White Bone

by Ridley Pearson

  She didn’t know the woman who savored this moment, didn’t recognize herself.

  The poison took the second man more slowly. Paralyzed, he twitched and tried to speak, his tongue swelling to the size of a cow’s. He fought to move his right arm. Grace picked up the rifle and aimed it at him in case he found his pistol. She could have—should have—ended his life then, but instead she savagely looked on, savoring his agony. His hand found his pocket. Grace aimed for his head. His final effort showed a surprising will and strength; he not only pulled a phone from his pocket, but he managed to throw it into the fire.

  Grace, not wanting the sound of the gunfire, smashed his face with the gun stock, driving him back. He was dead before he hit the ground. She dove, threw her hand into the fire, burned it trying to retrieve the phone. Furious, she scooped its withering plastic husk out and threw it onto the dirt at the dead man’s feet. She kicked the men to confirm their condition. The poison had made them solid with rigor.

  The phone’s keys were melted and inoperable, the clothing she stole ill-fitting and sour, though as welcome as a hot bath. The backpack held two thin blankets, mosquito netting, a few spare magazines for the Kalashnikov, some pieces of fruit and, most important, three liters of bottled water. Grace knew better than to gulp, though the temptation was there, just as it had been with the dead driver’s tea.

  Sobbing dry tears, laughing, dressed in the stinking clothes of the dead men who now lay naked by a dwindling fire, she left the useless phone behind, not wanting an ounce of added weight.

  With the hint, the suggestion, that she might yet make it out of this place came the unwanted realization that she had lived more fully in the past few days than at any other time in her life. In a strange, sickening way, she didn’t want to leave.

  At that moment, she heard the trumpeting of an elephant.

  59

  We need better men!” Thomas announced as he climbed out of the safari truck to open the electric fence gate. Task completed, he got back behind the wheel and drove the truck through. “We put the fence up at night to keep the game out.”

  Again, he left the truck and replaced the gate. Back in the car, he looked around searchingly.

  “There’s supposed to be a guard here on duty all night. He will be reprimanded, if not fired, I promise.”

  “Not on my account, I hope.”

  “You’re in number six. I’ll bring your kit down to the room while you check in.”

  Knox was dropped off at the open front doors of the main lodge. He saw through the open wall to the pitch black of the savanna beyond. The truck motored off. Knox paused a moment and then headed inside.

  It was late, after eleven. The lobby was quiet. He called out a greeting. Earlier, he’d asked Thomas to see that Grace’s belongings be delivered to his room; he’d overheard him radio in the request. He reminded himself to check on that.

  After two more unsuccessful attempts to summon the staff, he grabbed a complimentary flashlight and turned back toward the entrance. The beam caught on something in his path; he stopped and bent down to retrieve a flashlight that had fallen. It was sticky to the touch—a kind of sticky familiar to Knox.

  He reacted immediately, letting go and wiping the blood off his hand onto his jeans. Guarding his back, he moved along the wall, toward the drinks bar at the far end of the large pavilion, which was divided into sitting areas by furniture. The bar was unattended. He didn’t appreciate the sixty feet of open-air wall and the dark beyond; anyone could be out there, watching him.

  For safety’s sake, he moved in rapid, irregular jaunts. At the opposite end of the pavilion a series of split-level drops began, each descending to a more intimate dining area. The last led to a pool. From the pool, a long, steep staircase descended to the “hide,” a camouflaged wildlife viewing area only yards from the largest of two watering holes.

  Knox saw a few drops of blood leading to the first terrace. Low, romantic lighting lit each successive level. Down, down. Pumped and breathing shallowly, Knox moved in the direction the blood pointed, not wanting to use the flashlight to announce himself. The night sounds were reminiscent of summer in Detroit; they played peacefully in his ears, giving a false sense of security. He wished Thomas had stuck around. Knox was unfamiliar with the layout, and no doubt outnumbered.

  With no way of knowing otherwise, discounting a dozen other scenarios that ranged from simple robbery to random violence, he had the hubris to assume the invasion had to do with him and Grace.

  A hurried search of the dining levels left him at the pool. Its circulating, bubbling water looked pleasant, seductive. Yet Knox felt pulled down the stairs to the hide. A pair of torches threw flickered flames of light; their jumping movement marked the top of a gravel path cut into the dirt hill. Knox’s own shadow danced, too, distracting and rattling him.

  He moved rapidly, avoiding the gravel for its noise. Slipping over the log stairs set into the hill, he headed down through the rising walls of dead tree limbs erected to screen humans from the sight of elephants. It was a much longer path than expected, drawn out by the discovery of blood, by the eerie quiet and the impenetrable African night. Under the glare of the torches, the walls of dead limbs took on the form of human and animal bones, shadows moving with Knox’s motion, a kaleidoscope of skeletal fingers pointing in all directions.

  At last he reached the hide, a rustic space with a wooden bar and stools also screened by an array of sticks. At the back was a split-level elevated viewing deck, its floorboards rotted. He made it to the center of the small space before catching sight of the bodies. Living, twitching bodies, hog-tied and gagged. Four staff and the two young managers. The male manager had taken a blow to the side of the head that was going to need stitches. Barely conscious, the man groaned as Knox touched him.

  Knox apologized as he tore a shirt off one of the male staff and tied it around the bleeding man’s head. Knox then rolled the young woman manager over, dropped his own face to within inches of hers.

  “Listen carefully. I’m here to help.” The woman manager squirmed and wiggled, eyes like those of a wild horse. Knox pressed down gently onto her chest. “Easy. I will untie you all, but I need you to listen!” The woman quieted. “They mean you no harm or they’d have killed you. Let’s keep it that way. Nod, if you understand.” The woman nodded—what choice did she have? “Okay. Good. Quiet, now.” Knox loosened her gag. She said nothing, breathing hard as if starved for air. “How many?”

  “Three.”

  “Did they say—?”

  “Miss Chu’s possessions,” she said, cutting him off.

  “Thomas called in after I landed for you to—”

  “Yes, we delivered her bags to your room.” Knox appreciated the woman’s relative calm. “Rob gave them the wrong room number.” Rob’s forehead was covered by the tied shirt.

  “How long ago?”

  “Not long. A few minutes at most,” she said.

  Knox had just missed them. The time lag explained the still-sticky consistency of the blood he’d found, and the quiet of the place. The noise of his arrival had likely hurried the intruders away.

  “Untie the others. Head into the bush; don’t stay here at the hotel. Keep down, get far away and regroup.”

  She nodded vehemently, tears spilling. “Thank . . . you.”

  He loosened her bonds. “Do not return to the hotel tonight. Promise me.”

  “Yes. Promise! Thank you! Thank you!”

  In what felt like a matter of seconds, he was back up the stairs. He moved across the pool terrace, bent at the waist, senses heightened. He imagined hearing things to his right. The central pavilion split the suites, four to each side. Knox’s was the last to the left.

  Another sound from the same direction.

  He thought the arrival and departure of his truck could have panicked them. At least one man would be sent to inve
stigate. So either two were searching for Grace’s belongings and one man for Knox, or the reverse.

  Electing to stay out of the building in the dark, he left the terrace immediately. He skirted a fire pit, dodged bushes, navigating by the waving orange light thrown by kerosene torches.

  The dry, bare earth descended sharply. Knox cut a straight line below the first three split-level suites. Hot tubs threw shimmering blue light up onto the walls, the glow worming through the thatched roofs like something alive. Whenever he slipped, he paused and listened intently. His head hurt.

  Below the penultimate suite on this side, he heard a door click shut. Something light: a cabinet or armoire. He stood some twenty feet below the bedroom’s open wall. Choices. He moved on.

  He reached the area below his suite and scrabbled up the embankment, startled by a warthog’s black eyes, curving tusks and long snout—as ugly a creature as ever there was. Behind it stood three more.

  In an instant, the group shot off together down the hill, the drumming of their hooves reverberating off the buildings. Knox dropped flat.

  A man’s silhouette appeared in the gray span of the open wall to the center suite. A brute, tall and broad-shouldered. Knox could imagine him dressed in camouflage, though he could not see well enough to know.

  The figure stood contemplatively; he’d identified the warthogs, but was presumably scanning to see what had caused the sudden stampede. A patient man, unmoving and stoic. One minute passed. Two. Three. Knox couldn’t believe how the man waited, marveled at such tenacity. The greedy urban misfits he’d faced in kidnappings came off like children compared to this. His adversary was a practiced hunter, composed and unexcitable.

  Five minutes. Six. Jesus! A rabbit ran within inches of Knox, darting and jumping almost soundlessly down the hill. The man’s head swiveled—he’d heard it from thirty yards away—and, Knox thought, followed it down past the second water hole, where the warthogs huddled. Perhaps the rabbit explained things to him. The man stepped away from the edge and back into the darkness of the suite. Knox waited two full minutes before he dared move.

  As he rose, a door banged shut next door. Knox felt it like a starting gun. He climbed the outer wall of his bedroom and hauled himself up through the open space. He’d been told Grace’s bag had been delivered to his suite. Turn-down service had left several lamps glowing softly. Knox hurriedly checked the bedroom. No bag.

  He moved down the few stairs to the sprawling living area. Like the bedroom, it had an entire wall open to the night air. He locked the front door and turned around. There, on a circular card table near the deck, was a roll-aboard suitcase and Grace’s gray carrying case.

  Despite his best efforts, Knox had not been prepared for the impact of seeing these things, this evidence of her. He felt it like a blow to his chest. Three days, he thought. These bags couldn’t be all he brought home of her.

  The door thumped—a shoulder not expecting it to be locked. A key, fumbling. Knox sprang to the card table and snagged the bags. Two strides, and he lowered them off the deck and let go. He was on his way back when the handle turned. The key scratched. The deadbolt spun.

  Knox slipped into a chair at the card table and picked up a magazine.

  The door swung open. The man wore green camouflage with no identification badges. His waist belt was heavy with a large-caliber handgun, multiple magazine pouches, and a decent-sized Maglite that could be used as a club. He appeared momentarily surprised by the encounter.

  “What the hell?” Knox said. “May I help you?”

  Rambu recovered well, his gaze unflinching. “Military police. A guest’s belongings were misplaced by the staff. They were brought to this room by mistake.”

  They’d searched all the other rooms, Knox realized.

  “I believe you’re mistaken,” Knox said, standing as the man stepped into the room. “I’ve seen nothing of the sort.” He gestured toward the door. “If you please?”

  Rather than leave, the big man eased the door shut behind him, never taking his eyes off Knox.

  “I said you’re mistaken,” Knox repeated. “Please leave.” He took a step toward the man, closing to within ten feet of him.

  “I’ll just have a quick look,” Rambu said. But more than his comment, his demeanor had changed when Knox stood. For a moment, Knox thought he’d been made—which suggested his visitor was a policeman privy to the warrants issued by the Nairobi police. Tying up the staff seemed extreme, but as he’d learned, the police here made their own rules.

  But no. The absent guard at the electric fence tipped the scales for Knox. Military police would have no reason to subdue or kill such a guard.

  “Sure,” Knox said. He gestured widely. “Have at it.”

  “I’ll ask you to sit, with your hands on the table.”

  “Seriously?”

  “If you please.” Rambu’s hand lightly grazed the handgun as if reminding both men of its presence.

  “I don’t please. You’re going to shoot me if I don’t sit down?” Knox sounded incredulous.

  “In the chair, hands on the table.” The man’s eyes were not searching the room; they had yet to leave Knox. He withdrew his weapon.

  “Oh, come on.” Knox hadn’t moved. There were few things that frightened him more than a gun aimed at him. Rattlesnakes and scorpions ranked high, drunks on the highway were bad, too; but the muzzle of a gun loosened his bowels. “You’re going to shoot me fo—”

  “Now!” The voice shook the room, though not Knox. Without so much as a tremor, he stepped back and placed his hands on the table. Sat down.

  “For the record: you’re making a big mistake. I’m a guest in your country. I don’t know what it is you want.” He worked hard to play the innocence card, but the look in the other man’s eyes did not waver. Again, Knox suspected his cover was blown.

  “On your head.”

  “Say again?”

  “Hands on your head. No more talk!” Either the man was high on khat, easily upset, or exhausted to a flash point. For one so big, he moved remarkably fast, snaring a lamp, trapping it beneath his oversized boot, and tearing the cord away as if it were a balloon ribbon. And all the while, he never took his attention off Knox. “Okay. Hands through the back of the chair. Slowly.”

  “This is unnecessary! You can search the place! I don’t care. I’m sorry.”

  The gun wavered. Knox winced. This man’s weapon—a bulky .45—wasn’t new to the firing range. Its surface was worn to a pale patina, its handgrip stained dark where it contacted flesh.

  “Let’s be reasonable,” Knox said, searching for an opening.

  “Through the back of the chair.”

  Knox obeyed, leaning forward to fit his left arm behind him and through the carved chair back. He needed to break the man’s concentration just long enough to challenge him. Had to wait for it; couldn’t rush it.

  He feigned soreness in his right shoulder as he rocked to fit his arm through. If he completed the move, his arms would be separated by a piece of hardwood carved as a giraffe. If the man tied his wrists together, he was stuck. His feigned cooperation, along with projecting soreness in his shoulder, drew his opponent a half-pace closer. He’d failed to measure Knox’s wingspan.

  Knox slowly rocked his chin over his shoulder, making sure to lock eyes with the man. “My friend found the ivory.” He spoke with a keen familiarity, as if sharing a secret.

  For just a nanosecond, the fire in the man’s eyes dimmed.

  Knox shoved back the chair and began a pirouette with his long right arm, extending it to slap the gun away. His momentum allowed him to crane forward and separate the chair from the card table. As he rotated, the chair hooked in his left elbow whistled past and took the man down. Knox dropped to pin the man, but too late. Pistol-whipped in the back of the head, he faltered. The man heaved him aside, but the act sent the gun
spinning across the floor.

  The two came to standing, Knox semiconscious, Rambu working out a numb leg. They charged like bull elephants, heads lowered, each throwing punches into his opponent’s gut. Knox stretched to kick the man’s weakened knee but missed. He took a blow in his bad ear, his head ringing like a bell tower. Threw a knee and caught some ribs; heard the man choke for air.

  There was a hunting knife on that belt as well; Knox saw the flash of steel and blocked with his forearm. He threw an ineffective elbow to the man’s jaw. Knox feinted to his own right, throwing his opponent onto the hurt knee. As he went down, the knife’s blade flashed. Knox’s arm bled.

  Grace came to mind. Knox attacked recklessly. He took the man into a chokehold. The knife fell.

  “Where is she?” Knox whispered. “The Chinese woman? One wrong word . . .” He eased. “Where?” He tightened.

  Rambu squirmed, trying to break the hold. But Knox had him now. There was no undoing it. He tightened the grip, thinking of this man and others with Grace, imagining what they might have done to her. “Where?”

  “Lost her!” Rambu choked out.

  “Where?”

  “Olio—” Rambu threw back his head and caught Knox in the jaw. Knox lost his grip, pissed at being lured into a stupid mistake. The inside of his cheek bled, an all-too-familiar metallic taste.

  Both men reached for and held the knife, the blade’s tip alternating its interest like a water witcher. Rambu used his considerable weight advantage against Knox, rolling and working to lie fully atop him. Knox bucked to keep him off. And still the knife tip winked.

  In an instant, Knox drove his knee up between the man’s legs and took possession of the blade. He punched it into the man’s thigh—it was like stabbing a tree. The man rocked forward. Knox kneed him in the forehead, and the man was out cold. Knox tore the radio off the man’s belt and cut through his pants to expose a cell phone and wallet. Took them both.