In the Company of Killers, Bryan Christy [love story books to read .txt] 📗

stories, and hoped the system did the rest. Enough of the time it did. But not always.

For years Ras Botha had run a continent-wide syndicate that defied categorization: Diamonds from Sierra Leone. Arms to Charles Taylor. Counterfeit pesticides to Kenyan farmers. Fake HIV meds to Nigeria’s poor. Botha controlled crystal meth labs. He trafficked Thai, Czech, and Russian prostitutes through his nightclubs in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Musina. Elephant ivory and rhino horn were sidelines for the South African, holdovers from a trophy-hunting business he ran with his brother.

Klay had tangled with Botha once before. Prosecutors cited facts from Klay’s story in their indictment, but corruption runs thick in South Africa’s courts, and days later Botha’s case was dismissed.

That was South Africa. This was Kenya. Kenyans would love to lock up a foreigner trying to kill their most beloved elephant, especially if that foreigner was the notorious Ras Botha.

And so, by broad agreement, if the Green Guardians captured Botha’s poachers tonight, Klay would be in the room for their interrogation. He would ask a few questions of his own, and then he would follow the trail back to take another bite of Ras Botha.

“Tuskah!” Lekorere managed to turn in his seat. The politician was looking at Klay, offering him a beer.

Klay forced a smile and accepted the bottle. When the politician turned forward again, Klay poured the beer out of the door and shoved the empty into the seat seam.

Bernard pulled to a stop at the edge of a deep ravine and his rangers jumped out. “We’ll go in here,” he said. “Tom, drive the truck up to Mitchener’s Point and we’ll meet you there.” He checked his watch. “Give us three hours.”

•   •   •

Four hours later, standing on Mitchener’s Point, Klay studied the terrain below through binoculars.

“You’re wasting your time.” The Perseus Group engineer held up his iPhone. “I can see exactly where the elephant is.”

Klay continued to glass the valley, moving his binoculars in a grid, trying to pick out the Green Guardians among the thick cover.

“See?” said the engineer.

“Maybe,” Klay said, without looking. “Maybe you’re giving away his exact location.”

“The signal’s encrypted. It’s Perseus Group encryption, used by the Israeli military.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“He should have let our Askari drones handle this. It’s in our contract.”

“Why don’t you go sit in the truck with the politician,” Klay said.

“I have a right to be here,” the engineer protested.

Klay lowered his binoculars and faced him. “You don’t have a right. None of us does.”

The engineer shook his head as he walked away. He waved his phone over his head. “This technology might actually save your elephant, you know.”

On the far edge of the clearing, leaning against a tree, the Kenya Wildlife Service ranger smiled. He was a lean older man, his dark face lined from years in the bush. Klay felt bad for him—this was a babysitting assignment. The Green Guardians were permitted to carry automatic weapons as long as KWS had a ranger present. If he stayed out of the way, the seasoned ranger would receive a little cash at the end of the night to salve his pride. The ranger reached two fingers into his shirt pocket, withdrew a loose cigarette, and offered it to Klay.

“I quit,” Klay said, putting the Sportsman cigarette in his mouth. He leaned forward and the ranger lit it with a match.

Klay inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out slowly. “Jesus, that’s bad.”

The ranger nodded in agreement. He drew another cigarette from his pocket, and Klay lit it for him with the tip of his. The two men smoked together in silence.

Klay heard a clicking sound to his right. He turned as Bernard and his rangers materialized from the bush. There was no other way to describe it. One moment there had been trees and bushes; the next they were there. Bernard first, followed by Goodson and Moses. Bernard looked straight at Klay as he approached, the heads of his subordinates swiveling.

“I thought you quit,” Bernard said. He took the cigarette from Klay’s fingers and put it to his own lips. “No elephant,” he added, returning Klay’s smoke.

“No Botha,” Klay replied. His eyes strayed to the darkening ravine. He hadn’t expected the man himself, of course, but his intelligence had been solid: a Botha poaching team was in the area.

Bernard smiled. “You’d have heard a bit of gunfire.” He patted Klay’s shoulder. “Looks like you were wrong after all.”

“It happens,” Klay said.

“Not often. Someday you’ll have to tell me how you come by all that brilliant intelligence sitting at a desk in Washington, DC.”

Klay drew on his cigarette, then dropped it and stepped on it with his boot. Bernard began walking toward their vehicle. Klay followed. “I hear you’re part of their drone program,” Klay said.

Bernard checked to see that the engineer was out of earshot, and nodded. “They made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.”

Klay grunted. “I thought it was just collars.”

“It was. In the beginning.”

“Right. Well, makes sense for you.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t?”

“I’m just talking,” Klay said.

Bernard halted. He turned and faced Klay. “But you are saying something.”

Klay looked into his friend’s eyes. He forgot sometimes how dedicated Bernard was. “Yeah, all right. Would I take Perseus Group money? Terry Krieger money? If I had your problem? Sure.”

“No, if you had your problem.”

“What’s my problem?”

Bernard smiled. “Imagine you had something you actually cared about.”

Klay allowed himself a rare laugh. He knew somebody in just about every country on earth, but he needed only half the fingers on one hand to count his true friends, people he respected and trusted no matter what. Bernard was a true friend. If Bernard said he would do something, it was guaranteed. Klay had bet his life on it more than once. He didn’t just trust Bernard; he admired him. Bernard Lolosoli knew as much as Klay did about the world’s complexities, but he maintained a generations-deep connection to his family and to the earth. He possessed a joy for life that managed