White Bone (12 page)

M
aya drove a Chinese-manufactured four-door sedan with minimal appointments. Knox had switched the plates in her parking garage with those of a neighbor. She’d objected, but not too strenuously. He rode shotgun wearing his ball cap, his duffel at his feet.

“Why do this for me?” Knox asked.

“You have to ask?” Maya said.

“I have to ask.”

“Your conceit will always hide the truth from you, John. Beware of that. I don’t do this for you, but for that woman, Grace Chu. I’m a woman also, like her. If men have taken her . . . I spend my professional life fighting the unjust. Consider her my client, that’s all.”

It was dark out. She’d parked on the block behind the Sarova Stanley. With the car visor down, a passerby could only see Knox’s neck—his head practically hit the ceiling.

“An African woman won’t win a second look in the lobby. A
white man your size? That’s the reason. I’ll be right back.” She passed him the keys. “In case I’m not.”

Without allowing him time to object, Maya entered the hotel through a side entrance. It led along a parade of boutique shops, an all-day restaurant and the hotel gift shop. She asked the woman at the desk to speak with the night manager.

“I’m an attorney representing a former guest. I’m sure this can all be handled quickly and quietly.”

Five minutes later, she was shown through an office area to a somewhat larger cubicle in the back.

“I was hoping for Clare,” Vladistok said as she took a seat.

“How may I help you?” The man was in his early forties, his temples graying. He wore the kind of dress shirt Vladistok disliked, the weave too busy. His tie was slightly crooked, tempting her to fix it for him.

“There was a misunderstanding.” She presented her business card. “A hotel guest, my client, Ms. Grace Chu. A package she left in the hotel’s care for a third party.”

“We don’t—”

“Yes, I know,” she said, cutting him off. “That’s the basis of the misunderstanding. Notice of the hotel policy was delivered to her room, by which time Ms. Chu was unable to execute the instructions therein. As she is no longer in Nairobi, and the twenty-four-hour deadline has recently passed, she engaged me to retrieve her property.”

He typed on his computer terminal’s keyboard. At least a minute passed. An extremely long minute for Maya Vladistok. “Yes, I see.”

“We both know the hotel does not liquidate a guest’s property after twenty-four hours. We also know the police have better things to do than sort through a hotel’s lost and found. So, let’s dispense with this formality, shall we?”

The manager, who’d put on a pair of reading glasses before peering at the computer, slid them down his flat cauliflower nose. Said nothing.

“Shall we?” she repeated.

“Have you been our guest before, Ms. Vladistok?”

Maya stiffened. If he’d recognized her, it had likely been from a security video of the cop’s death.

“I’ve had the pleasure of the occasional drink in your bar.”

The man nodded. “I’m so glad you enjoy our hospitality.”

“Very much.”

“If you please? The name the package was left under,” he said, reading his side of the computer terminal. “For verification purposes.” His voice cracked. He shot her a look that flooded her with panic.

She felt it a trap, suspecting it had been left for Knox. To identify with that name was suicide.

“I wasn’t given the details. I’ll have to make a call. You’ll excuse me, please.” She dialed Knox’s number. He answered. “Grace? It’s Maya. They’re putting up a bit of a fuss, I’m afraid. Could you please give me a description of the packaging and the name of the recipient?”

Vladistok paused.

Knox asked if she was all right.

“The hotel is insisting,” she said. “They are treating me like a common criminal. As if I intend to steal the thing! Yes, I know. But you must remember? Seriously? Well . . . if that’s the best we can do, then yes, I’ll explain. I’ll call back in a minute. Thank you.”

She tapped the screen as if to end the call and placed her phone upside down on the man’s desk—the connection still live. “It was a frantic day for her. It could have been either of two names. As to the packaging, she believes she used a hotel envelope.”

“One name, not two.”

“It’s the best she can remember. It’s either addressed to Rutherford Risk”—he shook his head—“or David Dulwich.”

“I’m sorry,” said the night manager. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Won’t help me, you mean.” She wasn’t sure what to do next. “I don’t understand why you’re making this so difficult.” She worried the manager was going to notify the police about the package. She’d made everything a lot worse.

A closed folder on the desk caught her eye—a crisp, new folder, a partial sheet escaping, a triangle of gray black. A photo. Maya assumed the worst: her image, as well as Knox’s, in that folder. A photocopy of a photograph or video capture? Her face in an elevator or the lobby?

“Listen, I’m sure we can resolve this.” He sounded insincere. “Let me check the packaging, please. That should be enough. I’ll be right with you. Excuse me a moment.”

He smoothly scooped the folder off his desk and stood to leave. But something stopped him.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, turning. “But we do dispose of such property, Ms. Vladistok. Though the typical grace period is often, but not always, closer to thirty days. Wait here, please.”

He wanted her to hold out hope, to stay in the chair, to sacrifice herself to the police. He headed back in the direction from which she’d come. She watched his head move through the maze of cubicles.

At last he leaned over and disappeared. Stood up again. They met eyes.

“It may possibly be out front.” Another lie. She’d heard a drawer open; had heard the crinkle of paper as he’d pocketed something. The moment he passed through the door to the front, he’d be blocking her only exit.

“Wait!” she called out, standing and grabbing her phone.
Holding it in her hand rather than returning it to her purse. “Please! There’s another name! I should have thought of this. We can clear this up.”

“Sit tight. Just a moment.”

The man took a step toward the swinging door, half in, half out—and then moved backward with extraordinary speed. Knox had him by the neck with one arm, the manager dancing backward on tiptoes.

“Pocket,” she said.

An instant later, an envelope in Knox’s hand. He threw it to Vladistok, spinning the man, cupping his mouth and aiming his and the manager’s faces at the black plastic eyeball of the ceiling security camera.

“Read the name,” Knox called out.

Vladistok flipped the envelope. “John Knox.”

“You tell the police,” Knox said, aiming the man’s face upward, “that had your hotel done a proper job of things, someone would have noticed that a family, possibly two families, checked out immediately after the tragedy. That both families had at least one teenage boy. That’s because—and you’ll have footage of this somewhere, though possibly not in the hallway, where you should have cameras—three boys were playing with your luggage carts. No one stopped them.

“These boys? They rode that cart right into the police officer I was speaking to. They knocked him off that balcony, and their parents changed plans the moment it happened. Their prints will be on that cart. My prints are only on the banister, where I rushed the moment I saw it happen. This woman, whom I’m holding against her will, is my witness. She saw it, too. You tell them that they have this completely wrong, that they are an embarrassment to law enforcement.”

Knox pushed the man forward. With a free hand, he jerked open
drawers, taped his prisoner’s mouth shut with a roll of
FRAGILE
tape, the word marked out in bright red letters.

“The desk?” Vladistok asked.

“Empty,” Knox said, finishing the job, binding wrists and ankles. “I’m sorry about this,” he said to the manager. “No intention of hurting you. I hope I haven’t.”

He grabbed Vladistok roughly by the arm, acting out his role as her abductor. She worked to get free, not understanding.

A woman stood at the front desk. Knox aimed his head down.

Vladistok said, “Please thank your manager again. He’s been most helpful.”

Back in her car, Knox tore open the envelope, running his fingers over the words, written in Grace’s hand. His name.

He tipped the envelope. A thumb drive slid out. Knox caught it.

“My name,” he said, mostly to himself.

W
e need to create a cover for you. I will tie you up,” Knox said.

Maya Vladistok laughed. “I’m really not into that stuff.” She added, “I can play ignorant. I can say I threw you out when I realized the trouble you were in.”

“In your apartment,” Knox said, ignoring her suggestion. “We make it look like I abducted you. Something believable but leaving you a way to get out of it with some difficulty. You will then call the police. Maybe this friend of yours. Tell them about the hotel. Back me up on the cop’s death, and tell them I made you work the manager. You live here, Maya. We’ve got to make this right for you.”

“The upside is, you can steal my laptop after I back up some files.”

“That’s extremely generous of you. I’ll return it, I promise.”

“A friend—a couple friends, actually—have guesthouses. If I call from your phone . . . You can’t very well check into a hotel or boarding house. They all require passports.”

Knox elected not to share that he traveled with several such documents. “Fine. Good. Thank you.”

K
nox’s taxi driver dropped him off at a turquoise sliding gate in the pitch dark. He pounded, and the door opened to reveal a lanky black man with a .22 slung over his shoulder. He wore shorts, sandals and a sleeveless shirt for the Liverpool football club.

Knox was shown into a three-bedroom guesthouse and greeted by a personal cook, a woman in her forties who couldn’t stop smiling. The rooms were all rustic luxury, the living room’s vaulted ceiling thatched reed, the beams African ironwood and the floors gray tile with Oriental rugs to cover. The furniture was a motley collection of shabby-chic antiques, well-loved and comfortable.

He was led to the covered patio. Kerosene lanterns burned at the four corners. The skinny guy built a small fire in the corner fireplace, smiled good night and disappeared into a darkness so profound he vanished within two strides.

He withdrew her letter from its zippered pocket and read from where he’d last left off.

As you know, I am not given to the outward expression of my emotions. This, I fear, is a product of my culture and my upbringing. I struggle with such things. So perhaps here, in a letter, not a phone call, I have that opportunity. I can write to you as a man, not as a professional partner.

Our friendship has seen many tests and trials that most never would. We have come to rely upon each other in ways few know or will ever understand. These experiences make us different. They form us.

What I can—need—to tell you is that when I was on my solo, I found myself thinking of you. I promised myself I would write to you. These kinds of things do not happen to me, John. Not ever. I am not given to sentimentality, and yet I am emotional writing this.

I have tried to listen to my heart and to be honest. I am deeply fond of you, your humor, your gallantry, your kindness. I miss you when we are apart. I believe that under the surface of John Knox lies a person rarely glimpsed. This is the John Knox I want to know better, the John Knox I have come to treasure.

I do not expect an outpouring of love from you, John. But I would hope for no jokes either.

I am thinking of you, often, and will continue to do so until such time as you tell me to stop.

Yours,

G

Knox smiled ruefully, tucked the letter away again, set up Maya Vladistok’s laptop and pulled out the paperwork provided by Bishoppe’s hacker. He plugged in the thumb drive and accessed it. The screen presented a question with an empty box to the right. He understood immediately why it had been addressed to him. Had Dulwich retrieved it, Knox would have received a phone call.

Amsterdam Brothel:

Knox typed:
Natuurhonig

Had to enter it twice, the second time with two “u”s. It translated “natural honey”—a phrase that had proven difficult to forget. His only time having seen Grace without her clothes—also difficult to forget.

The screen refreshed. He’d been admitted through her firewall’s first test.

Shanghai B&B:

He answered:
Quintet

Another refresh. Another layer in.

Played nurse in what hospital?:

Knox entered:
Florence Night
— but the box wiggled and cleared his entry—too many characters.

He typed:
Nightingale

Another refresh.

You constantly criticize my:

Knox’s fingers hovered. Did she actually take as criticism what he meant as teasing? He felt a pang of disconnect, of miscommunication, of regret.

He typed:
smile

She covered hers far too often and he complained unmercifully about it.

The screen displayed a directory listing containing twelve files, including one .txt file marked “
READ FIRST.
” He was in.

Knox read.

The files herein present solid evidence of what I would term “a convincing case” that a corporation DBA Asian Container Consolidated likely influenced or actively managed a fraud involving the shipment of vaccine arriving to the port of Mombasa.

Asian Container Consolidated was on contract to the Oloitokitok Health Services Clinic and Field Hospital. Trucking manifests confirm regular shipments of refrigerated medicines, medical supplies and medical equipment. An anomaly is present that suggests malfeasance: on an intermittent basis—every six to twelve weeks—fuel costs for return trips, Oloitokitok to Mombasa, listed on the bill of lading as empty are three times that of other empty legs, suggesting an unaccounted-for heavy cargo and therefore the trafficking of contraband. Contraband weighing a ton or more with the highest probability of shipment from the port of Mombasa is rare minerals or ivory.

The movement of Asian Container Consolidated funds indicates a sophisticated network of financing and the use of a series of shell corporations, wire transfers and cash management to effectively obscure the trail of certain funds. I was able to access many, though not all, of those records.

My interpretation of the funds is as follows:

• However and whenever the original shipment was intercepted, it likely involved an ACC ship sailing on a Panamanian registry: Pristine.
  
• A substitute vaccine (source currently unknown) took the place of the measles vaccine, which was shipped overland to the DR Congo. Cash withdrawals suggest a cost of 8,000 USD for the refrigerated transportation of the authentic vaccine.
  
• A party in DR Congo, through multiple wire transfers and laundering techniques, returned a payment of between 200,000–250,000 USD to ACC expensed as shipping services. Laundering services would appear to have been approximately 25 percent, consistent with current global practices.
  
• 75,000 USD of the laundered cash was redistributed by ACC within ten business days—difficult to prove but easily inferred. This is obviously a payoff of some sort. I thought it would be to a minister able to influence safe passage for the vaccine out of the port city of Mombasa.
  
• I uncovered the approximate equivalent of 75,000 USD deposited—as cash—into six accounts that share only one overlapping signatory: Achebe (Archie) Nadali, Minister of Public Works in Nairobri.
  
• I detected an attempted breach on my system at 00:35 5/17; access was denied. No data loss. A second breach was detected 02:17 5/19, using the same cloaking technique as the first. I have no choice but to consider both attempts intentional and the work of the same individual. Note: not government or law enforcement. Of this I am certain.
  
• I have, thus far, been unable to compromise the clinic’s computerized records, including their finances. I am in pursuit of a hardware solution that seems promising.
  
• I have followed procedure, including the disuse of all wireless communication, including mobile. A wired connection I can trust may be unavailable for twenty-four hours. John or David: If I have failed to make regular contact twenty-four hours past the last expected contact, consider me blown and in harm’s way.
  

Grace

Knox reread it a half-dozen times, thinking it so clinical compared with the letter he’d zipped away. This was the other Grace, the Grace of Rutherford Risk.

Then he opened some of the accompanying files. Though able to read them, he could make little sense of how she’d come to her conclusions. Nothing personal had been written, and there was no indication of a planned itinerary.

Something stood out: the misspelling of Nairobi. The extra “r” didn’t sit well with him. Grace, a perfectionist, a computer expert, would not have missed the error unless in an enormous hurry. He cross-referenced the times on the files and that of the text he’d received from her. The spreadsheets had all been copied to the thumb drive, their file times hours or days prior to the text she’d sent him. Only the letter implied a chronology. She’d backed up her files, had texted Knox she’d been blown and had written the explanatory letter—in that order. Her writing could have been rushed; she’d saved the letter for last.

Knox was in the process of convincing himself that the
misspelling was a rare Grace mistake when he isolated the word a final time.

Nairobri

He stared at it long and hard. Letter combinations jumped out at him.

Nai
rob
ri

Robbery?

N
air
obri

Air? Flight?

Nai
r
ob
r
i

Railroad?

Nairobri

Initials? NA AI RO OB BR RI

His mouth hung open.
BR
.

The cook emerged from the darkness, the skinny gatekeeper at his heels. The fire was prodded. Food was placed before Knox. A beer. His caretakers, all smiles, retreated inside the guesthouse to await the completion of his meal.

Nairobi, but with “
br
” added. Bertram Radcliffe. It made all the more sense to Knox, given that this line of information had to do with a Kenyan government official, one based in the city—where Radcliffe was also based. Grace was talking to him from the other side of a Knox-only firewall, leaving a flyspeck of a clue to direct him to her source. Radcliffe had ranted about government corruption. It fit. It was all Knox needed.

He pushed the plate of food aside without taking a bite and raked open the door to the guesthouse.

“Can you drive?” he asked the spindly man.

The man nodded.

“Can you drive me?”

The gate guard shook his head, no.

“I can arrange, sir,” said the cook. “Please, you will eat something. The car is perhaps ten minutes.”

“Please tell the driver to hurry.”

He half bowed. “Please.” He motioned to the patio.

Knox didn’t know how to tell him he’d lost his appetite.