arrived.
And to say goodbye.
Chapter 40
After she’d seen Michael to the helicopter, Crys needed a little time to herself to come to terms with everything that had happened during the night. The adrenaline had faded, but she could still feel the tension gripping her mind and body. Her hand was sore, and her shoulder ached. And worst of all, her head was spinning with Mabula’s revelations. And with the pain of Michael’s betrayal.
But was it really that? He never asked anything of her. She’d taken it upon herself to find him.
Had all this been for nothing?
No, she thought. She’d helped do a lot more than simply save one man.
When she got back to her bungalow, she closed the door and spread some towels on the floor. She twisted into a half lotus and began to chant quietly.
Úm ma ni bát ni hồng. Úm ma ni bát ni hồng. Úm ma ni bát ni hồng. Úm ma ni bát ni hồng.
After a while, her heart slowed. She stayed in that position a little longer, emptying her head of thoughts. Eventually, she was ready to move on. She returned the towels to the bathroom and started to pack. She didn’t have much.
Crys started thinking of the future. Michael, Johannes, and Bongani – none had a smooth road ahead. Michael and Johannes would manage. However, in Bongani’s case, maybe there was no road at all.
‘Crys. Are you there?’ It was Johannes calling from the porch. She was surprised, and went out to see him. He still looked terrible, although he was walking more easily.
‘I thought they were taking you to Giyani,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘I told them I was okay, and didn’t go,’ he said. ‘I’ve too much to sort out here: paperwork for my father’s death and arrangements for his funeral. He had a lot of friends and business acquaintances. And I’ve got to put the house back together and go through all his papers. He could be quite secretive. So, I wanted to say goodbye before you head off.’
‘You need to see a doctor, Johannes. You may have broken ribs and maybe internal injuries…’
‘Some friends are coming over. One is a doctor. He can drive me to Giyani, if necessary. I don’t want to be stuck there.’
Crys nodded. ‘I understand. Johannes, I’m so sorry about your father. I think he tried to do something very special here and for the right reasons. But sometimes these things go wrong.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve suspected something for a while now. He changed. He became bitter and always worried about money. And we didn’t get on as well as we used to when we started out. It was a shared dream then.’
‘What will you do? Can you save the farm?’
‘I hope so. I can sell that horn on the legal market, but I won’t get much. And raise what I can from selling my father’s businesses. Also, he had a lot of key-man insurance for them. He always used to joke that he was worth more dead than alive. Maybe with all that, I can pay off the debts and keep Tshukudu going for a while. But in the longer term, if we can’t sell horn for a reasonable price, I just don’t know. But I’ll try.’ He paused, and Crys saw a man who was beaten down, but full of pride and determination.
‘How do you feel about your father?’ she asked, putting her hand on his shoulder.
‘I’ve always been so proud of him.’ He swallowed a sob. ‘He was very private, very proud, very stubborn. And saving the rhino was the most important thing in the world for him. Had he told me how serious his financial difficulties were…’
He stopped and took a few deep breaths. ‘Maybe he wouldn’t have gone over to the dark side. Maybe we could have found an honourable solution.’
He stood there, looking embarrassed.
‘Anyway, thanks for everything, Crys. I’m sure Dinh wasn’t intending to leave any of us alive. The only reason he did was that you forced him to take us as hostages.’
‘Bongani helped,’ she said. ‘He thought it was your father’s people he allowed in last night. Without him, I couldn’t have done anything.’
Johannes nodded. ‘It was thanks to both of you.’
She stepped forward
s and gently wrapped her arms around him. They hung onto each other for a long time, rocking slightly, rubbing each other’s backs. They both needed it.
When they let go, she said, ‘You’re a good man, Johannes. I think you’ll make Tshukudu thrive.’
He nodded, gave a half-smile, turned and left.
She went back into her chalet to finish her packing, her mind whirling.
Then, she spent a few minutes on the internet finding the telephone number of the hospital in Giyani. She phoned and asked about Bongani, saying she was calling for Colonel Mabula. They told her the bullet had been removed, and that he was now in intensive care, but stable.
Crys grabbed her bag and headed for the helicopter. There was one more thing she needed to do before they left.
Crys found Mabula talking to the pilot. He looked cheerful. Things had worked out pretty well from his point of view. She asked to speak to him alone.
‘Colonel, I think you know more about Bongani than you’ve let on.’
He nodded. ‘He’s been tipping off the poachers and doing errands for them. Like picking up Ho that night.’
‘Yes, he admitted that to me. He says he’s tried to stop, but he’s terrified for his family’s safety. He really is between a rock and a hard place.’
Mabula didn’t respond.
‘And he saved everyone here last night,’ she continued. ‘Without him, we’d all be dead.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ he asked.
‘If he came clean and helped you round up the rest of Chu Nhan’s people here, you could forget about what he’s done in the past.’
Mabula nodded. ‘And? There’s more isn’t there?’
‘He can’t live here anymore. He’ll have to move his family away, otherwise they’ll get to him somehow. He’ll need help getting a job somewhere else. And he’ll need money.’
‘I suppose that’s true.’ He wasn’t going to help her get to the point.
‘That money from the plane,’ Crys said. ‘Suppose he had information that would allow you to recover it. Would there be a reward? You suggested that once.’
‘That was just to see if you were dishonest or stupid. You weren’t either.’
This time, she waited.
‘Well, if we recovered that money, I could recommend a reward for him. Maybe five percent. I can’t promise.’
‘But you will make something happen, right?’
He laughed. ‘Are they all like you in Minnesota?’
Again, she waited.
‘All right. Yes, he’ll get a reward.’
Crys was sure he had no idea how much money was involved, but that was fine. If the reward was five percent, twenty-five thousand dollars would set up Bongani very well indeed.
‘I’ll include the reward in my story then.’
He laughed again. ‘You still don’t trust me!’
She took out her cell phone and found her fake phone numbers, which were actually the latitude and longitude of where the money was buried, and then shared them with his phone. ‘I just forwarded Bongani’s information.’
He glanced at his phone and nodded. ‘You know I could charge you with lying to the police, withholding evidence, assaulting a police officer, leaving the country without permission, and a lot more if I thought about it.’
She smiled. ‘I suppose you could.’
Crys saw Søren walking up from his chalet, and he joined them a few moments later.
‘You two look pleased with yourselves,’ he said.
Neither of them commented. This was between the two of them.
With all the adrenaline drained from her system, Crys felt a void inside. Apathy had replaced energy; melancholy had pushed aside optimism.
The short flight cut over the expanse of the southern African bushveld. Crys saw little of it, her mind turned inward. She felt a pang of loss as she realised this would probably be her last look at wild Africa for a long time. But deep down, she knew she’d come back one day. She’d caught the Africa disease.
National Geographic had sent her to Africa to write about the plight of the rhinos. She arrived with a clear vision of what should be done – stop poaching and ban the trade in rhino horns. And of course she’d had her personal goal too. The thought was like a stab in her heart.
She turned her mind to how Mabula had smashed the ring of poachers and smugglers. He was pleased about it – and had a right to be – but he knew another gang would take over, another smuggling route would be opened. Rhino horn was just worth too much money. And in the short term, the price of horn would probably go up because of the temporary shortage.
Stopping poaching was like digging a hole in a swamp. No matter how hard you bailed, you just couldn’t stop the water seeping back and filling the hole again. It was depressing to realise that rhinos still died, despite all the efforts of the anti-poaching teams, the conservationists, the police, and dedicated organizations like CITES.
Would people eventually become discouraged and give up, leaving rhinos completely vulnerable?
As Crys watched a herd of elephants moving away from the noise of the chopper, everything cried out that there must be a way – a way to leave the rhinos in peace, undisturbed, completely wild. But nothing she’d discovered in South Africa, or in Geneva, or in Vietnam over the last month suggested that was possible. As long as the rhinos had their horns, they’d be killed for them. So, the horns had to be removed. Should you then sell them to produce an industry to support people like Bongani’s cousin? Or should you destroy every scrap of horn until you’d starved the horrible trade to death?
To that, she didn’t have an answer.
And of course, there was Michael, the real reason for her trip.
She was overcome with sadness, not of the loss of what was, but of the loss of what could have been.
Her eyes stung with unshed tears. She’d had such high hopes for a future together, of shared passions, shared laughter.
And shared values.
Then he’d made a deal with the devil – a contract signed in money instead of blood. He’d insisted that he was only trying to trace the smuggling route to help stop it, but in her heart she knew that wasn’t true. Even if he was going to use the money for a good reason, the deal was purely selfish, and others had been hurt. Certainly, he’d ended up paying a high price, but his soul had been exposed. And she didn’t like what she saw.
For a few minutes she let herself wallow in regret, in the pain of what they could have had together.
Then she shook herself and sat up in her seat.
It was time to move on.
Below her the area’s wildlife preserves spread out with their endless rolling plains of acacia trees, thorn bushes, and scrub, where the world’s greatest animal kingdom thrived.
There were stories to be told.
Attack on Kruger
Crystal Nguyen, South Africa
Late Sunday night, gangs armed with assault rifles and stun grenades attacked three separate sites in South Africa’s iconic Kruger National Park. Their target: Kruger’s store of rhino horn.
‘We were ready for them,’ Deputy Minister Tolo told this reporter. ‘We’d been tracking their plans for months. I personally coordinated the resources of the anti-poaching teams, the police, and the South African Defence Force to produce a trap that totally crushed these gangsters.’ When I asked him how they had discovered the timing of the attack so accurately, he said that his ‘sources in Ho Chi Minh City had helped them close the noose’.
Rumours that the attack was carried out by Islamic terrorists were ‘absolute nonsense’, he added. ‘They were nothing more than desperate, heavily armed poachers. Our guests in Kruger were never in the slightest danger. We would have evacuated the park had there been any possibility of that.’
Colonel Mabula of the Giyani police near Kruger has been focusing on the rhino-poaching syndicates for several years. He was the overall coordinator of the operation. In an exclusive interview, he told me, �
�We did have some casualties. On the other hand, not a single attacker escaped. Five were killed and the rest are in custody facing a variety of charges, including murder. Our operation was one hundred percent successful.’ When I asked about the long-term impact, he said: ‘This gang has been totally destroyed. We arrested its senior members, and the Mozambique government has promised to cooperate in closing the smuggling route through their country for good. This could turn the tide for the rhinos.’
In a related development, the South African government is fighting an extradition request from Vietnam for Dinh Van Duong who has been charged with the murder of Mr Anton Malan during an attack on the Tshukudu Game Reserve for its stock of rhino horn. Dinh is also alleged to be behind the poaching gang that held well-known New York Times environmental reporter Michael Davidson for nearly two months. Davidson, who was injured in the attack, has been released from hospital and will be returning home later this week.
The rhino-conservation world has expressed shock at Dinh’s involvement in the illegal trade. He is an official of the Vietnamese government, representing the country at meetings of CITES and has close links with rhino-conservation NGOs. The director of Rhino International, Mr Nigel Wood, today announced his resignation over the scandal. In a statement, he said he would use his private means to work pro bono for the conservation of endangered species.
Acknowledgements
We have many people to thank for their help and encouragement with this book.
We thank our agent, Jacques de Spoelberch of J de S Associates in the USA, and UK sub-agents Sarah Nundy and Charlotte Seymour of Andrew Nurnberg Associates, for continuing to have confidence in our stories.
We are delighted to be published by Orenda Books and thank Karen Sullivan for her remarkable enthusiasm and energy. She and West Camel greatly improved the book with their incisive editing. It was wonderful to interact on the cover with the talented designer Mark Swan.
We benefitted greatly from the valuable input of the Minneapolis writing group – Gary Bush, Barbara Deese, and Heidi Skarie. With all their comments, it’s hard to believe that the book still has mistakes, but it probably does, and we take responsibility for any that remain.
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