“Howzit, Pete?” Krieger said as he descended his jet’s final step.
“We got the boys on him, Mr. Krieger,” Zoeller said, taking a duffel bag from Krieger, knowing well enough not to ask for his briefcase. Knowing enough to erase Krieger’s previous attempt at Minotaur from his memory, too.
“Mr. Krieger is it?” Krieger said, and quick-scanned the perimeter.
Zoeller, the deaf bastard, had not heard him. Krieger took a deep breath, sending his mind to the .45 he wore on his belt. He was glad to be in and out in two days, yet concerned that such a narrow window made him an easy target. Botha was out there somewhere, and a sniper-quality shot. Krieger was drawn to the challenge presented by Botha on the loose, refusing to bring his bodyguards with him. Or Mapes. She would meet him back in Jo’burg. The Kimber was the Kimber. He came here to be alone.
“Did you want to freshen—”
“No, Pete. And she’s zeroed. Let’s go. I’m wheels up by midnight.” His instincts suddenly told him to alter his schedule, narrow the threat window even further.
“Right,” Zoeller said, accepting the change. “Well, we’re set for you. ’Bout an hour out to him.”
“All right.”
Krieger climbed into the Land Rover’s passenger seat. Zoeller took the wheel. He glanced at the pair of teenage trackers sitting in the back of the Land Rover. New boys. That was good.
He had been watching a Pats game in his den when Zoeller’s email arrived. The big buffalo, Minotaur, had killed some villagers, got his name in the damn newspaper. The community was in an uproar. The Saudis were asking about him, too, wanting to schedule a hunt. “Somebody’s going to take him, Tots,” Zoeller had written.
Krieger studied the animal he’d missed. Rock-hard bosses gnarled like oyster shells, ears worn like aged moth wings, chest as broad as a truck. The old bull lived alone now. Moving at his own pace. Many considered the Cape buffalo the most dangerous game in Africa. Black Death, they called it, Africa’s widow-maker. Miss your shot and, well, that had happened once already. Krieger had sent Zoeller a single-word response: “Mine.”
Under his safari shirt, Krieger wore the new Vulcan bulletproof undershirt, manufactured by a Perseus Group subsidiary in Mexico using chitin harvested from mantis shrimp. It was a terrific product, a little stiff but lightweight and effective against just about any handgun out there. When the first shipment arrived, a few ex-operators got a kick out of donning Vulcan shirts and shooting each other in the chest. It was great for morale—and the YouTube videos didn’t hurt sales—but then a couple of his guys from Dallas got the idea to put the bulletproof shirts on passed-out homeless men. They woke them up and shot them center mass. The videos were the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Had to fire them all, of course.
Undershirts didn’t help against a headshot. Krieger pulled his Filson hat down over his eyes and lay back in his seat. Not sweating what he couldn’t control was one of his rules.
An hour later, Zoeller tapped his shoulder. “The boys have him over the next rise,” he said, slowing to a stop. Krieger examined the setting. Wide-open tall grass, no trees. Minotaur over the next hill. Or maybe something else.
Zoeller seemed to be his usual self. Old Pete had been on the Kimber since Krieger was a boy. Krieger thinking he had to learn to trust somebody someday, then laughing inwardly at himself. Sure, and yoga—he’d take up yoga, too.
“Sticks?”
“No sticks,” Krieger said.
He knew the whole thing bothered Pete. Driving up on a target violated Pete’s rules. You gave fair chase. But Krieger didn’t have time for that. He’d brought a double rifle this time, the H&H in 600. A true cannon. No time for nostalgia. He wanted his trophy. He deserved his trophy. The Chinese were completely on board with his cloaking program. He had sold China the power to impose doubt on its enemies. From now on, no one would know what was an accident and what was an act of war—it was disruption on a new and lucrative scale. Minotaur scale.
The new boys were eyeballing him. They’d heard what he’d done, of course. No secrets on the Kimber. Which meant they knew what he was capable of. Stay in your lane, boys, Krieger thought, and nobody gets hurt.
At the top of the rise, Krieger paused. Grass turned from brown to green as the land below fell away into a deep vale with knots of acacia trees along a river’s banks. Krieger lifted his binoculars and glassed the land. The grass was thick and tall until it reached the river, where it lay matted by animals that had braved the crocodiles to drink. Krieger could see the crocs lolling on rocks, their bellies full. Some zebra looked in his direction. A few buffalo grazed peacefully. No sign of Minotaur.
“Wallowing other side of those trees, I’ll bet,” Zoeller said.
It would be a long, slow walk down to the buffalo through grass as tall as he was. Krieger rechecked the sight lines. Nothing higher than him at the moment. Whatever it was, the action would come in the trees below.
“Light’s burning, Pete,” Krieger said. “I don’t want any surprises.”
Zoeller signaled. The taller boy plunged into the grass in the direction of the trees. He did it without hesitating. Krieger liked that.
While Krieger searched the landscape for Minotaur, Botha emerged silently from under a tarp in the back of the Land Rover. He came up behind Krieger and put a pistol in his ribs. “Hunt’s over, Tots,” he said, lifting the big rifle from Krieger’s hands.
Krieger’s right hand flew to the pistol on his hip. Pete Zoeller caught it there, the older man’s iron grip swallowing weapon and hand as one. Zoeller removed the pistol from Krieger’s hand as easily as if Krieger were a child.
Krieger laughed. “Okay. Bravo. Well done.” He looked Botha up and down. “None better. Back of the truck, right?”
“Where the servants are,” Botha said.
“Well, bring me the papers.”
Botha whistled. The Land Rover came up, driven by the tracker who had disappeared into the long grass. Botha reached into the back of the vehicle and withdrew a set of contracts for the sale of the Kimber. “Lawyer in Polokwane drew them up for me.” He handed Krieger a pen.
Krieger signed his name.
Botha turned a few pages. “And here. And there. And then another round. Attaboy, Tots.”
Krieger scribbled without reading. His lawyers were going to tear these documents to pieces. No contract in Zimbabwe would stand up to his money. Botha knew that, too, surely.
“That it?” Krieger asked.
“That’s it, Tots,” Botha said.
The teenager slipped from the driver seat and joined the other tracker in the back of the Land Rover. Zoeller climbed behind the wheel.
“Going to shoot me now? Hunting accident?”
“No,” Botha said. He fired two shots from Krieger’s rifle, each shot deafening, with a recoil powerful enough to put an unsuspecting man on his back. But Botha handled the rifle like it was a pellet gun. “Fuckin’ Pommies,” he said, admiring the engraved rifle. “Am I right, Tots?”
Botha took the rifle by the barrel and flung it high and into the grass, then climbed into the passenger seat, leaving Krieger standing beside the road. Zoeller tossed Krieger’s pistol into the grass and started the truck.
“You know who wins from this?” Krieger said. “Yurchenko. You think he won’t be worse than me?”
“Ya. I told the man that,” Botha said. “You know what he said?”
“What?”
“He said, ‘We bury them one at a time.’ Crazy motherfucker.”
Botha gestured over his shoulder to the trackers. “That’s Isaac’s brothers in the back. One’s John on the left. Other’s Isaiah. Say hallo, boys.”
Krieger barely looked in the boys’ direction, and the boys showed no sign of hearing Botha. They stared at Krieger with hate-filled eyes. Botha pointed. “That’s the father, Njovu, coming
up the hill now. You might remember him.”
This time Krieger did look. An old man was walking slowly up the track toward them, carrying a rifle.
“An elephant never forgets,” Botha said.
Krieger tilted his head.
“Did you forget your Chichewa, Tots? ‘Njovu’ means elephant.”
Krieger watched the older man.
“I’m sure he remembers you,” Botha said.
Zoeller put the Land Rover in gear and drove Botha and the sons away.
Krieger remained focused on Njovu. “Njovu!” he called. “Njovu! We have an opportunity now. Just you and me. You have a family. I can make you very—”
Njovu took a knee. He chambered a round, pushed the bolt forward, and took aim at Terry Krieger.
Krieger began to run.
The first shot took Krieger behind the left knee and he went down. He cried out, but after a moment he gathered himself, got up, and limped hurriedly for the tall grass. Njovu opened the bolt, ejected the cartridge, and reloaded. The second shot took Krieger’s right knee and he understood. He lay at the edge of the grass looking up as Njovu approached. The father of the boy Krieger had killed knelt down to him, pulled up Krieger’s shirt and bulletproof undershirt so that Krieger’s arms were extended over his head, withdrew a fixed-blade knife, and began to gut him like a zebra.
HOME
Catskill Mountains, New York
A golden vibration followed by an explosion, violent and white. Klay wet his hands in the cool water, reached down and removed the fly from the trout’s lip. He watched the fish swim off. It was enough for the day. He waded toward shore, sliding his feet carefully over loose river stones. As he approached the river’s edge, he gave a short whistle. A rustle began deep in a grove of rhododendron and then a missile sailed off the embankment, touched a fallen tree, and kept coming.
Klay had named the dog Rocket. Rocket was not the purebred Chesapeake Bay retriever he had always dreamed of, but he was definitely the incorrigible mutt he loved.
Barrow had come through. Jack Klay had been released. Klay offered to bring his father up to the Catskills, but the old man had refused. “You got your own life up there now, champ,” he said. “That clean mountain air will make me sick.” It was his way, they both knew. His father had decided to move to Florida, a community called the Villages. “Some FBI guys down there I might want to talk old times with,” he said.
Trout fishing in the Catskill Mountains was to die for, the brochures all agreed. He’d found a quiet stretch of river, a remote piece accessible only by walking through an old cemetery and then climbing carefully down a cliff of fallen pines and sturdy white oaks. At the bottom was a quiet pool below a riffling fall. The climb back up was the hard part. He wouldn’t be able to enjoy this spot forever, but for now it was more than worth the trouble.
He’d bought a cabin. It was a half an hour away. Everything was a half hour away in the Catskills. Out of milk? Half an hour. Mail a package? Half an hour. GPS reading 6.1 miles? That was still a half an hour. He liked it that way. The victory of time over distance.
He lowered the Land Cruiser’s tailgate, broke his rod down, and laid it in the bed. He took off his waders, folded them, and set them in a milk crate. Rocket jumped on the tailgate and made his way to the front of the vehicle, where he took his place in the passenger seat, waiting. It was his vehicle now, Klay just lucky to be the dog’s chauffeur.
Klay drove to Van Guilder’s Mercantile for fuel. As usual, Norman Van Guilder was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch as Klay pulled up to a pump, the old man dressed in the same flannel shirt, torn carpenter pants, and work boots he’d been born in. Not playing chess this afternoon, though often he was, completing the picture. The old man nodded hello.
Norman’s usual chess partner, Russell, the town fire chief, owned a farm a half hour away, a nice property on either side of a rural county road where he raised beef cattle, hogs, and chickens. A few years back, traffic on the road got heavy enough that the township decided to improve Russell’s road for him. They repaved the whole thing “smooth as a black snake,” Russell said. The only change for Russell was that the leaf lookers from the City drove faster through his property now. The county put up some yellow signs for the tourists about slowing down, but it didn’t do any good. It got to be dangerous, so Russell made up a sign that got straight to the point. He painted it himself and staked it into the rocky ground just before the turn onto his property. The sign read, “Stop Killing My Chickens!”
When he noticed people were slowing down to photograph his sign, Russell built a lean-to just beyond the sign with a table under it, and placed a small refrigerator and a freezer on it. For power he ran an orange extension cord across his yard, up the steps of his front porch, and through a cracked window into his house. A sign told you how much the steaks, sausages, chicken parts, and pork chops inside the freezer cost, though it was hit or miss what you might find on your particular visit. Russell vacuum-sealed the meat and wrote the date the animal was butchered on the plastic wrap with a Sharpie. Another sign asked you to raise the red metal flag welded to the refrigerator to let him know when he was out of eggs. The supply of both eggs and chickens generally depended on the foxes.
The eggs were expensive as eggs went, but Klay liked to say hello to a person every once in a while, so he stopped by Russell’s place two or three times a month, whether he needed eggs or not. He went the long way to get his gas at Van Guilder’s for the same reason. There was another reason he stopped by Russell’s lately. Russell’s daughter was a doctor in the City, but on her visits home Grace was a farmer’s daughter in mucking boots and overalls. They talked easily. When Grace was working for her father, Klay found it could take half the morning just to pick up a dozen eggs. She had a wonderful smile and she didn’t ask him about his past. He felt like he didn’t have a past in her company. On her most recent visit, she had handed him a piece of paper with his eggs. It was her phone number. This weekend they were planning to go on their first date.
He brought the pump to ten dollars even and went inside Van Guilder’s to pay. He put his money on the counter and weighted it down with a smooth gray river stone resting beside the cash register for that purpose, same as usual. Van Guilder’s Mercantile sold milk, assorted candy bars, motor oil, and fishing and hunting supplies, including three pairs of Wolverine brand work boots in unlikely sizes. A red fox with one paw raised as if to say hello was mounted to a birch branch in the store’s front window, its fur moth-eaten and bleached to a pale yellow. A cardboard “Be Back Soon” clock hung inside the door for when Van Guilder was away. Someone had drawn antlers on the six with a ballpoint pen. Klay hadn’t been to Van Guilder’s during deer season yet, but he was looking forward to the venison stew everybody talked about.
He touched the silent clock on his way out. Capturing time on paper had been his life for so long. Suddenly he recalled the clocks scratching away in the Confession Club. It was remarkable the things that rose unbidden from his mind. The past was not ever dead. It lived with him, bodies and all. If not for Eady, he might still be with Hungry. If not for Eady, he might still be a journalist. Who could tell the impact of that one blood-covered stone tossed into the pond of his life. He did know one thing. The ripples were quieter now that he’d done something about it.
He paused to greet Van Guilder, same as usual.
“See your story got the cover again,” the old man said, nodding toward a news rack. The rack held copies of American Angler, Truck Trader, Guns & Ammo, and a few local papers, along with the New York Times.
When the news finally broke that Klay was a CIA asset, Porfle had sent him an email telling him he was fired. “Dear Mr. Klay,” it began. When the story subsequently went viral, Sharon had emailed him: “Tom! Come back! We want to give you your own column. ‘The Sovereign’s Agent.’ It will be your BRAND! I’ll send you a mock-up. What do
you think?”
He declined.
The Agency’s plan had been to reengage with Krieger, to wrap him up in noncompetes and NDAs, overwhelm him with carrots and pretend they could control him. But Krieger had them by their secrets, and as long as that was the case, Klay knew where their hearts and minds would be.
Botha had texted after it was done. His message was short: “Never knew he was fair game.” Klay didn’t write back. Porfle had been right about snipers and editors. An investigative journalist fires his shot from a long way off, sitting alone at a desk, and waits for word of a result. Klay bent down and picked up a copy of the Times from Van Guilder’s rack.
He had been more than happy to send Raynor McPhee what he had, including recordings he’d made of Eady’s final confession: “I stepped off that two-bit amusement ride and invested in the amusement park instead . . .”
Raynor’s first story had run on the front page above the fold. The article, taking up two more pages inside, had vindicated Hungry, and already she and her anti-corruption effort had been reinstated, her task force granted even more power. Ncube was on his way out. Today’s article was the second in a three-part series. It was also front page.
“MURDER PORTFOLIO: Rogue Intelligence Funds Kill for Profit.”
He scanned the first few grafs. It was all there: The Fund, Eady’s “suicide,” Klay’s double life, Krieger’s hunting accident. After the hyenas got to him, there had been little left of the billionaire, the article said.
Klay got back in his Land Cruiser and started the engine.
“They say he might win a Pulitzer,” Van Guilder called out to him.
But Klay was gone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A young Togolese journalist seated in the auditorium’s front row raised his hand and asked, “How long have you worked for the CIA?” I was in Lome, finishing up a lecture on wildlife crime and journalism, part of a series I would give across West Africa sponsored by the U.S. State Department. I had by that time interacted with intelligence officers overseas, more than I knew probably, and I’d run some creative international investigations of my own, but I had never worked for the CIA. His question got me thinking.
In the Company of Killers Page 26
