White Gold

by Caitlin O'Connell

  “I’m worried something might have happened to him on the drive back,” Ling-Ru confided.

  “I think we should start walking.”

  “Maybe we should give it another fifteen minutes.” Ling-Ru looked nervous. “With all the elephants that came through last night, maybe it’s not safe to walk. You heard what happened to that tourist just two days ago.”

  “Okay, let’s wait until seven forty-five. It’s probably about a fifteen- or twenty-minute walk to that small visitor center we passed on our way here. We can have someone radio from there.”

  When Zhang still didn’t show up, we hit the trail in the direction that the jeep had left the previous evening. About a kilometer down the road, it was clear why Zhang hadn’t shown up. His jeep was turned over on its side just next to the road.

  We ran to the jeep to see if we could tell what had happened. Judging from the size of the tracks, there were three adult female elephants and two very small individuals. One of the adults had charged the jeep, most likely defending her calf. The jeep was dented on the passenger side with no sign of blood on the driver’s side.

  There were human tracks outside the jeep. Zhang had survived. I followed his tracks to a nearby tree that he managed to scale in his escape. Around the side of the tree were fresher tracks, making it clear that he had spent the night in the tree. The fresher tracks led back onto the road in the direction we were heading. He probably made it out at dawn, in which case he’d most likely send for us and someone should have been here by now.

  When we reached the visitor’s center, there wasn’t anyone there. The door was open and there was a radio on behind the reception counter. Ling-Ru used it to call the main ranger station.

  A ranger answered, explaining that Zhang had sent someone down to pick us up. They should arrive any minute. He assured us that Zhang was all right.

  We both breathed a sigh of relief. I was eager to get back to Hong Kong to finish the DNA analysis on Jin Jin’s ivory stash and make an appointment to visit the Da Xin Ivory Carving Factory.

  DNA Extraction

  It seemed surreal to be back in civilization, standing in a lab with high-tech genetic analysis equipment when, just three nights ago, I had been sleeping above the last wild elephants left in China. It was a long day and night getting back, after missing the bus to Kunming and having to spend another night with Zhang, but here I was, extracting DNA from Jin Jin’s tugboat ivory stash, hoping to determine its origin.

  Thanks to Jet, we now knew the ivory was destined for the Da Xin Ivory Carving Factory in Guangzhou. And after running the sequencer, we’d have the data to be able to match the genetic code against samples across Africa and hopefully get a match to a specific region where the ivory had originated.

  “I’ve got some good news for you.”

  I jumped slightly and looked back to see Craig standing in the doorway to the lab. “Oh, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Sorry about that. I should have knocked.”

  “No, of course not.” I put my pipette down. “What’s up?”

  “Got you a meeting at Da Xin.”

  “Really? When?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “That’s great! Wait, that’s Saturday, right?”

  “Yes. You’ll take the train over to Guangzhou at noon tomorrow. I’ve organized your permit through Marcus’s office.”

  “You got Marcus to work that quickly?”

  “Catherine.” He used his paternal tone as a warning for me to behave.

  “Can Ling-Ru come?”

  Craig shook his head. “We need to send a police investigator, not someone from customs. The factory manager refused to let customs in to question him, but strangely enough, he’ll allow someone from the Hong Kong police to pay a visit. But only on a Saturday.”

  “So then who’s coming with me? I’ll need an interpreter.”

  Craig nodded. “I’ve arranged for a constable as your interpreter. One of Hong Kong’s finest. He is half British and raised as a Brit here in Hong Kong, apparently a rising star in the martial arts circles.” Craig squinted at me. “A gentleman by the name of Sam Woo. Ever hear of him?”

  “No. You sure I can’t bring Ling-Ru? Maybe we don’t have to say that she’s customs?”

  “That won’t fly. She’d be known there.”

  “I really don’t want to go in there with someone I never met.”

  Craig smiled. “I understand Mr. Woo is quite popular among the ladies.”

  “You say that with just a little too much enjoyment.”

  “He comes highly recommended.”

  “By whom?”

  “Ling-Ru.”

  “Ling-Ru? How do you guys manage to have so many conversations behind my back?”

  “He’ll meet you at the dim sum place at the Tung Chung tube station on Lantau at ten a.m.”

  “Dim Sum? I thought that was only done on Sundays.”

  Craig waived his hand. “Place got so popular and Sunday dim sum too busy. They do a smaller-scale version on Fridays for tourists. And I’ve booked you in at the Marriott when you get back.”

  “Fancy.”

  “You’ll have to stop by Marcus’s office this afternoon to collect your documentation.”

  “What documentation?”

  “Catherine, he’s doing us a big favor. He’ll want something in return, of course.”

  “What?”

  “Data, I suspect.”

  “Why doesn’t he send his own people to collect data?”

  “Apparently he’s low on staff and wants to make inroads there sooner rather than later.”

  “Sounds suspicious.”

  “Still have it out for him, don’t you?”

  I looked down at my cracked and torn fingernails distractedly. “You have to wonder about someone with perfect cuticles, you know what I mean?”

  I could tell that Craig was tempted to look down at his own cuticles and stopped himself. “Careful,” he warned.

  I withheld a chuckle. “Why would he want my take? After my presentation in Kruger, surely he knows that I didn’t think the market in China should have reopened. And now look where we’re at.”

  “Marcus is a man of the future. He’s got something else in mind, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t like the premise, especially now. Can’t I just go on my own? Without using his contacts?”

  “It would have taken too long to get the permissions in place.”

  “Ugh.”

  “We’re going to have to acquiesce just a little bit. This is his turf.”

  “Did you ask Marcus about Mr. Weiping?”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “His response wasn’t very satisfactory. I’d like you to keep your eyes and ears open on that one.”

  “I have an image to help us keep our eyes and ears open.”

  “Oh?”

  Craig followed me out of the lab and into his office. I dug through my bag, pulled out my phone, and showed him a picture I had taken of Mr. Weiping sitting in a circle of men and their nightingales.

  I pointed to Mr. Weiping. “All the birdcages had a little carved ornament with the letters NNS.”

  He picked up the phone and squinted at the photo. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this looks like the cult of the nightingale.”

  “The cult of the nightingale? What’s that?”

  “I made it up.” He shrugged. “How else can you explain such civility among men?” He pointed at the photo. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “You don’t think that a bunch of old men dressed up in suits could actually be enjoying themselves and taking delight in their feathered companions?”

  “I do not.”

  “And I thought I was the cynic.”

  “It’s rubbing off on me.”

  “Who would know what NNS stands for?” I regretted not asking Jet about it, but something stopped me. Something seemed so secretive about the circle of
men that I wanted to wait before asking anyone outside the investigation.

  “I’ll look into it.” Craig looked at my outfit. “I have to say, the shopping wasn’t simple.”

  “You mean for a tomboy?” I chortled.

  He beamed. “No reason why a tomboy can’t look fabulous in a nice fitted raw silk Armani.”

  “The Zambian witch doctor looked pretty good in raw silk until he got a bullet in his head.”

  “Catherine.” Craig dragged out my name, warning me to behave.

  I smiled deviously. “What? It’s true.”

  “Wouldn’t kill you to have one in the closet.”

  “It just might.”

  “Touché.”

  “How did you know my size, anyway?”

  “I have an eye for that sort of thing. Been meaning to pick a few things out for a while now. This gave me an excuse.”

  “You take pleasure in the strangest things.”

  “Indeed. Please send a selfie or two. Particularly of the red dress. I’m sure it will look stunning.”

  “That one I will not be wearing. Aren’t I meant to blend in to the background in this investigation?”

  He picked up a pencil and chewed on the end of it absentmindedly. “Nothing wrong with a red dress in the backseat.”

  “Gross,” I called back over my shoulder as I left the office. “I hope you don’t come to regret that statement.”

  Tricky Liaisons

  I knocked on the door of the Wildlife Trade Watch office dressed in my ivory Armani suit, feeling overdressed. I didn’t want Marcus to think that I felt I needed to impress him. I put it on that day to humor Craig, not thinking I’d end up here.

  The prime directive of WTW was to monitor the trade of endangered species, and since Hong Kong was the hub of trade between China and the rest of the world, this office was their largest in Southeast Asia.

  “You must be Catherine.” Marcus stood up and put out his hand, looking me up and down, visibly impressed. “Marcus Fitzgerald. Please come in.”

  “Thanks for taking the time to meet,” I replied as pleasantly as I could.

  “My pleasure.” Marcus showed me to a chair in front of his desk. “Some tea?”

  “Thank you. That would be great.” I sat down in the chair.

  Marcus dropped a teaspoon of oolong tea into a blue-and-white mug, filled it with hot water from a hot pot, and covered the mug with a lid that sat like a Chinese hat. “Cheers.” He handed me the mug and sat down behind his desk. “So, tell me more about your background. Craig mentioned you did a bit of work in Namibia before coming here?”

  “Yes, in fact, we’ve already met—in Johannesburg at the elephant policy conference over a year ago now.”

  “Oh, right, of course. Sorry, it’s been a crazy year for us at WTW, as I’m sure it has been for you, between the poaching and all the changes in legislation. The best and worst of times, really.”

  I nodded.

  “Shame what happened to Li’s father’s friend, Jin Jin. Any details you can share?”

  “Just what’s been in the news, really. I don’t know any more than that.”

  “I would have thought you’d have learned by now how little goes into the news around here.”

  “I’ve heard customs folks say that that’s the only information they get sometimes.”

  “Those can’t be very good customs agents.”

  “I really don’t have any more details to share.”

  “I hear the Sun Hee Un might be involved. Is that what the police think?”

  “Like I said, I don’t really know anything.”

  “I’ve been watching Jin Jin for some time. A very mysterious chap. He’d been brought in a number of times and then released. Never figured out what he was up to. Was there any sign of sabotage on the boat, or do you think it broke down unintentionally and happened to float into Jin Jin’s arms? He would have known the value of that ivory on the black market—not to mention the pangolin scales and everything else on that boat.”

  “It’s hard to say. There were engine parts all over the deck, like someone was trying to fix it, but I couldn’t tell how it broke down or who had been working on it. I’m sure a mechanic could tell more about the engine and hopefully the fingerprints would provide clues as to who was working on it.” I left out the details about Jin Jin’s death and that he most probably had been murdered rather than mauled to death.

  “This whole affair could become quite dangerous, you realize.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You may need our help with the rest of this investigation.”

  “I already have a customs agent on board as my interpreter. As well as a policeman. I figured Craig would have mentioned that. We’re pretty well covered. Besides, I’m just going to Da Xin to poke around—ask some innocent questions about the legitimate trade and hopefully make sense of a few things.”

  Marcus changed his tone. “First of all, to the Chinese, there is no such thing as an innocent question about ivory. Secondly, you never would have gotten into that factory as a reporter. I got you in there because the manager owes me a favor—a hard-earned one, mind you—and only because I’m expecting your collaboration in return.”

  “What kind of collaboration?”

  “Obviously, we have a keen interest in finding out what is going on with the ivory trade at the moment—I mean what’s really going on.”

  “So does Craig.”

  He scoffed. “Yes, of course he does. He gets a new suit with every new piece of information. Very creative.” His tone was unexpectedly cynical. “It just never hurts to ask the same question a number of different ways, from several different positions.”

  “Like I said, I think we’ve got it covered.”

  “Look”—he waved his hand dismissively—“with you asking the same questions that I might ask, you just might get a different answer. You see where I’m heading?”

  I didn’t like this guy slighting Craig or thinking he had the upper hand. His logic was sound, but he seemed just a little too pleased with himself. “What did you have in mind?”

  “We’d be very interested in learning the status of current legal ivory stocks and registered trading at this particular location. We can match this against the volume that is actually being traded. We’re just getting that data in.” He pulled out a thick report and put it on his desk. “The numbers don’t match up. And now you’ve brought in further evidence that they are getting illegal ivory shipments from Vietnam by boat.” He opened up the report to a table of numbers and turned it in my direction.

  I glanced at the table, a little confused by the direction this conversation was taking. “Didn’t you support the one-off trade with China in 2008?”

  “I did. And if China wants to stay compliant, they have to prove they can keep the trade aboveboard.”

  I had to bite my tongue so as not to remind him that I argued this very point over a year ago at the elephant summit, and that he’d adamantly disagreed with me. Even the Chinese officials I had interviewed at the time were worried that China didn’t have the administrative infrastructure necessary to ensure that the ivory being bought and sold was all legal. “How would this play out in light of Hong Kong’s announcement that they want to shut down the ivory trade?”

  “Beijing is also calling on the U.S. for help in shutting down portions of the trade. My guess is that they are overwhelmed and, given the current international pressure, have finally had to admit that they aren’t capable of all of the security and administrative measures needed to implement the deal. And rather than admit that to the international community, they very astutely have made it seem like they are taking up the cause of saving elephants and are putting pressure on the U.S. to help fund the operation.”

  “Interesting.” I still couldn’t figure out Marcus’s angle. “So you’ve changed your stance?”

  He opened up his drawer again and pulled out a piece of paper. “Got you a discount at the White Swan. You
’ll need to show this coupon.”

  “Thanks.” I stood to leave, still confused. “By the way, where does Mr. Weiping fit in all of this?”

  Marcus looked at me suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

  “He was the one that rented me the floatplane down in Guangxi.”

  “Yes, I know who he is.”

  “He identified the tugboat from Vietnam and made sure I got the HIN.”

  Marcus looked uncomfortable.

  “How is he connected to the investigation?”

  “He has a relationship with Da Xin,” he said dismissively.

  “Collaborative or adversarial?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  “He led us right to the boat.”

  “He did.”

  “So, doesn’t that make his relationship adversarial?”

  “Again, that is yet to be determined.” He stood up and shook my hand. “Go well, Catherine.”

  I shook his hand.

  “I look forward to hearing how it goes. Please report back first thing Monday morning.”

  “Will do.” I left Marcus’s office more confused than ever about the depth of his understanding of the current situation but eager to get to Guangzhou and the Da Xin Ivory Carving Factory.

  Chicken Feet

  I sat in front of a huge pile of steaming chicken feet, watching Ling-Ru sink her teeth into a disturbingly large yellow foot. She squinted with delight as she gnawed away like she was eating corn on the cob.

  Feeling brave, I attempted a bite but was immediately repelled by the texture of the loose dimply skin and gristly knuckles inside. I leaned forward so as not to spill any chicken-feet juice on my new silk suit and white blouse. Just when I thought I had recovered from my intestinal troubles, the texture of chicken feet against my lips set me back.

  I dropped the boiled claw on my plate and quickly reached for a benign-looking steamed dumpling in an attempt to soothe my bowels.

  “Nice outfit, by the way.” Ling-Ru admired my suit.

  “Craig did a little shopping for me since all my stuff was lost in the fire.”