White Bone Read online

  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

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Page One, Inc.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  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.

  Version_1

  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.