In the Company of Killers

by Bryan Christy

  “Is that true?”

  Tenchant laughed. “He grafts irradiated buds onto healthy rootstock, comes up with something five times redder than the Ruby Red. You know what they call it?”

  “No.”

  “Me, neither. I mean, I forget what it was. I never fucking wanted to know any of this. But that’s what I get paid for: to figure out what variety of grapefruit could possibly swing between a bull’s—Rio Reds! That’s what they called them. It goes on and on for weeks like this with Porfle trying to decide which reference to use. Maggie and I stop eating grapefruit. I can’t stand looking at them.”

  “You were Porfled,” Klay said.

  “I was Porfled!”

  Klay was pleased. He and Tenchant were laughing together. His little bonding mission had been a success. It was the most basic spycraft: nothing brings people together better than a common adversary.

  “So, in the end, the sentence Porfle came up with—and God help me—I agreed to it—was—”

  “Wait,” Tenchant said. “Wait! I remember it verbatim because it came back to me to fact-check. The final sentence was ‘A bovine, probably of the zebu or Sanga variety, with prominent male features walked in front of me.’”

  “Which . . .” Klay prodded.

  “Tweedledee excised.”

  “Circumcised.”

  “Castrated.”

  “So that’s the grapefruit story,” Klay said. After a moment, he leaned forward. “So, Tench, one tip I can offer before we get into this is, no matter what the data looks like, drill down to find individuals. If you start to get distracted, keep in mind there’s always a who. If you get off track, or the information seems overwhelming, come back to that, okay?”

  “‘There’s always a who’?” Tenchant echoed.

  “Yeah. You know, I find it helps me.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Tom. Yeah. I appreciate it.”

  “Any questions?”

  “Just one.”

  “Shoot,” Klay said.

  Tenchant sat up. “It’s serious, though, okay?”

  “Sure, Tenchant. Okay.”

  “If you add it all up on that story, from the very beginning, I mean, what would you estimate is the total time you spent with your balls in Porfle’s hands?”

  REUNION

  Pretoria, South Africa

  Klay raised his glass, drinking in Hungry’s deep-set brown eyes. “To catching up on four lost years.”

  “Five,” she corrected, not lifting her glass from the tablecloth.

  “Ah,” he said. “And to your new appointment. Congratulations.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  Their eyes remained locked as they touched glasses. Hungry had come to the restaurant from her office. She wore a red jacket over a black dress and the trademark pearls her grandmother had given her. “The Crocodile in Pearls,” the newspapers called her. She wore her hair natural now. It had been straight when they met. Time had added a few more lines at the corners of her eyes, responsibility weighing on her in a way that made her even sexier somehow. Another layer he’d like to take off, he found himself thinking.

  “Now that you’ve surprised me, what is it that brings you to South Africa?”

  “You.” Klay smiled. “I heard you were short on staff.”

  “Always.” She nodded. “But I know you, remember? You’re here for Botha. Am I right?”

  “I am.”

  “I read about what happened in Kenya. I was very sorry about Bernard. I texted you, but no response. Not a surprise, really . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Hungry. It was a bad time.”

  “Was he behind it—Botha?”

  “That’s what I want to find out. Do you have enough to hold him?”

  “Oh, he threatened me in the courthouse, in front of the judge. So, we’re holding him without bail. We can do that for years, frankly. But no, there is not a lot to the case, legally. Politically, it is a different matter . . .”

  “I heard.”

  She sighed and tapped a crouton with her salad fork. “As usual, we’ve had more attention from the West over a handful of rhino horn than we have for the people here, the children . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  He nodded. “You’re investigating Ncube.”

  She glanced to her left, where two men at a table across the restaurant were staring at her, pretending to chew. “It is not a secret.”

  Klay had noticed diners looking in her direction and whispering since she’d walked in.

  “I can help you with Botha,” he said, taking a bite of his roll. “It doesn’t have to be just a magazine assignment. I know him. I could take him off your plate. I’ve got staff with me.”

  Hungry studied him. “‘Off my plate’?”

  Klay shrugged. “Off your hands. Act as your investigator— unofficially.”

  Hungry chuckled and shook her head. “Always ready to cut a corner,” she said disapprovingly.

  “Bernard was my friend.”

  Hungry sighed. “It’s unethical, Tom. Ordinarily, I’d say impossible. But I have a chance to do something important for this country. It requires all of my attention. Botha’s not officially my mandate. He’s an accident of fate, I suppose. I saw the case and I knew it would be problematic, but I took it anyway. Let me think about this.”

  “Define ‘this,’” he said, and smiled.

  She smiled, too. It was an old joke between them. Back when they were dating he used to ask her, “Can we make this work?”

  “Define ‘this,’” she’d reply.

  But he never could. And the years had passed.

  Still, one thing had always worked between them.

  He signaled for the check.

  * * *

  • • •

  Standing in a hotel room, Klay let his eyes linger on her face, momentarily overwhelmed as he considered this singular, brilliant woman, the one he felt he was meant to share his life with. He pulled her towards him more roughly than he intended, but she pressed her mouth just as fiercely on his. He unzipped her dress, felling himself rise as she undid his belt. She shrugged off her dress. He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his shirt. In a single motion she undid her bra and stepped into him, pressing her full breasts hard against his bare chest.

  He cupped her ass intending to lift her, but she spun away from him, stood beside the bed and faced him, hands on her thighs, legs apart, challenging him with her eyes to remember, watching him as he did. He came to her then, put his mouth to her breasts, then dropped to his knees and pressed his face into her, drawing her thong down, taking in the smell of her, the taste of her. He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around him. The room dissolved and the past returned, and locked together, they fought and fucked and loved. And then it was over and they were themselves again, looking up a ceiling fan making its rounds, sweat cooling their damp skin.

  He used to tell himself that being dishonest about the CIA was the best thing he could do for their relationship. If he was honest in every other way, then eventually, when he did share his truth with her, they could weather what came next. This time, he told himself each time they kissed hello. Next time, he vowed each time they said goodbye.

  Now he’d crossed a line. Hungry was his mission. Yes, he was after Botha, but everything else was deception. He had to manipulate Hungry into giving him her files. It was true that they were on the same side, so success for him should mean success for her, but targeting her suddenly made him feel sick.

  Hungry turned to him. “Botha,” she said.

  “Who knew he could be a force for good?” Klay smiled.

  A shadow crossed her face and she looked away.

  He touched her hand. “My new editor loves your life story. She wants to send over a documentary film team once I’m done. Says you’re a brilliant woman.”
>
  She forced a smile. “I did go to Harvard.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I might have.”

  When she was twenty-six, she’d turned down a full scholarship to Harvard Law School to stay home and help draft Mandela’s post-Apartheid constitution.

  “You might have,” he agreed. “But then you’d be eating black cod at Nobu with your future ex-husband instead of lying here with me sweaty and satisfied.”

  “Possibly.” The shadow returned and she kissed him lightly. “Principles have kept my standards low.”

  He ran a finger down her arm. She lay back. Soon his finger retraced itself and found a more distracting path. She had fingers of her own, of course. She kissed his chest, and then slowly moved her lips to investigate what they had discovered.

  Klay felt the familiar pressure, their time together always less than enough.

  Hungry sat up first and pulled the sheet to her chest. “You can’t embed, not officially. If anyone even suspected we’d given foreign journalists access to our files, we’d be finished. Our enemies are everywhere, Tom.”

  “Wait a second,” he said. “When exactly did you make this decision?”

  She smiled. “I’m a multitasker, remember?” She turned to him, her face serious. “You’ll visit our office. Meet our people. You are journalists doing a story on Ras Botha. That’s fine. You have a track record investigating him, and everyone knows The Sovereign. I can share things with you quietly and point you in the right direction. Anything concerning our investigation into the president, you cannot be present for, not even in the building.”

  “Chinese wall. Understood.”

  “If you want to share what you find with me, that’s your decision. You’re under no oblig—”

  “I’d do it anonymously.”

  She waved away his interruption. “You’re under no obligation,” she continued. “Nothing you learn from my office goes public before his trial.”

  “Understood.”

  “You trust this person you brought with you?”

  “He’s good with computers. I’m taking this beyond rhino horn, Hungry. I want Botha to pay for what he did.”

  “Of course you do,” she said. “They fired Vance?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You said you have a new editor.”

  “Right. Vance retired. He has cancer.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Tom. I know he’s meant a lot to you over the years. He’s been like a father, hasn’t he?”

  “Thanks. Not exactly a father. But a good man. He seems to be doing all right so far. He did most of his work here back in the day. Mandela is his hero.”

  “And now you have a new owner now, I read.”

  “We do,” he said. “Perseus Group Media. You’re well-informed.”

  “Terry Krieger has done a lot of damage in this country. Have you met him?”

  “Not exactly.” He told her about the hologram presentation.

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. He wouldn’t know any more than I’ve told Sharon.”

  “Which is?”

  “The minimum: ‘I’m investigating Ras Botha, a South African kingpin I believe is behind the killing of my friend, not to mention attempting to murder me.’ She was salivating so much over a ‘revenge piece,’ she agreed. But I made clear my safety depends on total secrecy.”

  “She’s close to Krieger?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest. She came on as an acquisition in the PR space. He’s pursuing nature-based technologies, militarized conservation, but he didn’t need a magazine to do that. The rumor around the office is he bought The Sovereign to please his daughter.”

  “So you promise me you’re not working for him.”

  “For him? No.” He looked at her. “What’s with the third degree?”

  “Two prosecutors investigating Ncube have been murdered. PGM outlets covered the stories. They were mouthpieces for Ncube.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I have to be extraordinarily careful.”

  “You’re going to need a silver bullet, Hungry. Something that takes down Ncube on your first shot.”

  They lay back and watched the ceiling fan turn.

  “Do you have it?” he asked. “A silver bullet?”

  Hungry sighed. “I have a bullet, I’m not sure yet what it’s made of.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “You shouldn’t even be asking that.” She rose onto an elbow and poked a finger into the scar below his shoulder. “Does this hurt?”

  “Ow. No.”

  She smiled. “And you think it was Botha’s people?”

  “I do. He denies it, of course. The weird thing is he says he got me my surgeon.”

  “Lord, that man.” She shook her head. “And he told you this how? When?”

  “I bumped into him in the Philippines. Must have been just before you arrested him. He was with his son.”

  “Hmm,” she mused. “How would he know you needed a surgeon?”

  She got up and started to dress.

  “See! We’re a good pair. That’s a question I didn’t ask.”

  “Well, we’ve got him at New Lock. You’re free to ask him anything you like.” She reached for her dress. “I have good investigators. Three South Africans to speak truth to power. You’ll like them.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting them. But I’m hoping . . . I’m hoping there’s time for more us . . .”

  “For us, what?” she said. When he didn’t answer, she cleared her throat. “Tom, I’m not sure we’ll get to be like this again,” she said stepping into her shoes.

  Klay was pulling on his pants. “Are you telling me something?”

  “The president’s got me under surveillance. And Botha’s people may be watching you . . . if not already, then soon.”

  “We’ll figure it out, Hungry. Sharon wants me close to you, which I said is a hardship.”

  He noticed she didn’t smile.

  “How long are you here?”

  “I have to get Tenchant back in ten days. His wife’s pregnant.”

  “Not long,” she said.

  “No,” he said, facing her, “but I can come back.”

  She turned for the door. “We should go.”

  Something was bothering her. There’d been something in their lovemaking, too. Not something more. Something less.

  BLOODING A KRIEGER

  Kimber Conservancy, Zimbabwe

  Krieger handed his daughter his binoculars and pointed toward an outcropping. The male lion lay in the shadow of a boulder. The big cat yawned, exposing impressive canines.

  “He’s perfect, Dad,” Blaze said. She took out her iPhone and started a video.

  They were hunting Kimber Conservancy, 2,496 square miles of electric-fenced, raw Zimbabwean bush, just over the border from South Africa.

  “That’s Cyril,” Pete Zoeller said.

  Blaze studied the lion another moment, then turned. “We don’t name wild animals, Mr. Zoeller. Names are for people and pets.”

  Krieger smiled—he had taught her that. Zoeller, the senior professional hunter on the Kimber for going on fifty years, smiled, too. He had taught Krieger. “You’re right about that, miss,” Zoeller said.

  Blaze handed the field glasses back to her father. “I only have one dart for a lion his size.”

  Krieger put the glasses on the seat. “Then don’t miss.”

  Zoeller smiled quietly. In more than three decades hunting the Kimber, Krieger had never seen Zoeller other than the way he looked right now: faded safari vest over a massive bare chest, brief shorts, boots, and a necklace bearing a single lion’s tooth. He had been a bush bodybuilder all of his life, lifting tires, fuel drums, carg
o chains, even curling the children of his clients, a young Terry Krieger included. “Old Pete” still had silky yellow-white hair that reached to his broad shoulders and a mustache that extended well off his square chin.

  From his outfit and what appeared to be recently acquired dentures, one might mistake Zoeller for a has-been circus act. But Krieger knew better. Not so many years ago, Krieger had invited a famous Hollywood actor to Zimbabwe to hunt elephant. The guy’s movies had done a great deal for the defense industry, and Krieger had gotten to know him. Zoeller found them an elephant, but the actor with the veins running down his famous biceps had ignored Zoeller’s whispered advice to wait. He’d fired too soon and too high, and the enraged bull elephant, already in musth, had charged.

  Zoeller stepped in front of the actor and was able to get off a shot from his double, but the elephant was in a hormonal fury, too fast for a second shot, and Zoeller had taken the animal’s charge fully in the chest. The impact launched him skyward, his body sailing like a blond rag doll up and over a huge termite mound. Fortunately, the elephant drove its tusk deep into the concrete-like termite mound, where it wedged, offering Krieger time to make an easy kill shot.

  That night, Zoeller had appeared dressed for dinner as if nothing had happened. He had sustained six broken ribs, a fractured skull, and a crushed spleen. But that would not be discovered until a week later. The only sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred was that Zoeller asked Krieger if he and the boys wouldn’t mind a quiet dinner together, apart from the famous actor and the other guests. While the action hero toasted his conquest of a raging bull elephant, Zoeller had eaten his braised kudu and watercress salad, finished his Tusker, and had a bite of honeyed pie. Afterwards, as the hunter retired to his tent, Krieger overheard him talking to himself, quietly repeating the same line over and over. “I always wondered would I stand,” he said. “I always wondered.”

  Krieger never watched the action hero’s films again.

  * * *

  • • •

  Hunting was not for everyone, and that applied not only to Hollywood actors. Krieger had seen an Iraq veteran with two dozen confirmed combat kills get the shakes so bad he couldn’t pull the trigger on a zebra. But for Krieger, hunting was a kind of walking meditation. His first wife used to make fun of him for his after-deal hunting trips. She would leave the house while he packed his gear, jealous that he needed a blood sport to satisfy him, angry that hunting filled a void she couldn’t.