White Bone (15 page)

In the distance, Knox saw children playing on brightly colored jungle gyms, heard the traffic overcome by birdsong, felt a breeze cool on his sweaty face. He dried his palms on his thighs.

“Koigi was ahead of his time. There is a group in the south, Larger Than Life it’s called, a conservation NGO that was started by an American photographer, Rick Rand, who saw through his lens the effect of poaching on our Big Five. Larger Than Life now employs two hundred and fifty private rangers. It’s run by a South African called Travis Brantingham. They’re financed by international grants and donations. Entirely different than Koigi, a black African financed by God knows who. Larger Than Life patrols over three million hectares. Whether or not they employ shoot-to-kill protocol is unknown, but it’s believed they do. They’ve had tremendous success protecting the elephant. Similar to Koigi’s success, but without nearly the same amount of controversy.”

“Because Koigi is himself wanted,” Knox said. “So meeting an American trying to find a Chinese woman won’t exactly top his list.”

She laughed for the first time. The sound was husky, yet feminine. “Mombasa, John. Not Nanyuki. And today, while it’s still an option.”

“If the boy comes to you, he represents my interests. If he asks you to arrange a meeting, then I’ve made it safely.”

“Shot on sight. You understand, John? My offer is short-lived.”

“Let’s hope I’m not.”

She chuckled, leveled a disparaging gaze at him, then stood and walked away. She glanced back once, the smile now a smirk of satisfaction.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop moving,” she called out.

S
arge was in the lead truck. We were on a delivery
—
that’s what we called them, whether it was a full convoy or just a few trucks. Kuwait to one of our bases in Iraq. This one was small, three rigs. A Humvee front and back, the one in front taking an extreme forward position to sweep for IEDs. The one behind stayed in tight to the last rig.

“There are abandoned vehicles along any route. Burnouts. Casualties of war. You don’t notice them after a while. The lead Humvee pays attention so we don’t have to.

“They think it had to be radio-controlled, probably cell phone–activated. It may have been our own radios. That can happen. But the precision suggests we were being observed. It skipped the Humvee and blew up the cab of the lead truck. They try to time it like that so they can salvage the contents of the trailer. Big ball of black smoke. Flames. I can’t remember it most of the time. When I do, I get parts of it wrong. It’s like switching to a television channel that’s just static. My brain shuts down and I don’t remember.

“There may have been gunfire. They tell me there wasn’t, but something sure sounded like it. Maybe a second IED. No one knows because the cab blew up. Apparently I got Sarge out. I wasn’t playing hero because I wasn’t thinking. Something like that happens, you just react. You move. Maybe I was running scared. I have no idea.

“It wasn’t until the hospital in Switzerland and therapy that it started coming back. To this day, like right now, if I try to think about it, it isn’t there. It comes in nightmares. Car wrecks. Any loud noises. I avoid the Fourth of July. Seems cruel to put vets through explosions like that once a year, not that I’m a vet. Not even close.

“The second explosion did in my left ear. Blew out my eardrum. I was bleeding from it. Sarge was a mess. Whatever genius put a medic in those Humvees, Sarge owes his life to him.

“From the moment the first bomb went off to sometime later, when a medic was waving salts under my nose, my one thought, the one thing I remember, is seeing Tommy. My brother. I’m his guardian, his legal guardian, and I remember thinking about him, about seeing his face. I thought I was going to die. I was convinced that after the bombs, we’d be ambushed. It’s how other attacks had gone. Bomb on one side, attack from the other. Kill everyone. Pilfer the goods. In and out, over and done. We were a good three hours from the border at that point. Another two to the base. It’s not like the cavalry was coming.

“They didn’t get us. But it screwed me up. To this day, I’m still screwed up because of it. I can’t watch violent movies. Don’t even want to. The smell of smoke, oil smoke, makes me sick to my stomach. I’m half deaf in my left ear. I never tell anyone that. I shouldn’t have told you, Grace, because if you tell Sarge about my impairment he’ll take me off the list.”

“I would never do such a thing. You must know that, John. How can you not know that?”

“I felt things before that delivery. Love, compassion. Not so much
anymore. I feel for Tommy. I love that kid and I hate him at the same time because he’s defined me.

“I was scared for you in Amsterdam.” The abrupt transition made it sound like a confession of sorts. His eyes went soft. “When you went into the Florence Nightingale Hospital in Istanbul, I was terrified you wouldn’t come back out.”

“I always come back.”

Grace recalled the conversation nearly word for word. Yet she couldn’t remember exactly when they’d had it. Wasn’t sure if she hadn’t lied about returning. Had it been leaving Istanbul after the op? Over Skype? It didn’t matter. It was a moment of endearment for her, one she hadn’t forgotten. Knox had allowed her in.

For a time, she’d begun to think there was no “in,” just a man crushed by living too long on the edge of war, by caring for an invalid brother who often dragged him down into depression. Whether a moment of weakness or something intentional on his part, she wasn’t sure. But she remembered feeling good in the hours that followed, incredibly good, while simultaneously upset at herself for allowing another’s tragedy to result in her own happiness.

An ancient Chinese proverb kept recurring to her when she thought about that talk. Roughly, it went “An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, despite the time and place, despite the circumstances. The thread can be tightened or tangled, but will never be broken.”

That day with John convinced Grace Chu of the existence of a red thread, a treasured discovery she kept close to her heart and even more closely protected.

She wasn’t feeling good now, hidden among boulders with a view of the listing truck to her right and the kill spot well in the distance. Just below were the three holes she’d dug. She’d lined each
with plastic and sealed an additional sheet of plastic over the top, like a lid.

Her need for water was growing fierce. She’d sucked a few tablespoons’ worth of aloe from a plant; any more would make her sick. If she could kill something, she’d drink its blood, repulsive as it seemed. To that end, she’d strung a length of wire from the engine across a rabbit path. One foot beyond, she’d dug a hole deep into the sandy soil and stuck carefully split sticks into the bottom. She’d covered it fully with loose leaves. A long shot, but one worth trying. She’d created the same trip-and-pit two hundred meters north, where a few small-game trails intersected. She kept the thorn switch, the antenna and one of the two dipsticks by her side, alert for low-flying birds, moths, moles or mice. And then she waited, as still as the rock that concealed her mud-and-dung-plastered form.

For a time, she dozed. Then, startling awake, she went in search of the yellow and red berries that curbed her appetite and worked as a mild stimulant. Back to her sentry position.

Her urination stung. The thick stripe of forest behind her frightened her, and for good reason. After hours of looking out over the wide, dry riverbed, she’d decided to collect some of the white driftwood it contained, in case she could figure out how to start a fire.

Drawing closer, she’d determined it wasn’t driftwood, but sun-bleached white bone. Hundreds of pieces scattered randomly in small piles, each representing a kill. A graveyard. Gorgeous, majestic animals, twenty—no, more like forty, she realized—preyed upon most likely by lions. The cats used the rock outcropping where she now hid to spy arrivals, then sneaked down into the deep ravines of the wash and waited, unseen around the curves. The most bones were clumped at either end of the deepest cuts—areas where the impala or other gazelle had no chance of climbing out.

Grace sat atop her rock outcropping, shaking, one eye trained
down the line of boulders. She anticipated the arrival of a set of ears, or the profile of a large cat’s head. Dawn and dusk would be the most likely times for lion attacks. Dusk of her second day would soon arrive. She’d extended her life expectancy by a full day. Surviving this night—any night—would be the real challenge. Just as in cities, that was when the violence occurred.

During the past thirty-odd hours, her senses had clarified. She felt able to see longer distances, to discern changes in the smells carried on the breeze, to hear faraway things. The slightest change of temperature brought chills or sweat. Her nakedness—but for her skirt—her skin covered in dried mud, was a new and not unpleasant experience. She thought of herself as a lion, patiently awaiting sight of her prey.

Just in case, she’d found a space between two huge rocks that offered a degree of shelter and protection; if she slipped down, she could fit herself into a deeper cavelike hollow. She’d practiced her retreat several times; the first gap was so narrow it scraped off some mud each time she squeezed through. There was no way she could do it quickly. If attacked, she would need fifteen seconds or more to reach safety.

How much safety, she wasn’t sure.

Nor was she sure how, or if, she would attack should someone return for her. Further complicating matters was the question of whom to trust. Certainly her would-be killer might come, but any number of people and agencies might be out searching as well. By now, she hoped the lodge would have put out an alert. If a ranger showed up, should she trust him, or attack? An attack would require a weapon, and the only foolproof one at her disposal, beyond a rock and hand-to-hand close combat, was from an Olé lesson. He’d shown her the poison arrow tree and the white milk that gushed from its leaves or bark with the smallest cut, a few drops of
which killed nearly instantaneously upon entering the human bloodstream. The Maasai tipped their hunting spears with it. The tree grew abundantly and was easily identified.

If Grace could get up the nerve to enter the forest behind her—the lion’s lair—she felt confident she’d find at least one such tree. A fallen branch with its tip honed and she’d have her weapon. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

The rumble of an airplane overhead caught her by surprise. The wind must have held off its sound; by the time she heard it, it was nearly upon her. Could she trust it? Could she afford to let it pass?

Grace grabbed one of the mirrors and, one-handed, scrambled down the lattice of slippery rock, jumping and sliding in an effort to reach the flat ground below, where her waving would be more easily seen. She wiggled the mirror, trying to find an angle between the sun and the single-engine plane.

In her frenzy, her left hand slapped onto a rock and touched something soft. She jerked back instinctively, but the bush viper was faster. It struck, biting her on the wrist. The snake’s scales were brown and yellow, its eyes a vivid green. As it lunged for a second strike, she clipped it with the mirror and sent it tumbling off the warm rock. Her backward momentum carried her down, too, casting her off balance. Her left ankle rolled and pain shot up her leg.

In a long, agonizing slide, Grace fell to the sandy floor, crawling and squirming, still trying to flash her mirror into the sky overhead. The plane had passed. Dropping the mirror, she writhed in reaction to two distinctly different pains.

Her wrist stung chemically, like the worst of a bee sting; her ankle throbbed, instantly hot. A slight sprain, but nothing more. Her wrist, on the other hand . . .

It was difficult to breathe through her fear. Grace felt faint. Steadying her breath, having no idea how toxic the snake might be,
but somewhat mollified by how stout it had been—the general rule being: the bigger the venomous snake, the less lethal its bite—she pulled herself painfully back up into the rocks, her left foot useless, debating whether to tourniquet the bite.

Back at her station, a length of engine wire wrapped but not yet tightened around her forearm, she scratched away the mud, spat to clean it off her skin, and watched for any sign of inflammation and redness to begin creeping toward her elbow. In this environment, without water, to tighten the tourniquet, cutting off all blood flow, would likely mean losing her hand.

It was not a decision she wanted to make.

H
aving been told to keep moving, it occurred to Knox that Bishoppe, working the airport as he did, might know a pilot in general aviation with a single-engine plane and a mouth that could keep shut. He now found himself riding in a car arranged by Bishoppe, on his way to a plane arranged by Bishoppe.

His fourteen-year-old personal concierge talked incessantly from the front seat, saying little, if anything, of interest. Knox tuned him out, instead studying the printout of the tattoo by the sliding rectangles of streetlamp light. The image was the one piece of evidence connecting Knox back to Grace. He wasn’t going to let go.

Bishoppe turned a shoulder and looked into the backseat.

“I should come with you, Mr. John.”

“Right. Of course you should.”

“We agree?”

“I was being sarcastic,” Knox said. “You understand?”

“You are not funny. We are a good team.”

“You’ve been a big help, Bishoppe. If I return to Nairobi I’ll call you. How’s that?”

The boy pointed through the seats. “Many men have this same tattoo.”

Knox worked to contain his astonishment before speaking. “You’ve seen this same tattoo before?”

“I just said so, didn’t I? Many times.” Bishoppe opened his hand. “Let me see.” Brash. Ballsy. Knox passed him the photo. “‘Forever.’ This is what it means. It is a statement. Arab forever. You understand?”

“Yes. ‘Constant.’ ‘Always,’” Knox said, quoting Kanika Alkinyi. But the kid’s combination of ‘Arab forever’ hit home. It wasn’t a spiritual statement, but a nationalist slogan.

“One symbol, many meanings. It’s the same in English. Yes? Hot food. Hot woman.”

Knox laughed automatically.

“This other part, the circle, this is not common. Tell me, what does it mean?”

Knox unbuckled to lean forward. “Always. Constant.”

“Not the writing! I can read, Mr. John!” Bishoppe leaned to point out the dark medallion the calligraphy covered. “A burn, maybe. Some villages mark a boy when he is a man. No one is going to burn me. I want a tattoo of LeBron James.”

Knox asked the driver’s permission to turn on the overhead light. The driver nodded; the light was burned out. He used his phone’s flashlight app. “Let me see.”

Again, the boy pointed out the dark circle of skin. “The tattoo runs across it, you see? Maybe he makes the tattoo to cover it. Maybe he doesn’t like the look of it, so large and ugly. Recent, I think. You see the pink at the edge?”

Knox reached over and took back the printout. He shined the light close to the paper. “You have good eyes.”

“You must be blind. You know I speak the truth. You need my help, Mr. John. I know much more than you.”

Knox laughed aloud while folding up the printed page. It felt impossibly good.