White Bone (27 page)

W
here are we?” Brantingham asked the three rangers in his radio room. Knox sat up, startled awake.

The rangers had allowed Knox through the locked gate and into the compound, but wouldn’t answer a single question until Brantingham arrived. Mobile phones didn’t work in the bush; the signal extended to less than a kilometer out of the village center.

In terms of its grounds and buildings, the clinic was far more than Knox had anticipated. It looked more like a private school campus or military barracks, a great surround of cream-colored, one-story concrete block buildings. Sidewalks, leading through large flats of brown, burned-out grass. Several vehicle sheds with uniformed rangers milling about.

“We’ve stopped seventeen vehicles, all headed in our direction, all within a two-hour perimeter. No luck,” the middle ranger said to Brantingham.

“No sign of her? No weapons?”

“Three of the vehicles carried weapons. Handguns. We did not confiscate.”

“Show us,” Brantingham said. Then, belatedly, he introduced Knox as a friend of the missing woman. He introduced the three rangers to Knox, though Knox didn’t catch a single name.

The man pointed out the stops made on a digital map on one of three flat-panel displays. All but three had been on a numbered road from the north—an unlikely choice for kidnappers.

“Earlier this week, the day she visited,” Brantingham said, “who drove her into Tanzania? It wasn’t Thomas or any of the Ol Donyo guides. So who?”

“Leebo, sir.”

Brantingham nodded. “One of our part-time mechanics,” he explained to Knox. “They pick up work where they can get it. What vehicle?” He directed this to his man.

“I can check.”

“Do that, and have Leebo here within the hour. And check—what, Tanner’s outfit? Blake’s? Find out where he dropped her off. Who guided her once she got to Tanzania. That shouldn’t be hard. A day trip, right? She didn’t have bags.”

“I assumed a sunset meal, something like that. I only heard of it after she’d left.”

“Follow up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Coffee?” he offered Knox. “Maybe a little first aid. How’d the other guy do?”

“You heard?”

“How do you think I’m barely an hour behind you? I ended up with half a dozen very frightened staff members at my front door. You told them not to return.”

“Intruders. They were after Grace’s possessions.”

“Yes, I heard that as well. Seems your Grace has stirred the nest, John.”

“Your Grace” was about all Knox heard. Everyone kept saying that. This time, Knox nodded. “Yeah, I think she did.”

“We’ll get you patched up, get some coffee in the both of us. The bright side? They didn’t move her last night. We’d know about it.”

“There’s a lot of land out there.”

“There is. And we know it better than anyone.”

•   •   •

“Excuse me, Mr. Travis.”
It was Thomas, the driver and ranger from the radio shack.

Forty-five excruciatingly long minutes had passed. Knox sat up too quickly, sloshing lukewarm coffee onto his pants. “It’s Snaggle Tooth. He’s gone black.”

Brantingham’s eyes saddened; there was no mistaking it. “You’ve double-checked the—”

“Yes. Satellite’s up, other signals are strong.”

“Battery?”

“At least six months remaining.”

“Time?”

“Just now, sir.”

Brantingham checked his watch. “All right. Start the clock. Let me know if there’s any change.”

“Of course.”

“And find fucking Leebo! I want him here!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Bloody hell.” He addressed Knox. “One of our oldest ellies. Massive tusks, one broken in a sparring match ten years ago. A real prize, a friend to us.”

“‘Black’ means . . . ?” Knox asked.

“Transmitter’s down. If the ellies stop for more than half a day, we investigate. Transmission failure . . . poachers often destroy the black boxes, you see, believing it buys them time.”

“That sucks,” Knox said.

“You’ve no idea. He’s our George Washington of elephants, if that’s not insulting your sense of history.”

“Not at all.”

“You might want to join me.”

“Excuse me?”

“At the twelve-hour mark—around six this evening—I’ll fly to the site where we lost track of him. Try to spot him from the air. Land if necessary. Hopefully not. Hopefully it’s only technical. I’d be happy to fly the roadways if there’s time. Do a flyover of some of the safari camps my men haven’t yet reached. If I were holding her, it would be there.”

“Your rangers?”

“Sure. They’ve begun, at my orders, a grid search. The roadblocks, as we’ve discussed, including the better-used tracks. Others will be working overland into the camps. It’ll take a week, at the least. We could scout a few, you and I.”

“Absolutely.”

“What is it?” Brantingham inquired.

“Do you ever make exceptions to the twelve-hour rule? Would you, in this case?”

“The twelve-hour rule is in place for a reason. The system isn’t perfect.”

“I wasn’t thinking about the elephant. I should be, I know. I’m thinking about the view from the plane. Early morning. Good long shadows.”

“You’ve done this before.”

“From the tops of buildings. Up on a hill. Not airplanes. Fact is,
I can’t wait twelve hours. Look, I know your guys are thorough. I’m grasping at straws. Their vehicle broke down? Maybe they’re moving on foot? I don’t know. But I can’t sit here.”

Silence for a long moment. Knox caught himself holding his breath.

“There’s usually at least one police officer at the strip,” Brantingham said. His face gave nothing away. “How are you at belly-crawling?”

“I’d show you, but your office is a little small.”

Brantingham picked up his phone, dialed a number. “Jamba! It’s me. Top off the tank and prep it. I’ll be there in quarter of an hour . . .
asante
.”

He turned back to Knox.

“You’ll love it. It’s beautiful this time of day.”

R
iding alongside Brantingham on a rutted dirt road, Knox felt his phone buzz. He recognized the caller ID as the kid, Bishoppe. Excusing himself to the driver, he took the call.

“Not now!” Knox said. They were within five minutes of the airstrip.

“I have done a bad thing. You must hear me.”

“I hear you.”

The vehicle beneath him was in another place, another time. Tommy’s voice rang in Knox’s ears. He, too, had appealed to his brother. Tommy had soiled himself at school and run away. Only the kindness of a grandfatherly gentleman had saved him. His brother, fifteen years old, had no idea where he lived. The man had read the notes sewn into several of the boy’s pockets.

“What the hell, kid?” Knox growled into the phone.

“You made me angry, Mr. John. Not taking me with you.”

“I can’t do this now.”

“I tell my cousin all about you.”

Told,
Knox wanted to correct. His chest was tight. “Which cousin? Told him what?”

“Hakim. The computers.”

“The hacker.”

“It is not a nice word.”

“I’m going to hang up.”

“I told him about the plane, about landing on the road. The rangers.”

“The rangers?”

Brantingham glanced over at Knox. “I’m going to drop you in two. Be ready.”

“I told him you were flying south to Oloitokitok. That the Chinese woman must be there. Your girlfriend who’s after the ivory.”

The landscape blurred. The blow to Knox’s head had left him woozy and nauseated. Brantingham’s offer of coffee had only exacerbated the pain.
One minute,
he thought.

“He told the police?” Knox asked.

“The police? No. Someone much worse. Someone who pays better. I’ve made trouble for you, Mr. John. It’s bad. I’m shamed.”

“How long ago? When, Bishoppe?”

Knox suffered through a prolonged silence.

The boy was sobbing.

“Go to your sister. Do you hear me? The bad men will come after you, too. You must go. Tell no one.” Another long pause. The truck coasted. “Promise me.”

Bishoppe only cried into the phone.

Knox ended the call, wondering how the boy’s betrayal would
affect him, if at all. If Bishoppe had associated him with the missing ivory, had named Oloitokitok, Knox could expect even more trouble. If they wanted more detail, they’d go after the boy.

Knox zipped the mobile into his pocket and opened the door as the truck slowed but did not stop. He jumped and rolled, started crawling, using the flashing light atop a rickety tower as his guide to reach the end of the grass strip.

G
uuleed is approaching Kiserian. Snaggle Tooth has gone off-grid.”

Hearing this, Koigi felt as giddy as a child and as tormented as a priest. The grandfather of the great elephants was missing, the elephant with the most massive tusks in all of Kenya. And Guuleed was running in that direction, which meant he or his men were responsible.

The tusks would fetch millions. Koigi would deny him that with the last fiber of his worn-out body. It was nothing short of war. And for once, Koigi knew his enemy’s precise location.

His best map man plotted the GPS coordinates from Guuleed’s laptop. The connection was not fast, but it was reliable. INTERPOL or British Intelligence—he wasn’t sure—was sending him real-time intel. Winston had come through.

Koigi followed Guuleed, now less than forty kilometers behind. They would have to close the gap—and before the terrain worsened.
He directed his man to remain on the two-lane paved road despite it taking them farther away from Guuleed. He resented the disapproving looks from his men.
Let them try to lead,
he thought.

“I know where they’re headed,” he told his men with commanding authority. He checked over his shoulder, ensuring his other three trucks were still following in convoy. “We have a chance to save Snaggle Tooth. Fifty years old. Three-meter tusks. One of the great bulls left. This is Guuleed we hunt. We know their tactics. We have a history with them I am not proud of. We don’t defeat them by coming up from behind. We must leapfrog ahead and ambush them. It’s going to be hell.”

“Faster,” he instructed. Project confidence; hide your own fears. “We turn south on the road from Machakos. They have no choice but to head east from Kajiado. It’s the only road.”

“Aha! Where the three roads meet!” the driver called out, satisfied. “Brilliant! I know the place!”

The truck gained speed. Koigi knew it would be a letdown to the driver and others when he chose not to ambush, but his hand had been forced. The Chinese woman was the variable. She deserved a chance to live. On the off chance Guuleed was in pursuit of the “wounded gazelle” and knew nothing of Snaggle Tooth, he would give him some rein in the early going.

He rubbed his painful shoulder absentmindedly; a reminder of the stakes involved. With a sigh, Koigi closed his eyes and pretended to take a rest. He wanted his men to think he was relaxed. “Wake me as we near,” he said, his limbs sparking cruelly with anticipation.

K
nox rode in the copilot seat. He was Too tall, and his headset struck the ceiling of the small cockpit.

By morning light, the bush appeared a vast, empty place. Auburn grasses gave way to shrubs, which gave way in turn to rock outcroppings. At one point, Brantingham pointed out giraffe in the distance. Knox would never have seen them.

The land beneath was all sand and scrub, a harsh place of burning sun. The stark reality struck Knox anew: survival for any length of time in such an environment was unlikely.

For the first time since his arrival, his hopes of finding Grace alive faltered.

“You are looking for shadows, as you said.” Brantingham’s voice crackled in the headset. “This time of day, you can often see a line of tracks. Movement is more difficult to spot at altitude.” He indicated a canvas pouch screwed into the dash. “Alternate between the naked eye and the glasses. It helps keep you sharp.”

“How long?”

Brantingham checked his instruments. “Ten, maybe twelve minutes.”

“That’s nothing!”

“We will patrol after I’ve had a look at Snaggle Tooth.”

Even given the electronic distortion of the man’s voice, Knox could hear his sorrow. They both faced grave losses, he thought. “I hope he’s alive,” he said. It sounded stupid hearing it in his headphones. Brantingham’s attention was out his side window, as he searched for signs of Grace’s kidnappers.

“There is a camp not far from where the signal was lost. Porini Camp. We will do a fly-over first, at a great distance. It will be off my side. If there is any sign . . . that will change our situation. It could be the poachers responsible for Snaggle Tooth. It could be your kidnappers. Either way, we will take great care.”

“Understood.”

Six minutes later, the plane slowly lost altitude. Brantingham held his binoculars up to the side window.

“We are two kilometers east of the last signal from the collar.” He slowed the plane. “I do not see Snaggle Tooth. That’s good. I’ll need to fly lower. But not before Porini Camp. It is . . . another kilometer, northwest . . . just there.” He flew the plane slowly to the left. “Take the yoke. Easy pressure. No movement.” Knox appreciated the chance to fly, however briefly. “Steady. Straight ahead.” Brantingham craned to get a look out his side window. “No vehicle. The camp looks empty.”

“But . . . ?” Knox could hear the equivocation in the man’s voice.

“Two men by a campfire, half a klick due north of the camp.”

“Men, no woman?”

“Men? Women? Figures.” Brantingham took the yoke and banked the plane sharply. “Behind. You see the camp?”

It took Knox time to locate the buildings. It looked tiny in a sea of gray gravel and scrub. The landscape foreboding, he hoped like hell Grace wasn’t one of the two bodies. “Yeah, I got it.”

The plane leveled off, then banked again, straining on Knox’s seatbelt. “Coming fully around. Your side. Ahead of us by—”

“I see them. Not moving. Sleeping?”

“Look for—”

“I don’t think . . . I think at least one’s undressed.”

“What?”

“Just his shorts.”

“It can be warm in the bush at night, but not hot. Not this time of year. Went to sleep drunk, I suppose. The bush leads quickly to drink.”

“No packs. No weapons,” Knox said.

Brantingham looked at the ceiling of the plane as if it might hold answers. He flew the plane while scanning with the binoculars. Knox watched him.

The plane banked and came around lower. “There!” Brantingham said to himself. “Five in the herd. Headed east toward Tsavo. It’s the next water. It makes sense.”

“Snaggle Tooth?” Knox asked.

“No. I didn’t see him.”

“What’s it mean?”

“Failed transmitter, I’m hoping. We must pray he’s not been hit. Battery, more than likely. What a relief. Hopefully, he’s hidden by a tree. Strange he’s not with the others, though. It’s worth a closer look.”

The plane sped up significantly and began to climb. The wings tipped and, according to the compass, headed north.

“Now what?”

“I’ll send my rangers to have a closer look.”

“I meant us. What now?”

“You didn’t see them, did you?”

“See what?”

“The bushes near the camp with the two men.”

“What bushes?”

“Vultures, John. A dozen or more in the bushes.”

“Missed it. Them.”

“They aren’t asleep, John,” Brantingham said, banking the plane yet again. “Make sure your belt is tight. Landings in the bush can be rough.”