Chapter 25
Sarah
The eland’s sutures were holding.
I checked the margins one more time. Ran my thumb along the edge of the wound where the granulation tissue had filled in. He shifted his weight when I touched him but didn’t pull away. Another two days and I could release him. I made the note on his chart and hung it back on the pen rail.
I’d been at the facility since dawn, working through the to-do list the same as any other day. The animals didn’t care what had happened last night, and neither did the work.
Donovan had told me a little about their night, but I could tell chunks were missing. I understood that they’d caught the poachers about to take out a rhino but managed to scare them off. And at that site, they’d found a phone in the grass.
He’d come to my cabin after midnight, still in the clothes he’d worn on the patrol.
He sat on the edge of my bed and gave me what he could.
It didn’t take long. I didn’t push for the rest. Then he showered and came back to bed.
Not long after watching him fall asleep, I had gotten up to come to work.
Needless to say, I was tired.
A vehicle pulled up outside the facility. I wiped my hands on a cloth and stepped to the door.
Faith Njeri climbed out of a KWS Land Cruiser, a leather satchel over one shoulder and a folder in her hand. She wore her khaki KWS uniform, pressed despite the heat.
“Sarah.” She squeezed my hand. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m all right.”
She held my hand a beat longer than a handshake required.
Faith had been the one constant through all of this.
She’d run the fellowship program that had brought Alyson and Daniel and me to Kenya.
She’d spoken to the local village family after the subsistence hunting and handled it with compassion I still admired.
And she continually expressed genuine concern for Cole and Alyson.
“Before we start,” she said, setting her satchel on the counter, “how is Alyson?”
“I talked to her last week. Briefly.” I pulled a stool out for Faith and took the one across from her. “She’s back in the States. Her family is with her. She’s recovering.”
“Good. That’s good. The surgeries?”
“Ongoing. More ahead.”
What I didn’t say was that Alyson’s voice on the phone had been flat and quiet. Every sentence in the same careful monotone. The woman who used to narrate her own life at full volume had sounded like she was talking through a prison visitor window.
“She’s tough,” Faith said. “She’ll find her way back.”
“She will.”
Faith opened the folder and set it on the counter between us. “Shall we?”
The poaching report. This was why she was here.
“Of course.”
I pulled the copy of my documentation toward me.
The second carcass, the one from three days ago.
I’d collected tissue samples at the site for the national DNA registry and documented the wound channel for ballistic estimation.
I had photographs of the carcass and the horn removal from every angle.
The lab work I’d finished yesterday. KWS needed all of it for the official record.
“Cause of death is a single large-caliber gunshot wound, entry behind the left shoulder.” I spread the photographs across the counter.
“The round penetrated the chest cavity and caused massive internal hemorrhaging. Consistent with the first carcass. Same wound placement, and we believe same caliber.”
Faith studied the photographs without flinching. She’d seen this before. Not here, not at Ol Pejeta, but across conservancies throughout the region.
“Tissue samples are logged. I have the histology if you need it, but cause of death isn’t ambiguous.” I laid the lab report beside the photographs. “Horn removed with a saw. Clean cuts, no hack marks. The rest of the carcass was intact. Nothing else taken.”
“And the spent casing?”
“The rangers recovered it at the second scene. A .375 H&H Magnum.” I found the evidence log and turned it so she could read the entry. “That’s a big game hunting round. Expensive relative to out here. Not what a subsistence poacher carries.”
Faith’s pen paused over her notebook. She didn’t look surprised.
“You expected that,” I said.
“I expected something like it.” She set down the pen. “The cigarette pack. The Afrikaans brand. You documented it at the second carcass site.”
“It’s in the file. Baraka found it in the grass near the shooting position.”
Faith leaned back on her stool. “Since the first carcass, I have been making calls. KWS colleagues at other conservancies and the like.” She folded her hands in front of her. “The cigarette pack confirms what I have been hearing.”
“What have you been hearing?”
“That there are foreigners from South Africa who have been poaching in the Laikipia region for the past several months.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a lined notebook filled with her handwriting.
“Lewa lost a bull in March. Borana lost two animals in April and May. Mpala had a carcass in June. Each time, the signature was the same. Single heavy round behind the shoulder and the horn taken with a saw.”
She turned a page. More dates, more conservancy names.
“Between the kills, people have seen unfamiliar vehicles on access roads. White men in the area who were not tourists and were not staying at any of the lodges. Sightings in Nanyuki, in Rumuruti. Always passing through, never settling.”
“How many men?”
“The reports vary. Maybe a handful for some. A half dozen or more for others.”
I looked at the notebook. How many animals have these men slaughtered needlessly?
The door opened behind me.
Donovan and Andrew came through it.
“Our tech expert Jace called back,” he said.
He stopped when he saw Faith.
“Guys, this is Faith Njeri from KWS.”
“Donovan Hughes.” He extended his hand and she took it.
Andrew stepped up beside him and nodded. “Andrew Volante. We’re from Citadel Solutions.”
“Right. The ranger training. How is Cole doing with his recovery?” She looked between Donovan and Andrew.
“He’s managing. He’ll still be in therapy for a while.” Donovan replied. “He’ll get there.”
“Of course.” Faith nodded. “I’m glad to hear he’s on the mend.”
“Faith is here for the poaching report,” I said. “She brought information you need to hear.”
Donovan looked at me. Then at the spread of photographs and documentation between Faith and me.
“Tell me.”
I gave him everything Faith had assembled. The dated hits at other conservancies and the sightings between kills. The same signature at every site. A crew with funding and experience, working the region for months.
Andrew and Donovan listened intently.
“The phone,” Donovan said when I finished.
“We plugged it into one of our laptops that Jace can access remotely. Using that, he’s been able to rip most of the data off the device.
If the GPS history of this phone matches the locations and dates of the kills Faith just described, we’ll have definite confirmed actionable intel. ”
He looked at me, then Faith. “I need to call him back. Can you give him what you just shared here?”
Faith nodded. “Of course.”
Donovan dialed the number and put it on speaker.
The line connected. I could hear the faint clatter of a keyboard in the background.
“Tell me you’re calling with good news,” Jace said. “I’ve been staring at Afrikaans text messages for nine hours, and my eyes are staging a revolt.”
“Better than good news. I’ve got context for your data.” Donovan kept it brief. “I’m here with Sarah, Andrew, and Faith Njeri from KWS. Faith has the regional picture. Dates and locations of kills at conservancies across Laikipia, plus sighting reports on the crew between jobs. Go ahead, Faith.”
Faith listed them. Conservancy by conservancy, month by month.
“The phone’s GPS history puts the device within twenty kilometers of Borana on both of those dates.
” Jace’s voice had shifted from its usual lightness into something focused.
“And Lewa in March. And within range of Mpala in June. Every location you just named, the phone was in the area at or near the time of the kill.”
The room went still.
“Everything on this phone is coordinated through one number,” Jace continued. “A South African mobile prefix. Every instruction about logistics and transport routes for the horn. It all flows through one person.”
“Who?” Donovan said.
“Willem Nasser. South African national.” His keystrokes stopped again. “That number is all over this phone. Every thread leads back to him.”
Donovan’s hand closed around the edge of the counter, the first visible reaction since he’d walked in.
“They’re moving rhino horns into the Asian market through a chain of middlemen,” Jace continued.
Donovan’s expression hadn’t changed. His eyes were on the phone, but I could tell he was already sorting it, running the numbers against what he’d seen on the ground.
Faith had been writing through most of this. She looked up.
“This is consistent with everything I have heard. So now we have two different sources painting roughly the same exact picture.”
Donovan picked up his phone and took it off speaker. He turned away and spoke to Jace, seeming to confirm some details I couldn’t hear. Then he ended the call and pocketed the phone.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Willem Nasser. Now we knew our enemy.
“This goes to KWS and the police,” Faith said. She capped her pen. “This is an organized criminal operation, and it is bigger than any one conservancy. The authorities need everything we have.”
“Agreed,” Donovan said.
“What I can do from the KWS side, I will do. But this is beyond what any single conservancy can handle on its own. The police need to be involved. Possibly international intelligence agencies, given the South African connection.”
Donovan nodded. “We will let the big boys handle it, then. In the meantime, we will shift our focus to defensive actions in order to protect our conservancy and the people and animals within it.”
He said it plainly, and I believed him. I had no doubt he was capable of hunting down this man and his crew, but he was making sure to stay on the right side of the law.
Faith gathered everything. The lab reports, the evidence log, my photographic documentation. She added her own notes from the call with the rest and buckled the satchel closed.
“I will be in touch,” Faith said. She clasped my hand again at the door. “Take care of yourself, Sarah. And take care of this place.”
“I will.”
I watched her walk to the Land Cruiser and climb in. The engine turned over and the vehicle pulled out onto the access track, dust rising behind it as she trailed off. She had what she needed. The responsible thing was in motion.
Andrew stepped outside, leaving Donovan and me alone in the facility.
Donovan crossed to where I was standing and put his hand on the small of my back. I leaned into it, just slightly, and felt his fingers press in response.
Simply knowing Willem Nasser’s name and having a better picture of his operation didn’t resolve all our issues. There was still going to be plenty of work to do.
But right now, with Donovan’s hand warm on my back and the evening settling in around us, I let myself have this one quiet moment before whatever came next.