White Bone

by Ridley Pearson

  “Please.” He was able to stop her—barely. “The sergeant at the hotel told me I had visa problems and plane reservations in three hours. Who could arrange such a thing?”

  In profile, Kanika Alkinyi was strikingly pretty. An upturned nose and pouty lips. Earthy and sophisticated at once. Urban chic. “There was a man rumored to be in the city. Very risky, his coming here. It is possible the two are linked. But it will take time to prove, if such proof is even possible.”

  “I’m out of that commodity, time.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “You’ve seen this, I assume?” He unfolded the printout of the tattooed arm from Radcliffe’s illegally acquired crime scene photos. It showed the dark-skinned arm bearing a roughly circular three-inch medallion with an Arabic word tattooed over it.

  “This man was shot execution-style,” Knox continued, “two months before Samuelson, a reporter for—”

  “I’m familiar with the Samuelson shooting. What is the significance of this photo, Mr. Knox?”

  He wanted to be careful, didn’t want to report Grace as a missing person. It was one thing for Winston to have alerted British Intelligence. What happened from there was up to them. Involving the mostly corrupt Kenyan police, on the other hand . . .

  “Execution-style. This man. Then Samuelson and the man with him. The work of terrorists made to look otherwise? Corrupt rangers?”

  “You’re familiar with gunshot wounds, I suppose?”

  “I drove supply convoys out of Kuwait. I’ve seen my share of bodies, including those lined up on their knees and shot from behind. It’s not pretty.”

  She nodded, spoke. In spite of himself, Knox appreciated the singsong of her colonial British accent, the rhythmic, almost musical, cadence to her speech.

  “The tattoo translates, ‘Always. Constantly.’ It is Arabic, as I assume you know.” She returned the photo. “I can, perhaps, help you leave the country. I can advise you on how to secure relatively safe transit to Mombasa. These are the limits of my involvement. You understand?”

  “Of course. But the photo,” he said, waving it. “That’s all? Nothing more?”

  “The problem with foreigners, especially Americans, is that you move too fast. You are smart, but impatient. And always so independent.” She slowed their walking pace. “I am aware of your missing friend. Maya told me. Do not be alarmed. I will not act upon this information without your request, but I tell you this: not all Kenyan police are corrupt, Mr. Knox. Far from it. We can help in these matters.”

  Knox took in the stark park grounds and its carefree visitors. A pair of older men planted like sculpture on a bench. A woman entertaining a young child with blowing bubbles. The farther you travel, he thought, the less distance separates us.

  “Get away while you can. This is my advice. Leave the missing persons to us.”

  “She came to you. She was looking for a terrorist connection.” He had no idea what he was talking about, but it was worth a try. “Bernard Radcliffe sent her.”

  “Smart but impatient, just as I said.”

  “The tattoo is tribal? Gang? Militant? Help me out here. Please.”

  “I told you what it means. It is an Arabic symbol. It is . . . we see it worn a great deal by those with allegiance to al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and al-Qaeda.”

  Knox sorted out possible explanations. She wasn’t about to volunteer information. “So, in this killing, they apparently killed one of their own in the same method used on Samuelson and the other man. Why? Was this man with the tattoo an informer of yours?”

  “I could never confirm such a thing. Let me say my best guess is betrayal. His execution was a message to others. If not, there was no reason to allow the body to be found.”

  “Understood.”

  “I can get you to Mombasa. I can give you the name of one who can arrange passage. From there, you are on your own. Every police officer in Kenya knows of you. You are a cop killer. Most would gladly gun you down.”

  “My friend was tasked with connecting certain funds to terrorism. The funds led to Achebe Nadali.” She snorted. “You know him. Daniel Samuelson began investigating Nadali two months prior to his murder. He was executed in the same manner as this alleged terrorist. You can see why it would have interested my friend.”

  “Her interest ran deeper than this. The tattoo does not mark him a terrorist, per se. It’s of interest, certainly, but nothing close to evidence. If your friend traced illegitimate funds to Minister Nadali, she should have shared such information. Too independent, you see?”

  “She’s not American. A Chinese national.”

  “All the worse. Much worse.”

  “You said her interest ran deeper.” Knox heard the exasperation in his voice. What to hold back? What to reveal? Winston had tasked Grace with three objectives: trace the money, recover it if possible, and connect the clinic to terrorism. “Please. She shouldn’t have tried it alone. On that, we agree.”

  Inspector Kanika Alkinyi leveled Knox with a look of frank disappointment. “She is a smart woman. She has likely gone to ground.”

  He shook his head. “Yes, she’s brilliant, but no. She’s an accountant. Ambitious to a fault. She had no business taking this beyond the computer work. Radcliffe put the reporter Samuelson onto Achebe Nadali. Then he put Grace onto him as well.”

  “Archie’s had a hell of a time.”

  “Radcliffe drew a timeline between a payoff to Nadali and the disappearance of the ivory from the government vault.”

  The woman sucked air through her teeth, whistling. “Did he? That’s the first I’ve heard of any such connection.”

  The idea came to Knox like a premonition. Out of the ether and into his lap. “Tell me something: is there a reward for the ivory?”

  “Indeed. It’s the new national lottery. Twenty-five percent. The government, no matter how complicit, must take a stand, must attempt to recover this ivory and keep it off the market. This theft is an embarrassment of epic proportions, Mr. Knox. A demonstration of the depth of corruption. It’s catastrophic, politically.”

  She turned to him and leveled another of those looks. She wasn’t a woman to waste time. She drove home her points and expected Knox to think them through on a variety of levels. She was a marathon runner who expected him to keep up.

  “If what you say is true about Nadali, he’s a dead man. He’ll have an accident. A house fire. Something. The government will want to destroy the ivory in a very public setting. Returning it to the vault is not an option.”

  “Twenty-five percent,” Knox said. “That’s a million U.S., or more.” He fell silent, his mind spinning. The sum nearly matched the exact dollar figure of Winston’s loss, the amount Grace had been tasked to retrieve.

  Grace was after the ivory to complete her assignment trifecta. And to think he’d chided her for being Winston’s lapdog. Trace the money and leave the rest to Winston and his staff? She just couldn’t do it.

  He felt violently angry. Grace never stopped pushing.

  “What is it? Are you not well?”

  “Samuelson would have had a laptop, papers.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Cloud storage.”

  “She’s clever,” the policewoman stated. “Look. The stories about the health crisis resulting from the bad vaccine included references to a vaccine intended for cattle. Miss Chu asked me about bigger cattle operations in the vicinity of—”

  “Samuelson’s killing. Mount Kenya.” Knox nodded. “Smart.” Shit, he thought.

  “There’s a ranch called Solio, out of the village of Nanyuki. No theft was reported to police. No insurance claim has been filed.”

  “The first victim. This man,” Knox said, shaking the printout of the tattoo. “Is the timing right to connect him to a theft of the vaccine?”

  “Speculation.” Kanika shoo
k her head. Her short hair held to her head like a helmet. Her upturned nose lent her a haughty impression. She was clearly considering Knox’s question. “My offer to get you out of country won’t stand for long. Please, accept it.”

  “I can’t,” Knox said. He took a breath, asked, “Is there someone, anyone, in Nanyuki or this Solio you trust?”

  “The people at Solio are good people. They are part of the Eastland group.”

  Eastland had arranged Knox’s airport pickup. The owners were friends of Winston’s.

  “There is a ranger on the Solio reserve, I’m sure. I can’t speak for him. And there’s another man, someone called Koigi. But he won’t see you. And listen, going up there is out of the question for you. You’re wanted.”

  “You said the provincial police might be a day or two behind.”

  “That’s not a risk you want to take.”

  “Do you know Koigi personally?” he asked.

  “I know of him.” Kanika blinked. It was the first lie she’d told him. “He is a complex man,” she added. “Passionate. Single-minded. The Kenyan government has been talking about the menace of poaching for decades. Koigi takes a more . . . proactive stance. It puts him at odds with people in my department and the KGA. He’s caught between the laws and the lawless. He will take every measure to ensure self-preservation.”

  Kanika stopped, took in their surroundings and sat down again on another park bench. This one was made of recycled pink plastic. She covered her mouth as she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. “Where Koigi’s rangers and tactics have been installed, the elephants are on the return. This is no coincidence. Folklore abounds, but his stories need no exaggeration. As a policewoman, I turn a deaf ear, as do a few others. Poachers who find their way into Koigi’s territory do not find their way out. In fifteen years, he has arrested three that I am aware of. Three. All under sixteen years of age.”

  Knox wondered if she was putting him on. Folk heroes arose from rumor and want.

  “There is a story that says Koigi once entered a newly formed Muslim village on the border of one of the reserves under his protection. Alone, he cautioned the residents that anyone found across the park boundary would be beheaded. He said he would drink soup from their hollowed-out skulls. To the people of Islam, this is the ultimate threat, for they cannot reach the promised land, the afterlife, without proper burial. It is said that no one from that village has ever tested the threat. This is because it is Koigi. His reputation is the stuff of legend. He has given his full life to the elephant and rhino. His whereabouts, and that of his team, are rarely known. His kills are never found, never investigated. The people of Kenya, people like me, will protect him, Mr. Knox. Believe me.”

  In the distance, Knox saw children playing on brightly colored jungle gyms, heard the traffic overcome by birdsong, felt a breeze cool on his sweaty face. He dried his palms on his thighs.

  “Koigi was ahead of his time. There is a group in the south, Larger Than Life it’s called, a conservation NGO that was started by an American photographer, Rick Rand, who saw through his lens the effect of poaching on our Big Five. Larger Than Life now employs two hundred and fifty private rangers. It’s run by a South African called Travis Brantingham. They’re financed by international grants and donations. Entirely different than Koigi, a black African financed by God knows who. Larger Than Life patrols over three million hectares. Whether or not they employ shoot-to-kill protocol is unknown, but it’s believed they do. They’ve had tremendous success protecting the elephant. Similar to Koigi’s success, but without nearly the same amount of controversy.”

  “Because Koigi is himself wanted,” Knox said. “So meeting an American trying to find a Chinese woman won’t exactly top his list.”

  She laughed for the first time. The sound was husky, yet feminine. “Mombasa, John. Not Nanyuki. And today, while it’s still an option.”

  “If the boy comes to you, he represents my interests. If he asks you to arrange a meeting, then I’ve made it safely.”

  “Shot on sight. You understand, John? My offer is short-lived.”

  “Let’s hope I’m not.”

  She chuckled, leveled a disparaging gaze at him, then stood and walked away. She glanced back once, the smile now a smirk of satisfaction.

  “Whatever you do, don’t stop moving,” she called out.

  30

  Sarge was in the lead truck. We were on a delivery—that’s what we called them, whether it was a full convoy or just a few trucks. Kuwait to one of our bases in Iraq. This one was small, three rigs. A Humvee front and back, the one in front taking an extreme forward position to sweep for IEDs. The one behind stayed in tight to the last rig.

  “There are abandoned vehicles along any route. Burnouts. Casualties of war. You don’t notice them after a while. The lead Humvee pays attention so we don’t have to.

  “They think it had to be radio-controlled, probably cell phone–activated. It may have been our own radios. That can happen. But the precision suggests we were being observed. It skipped the Humvee and blew up the cab of the lead truck. They try to time it like that so they can salvage the contents of the trailer. Big ball of black smoke. Flames. I can’t remember it most of the time. When I do, I get parts of it wrong. It’s like switching to a television channel that’s just static. My brain shuts down and I don’t remember.

  “There may have been gunfire. They tell me there wasn’t, but something sure sounded like it. Maybe a second IED. No one knows because the cab blew up. Apparently I got Sarge out. I wasn’t playing hero because I wasn’t thinking. Something like that happens, you just react. You move. Maybe I was running scared. I have no idea.

  “It wasn’t until the hospital in Switzerland and therapy that it started coming back. To this day, like right now, if I try to think about it, it isn’t there. It comes in nightmares. Car wrecks. Any loud noises. I avoid the Fourth of July. Seems cruel to put vets through explosions like that once a year, not that I’m a vet. Not even close.

  “The second explosion did in my left ear. Blew out my eardrum. I was bleeding from it. Sarge was a mess. Whatever genius put a medic in those Humvees, Sarge owes his life to him.

  “From the moment the first bomb went off to sometime later, when a medic was waving salts under my nose, my one thought, the one thing I remember, is seeing Tommy. My brother. I’m his guardian, his legal guardian, and I remember thinking about him, about seeing his face. I thought I was going to die. I was convinced that after the bombs, we’d be ambushed. It’s how other attacks had gone. Bomb on one side, attack from the other. Kill everyone. Pilfer the goods. In and out, over and done. We were a good three hours from the border at that point. Another two to the base. It’s not like the cavalry was coming.

  “They didn’t get us. But it screwed me up. To this day, I’m still screwed up because of it. I can’t watch violent movies. Don’t even want to. The smell of smoke, oil smoke, makes me sick to my stomach. I’m half deaf in my left ear. I never tell anyone that. I shouldn’t have told you, Grace, because if you tell Sarge about my impairment he’ll take me off the list.”

  “I would never do such a thing. You must know that, John. How can you not know that?”

  “I felt things before that delivery. Love, compassion. Not so much anymore. I feel for Tommy. I love that kid and I hate him at the same time because he’s defined me.

  “I was scared for you in Amsterdam.” The abrupt transition made it sound like a confession of sorts. His eyes went soft. “When you went into the Florence Nightingale Hospital in Istanbul, I was terrified you wouldn’t come back out.”

  “I always come back.”

  Grace recalled the conversation nearly word for word. Yet she couldn’t remember exactly when they’d had it. Wasn’t sure if she hadn’t lied about returning. Had it been leaving Istanbul after the op? Over Skype? It didn’t matter. It was a moment of endearment for her,
one she hadn’t forgotten. Knox had allowed her in.

  For a time, she’d begun to think there was no “in,” just a man crushed by living too long on the edge of war, by caring for an invalid brother who often dragged him down into depression. Whether a moment of weakness or something intentional on his part, she wasn’t sure. But she remembered feeling good in the hours that followed, incredibly good, while simultaneously upset at herself for allowing another’s tragedy to result in her own happiness.

  An ancient Chinese proverb kept recurring to her when she thought about that talk. Roughly, it went “An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, despite the time and place, despite the circumstances. The thread can be tightened or tangled, but will never be broken.”

  That day with John convinced Grace Chu of the existence of a red thread, a treasured discovery she kept close to her heart and even more closely protected.

  She wasn’t feeling good now, hidden among boulders with a view of the listing truck to her right and the kill spot well in the distance. Just below were the three holes she’d dug. She’d lined each with plastic and sealed an additional sheet of plastic over the top, like a lid.

  Her need for water was growing fierce. She’d sucked a few tablespoons’ worth of aloe from a plant; any more would make her sick. If she could kill something, she’d drink its blood, repulsive as it seemed. To that end, she’d strung a length of wire from the engine across a rabbit path. One foot beyond, she’d dug a hole deep into the sandy soil and stuck carefully split sticks into the bottom. She’d covered it fully with loose leaves. A long shot, but one worth trying. She’d created the same trip-and-pit two hundred meters north, where a few small-game trails intersected. She kept the thorn switch, the antenna and one of the two dipsticks by her side, alert for low-flying birds, moths, moles or mice. And then she waited, as still as the rock that concealed her mud-and-dung-plastered form.

  For a time, she dozed. Then, startling awake, she went in search of the yellow and red berries that curbed her appetite and worked as a mild stimulant. Back to her sentry position.