ALSO BY RIDLEY PEARSON
The Red Room
Choke Point
The Risk Agent
In Harm’s Way
Killer Summer
Killer View
Killer Weekend
Cut and Run
The Art of Deception
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer
(writing as Joyce Reardon)
The Pied Piper
Beyond Recognition
Undercurrents
BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
Peter and the Starcatchers series
(with Dave Barry)
The Kingdom Keepers series
Never Land series
(with Dave Barry)
Steel Trapp series
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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Copyright © 2016 by Page One, Inc.
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eBook ISBN 9781101613146
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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White Bone is dedicated to the thousands of individuals who have made it their life’s purpose to protect and defend the elephant, rhino and other endangered species on the African continent. These people earn less than they could elsewhere; they sleep in tents or front seats or not at all. They battle the harsh conditions of the African environment, and the monetary conditions that create a market for elephant tusk and rhino horn: poverty, corruption and greed. They often spend more time trying to raise awareness and funds than they do on the ground battling poachers. They are unnamed, unseen and, in many places, unwanted. Without them, the African wild elephant and rhino will be gone forever within the next nine years.
An African elephant is killed every fifteen minutes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to: editors Christine Pepe, Al Zuckerman, Genevieve Gagne-Hawes, Dan Conaway. In Kenya: David Drinker, U.S. State Department, Nairobi; Dr. Paula Kahumbu, Wildlife Direct; Richard Bonham, Big Life; Dr. Karen Ross, African Wildlife Foundation; Susie Weeks, Mt. Kenya Trust; Dr. Juliet King, Northern Rangeland Trust; Orfir Drori, Wildlife Law Enforcement; Dr. Cynthia Moss, Amboseli Trust for Elephants; Benson, Chief of Security, Solio Ranch; Rob Burnett; Sebnem Denktas, Robb Report, Istanbul.
Ground Logistics/Guiding, Kenya: Mikey and Tanya Carr-Hartley / Specialised Safari Company, Ltd.
Without Mikey and Tanya and their staff, there could have been no White Bone. They arranged every aspect of my extraordinary weeks in Kenya, including many of my interviews with “hard to get” sources. Their lodges, guiding service and four generations of experience provided me insights and experiences I will never forget, as well as access to NGOs, and they looked after my personal security. I am deeply indebted to them.
Lodges: Ol Donyo Lodge, Solio Lodge
Guides: Olé, Laypeta
CONTENTS
Also by Ridley Pearson
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Author’s Note
1
Seven men, armed with automatic weapons, phosphorus flares and patience, hunkered down on a craggy hilltop, training night-vision binoculars onto a savanna etched with elephant grass, thornbush and fever trees. They mentally mapped intersections of game trails and rutted vehicle tracks that read in their optics as green-black scars. A few of the men double-checked their weapons.
The leader of the men, Koigi, checked his watch. In forty-two minutes, a full moon would rise directly in front of them. It was a night ripe for killing. Poachers preferred full moons. One could nearly smell the elephant blood on the warm breeze.
“East, southeast,” spoke Koigi. He was a big, solid man with exceptionally large hands, a growling voice and an even temper.
Six sets of night-vision binoculars swept to the right.
Koigi breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. Mount Kenya’s hilly terrain made for difficult surveillance. Twelve years of lying belly-down in the red, powdery dirt of his birth country, of squatting on his haunches until his knees froze with pain, of enduring all the elements, from mountain blizzards to desert dust storms—all to protect the elephant. He’d been hungry. Thirsty. Sex-starved. He’d put much aside to preserve and protect God’s most noble creature.
The elephant was Afr
ica. Kill an elephant and you kill a piece of the continent where all life began. To him, Africa was the heartbeat of the world, every elephant a shrine. Anyone intent on executing an elephant deserved the noose, the spear, the bullet. This philosophy simplified his existence, justified his actions. And though he was as hunted by the law as the poachers were by him, it allowed him to sleep at night.
Their binoculars revealed three adult elephants, their curving tusks appearing dark through the lenses. The beasts walked nearly trunk to tail as they lumbered silently into the open field.
Two of Koigi’s rangers, uniformed snipers, lay prone. One of these was making small adjustments to his rifle scope. The other held a seventeen-thousand-dollar TrackingPoint rifle with a computerized scope. Koigi was viewing this man’s targeting with his smartphone.
“All good, boss,” the first reported.
“On my command,” said Koigi.
2
Guuleed, whose ring finger was missing its final joint, signaled the driver to kill the engine.
The tip of his finger had been lost when caught beneath a hook-ended ladder that had shifted as he’d ascended up the hull of a container ship in a rolling sea. The missing piece of finger served to remind him to expect the unpredictable.
Along with the ladder—which had led to the deck of the container ship he’d eventually commandeered—he’d also climbed through years of blood and glory, scaling the ranks of the lawless and dispossessed to a place of prominence in a Somali syndicate known as Badaadinta Badah, which translated as “Savior of the Seas.”
He pressed the TALK button on his walkie-talkie three times. Three clicks. Five minutes later, he heard three similar clicks confirming that his team had the elephants in range. He set the radio down onto the dash of the twelve-year-old Toyota Land Cruiser.
Guuleed quietly climbed out of the doorless vehicle and waited for six of his men to join him. They were a somewhat sorry lot: young, greedy, hungry, foolish. Sacrificial lambs. Anything could, and did, happen in the bush. A lion attack. A Cape buffalo stampede. Rangers.
Patting the satellite phone clipped to his left hip, Guuleed silenced its ringer. He didn’t need any interruptions, any reminder the world was currently upside down. No matter how rich or influential, no man should threaten another with wholesale slaughter of his extended family, wife and children included. Certainly not a slant-eyed foreigner. It was išmata—yišmeti—gloating over another’s unhappiness. It was a burden no man could bear.
Guuleed hand-signaled three of his men to the right, two to the left. He and his driver would hold back. Not a word was spoken as the electric fence—currently without power—was cut. All movement was silent. Elephants had been sighted by a local tea farmer earlier in the day, headed toward this, a known watering hole. Guuleed had spread his money around wisely. Given the heat and the water, they would be moving north-northwest. Within the hour, as soon as the moon rose, the prize would be exposed.
3
One of only a few fifty-year-old bull elephants left in Kenya, Grandfather had been previously shot and wounded by poachers and was distinguishable by a large tear in his left ear. He was always seen in the company of a half-dozen females, and his arrival caused a moment of hushed reverence among Koigi’s squad. The men were prepared to lay down their lives for the likes of Grandfather.
Koigi spoke Swahili, directing three of his best to take up a protective position. As his men deployed, Koigi monitored them, first with his naked eye, then through the night-vision binoculars. Good men, he admired them all.
“Boss?” the first of his two snipers asked.
Koigi answered flatly. “Provide cover if engaged.”
The clouds on the horizon lit up like smoke in a wildfire. The moon was improbably the size of the sun.
By dividing his small squad, Koigi was taking yet another calculated risk. Such strategies could backfire. When the attack came—and it would come, as his source was reliable—it would be at the hands of an assortment of misguided, greedy locals under the direction of a well-trained Somali. Guuleed was a pus-oozing sore from across the northern border. Before an ounce of elephant blood spilled into this beloved soil, Guuleed’s would flow freely, his head on a pike. Koigi lived for this moment.
“Boss, why does Grandfather not wear a collar?”
“Because the KGA has its head up its ass.” The Kenya Game Agency, along with funding from private conservation groups, had begun collaring and GPS-tracking several dozen elephants. His men chuckled softly. “But more likely he’s taken too many darts from treating his wounds.” Repeatedly tranquilizing the elephants could turn them aggressive.
When the firefight came, shots rang out, sounding like the dull popping of firecrackers. It happened quickly—two or three minutes that felt like an hour. The bittersweet smell of cordite and gunpowder warmed Koigi’s nostrils. The crack of gunfire sent the elephants running. Bullets whistled over Koigi’s head. Chips of rock sprayed around him. An elephant dropped, first to its front legs, then collapsed and tumbled in a nauseating slow motion. Koigi, rifle in hand, screamed—an amateurish mistake. He caught a bullet in his vest near his left shoulder. Fell face-first in pain.
Dragged to cover by the ankles, Koigi saw his men kill at least two, including a driver. An engine revved.
“Retreating,” his man announced.
“Stay with them!” Koigi ordered, but he could hear it was too late.
The sound of the engine faded.
“They fought longer than necessary. They could have escaped with fewer casualties.” Koigi spoke between clenched teeth. “The first we’ve seen of this.”
“Desperate,” said his man.
“Yes, but the question is: why?”
Far below the hill, dust rained down onto the wounded elephant as she exhaled her final breath, her tusks spearing the rising moon.
4
Dear John (that’s a funny way to start a letter),
We have not seen each other in over six months and the few e-mails we share are typically little more than simple greetings. I write to express my gratitude and appreciation for sharing with me your skills and experiences. They have taught me well and have provided great opportunity. I have gained from these.
I have now completed my first solo exchange, and I am most pleased to report a success. Perhaps the opportunity for sharing the details will arise in the near future. This would be most welcome.
John, as we’ve written to each other, we often joke. Of course. I have no problem with this. Now I must be more serious. I find in my heart both something missing and something fulfilling. Missing, when too much time separates us. Fulfilling when we are together. It is a small thing, perhaps. I cannot say. But its very existence interests me. Excites me, even.
Folding the overly creased letter and zipping it into an inside pocket of his windbreaker, Knox failed to appreciate the English countryside’s mid-May blossoms. The breeze rustled branches twisted like arthritic fingers in an all-pink orchard. A pale dawn yawned dully behind a steady drizzle. The silent swipe of the Mercedes’ wiper blades moved out of sync with the beat of The Killers in his earbuds. His reflection revealed a face hardened by the sun, by the stress of caring for his adult brother’s special needs. And by his deep concern over the events of the past twelve hours.
He opened a phone photo of him and Grace, his sometime co-worker, in Istanbul’s Inebolu Sunday market shot a year earlier. He leaned lower and angled himself to check the driver’s rearview mirror, alarmed by his current state. He looked north of forty, nearly a decade off, enhanced in part by his hair having gone dark due to a long, snowy Detroit winter. He’d lost some weight, adding lines to his already leathery face. Grace looked out through those expressive Asian eyes of hers, modest, subdued. They hid her ambition well, disguised her unruly sense of superiority and often unearned confidence.
He touched his jacket where he kep
t her letter. He felt like he was back in high school. She’d probably tossed his return letter the moment she’d read it. Their contact over the year had amounted to some random texts and the occasional video chat, prompted by loneliness or friendship or whatever force binds one person to another in confusing ways.
Their recent letters—one in each direction—were something altogether different, all the more profound. And now Knox was traveling—all on a hunch. The last-minute ticket had cost a small fortune; leaving his brother would cost him sleep.
The cool English countryside was nonetheless in bloom. Forty-five minutes from Heathrow, the Uber car exited the M25 for the A41 and finally headed west of Northchurch, down a hedge lane called Cocksgrove. The parallel lines of towering trees gave way to a manor house and a loose-stone horseshoe driveway that fronted an ivy-covered, three-story brick spectacle. A backdrop for a costume drama. Water sprayed over the Italian fountain’s four horses ridden by trumpeting angels.
Knox heaved the oversized brass knocker, forgoing the electronic call box. Paused. Pounded it down again impatiently.
A manservant answered. A black tuxedo with a white vest. Eight thirty-six A.M. At six-foot-three, Knox towered over him.
“Mr. Winston,” Knox said, stepping past the man and into the foyer’s cathedral ceiling and checkered marble floor. “Mr. W-i-n-s-t-o-n?” His voice echoed. The manservant’s expression did not vary.
“You will find him in the breakfast room, sir.” The manservant directed with an open palm. “He’s expecting you.”
“He’s what?” Knox moved more reluctantly down the portrait-lined hall. The place was a costume drama cliché. He passed a nine-foot-tall Siberian bear rearing on its hindquarters, and Knox hung his small duffel bag over the bear’s right forearm without breaking stride.
The manservant picked it off.
Knox stopped short when he saw the man at the end of the long and perfectly polished dining table. “Sir.”
Graham Winston was far younger-looking than Knox had imagined. Mid-fifties at the most. Not quite leading-man handsome, but attractive. Strong shoulders, soft hands with manicured nails, Beretta country clothes, including bush-brown, narrow-wale corduroys and a heavy gray sweater that nearly matched his hair.