Covert Action

Prologue

The two men sat just below a remote ridgeline in the Nyambene Hills, well concealed from anyone moving along the shallow valley below them. They had been there for the better part of two days. Behind them in a small clearing in the lush vegetation, they had made dry camp — just the bare necessities. If needed, they could be packed out and on the move in a matter of minutes. One or the other of them was always on watch, keeping the valley and the trail that wound through the drainage, under constant surveillance. But earlier that morning, they saw the file of men making their way over a rise to the north of their position. Now it would be a matter of time. They would soon be making their way down the sloping drainage, and events would take their course. This was the main route into the Kora National Reserve and one favored by those who came for the animals and the ivory. Sometimes, they came for more than animals and ivory. It was in the Kora that poachers had murdered park warden George Adamson, as they did his wife, Joy Adamson, in the nearby Meru National Park. The two Adamsons, Elsa the lioness, Pippa the cheetah, and all the others from their book Born Free were now gone. But the poachers still came.

While the two watched the valley floor, their Ndrobo tracker sat on his haunches back in the shade near the clearing. He would be there for the kill, but for now his work was done. Days earlier, he had ranged out to find the men. His experience and knowledge of the game trails had rightly predicted that this band of travelers would be coming this way. He swatted flies with a lion-hair quirt and dozed in the growing warmth.

The two on watch were very different, both in appearance and mind-set. One was a tall Turkana with ebony skin and a noble bearing — a powerfully built man with wide, useful shoulders and long muscles. Yet it was his features that defined the man; it was as if they were chiseled from black granite. He surveyed the area impassively, occasionally bringing a pair of Zeiss binoculars to his face to scan the terrain before them. The second man was smaller and more finely constructed, with an angular, aquiline countenance and nut-brown skin. He was Somali, and his eyes were ferretlike, as were his manner and movements — someone seemingly more suited to a bazaar than the bush. The tall Turkana was aware of everything — the wind, swampland at the foot of the valley, the pack of hyenas just beyond the edge of the swamp, the angle of the sun, the relationship of their position on the ridge to the terrain below. He missed nothing. The Somali watched only the trail that snaked into the valley. His was the patience of a bird of prey. Then they appeared.

There were twelve of them, and they moved in good order. They were tall and covered ground quickly with long, easy strides. Each carried an AK-47 assault rifle and a light pack. These were hard men, Sudanese, who could cover thirty miles a day or more on very little food or water. But in the Kora, in the shadow of Mount Kenya, water was never a problem. Since the lifting of the total ban on the sale of African ivory, a new and lucrative trade had sprung up, attracting poachers like these from the Sudan and as far away as the Congo and the Central African Republic. The shooting of elephants was banned in Kenya, but now illegal ivory could be passed off as that from sanctioned shootings. The Kenya elephant herd had stabilized at some estimated thirty thousand animals, but that number was now threatened with the resumption of trade in tusks. African poverty and men with automatic weapons again threatened the great herds, in Kenya and all over southern Africa. The bands of poachers, who were basically paramilitary units, now came south to kill elephants. And the park rangers charged with the protection of the great herds were, man for man, simply no match for these armed bands. The three men who waited carried papers that identified them as employees of the Kenyan National Park Service, but their charter and their duties were quite different from normal park ranger work.

As the Turkana saw the file of men keep to the game trail that would bring them past their position, he turned to his companion.

“You will stay here,” he said in Masai, a language both men understood, “while I take on the head of the column. Let us do this quickly. Awusipe namhla isinkwa.” With that he filtered into the bush in a direction that would take him well in front of the advancing file of men. The Somali smiled and checked his weapon, a Belgian-made FAL automatic rifle. He settled into a comfortable prone shooting position and laid out two additional twenty-round magazines, far more rounds than he felt he would need. There was an audible click as he took the weapon off safe. The sound seemed to bring the Ndrobo from his dozing. He took up his AK-47 and found a shooting perch some fifteen yards down the ridgeline. This brought a scowl from the Somali. He knew the scout was not as good a shot as himself, yet he might just get one or two that might otherwise be left for him.

The Turkana got to his shooting position to the side of the trail, well ahead of the advancing column of men. He too had an FAL, and his extra magazines were in snap pouches on his vest. He knelt behind a fallen and decayed acacia tree that provided more concealment than cover. Five minutes later the first man in the Sudanese file appeared; he was perhaps a hundred yards away. The Turkana remained still as a statue and let the file approach the site they had selected for the ambush, where the trail cut through a short stand of grass. There was no place to hide, and any concealing vegetation was a fifty-yard run back up the trail. The leader carried his Kalishnakov at the ready, but the others had their rifles slung or draped across their shoulders, clutching them by the barrel. When he judged the file was in the most exposed position, the Turkana stood and in a single fluid motion shouldered his rifle. His first round center-punched the lead man in the file. He dropped as if he were poleaxed, dead before he hit the ground. A fraction of a second later, the second in the file took a big 7.62 round in the chest, just as the head of the last man in the file exploded from a well-aimed round from the Somali’s rifle. The Turkana walked forward, taking each in turn, while his shooting partner on the ridge worked the column back to front. The little Ndrobo tracker blazed away at the center of the column on full-automatic fire, hitting no one.

It was over in ten seconds. One of the Sudanese poachers managed to get his rifle off his shoulder before he was cut down, and another had turned to run, which earned him a bullet between his shoulder blades. When they were all on the ground, the three men cautiously converged on the killing zone, changing magazines as they moved. There was some moaning but little movement. The Turkana surveyed the fallen men over the sights of his rifle while the other men moved among them, putting a bullet into the head of each. Now it was over and done. The tall man nodded, and the Somali and the Ndrobo began to search the bodies, looking for gold — gold in the form of bracelets, necklaces, and teeth. Then they collected the packs and weapons of their victims and ferried them to the swamp nearby, where they tossed them into the black ooze. The scout kept back a few of their quarry’s magazines to replenish the rounds for his own AK. Otherwise, they took only pictures. The sun was well up, and the corpses would soon ripen. The vultures would get there before the hyenas, but not before the flies. The three executioners collected their gear from their dry camp and set off on a compass bearing that, in two days’ march, would bring them to the town of Meru.

The office was a single room in a small cinder-block building in the center of town. Everything was shabby and mildewed, but there was a tattered orderliness to the stacks of paper and newspapers. The tall Turkana stood by the desk as a white man in slacks and a soiled white shirt downloaded the pictures from the digital camera into a laptop computer. He studied each of the images for a few moments, occasionally flipping back to a previous photo. His grisly task was to ensure that each of the macabre images was unique and that each documented a single human death. Finally, he rose from the desk.

“As I see it, you have twelve good kills here. That tally with your count?”

“It does,” the African replied.

“Then here you go.”

He counted out twenty-four American one-hundred-dollar bills. They were crisp, uncirculated notes. Several international charities contributed to the fund that exchanged money for dead poachers. This particular fund was administered by a Dutch wildlife trust called the Hans Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation. There were many contributors, including, oddly enough, the Humane Society of the United States. The foundation’s work in this regard was sanctioned and supported by several African nations. It was far and away the most effective antipoaching program in place. Those African nations who valued their wildlife resources knew that the only way to protect the game was to make the poachers game animals as well.

The Turkana signed a receipt, thanked the man, and gathered up the stack of banknotes. Outside, his two companions waited. Together, they made their way to what passed for a native tavern and found a seat in the corner. The other patrons studiously ignored them, as they were obviously hard men from the bush, and they carried guns. After a pitcher of warm beer was served, they drank and divided the money equally — six hundred dollars each. It was more than most Africans made in a year. Then the man from the foundation came in, spotted them, and made his way to their table.

“Sorry for the interruption,” he apologized. They were in his view, after all, armed killers drinking beer. “But this came for you. I forgot to give it to you.” He handed the tall African a telegram. “Well, I’ll be off. G’day.”

“Thank you for bringing this. Good day to you.”

After the white man had left, the Turkana opened the telegram, noting that the seal had not been tampered with. As he read it, a hint of a smile crossed his handsome features.

“What does it say?” asked the Somali.

The tall man produced an easy grin, and the lines in the corners of his eyes showed genuine merriment. He laid the telegram on the table, but the other two ignored it. Neither could read English, nor any written language for that matter.

“It says,” he replied with an uncharacteristic chuckle, “that we may no longer have to trek into the bush in search of dung-eating poachers from the Sudan.”

Finally, the little Ndrobo picked up the telegram and stared at it uncomprehendingly. It read: