ZAMBEZI RIVER, CAPRIVI
Jon poured warm water down my back from a ceramic pitcher. The waning yellow moon rose almost full and glistened in a wavering path on the fast-flowing river. We were drifting south in the current, passing a pod of hippos surrounded by a halo of sparkling gold water. The balmy air had a slight edge to it—a change of season was coming.
I hadn’t planned on taking a bath, but after Jon and I shared a leg of lamb paired with a delicious Syrah from the Cape, I couldn’t resist the large metal tub perched over the Zambezi in the moonlight. My body ached after a day of counting elephants from the cramped cockpit of a Cessna 182 with pockets of turbulence making for a very bouncy ride. Collapsing into a hot tub and losing myself in the Zambezi moon was a most welcome end to the day.
When Jon saw that I had forgotten the soap, he cleared his throat outside the reed wall to the bath and asked if I’d like him to bring it to me. Graciously accepting his offer, I quickly found myself absorbed in other favors.
After pouring water down my back, he gently caressed my shoulders and back with a loofah sponge, and then scrubbed my feet and ankles. Gentle kisses moved from toes to feet to shins and up my inner thighs. I leaned my head against the side of the tub, soaking up his penetrating kisses like a dry sponge.
I watched his torso muscles gently tense as he moved. I drew my fingers along his triceps as the light from the gas lantern cast flickering shadows on the reeds around the tub.
Jon removed his clothes and slipped into the tub behind me, his legs resting outside mine on either side. I nestled my head into his shoulder and our hands clasped over my middle. We stared up at the moon in silence as the papyrus tufts tickled at the deep gray-blue sky in the gentle breeze.
Hippos hooted, snorted, and hummed under their breath. I closed my eyes and listened to them fill the night with their territorial murmurs back and forth and up and down the river. A pair of Pel’s fishing owls serenaded us from deep within the reeds as we passed.
Clay banks with sloping sides replaced the wall of papyrus on either side of us as we traveled down the river. Up ahead on the left, a path led down to a sandy beach. A large family group of elephants hurried down the slope and ran into the water up to their bellies, fanning out on either side of the matriarch. All was quiet as we drifted past, but for the trickling of water spilling from trunks as they poured generous drinks into thirsty mouths.
An elephant growled its objection as a large crocodile motored past, just a little too close to a baby. Its rugged spiky dinosaur tail swished back and forth as it skirted the elephants and headed southeast, following the current toward the great Okavango Delta.
We lay there long enough that the water turned cool and the space more confining, despite the mild air. Jon turned the hot tap on and the bath expanded again. Our shoulders relaxed as Jon whispered my name so softly, so genuinely, as if I were the only woman on earth. “Catherine,” he whispered out of charged lips, as he had a hundred times before, “stay with me.”
“Catherine?”
My eyes shot open and Jon’s whispers morphed into the harsh tone of a familiar language moaning in the background. I squinted to make sense of quick jerky motions all around me. The voice that just called my name—it was no longer Jon’s voice. I knew that voice.
I looked down at my prostrate body in a hospital gown, and the pressure that had been Jon’s touch became the line of an IV bag at the base of my hand. What had just been the fragrant African night air was now pungent with antiseptic fumes. The reed walls turned sterile white and an unnerving beeping sound pulsed in my right ear.
I shut my eyes, hoping it wouldn’t be too late to reconnect with my subconscious—to slip back into the tub again and float into the heart of the Okavango Delta, far, far away from here.
“Catherine?” That familiar voice called my name again and I opened my eyes.
“Catherine, are you awake?”
I couldn’t focus on the person standing over me. I tried to sit up, but my head and chest weighed a thousand pounds.
“Don’t try to move.” There was a light touch on my shoulder.
“Craig?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m right here.”
I looked up at his blurry face that was slowly coming into focus. “Where am I?”
“You’re in a hospital in Beijing.”
“Shit.” I slowly got my bearings. I remembered the flash of pain the moment before I passed out in the back room of the emporium. I grabbed my hospital gown, feeling for chest wounds. There was a searing pain in one of my left ribs. “What happened?”
“A grazed rib. And a bad concussion. You’re bloody lucky to be alive.”
As I pressed around my rib, I remembered the impact of the shot. It felt like I had always imagined it would—all those nights waking up in my bed in the Caprivi, clutching my .45 in both hands, wondering, waiting, and imagining the scenarios before falling into dreams of being shot in the chest. There was that sickening weight of sudden impact and then the excruciating pain as the bullet penetrated my flesh, the force knocking me off my feet.
My eyes came into focus and I could now see that Craig was holding flowers. I smiled weakly. “You brought flowers. How sweet.”
“I couldn’t help myself.” He set the pot containing a stalk of delicate yellow orchids on the table. “Didn’t take you for a romantic, but it’s hard to pass up an occasion for orchids.”
“I have to get shot to merit an orchid?”
Craig smiled and ran his fingers through his freshly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair. He pulled his pants up a bit at the knees and sat down in the visitor’s chair next to my bed. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your edge,” he said, neatly crossing his legs in one of his meticulously tailored suits. Only in Hong Kong could one afford such a luxury in our line of work.
He was quite the fastidious Brit, ol’ Craig. And yet endearing. I was enjoying spending time with him in person, finally, after all the conversations we had over the phone while I was stationed in Namibia. “You’d have an edge, too, having to wake up from a romantic dream of drifting down the Zambezi on a houseboat only to find myself in this hellhole.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt a romantic interlude.”
I noticed a policeman pacing back and forth in front of the door to my room. “What’s with the police?”
“I’m so sorry, Catherine. It was never supposed to happen like this.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Three days.”
“Three days!” I clenched my teeth.
I nodded toward the policeman. “Have they even apologized?”
“Who?”
“What do you mean, who? The police.”
“Police?” He looked at me with surprise. “You don’t know what happened, do you?”
“Of course I know what happened.” I stared at him in disbelief as a hospital worker came in with a tray carrying a pot of tea and two teacups, spoons, and containers of milk and sugar.
“Thanks very much.” Craig nodded to the woman and had her set the tea tray down on a side table. We both watched her leave the room before continuing our conversation.
“I was there. I got shot, remember?” I whispered as I held my hands up, showing him that I was hooked up to machines. I nodded toward the lone orchid stalk on the table. “And you’re my first visitor.”
“I could arrange for another bouquet if you like.”
“Very funny.” I pressed around my rib area again. “Ouch. Damn it.” I tried to sit up. “Am I going to be able to leave with you?”
“Two more days, I’m afraid.”
“Oh God.” I dropped my head back onto the pillow and looked out at the policeman again. This time he was talking to another officer. “Can you bring them in here to explain themselves?”
“Catherine, you were not shot by the police.”
“What do you mean?” I returned to the moment that the door of the back room was smashed in. I saw the laser sightings beam back and forth. The silhouettes were more defined now—paramilitary-styled uniforms with padding. “They were wearing uniforms.”
Craig shook his head. “Those men may have looked like they were wearing uniforms.” He leaned forward. “But you were shot by the KWD.”
“What?” I felt so naive. “Are you sure?”
Craig nodded. “The Kwan Woo Dun is determined to reclaim the illegal ivory market in Beijing after the Sun Hee Un took over.”
Craig had warned me that the Sun Hee Un had disrupted a long-standing peace agreement between the two triads after Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule in ’89. Since they had to become part of China, they decided that they needed to be the dominant triad. That didn’t sit well with the KWD.
“And I can tell you, it took quite a bit of convincing for the police to believe that you’re not one of Nigel’s lovers, doing his bidding for the SHU.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I scoffed.
“It’s a volatile situation since the ivory trade has taken off again and a lot more money is at stake. The KWD is particularly determined to regain control of the wildlife-trade underworld in Beijing.”
“Well, then, where were the police?”
“They’d been trying to catch Nigel’s distributor for over a year,” Craig explained. “They didn’t want to risk losing him, so they were being cautious.”
“Too cautious, as it turns out. With Nigel’s distributor dead, we’ve got nothing. Where do we go from here?”
He touched his nose with his index finger, which I had figured out was a tell for his discomfort with a particular situation. He got up and poured tea into the two cups. “Catherine, you’re bloody lucky to be alive. We’ve got to be more careful. We had no idea that triad tensions would escalate like this. And the Kwan Woo Dun is making raids into SHU’s Hong Kong home turf to send a clear message to the SHU to back down.” Craig poured milk into both cups. “Sugar?”
I nodded. “One, please.”
He placed a teaspoon of sugar in my cup and two in his, and handed me my tea. He stirred and took a sip, eying me cautiously. “The underworld here is far edgier than it was in Namibia.” He sat back in his chair as if he were ready to give me a long lecture. “Here, dealing in illegal ivory goes hand in hand with diamonds, guns, and drug lords. Right now, the police still aren’t a hundred percent convinced that you aren’t part of the war.” He pointed toward the police. “They’ve got the place staked out. They think your enemy might pay you a visit in the night.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I’m working on sending over more information.”
“Why are they so suspicious of me?”
“We didn’t inform them of your presence at the emporium—rather you didn’t inform me, so I couldn’t inform them of your whereabouts at the time.”
“Craig, I didn’t plan this. I was in the emporium, I asked a couple of questions, and it just happened. There was no time to warn you.”
“So you can understand how they might see the situation, since they weren’t given any information to the contrary.”
“Okay, fine, but once you showed up to explain, the whole thing should have been cleared up.”
“It takes a little while to process these things. There’s some pride involved, as well. You know how the Chinese are about losing face. And of course, they don’t think we should be meddling in their affairs, at this level, anyway.”
“So, what do we do?”
“We wait the two days and hope this blows over.”
“Can you stay?”
Craig shook his head. “Unfortunately not. Have to get back to the office.”
“What could possibly be that important back at the office?”
Craig’s eyes narrowed as if I knew better than to ask.
“What is it?”
“We’ll talk when you get back to Hong Kong.” He got up to leave. “Right now you need to rest.”
Something about how he was treating me made me feel like I was weaker than he had expected. Like he had had a plan for me and changed his mind. “You’re really going to leave me hanging?” I noticed him pick up a black waterproof equipment case, the size of a briefcase. He must have put it down before my vision came into focus earlier and I hadn’t noticed it. “What’s in the Pelican?”
Craig stood in the doorway and shifted the case behind him. “I’ll have new information for you when you return.”
“You can’t be serious.” I tried to sit up again and barely made it onto my elbows. “Come back here and tell me what’s going on.” I looked down at the case. “That’s my night-vision gear, isn’t it?”
Craig glanced up and down the hallway, exhaled, and returned with the case and sat back down.
“You were going to ask me to do something and changed your mind. I know you. What’s going on?”
Craig whispered, “We received reports of a large shipment scheduled to cross the border from Vietnam, rerouted from an undisclosed port in Asia that originated somewhere in Central or East Africa. We assume Nigel is covering his tracks after what happened at the emporium. That ivory transfer will take place in three days.”
“Where?”
“The Bac Luan Border Gate. On the Ka Long River.” He pushed the Pelican case in front of him. “We’ve got to get someone down there to take pictures.”
“I’ll go,” I said without hesitation.
Craig looked at me with great skepticism.
“Seriously, you said I’d be out in two days. I can take a flight down to the closest airport and pick up a Cessna wherever you tell me to go.” This was my case and I wasn’t going to let Craig hand it over to someone else.
Craig shook his head. “Catherine, look at you. There isn’t enough time. They’re only going to let you out in two days. You can’t get down to the Guangxi Autonomous Region two days from now and then fly an airplane the following night.”
“Yes, I can. Book me a flight for the day after tomorrow and I’ll have a day to orient down there before having to be in the air.”
Craig exhaled. “After seeing what condition you’re in, I was going to send one of Marcus’s guys.”
“Marcus!” I groaned. “He’s a debutant. He doesn’t have anyone serious on his team. You need someone that can get their hands dirty.”
“That’s just it. I don’t want anyone’s hands dirty. I don’t want the plane to land. Just in-out—take pictures of boats, people, activity and leave.” He let out a long breath. “And if anything were to happen, your current visa doesn’t cover this area.”
It felt like a year instead of less than a month ago when I dropped off my passport and F application at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to get my business visa for China. I was transferring from Namibia to the Hong Kong branch of the Wildlife Investigation Agency to work directly under Craig. Following Nigel to China from Namibia was the only way to catch him. Two weeks later I was in Craig’s office in Hong Kong. And now, one week after that, in this hospital bed. How could we have anticipated which provinces and, therefore, all the different visas that I’d need?
I propped myself up again. “Where exactly?” I needed to be back in a position of power again, in the air above the playing field, not down in the gutter with the traders.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.” Craig hesitantly opened the case and pulled out a map, placed the tea tray next to my flowers on the side table, and unfolded it on my food tray.
“You’ve got my camera and night vision in that case?”
“And mounts for the wing struts, remote control, telephoto lens, everything.” Craig pointed to a river delta just south of the Chinese border between Vietnam and Guangxi, to the east of Yunnan Province. “A lot of ivory has been coming into China through Dongxing, the town that borders Vietnam, apparently.”
I tried not to seem too eager, but I was studying Craig’s index finger as it drew along a network of rivers.
He tapped his finger on the map. “Here, on the Ka Long River. The Chinese call it the Beilun. Apparently, there’s a lot of illegal trading right along the border where the river is really narrow, ten meters in some places.”
“Why would Nigel change his routing to a border crossing that everyone else is using?”
He pointed to the borders of Laos and Vietnam. “Nigel’s logic, I’m guessing, is that it’s easier to hide in plain sight along a common water route than it is to cross the treacherous mountains from Myanmar, which are under heavy surveillance.”
“There must be a lot of boats going across that border.”
“But it’s most likely the same boats. If we could get HINs of those that look suspicious, we could start tracking boats.”
“HIN? Is that the registration number?”
“Yes.” Craig nodded. “Hull Identification Number.”
I studied the map. “This river flows into the Gulf of Tonkin. Isn’t that where we launched airstrikes against North Vietnam?”
“Fortunately things have quieted down since the Vietnam War. There isn’t anything sensitive going on there now. But please don’t fly past the mouth of the river into the bay. We don’t want to spark an international incident with a trigger-happy soldier.”
My heart was racing as I looked at the map. “You get me out of here, book me a flight, make the arrangements on the ground, and I’m there.” I thought for a moment. “And I’ll need a new cellphone. Oh, and if you could get my clothes from my hotel room, that would be great. And maybe some energy bars.”
“Catherine, you’re mad.”
“That’s right, I forgot you hate the concept of energy bars.”
“No, all of it, you’re just plain bloody mad.”
I smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”