Big Game (16 page)

Once Athmani and I got
Mom to the FunJungle medical clinic, Mom insisted we didn't have to sit around and wait to get her crutches with her. After she'd hobbled inside, Athmani surprised me by inviting me to come to his office to see the security footage Hoenekker had found.

“You're okay with that?” I asked.

“Why wouldn't I be? J.J. said you should be involved.”

“Chief Hoenekker seems annoyed about the whole thing.”

Athmani laughed. “He's annoyed that J.J. wants me involved as well. But we had a saying back in Africa: The more lions on the hunt, the better the chance that they eat.”

Athmani's office was in the administration building, where most of the offices at FunJungle were. It looked like it had barely been used, which made sense because Athmani hadn't been working at FunJungle very long and he was usually out in the park. There was a desk, a computer, and plenty of office supplies that hadn't even been unpacked: boxes of pens and pencils, stacks of shrink-wrapped legal pads, a printer that was still in its original packaging.

“There's no chairs,” I pointed out.

Athmani looked around, surprised. “It seems there aren't. I've never had anyone else in here.”

“Don't
you
need one?”

“I'm rarely in here long enough to sit down. And besides, I prefer to stand. It's better for your health. It keeps the blood flowing.” Athmani checked his watch. “I expected Hoenekker to be here by now. He sounded very pleased with himself.”

The only personal items in the office were five small stone sculptures arrayed on the desk. They were all elephants, but they were abstract in form, full of delicate curves. One wasn't finished yet, still emerging from a chunk of rough-hewn gray rock. Athmani picked this one up along with a smaller white stone, which he rubbed against the unfinished rock.

“You make Shona sculpture?” I asked.

Athmani seemed surprised by my question at first and then pleased. “You know about Shona?”

“When we lived in the Congo, we got down to southern Africa a few times. I saw it there.”

Athmani smiled. “My father is a sculptor in Zimbabwe. He taught me.”

“It's very good.”

“That is very nice of you to say. Though it's not nearly as good as my father's. I only do it to relax. It reminds me of home, of my family.” Athmani stared at the sculpture in his hands as he spoke, rubbing it again and again with the white stone. With each stroke, tiny bits of the larger gray rock shaved off.

I noticed the carpet around the desk was covered with them, a field of flakes and curls.

“When do you get to go back home?” I asked.

“When I finish my work here, whenever that may be.” Athmani sighed. “I thought I would be here only a few weeks, but as this rhino business shows us, there is a lot more to be done here than I expected.”

“Like what?”

“Ideally, there ought to be a
wall
around this entire property, not a fence. The ease with which the poacher got onto the property last night was very disturbing. Plus, if anyone wanted to merely kill the animals for sport, they could easily shoot
through
the fence. You can't shoot through a wall. Sadly, J.J. is digging his heels in on this.”

“Because walls are expensive?”

Athmani laughed. “I see you know how J.J. thinks. He's balking at the price, even when his animals' lives are on the line. Although he claims it isn't only about the money. He says walls are ugly and make the animals look like they are in a prison. Fences blend in more. It looks like the animals are still in the wild. Or so he says.”

“Is there any way to protect the animals without a wall?”

“There are certainly other ways to improve security. Although there are security cameras all over this park, there are barely any along the outer fence. Only one every fifty meters or so. And the fence ought to be electrified. Then no one would be able to simply climb over it with only a towel. It's as though it never occurred to anyone that somebody might want to harm the animals in this park.”

I nodded agreement, although the truth was, I couldn't really blame J.J. It would never have occurred to
me
that someone would want to shoot the animals inside a zoo. The idea of it was so horrible, I still had trouble believing it was happening.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to find yet another text from Summer. She was obviously getting annoyed that I hadn't been responding. This one was filled with extra exclamation marks to convey her annoyance:
Where R U?!!!!!!!!!!!

While Athmani worked on his sculpture, I stepped aside and wrote back:
Investigating.

Summer responded:
U free @4 2day?

I felt my heart rate spike, as it always did when Summer asked if I was free to see her.
Yes. Why?

Got a lead.

What?

Tell U l8r.

Before I could press Summer for details, Chief Hoenekker walked into the office. He stopped in his tracks upon seeing me and frowned. “Shouldn't you be in school right now?”

“Since I was up so late with the poacher last night, my parents said I didn't have to go.”

“Can't say I approve of that.”

“Well, you're not my parents.”

Athmani interrupted, trying to be diplomatic. “I invited Teddy to join us, Chief. I thought J.J. would have wanted him here.”

Hoenekker's face quivered, like he was trying to keep himself from blowing his stack. Eventually, he muttered, “Fine,” although he obviously didn't think this was fine at all.

Athmani waved to his computer. “So let's see what you have to show us.”

Hoenekker took a flash drive from his pocket, plugged it into the computer, and uploaded some video files. “This is footage from our security cameras in the Asian Plains last night. I've had men combing through the camera feeds all night, and this is what they found. I shouldn't have to remind you, but this footage is extremely confidential and not to be discussed out of this room. Almost no one else has seen it. Now, this first bit is from the perimeter fence, right where the hunter came over last night.”

A window opened on the computer screen, displaying the footage. The camera appeared to be posted atop the fence itself and was filming down the length of it, so the long stretch of barbed wire eight feet above the ground was pretty much all we could see. The video was color, but since it was nighttime, everything was in night-vision green. A time stamp at the bottom of the screen indicated the footage had been shot at 6:16 p.m.

Suddenly, a towel was unfurled over the barbed wire a few feet from the camera. It was a thick, plush towel, which lay heavily on the wire, covering the barbs. Then the poacher scrambled up over the fence, using the towel to protect himself from the wire, and dropped into the Asian Plains.

The entire break-in took less than ten seconds. The poacher was barely more than a blur.

Athmani whistled, like he was impressed. “He did that even faster than I expected. Is there any way to get an image of him?”

“My men have already done that.” Hoenekker brought up another image, this one only a still frame from the footage we'd just seen. “Here we go.”

The image wasn't much help. The poacher was merely a dark, fuzzy shape. It was hard to even make out the arms and legs.

“Unfortunately, our target's rear end is facing the camera in this image,” Hoenekker explained. “So we're basically looking at his butt. However, we can tell a few things. He's wearing camouflage, boots, and gloves. . . .”

“So, he basically looks like every other hunter in the state of Texas,” Athmani said grumpily.

“Not exactly. We can also see the gun he's using.” Hoenekker pointed to a long object strapped to the hunter's back. “Admittedly, this isn't a great image, but I can confirm this is most likely a .375 H&H Magnum rifle.”

“As we suspected.” Athmani sighed.

“Why's it so long?” I asked, pointing to the end of the barrel. It stretched well past the hunter's shoulder, going out of the frame.

“The H&H is a long rifle to begin with,” Hoenekker informed me, “although it appears this one has been fitted with a silencer.”

“Really?” I said. “ 'Cause he didn't use a silencer the first time.”

Hoenekker and Athmani both turned to me.

“We
heard
the shot yesterday morning,” I reminded them. “That's what spooked the elephants.”

“Ah!” Athmani's eyes lit up. “Very good observation, Teddy! No wonder J.J. wanted you working on this.”

Hoenekker scowled. “It probably doesn't mean anything.”

“Why would the hunter not use a silencer in the morning, then bring one at night?” I asked.

“Because he probably realized not using a silencer was a mistake,” Hoenekker said curtly. “After it made so much noise in the morning and alerted everyone, he chose to be quiet when he came back.”

“You'd think he'd have
known
the gun was going to make a lot of noise,” I pointed out.

Hoenekker ignored me, turning his attention back to the computer. “Now, if you'll look at this next shot taken from along the fence . . .”

“Is there any footage of the hunter from inside FunJungle?” Athmani asked.

“No,” Hoenekker admitted. “Not that we've found so far. There aren't any cameras inside the SafariLand enclosures. They tried it once, but the animals knocked them all over.”

“Are there cameras at the monorail station?” I asked.

“There are!” Athmani exclaimed. “Chief, have you looked through the footage from when the shot was fired yesterday morning?”

Hoenekker looked as though this conversation were giving him indigestion. “Of course. It was the first thing we looked at. Only . . . there's no footage of the hunter at the monorail.”

“Why not?” Athmani asked. “Was something wrong with the cameras?”

“Not as far as I can tell. But the hunter simply doesn't appear on them.”

“How is that possible?” Athmani demanded. “This man isn't a ghost!”

“The most likely reason is that we misjudged where the shot was fired from,” Hoenekker said. “The hunter isn't on the roof of the monorail station because he didn't fire from the roof of the monorail station.”

“Then where did he fire from?” I asked.

“We don't know,” Hoenekker admitted. “We are reviewing all other footage from yesterday morning, but so far we haven't found anything.”

“So
this
is all you have?” Athmani pointed to the blurry image of the hunter on the fence. “After all your hours of searching through the footage? This is it?”

“No. As I was trying to say before I was interrupted . . .” Hoenekker gave me a pointed stare, as though I were the only one who had been asking questions. “We have another shot from the perimeter fence. In fact, it's from the same camera the last shot came from. The hunter went out the same way he came in.”

Hoenekker ran the second piece of footage. The angle was the exact same as in the first piece. The towel still hung over the barbed wire, weighing it down. According to the time stamp, it was now 6:41 p.m., which was a few minutes after my family had spotted him. The hunter suddenly leaped into the frame, grabbing the towel and scrambling over the wires. Even though it happened as quickly as the first scaling of the fence, there was something different about this one. The first time the hunter had gone over, the movements had been smooth and graceful, perfectly planned. Now he was much clumsier, struggling to get over the top.

“He's hurrying this time,” Athmani observed.

“Well, he was on the run,” Hoenekker pointed out. “Teddy's father was chasing him. And in his haste, he made a mistake.” He brought up another still frame from the footage.

This one was as blurry as the first had been, but there was a difference. Instead of aiming his rear end at the camera, the hunter was facing it. And yet there still wasn't a clear shot of the face. His head was angled downward, as he was focused on clambering over the barbed wire. And he was wearing a mask. A black knit ski cap was pulled down over his face.

“This is no better.” Athmani sighed. “We can't tell anything from this!”

“That's not true,” Hoenekker argued. “I have my men enhancing this image right now. They've already determined the type of ski mask it is, and we're canvassing all ski shops and sporting goods stores in the area to see if anyone purchased this kind anytime recently.”

Athmani asked, “And if your hunter purchased it a year ago? Or longer? Or if they simply stole it? There must be thousands of ski masks like this in the world!”

“It's a start,” Hoenekker said.

I stared at the image on the computer more closely. To my disappointment, I couldn't make out a single thing about the hunter. Between the mask, the clothing, and the gloves, there wasn't even a glimpse of skin. In a weird way, there seemed to be nothing human about the figure in the photo, as though a scarecrow were climbing over the fence.

“Wait.” Athmani pointed at the screen. “What's that?”

Behind the hunter's head was a dark, twisted shape. It was black, or at least some dark color, so it blended into the night almost perfectly. If Athmani hadn't pointed it out, I might never have noticed it. I leaned in, squinting at it. Beside me, Hoenekker did the same.

The more I stared at the object, the more I could make out. It snaked out from under the back of the hunter's ski mask, corkscrewing in the air behind his neck. It was even blurrier than the rest of the hunter, but then I realized this was because it wasn't one single object, but thousands, all bound together.