White Bone (33 page)

T
he operation went down on the first cool day in the two weeks since the bush. Knox and Grace, both guests of the British Embassy and living on its grounds, had differing status. Grace was allowed to leave and move about Nairobi. Knox was not, the warrant for his arrest still outstanding, and still being negotiated. Slowly.

The raid was led by the Nairobi police, observed by representatives of the British and American embassies. The key bargaining chip offered by Knox’s attorneys had been his knowledge of a hacker connected to both police and criminals.

Working off a location and information provided by Knox, a Nairobi SWAT team raided the backroom office of Bishoppe’s hacker. They seized two computers, three mobile phones, optical disks and three external hard drives. It was over in ten minutes. The store was back in business fifteen minutes later.

G
race made only a veiled attempt to contain her contempt for the woman driving her. Her mother considered jealousy a sign of true affection; for Grace, it was more a true affliction. John had spoken highly of Inspector Kanika Alkinyi. He brought her up often. That was enough.

The early going was solemn, two women together in the front seat of an unmarked police car, one making assumptions the other had no awareness of.

“A Chinese woman and a Kenyan cop,” Kanika said. She smiled. “The people who see us will think we’re buying an apartment building or starting a business.”

They rode in silence for several kilometers. Grace thought they could have been driving through the industrial sprawl of Shanghai or Guangzhou. The world was not so very different. She had less desire to see more of it since her time in the bush. She wanted to be in one place, for a long time. She wanted space. Air to breathe.

“We’ll probably have to wait,” Kanika said. “These municipal guys live by their own clocks.”

“There are others? You have other workers available if we should need them?”

“I’ve done as you asked. They’re all reliable. Most are even trustworthy. You will make me famous, you know, if you are right.”

“My pleasure.”

“Rich, if I were that type of policewoman. Do you ever regret what you are not? Or are you able to live with what you are?”

“I think maybe we Chinese do not think in such terms.”

“Count yourself lucky.” Kanika grew pensive. “Sometimes I wish I’d been born male. Then I see what idiots they are.”

Grace paused, then spoke more openly. “In the bush I came to think of things as far more simple, yet far more complicated. I think it will be a long time, perhaps a lifetime, before I am able to . . . compile that, as we would say in computers. To understand.”

“I’m amazed at what you went through. I’m a Kenyan and I still can’t imagine how you were able to survive.”

“I didn’t try to survive. I tried to exist. I think there is a difference. I believe that is what saved me.”

“I’m not sure I understand that. But clearly your time was not up. That’s what we say to each other. Police. When it gets close.”

Grace nodded. “My time was not up.”

The worker met them surprisingly close to on time. He was grumpy and unhappy about helping two women in any manner; he showed no respect for Kanika’s badge and was openly disdainful of Grace’s racial heritage.

Sighing, lips twisted in a sneer, he unlocked a padlock on a heavy steel plate that covered the first six feet of a ten-meter steel rebar ladder fixed to the side of the water tower. The plating prevented anyone without a key from climbing up.

Before they ascended, Grace pulled out and unfolded a photocopy of a blueprint belonging to the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company. Had the worker thought through the process, he might have wondered what a Chinese woman was doing with such a blueprint. Instead, he told them both he was in a hurry to get home to his family—it was his wife’s mother’s birthday. He would catch hell if he was so much as five minutes late.

Grace clarified that the tower above them supplied a specific portion of Kibera with its fresh water supply. The man nodded.

“That much is true,” he said.

Kanika offered to lock up behind them.

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“It’s not a problem,” Kanika said. “If you would like to take down my badge num—”

“No need for that. You going to steal some water?” He laughed at his own joke and handed her the padlock without thanking her. Then he trudged off, quickly joining the thick procession of Nairobi walkers heading home.

“He must walk five kilometers or more,” Kanika explained to Grace. “We got lucky.”

“Not too lucky,” Grace said. “I am not keen on heights.”

“I was hoping you were. I am terrified.”

“I will go,” Grace said.

“Not alone, you won’t.”

The two women climbed slowly and carefully. Grace did not look down. She gripped the rough metal until the color left her good hand, her snakebitten wrist throbbing with the effort.

At last they pulled their bottoms onto a catwalk surrounding a third of the tank’s circumference. Another ladder was attached here, running high to the lip of the open tank.

“Do you swim?” Grace asked.

“I never learned.”

“Then it must be me.”

“You don’t like it?”

“It is not the water I mind, I am afraid I will not like the darkness. Since my time in the bush I find myself needing to sleep with the light on. I am like a child.”

“It must have been horrid.”

“It was beautiful. Truly beautiful. At the time I was at peace with it. Now it is different. I do not understand.”

“The water will be dark.”

“Yes.”

“And you obviously think it will be necessary to swim?”

“I do.”

Grace had left her purse in the car, but she handed Kanika her cell phone, a hair clip and her shoes. She faced the ladder.

“How can you be so convinced you’re right about this?” Kanika inquired.

“It is the only explanation,” Grace said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, I see.”

Misunderstanding the sarcasm, Grace said, “Yes. Good.” She put one tentative foot on the first rung. Climbing without shoes was going to be painful.

“Because? It is the only explanation because?”

Holding the sides of the metal ladder, Grace turned. “The water supply to this portion of Kibera was cut in half. Cut suddenly, in a system that was quite new. Certainly a water master was dispatched to check the tank, as we are doing now. What he saw was a tank filled with water. Dark, I am sure.

“Daniel Samuelson read of this in his own paper. Curious by
nature, and by occupation, he conspired with the water master to gain access to this tank—the logical tank to check first. It supplies the area in question, the area with the sudden drop in water volume. You see?

“But his plan went awry. Before he was shown to the tank, the water master disappeared. Then it was Samuelson who vanished. His theory died with him.” Grace’s throat tightened, choking her words. “You see the scratches there?” she said. “I’m guessing ivory tusks.”

“So many . . .” Kanika whispered. “My God. All slaughtered.”

“A corrupt minister like Achebe Nadali . . . If you crossed a man like Xin Ha after he had paid you for services, where would you hide several tons of ivory? Everyone, including Xin Ha, would think to look in shipping containers or warehouses. It is a great deal of weight.”

“The kind of weight a water tower is built to hold.”

The tremendous number of scratches in the paint stayed with Grace. Each, a tusk. Every two tusks, an elephant. “It’s a mass grave,” she moaned. “I suppose some of the ivory must have blocked the drain, causing the water shortage. It is the best—perhaps the only—explanation.”

“I agree! But in that case—let’s just wait. I can call the others, the men I have on standby. There are a few other police we can trust to protect us. You don’t need to swim.”

“But I must. I must face my fear. There is no personal growth without facing one’s fears.”

“Are you for real?”

“I think you are joking.”

Grace climbed. In five minutes she was staring down at black water and an internal ladder leading into its depths.

Taking a deep breath, she descended, rung by rung. As she climbed down, she saw the jackals tearing apart Leebo. The cook’s veins rising from his arms. She felt the warm milk spilling down her chin.

She let go and sank into the cold darkness.

A
nother six days of languishing negotiations for Knox’s freedom. This batch included demands for a U.S. presidential visit to Kenya to show support for the Kikuyu government. A sense of desperation began swirling around the embassy, something Knox was not supposed to sense.

The following day, Kanika Alkinyi sent Knox a note via Grace. She’d arranged a seaman’s berth for him on a Greek-flagged container ship out of Kiunga in the Lamu East District, sailing to Egypt.

David Dulwich agreed Knox should take the out.

“Unfinished business,” Knox said. He, Grace and Dulwich were alone in a small library in the guest residence. Chintz drapes were strapped to either side of the oversized double-hung windows. Oil portraits and battle scenes filled the spaces the bookshelves allowed. The room smelled of rose and leather and binding gum. Knox had made his home here recently, reading through the works of Rudyard Kipling, which he hadn’t touched since his teens.

“Unfinished?” Dulwich arched an eyebrow and shut the door, taking the cue.

“Xin Ha.” Knox looked between the two.

“No, no. At this point,” Dulwich cautioned, “you are—both of you—tangentially tied to Mr. Winston. What you’re thinking, Knox, is unacceptable.”

“What I’m thinking is nowhere near as sinister as what your deviant mind assumes.”

“While I appreciate the compliment, I recognize that look of yours, and I know you’re not planning on throwing the man a party, so let’s hear it.”

“He has to go. Grace, why don’t you tell him?”

She focused on Dulwich, her eyes glassy and yet dull, a befuddling combination. Knox wondered if Dulwich could see the damage done to her, as he could. He doubted it.

God, she could act, this woman. She could put on her Chinese airs of stoic complacency in a way that would do the eleven generations of Chus before her proud. But Knox saw into her now in a way he’d never done before.

To make matters more intriguing, he was fairly confident she knew it. And to add to his confusion, she wasn’t afraid to let him see. A first. Women were too fucking complicated.

When she spoke, softly as ever, she owned the room. Grace Chu was a marvel, Knox thought.

“It was Xin Ha who intercepted Mr. Winston’s shipment of the measles vaccine. This I can now prove. From Mr. Winston’s contacts in intelligence, we now also possess the satellite phone transmissions confirming an ongoing relationship between him and the man we knew as Guuleed, born Assim Guuleed to a Somali mother and Ugandan father in 1984.

“Whether we will be able to prove it or not, Xin Ha contracted Guuleed to steal the replacement vaccine from the Solio cattle operation. He then used partial proceeds from the sale of the measles vaccine—what he considered untraceable funds—to bribe Minister Achebe Nadali. Xin Ha wanted access to the ivory vaults. Nadali had other ideas. He crossed Xin Ha, removing the ivory ahead of schedule and hiding it here in Nairobi.

“It gets theoretical here. I am sorry, but there is little hard evidence from here. We can assume Xin Ha took care of Nadali, but not before torturing him for the location of the stolen ivory. Guuleed’s man Faaruq may have been involved. I would doubt we will ever know.”

“Along comes Samuelson, via Bertram Radcliffe. We all know how that turned out.”

“This is where Grace comes in,” Knox said. “She starts digging, so Xin Ha has Guuleed put her out to pasture. Enough with the staged poachings. Her death is supposed to look like a tragic tourist mistake, if she’s found at all.” He waited for someone to say something. No one did. “It all starts and stops with Xin Ha, who, by the way, just happens to control the export of poached ivory to China—one of the illegal trades Grace was sent to expose.”

“He also happens to have close ties to the very people we’re trying to convince to let you go!” Dulwich said, scarlet-faced.

“Sarge, easy. I’m just saying.”

“Saying what, exactly?”

“Bertram Radcliffe.”

Dulwich clearly couldn’t fit the pieces together. “Yeah?”

“We’d have to convince him to leave the country. If he stays, he’d be killed for sure.”

“Not following.”

“I have the paper trail. It is long and detailed and damning,” Grace said. “There’s no way Xin Ha survives it if it goes public.”

“No, no, no!” Dulwich said. “Those were obtained through illegal means and financed by one of the more powerful men in England. They would have to include intelligence records of electronic eavesdropping by—I can’t even tell you two who! People connect the dots. Companies like Rutherford Risk exist to keep those doors and windows shuttered.”

Grace looked to Knox. He nodded. “Go ahead.”

“WikiLeaks,” Grace said. “I can put so many layers on top of this that it will never be sourced.”

“We give Radcliffe a heads-up,” Knox said. “When and where it’s going to post on the Internet. He’s an award-winning journalist whose reporting will be taken seriously. He’s the first to see it, the first to publish. He avenges his friend’s death. Xin Ha goes down. If the government lets him escape, it’s a disgrace. If he goes to ground, he’s radioactive and won’t last long once Winston offers a reward. Nice and neat, the way you like it, Sarge.”

Dulwich’s blank stare was confounding. “WikiLeaks. Jesus.”

“Right?” Knox said.

“It is an exposé on the vaccine, corruption within the ministry and the financial link to poaching and terrorism, long suspected but never proved—all proven,” Grace said.

Dulwich spent a long minute considering the suggestion. “WikiLeaks,” he said again. “Graham will love it. He sends his thanks to you both—you, Grace, especially. Can’t contact you directly. You understand. He’s going to pledge the reward money to support Larger Than Life and community conservation. He hopes to help open a scaled-down version of the health clinic. It’s all good. He’s greatly impressed.”

Knox said, “Technically, we don’t need your permission. The WikiLeaks thing.”

“We are not asking you to condone such an action,” Grace said. “However, I for one do not wish for it to result in our severing relations. I do not wish to jeopardize my contract with Rutherford Risk.”

“You kidding? Brian Primer will pin a medal on you both, and you know it.” Dulwich said this to Knox. “He loves nefarious shit like this. End runs. Countermeasures. He’d be all over it.”

“But he’ll never hear about it,” Knox said. “I don’t mean to speak for you,” he said to Grace, “but I think that’s what Grace is asking.”

“I got it the first time, Knox.” Dulwich sighed. It was an intentional act, one to express disdain as well as admiration. “Fucking WikiLeaks.”