The Cull

by Tony Park

  ‘Well, hello, Hudson Brand, nice to hear from you and even better to see you.’

  She came to him and kissed him on the cheek. Hudson introduced Helen to Sonja.

  ‘First time in Africa, Sonja?’ Helen asked, mistaking her for a client and Hudson for a guide.

  ‘I was born in Namibia, grew up in Botswana,’ Sonja said.

  ‘That’s a no then,’ Helen said, still smiling.

  ‘We’re friends,’ Hudson said.

  ‘Up here on business or pleasure?’ Helen asked. She also knew of his sideline as a private investigator. ‘Sorry I didn’t have time to answer all your questions when you called; I was busy herding cats, i.e. my lovely clients.’

  ‘Join us for a drink?’ Hudson suggested. He signalled for a waiter.

  Helen looked back to her tourists. ‘The porter’s with them, so they should be fine. Sure.’ The waiter came and took their orders.

  ‘I’m glad we could meet, but when I called I didn’t expect it to be out here on the road,’ Hudson said.

  Helen sagged into the lounge. ‘To tell you the truth we had to let a few of our driver guides go. Our business has taken a hit lately.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ Hudson said.

  ‘Nas and I,’ she looked to Sonja, ‘Nas is my husband, well, we managed to get a concession from the government just outside the Serengeti, not far from Fort Ikoma. It’s a beautiful parcel of land and we set up a small tented camp there. It was prime real estate, but we ran into trouble. There were ivory poachers working the area and we did our best to track and catch some of them, but they were a violent crew. They held up one of our game viewers out in the bush and robbed all the tourists at gunpoint.’

  ‘That’s serious,’ Hudson said, feeling he was stating the obvious. It was the incident he had read about online.

  Helen nodded. ‘Yup. And bad for business once they all started talking on TripAdvisor. Our bookings nosedived and then, to make it worse, the poachers shot down a helicopter we had contracted to help us in our anti-poaching efforts. The cost of the chopper nearly broke us, and when it crashed the publicity that followed was the last nail in the coffin for us.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Helen,’ Hudson said.

  ‘It could have been worse,’ Helen said.

  ‘How so?’ Sonja asked.

  ‘Well, we managed to sell the lease on the concession to another operator. We didn’t want to – the person who bought it had been pressuring us for some time to sell – but in the end we had to and she made us a pretty good deal. Not quite as much as she was first offering, but it allowed us to keep the mobile safari business going.’

  ‘She?’ Sonja said, sipping her Klipdrift and Coke Zero.

  ‘Um,’ Helen said, ‘I might have said too much. Under the terms of the deal I’m not supposed to say who it was until the buyer goes public with the news.’

  ‘This mystery person wouldn’t have been a very rich British businesswoman, would she?’ Hudson asked.

  Helen looked to him. ‘Well, like I said, I can’t say, but, what the hell, if you ask around Arusha you’ll probably find out a certain chick with a double-barrelled name has been shopping for property in our part of Tanzania.’

  The duty manager came over to them, with a porter in tow. ‘Mr Brand, Miss Kurtz, Gregory here will show you to your room. Helen, sorry to interrupt, but one of your American tourists has a problem with her hair dryer.’

  Helen sighed. ‘Sorry, duty calls, guys. Maybe see you later?’

  ‘Sure,’ Hudson said as he and Sonja stood. Hudson looked to Sonja and saw she was thinking the same thing as him.

  *

  Julianne Clyde-Smith got up from the desk in the office of her camp in the Kuria Hills, in the north of the Serengeti, when she heard the game-viewer vehicle pull up outside.

  She walked out and felt the sun’s sting. She swatted away a tsetse fly before it could bite her; the loathsome insects followed the vehicles into camp but thankfully didn’t hang around too long. Rosie Appleton, the reporter, got down from the vehicle, and after she’d accepted a cold towel from one of the camp’s employees, Julianne approached her.

  ‘Hi, Rosie, I’m Julianne, nice to meet you.’

  Rosie gave a small laugh. ‘You’re probably one of the most recognisable businesswomen on the planet!’

  ‘Well, I’m just trying not to get under the feet of the people who actually do all the work around here.’ Julianne introduced Rosie to Amelia, the camp manager, who had followed her out. ‘Amelia can have someone show you to your room and we can chat later if you like.’

  ‘Well, you’re the reason I’m here,’ Rosie said, ‘so is now good for you?’

  ‘Sure,’ Julianne said. ‘That way you can go out on an afternoon drive if you wish.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  Julianne led Rosie through the reception area. ‘You’ll see that all of the accommodation and common areas here are canvas; it gives the feel of being in safari tents, but the framework is actually all made from recycled steel. If we had to dismantle this camp there’d be no footprint left.’

  ‘Very environmentally friendly.’

  ‘There’s a private dining room off the main area; I thought we could chat there.’

  ‘Sure.’

  They went past the well-stocked bar and Julianne pointed out a herd of zebra grazing just below the deck in front of the dining room. ‘They’re part of the migration, just passing through, but the grass is good up here in the hills, so they’re in no rush.’

  ‘Looks like just the right place to chill,’ Rosie said.

  ‘I love it here.’

  ‘I bet you do.’

  They went into the dining room, followed by a waiter.

  ‘I’ll have coffee, please, Samuel,’ Julianne said. ‘Rosie?’

  ‘Sure, same, thanks.’

  They sat in green canvas director’s chairs across from each other at a heavy, polished teak dining table.

  ‘I hear you don’t grant too many interviews,’ Rosie said.

  ‘I’m selective,’ Julianne said. ‘And mostly people want to talk to me about business matters, but as your magazine focuses on wildlife issues I was happy to agree to meet you. I’d rather talk about conservation than corporate takeovers any day.’

  Rosie set a digital voice recorder down on the table, checked that the red light was on, then took a notebook out of her leather satchel. Julianne regarded her. She was pretty, but those blue eyes had a hard edge to them. She was dressed for the bush, but in a practical rather than tourist style, in a denim skirt, leather sandals and a nicely fitting short-sleeved khaki shirt. Julianne knew from the file Paterson had prepared on the young journalist that Rosie was smart, probably straight – she had been seen having drinks with Sonja Kurtz’s sometime lover Hudson Brand – and tenacious as an investigative reporter. Her magazine’s exposé on abalone poaching and its links to Chinese triads had been picked up by national newspapers, television programs and online news services abroad. Rosie opened her notebook – she was also thorough, taking notes as a back-up in case her recorder failed.

  ‘So, Julianne, where did your love of Africa and interest in conservation begin?’

  Julianne knew media interviews could go one of two ways. Either the reporter began with a hard-hitting question to put the interviewee off balance, or, as in this case, the journalist started with an easy question to try and put the subject at ease and get them talking. Julianne was mildly disappointed; she’d prepared herself for a tougher approach.

  ‘I came to Africa twenty years ago on what was supposed to be a once in a lifetime safari holiday. It turned out to be anything but.’ Julianne had told the story so many times at wildlife fundraising events, interviews like this one, and at other public speaking engagements that she felt like she could retell it in her sleep. She carried on, honestl
y saying that it was hard to pinpoint what had hooked her about the continent and its wildlife. ‘I don’t know whether I was bitten by something, breathed something in or drank something, but this place, this Africa, got under my skin, like those wicked barbs on a buffalo thorn tree, and wrapped its tendrils around my heart and took hold.’

  Rosie nodded as she wrote, in Pitman shorthand, Julianne noted. The way she laid the notebook down told Julianne that Rosie assumed she could not decipher the strokes and dots on the page. If Rosie had done her homework she would have known that Julianne started work at eighteen as a personal assistant to a middle manager in a clothing factory after graduating from a secretarial college in the East End of London.

  ‘How far would you go to save an endangered species, such as the rhino, or to stop the illegal trade in elephant ivory?’

  That’s better, Julianne thought to herself, seeing Rosie’s interview strategy for what it was – starting off with the easy question and then switching tack fast, to keep the interviewee off balance. ‘I’d do, within the limits of the law, anything.’

  Rosie jotted down the answer then leaned back in her chair. ‘Good answer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Julianne asked. She was on guard, had been since the beginning of the interview, but she was here for the same reason that Rosie Appleton was – to find out how much the other woman knew and how best to use that information to her advantage.

  ‘You put the words “within the limits of the law” in the middle of your response so that I couldn’t simply cut your quote to read “I’d do anything”.’

  Julianne crossed her leg and placed her hands together in her lap. Rosie was right. ‘Well, I meant what I said.’

  Rosie took up her notebook again. ‘The laws regarding poaching differ greatly from country to country. In Zimbabwe and Botswana, for example, where you also operate lodges and run anti-poaching operations, there’s a shoot-to-kill policy. Anyone seen trespassing in a protected game reserve or national park and carrying a weapon can be shot on sight. Should this law be introduced in other African countries, such as South Africa and here in Tanzania?’

  ‘It’s not up to me to dictate to the various governments in whose countries I operate game lodges how they should make or enforce their laws. As I said before, I am prepared, within the limits of the law of the land, to do anything, and fund any program or initiative, that will protect Africa’s wildlife.’

  The waiter arrived with the coffee on a silver serving tray and offered to pour.

  ‘It’s fine, Samuel, I’ll take care of it.’ Julianne depressed the plunger and poured Rosie a cup. The simple ritual was, Julianne thought, like the bell in a prize fight. They each retreated to their corners. Round one was done. Time for round two. ‘I hear you’ve been asking around in South Africa about an organisation called the Scorpions?’

  ‘Hey,’ Rosie forced a little laugh. ‘I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions.’

  Julianne took up her cup and sipped some coffee. She knew, from countless business meetings and negotiations, that when one party was silent the other often felt the need to fill the void. Rosie might have been thinking the same thing because she also took some coffee and sat back, looking at her. If it was to be a battle of wills, Julianne had nothing to lose. After all, Rosie couldn’t very well go back to her editor, having landed an interview with Julianne Clyde-Smith, with only forty words’ worth of copy.

  After what seemed like a very long time, though perhaps was no more than a minute, Rosie set down her cup. ‘That was going to be my next question to you – what do you know about the Scorpions?’

  ‘I asked first,’ Julianne said.

  ‘You’re not going to give me anything until I tell you what I know, are you?’

  ‘You’re a very smart young woman, Rosie.’

  ‘All right, I’ll play along. There’s a tendency, based on history, to think of wildlife poaching as opportunistic, localised crime. Corrupt national parks rangers or politicians rape the lands they’re supposed to be protecting, evil Chinese and Vietnamese businessmen get poor Africans to put their lives on the line to smuggle out a few rhino horns or elephant tusks or pangolin or whatever. But it’s all a bit ad hoc.’

  Julianne sipped some more coffee, remaining silent.

  ‘But,’ Rosie continued, ‘up until now no one’s thought of illegal wildlife products in the same way as, say, drugs or human trafficking; that is, that it might be organised crime. I did a story on abalone smuggling in the Eastern Cape and found out that triads in Hong Kong and Shanghai were involved, but that they, too, were at war with another organised crime outfit fighting for control of the abalone market. That’s when I first heard the name “the Scorpions”.’

  ‘I read your article, and the follow-up stories in the rest of the media, though there was no mention of the Scorpions.’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘No, I left out the name of the rival organisation for two reasons. One, I only had it from a single source – he wasn’t the most reliable sea captain around and a bit of a drunk – and I couldn’t corroborate the name; and two, I didn’t want to let them know I was on their trail, at least not then.’

  Julianne smiled. She liked this smart, tenacious, pretty young thing. ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I’m getting ready to break the story. The Scorpions aren’t something out of a novel; they’re real. They operate like the mafia, with a sophisticated ranking system, and a series of what I describe as franchises. The local operators, in most cases poachers and kingpins who’ve been hunting in their own patches for years, now form part of a much bigger organisation. They’re benefitting from bigger markets and better support. The average foot-soldier in a Scorpions franchise has gone from being some desperately poor guy in ragged clothes carrying a rusty old bolt-action rifle to a well-trained, well-equipped, well-armed warrior. The Scorpions’ hierarchy provides support and expertise; I’m guessing there are ex-military people involved.’

  Julianne decided it was time to weigh in. ‘One more question from me.’

  Rosie pursed those pretty lips. ‘One more.’

  ‘Do you have any indication of where the top people in the Scorpions hail from?’

  ‘No. The temptation would be to think it’s someone or some organisation from the Far East. Asia is a big consumer of rhino horn, ivory, pangolin and other endangered species. But I don’t want to fall into racial stereotypes. The Chinese triads were at war with the Scorpions, and from what I could gather a couple of those groups, the Hong Kong guys and the ones from Shanghai, had joined forces to try and fight off the Scorpions. They lost. Seemed the Scorpions’ poachers were better armed, better organised and better led.’

  ‘Russia,’ Julianne said, then leaned back in her chair.

  Rosie made a note. ‘That’s it. One word? Is that all I get?’

  Julianne gave the younger woman her most charming smile. ‘No, you’ll get more. You strike me as the type of person who could get just about anything you want.’

  It was Rosie’s turn to be silent now, though she was looking back at Julianne in a slightly different way. She set her notebook down and twisted a lock of her hair in her finger while she waited.

  ‘Some of my anti-poaching operatives had a contact with a gang in Zimbabwe. You may have heard about it?’

  Rosie nodded, but didn’t say a word. She took up her pen and notebook again.

  ‘My people questioned one of the survivors of the . . . engagement . . . and found out they supplied ivory to a white man in Zambia who spoke Russian.’

  ‘You think the Scorpions are Russian mafia?’

  Julianne shrugged. ‘The weapon of choice of many poachers in Africa is the AK-47; there are hundreds of thousands of these rifles left over from the various liberation struggles, and armies that allow their guns to filter out into the black market. However, my teams are increasingly coming
across state-of-the-art Russian-made hardware – latest generation night vision goggles, brand-new heavy-calibre sniper rifles; body armour. This is the sort of stuff the militaries in countries such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Tanzania have on their Christmas wish lists. It’s expensive.’

  Rosie was scribbling furiously. She looked up. ‘The white Russian is a first for me.’

  Julianne entwined the fingers of her hands. ‘I can see the headline now.’

  Rosie looked her in the eye. ‘Give me a better headline.’

  ‘Ask me the right question and I will.’

  ‘The armies and national parks services of the countries in which you operate your safari camps are all aware of the Scorpions, even if they won’t go on the record. They can fight them, if they’re not in bed with them, but coordinating their efforts is a bureaucratic and political nightmare. You’re the one unifying force in the fight against poaching in these countries.’

  ‘Go on,’ Julianne said.

  ‘“Within the limits of the law”, are you, Julianne Clyde-Smith, at war with the Scorpions?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going to, within the limits of the law, destroy them.’

  Chapter 18

  Sonja Kurtz had never seen so many animals in one place. The Ngorongoro Crater was such a visual feast of wildlife she wasn’t sure whether the Serengeti, where they were heading next to meet up with Julianne Clyde-Smith and James Paterson, could better it.

  She and Hudson had stayed at the Lemala tented camp just inside the rim of the crater. The string of luxurious safari tents and a communal bar and dining area were located in a lush forest atop the high walls of the caldera, which Hudson said was the correct term for an inactive volcano.

  A prime benefit of the camp’s location was that it was close to the Lemala entry gate into the park below. This meant that when they entered the crater that morning, just after six as the sun was struggling up, they were one of the first three vehicles to make it to the floor. Hudson told her that further around the rim, where the main gate and most of the lodges were located, dozens of vehicles full of impatient tourists would be queuing to enter.