The End of a Lie (The Amy Mohr Chronicles Book 1)

by M A Moore

  The End of a Lie

  by M. A. Moore

  I want to thank my traveling companion, DEP, for her never ending thirst for adventure and my African tour manager who inspired me with his love of country.

  Copyright 2016 © by Mary Anne Moore

  Although the places depicted in this book are real as are some historical figures mentioned, the characters and events are not. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  The end of a lie is grief. –an old African proverb

  Adobe buildings lay crumbled around her. The narrow streets restricted any breath of fresh air. Beads of sweat dripped from the tips of her hair. He was late. She was impatient.

  He stepped from the shadows.

  “Has encontrado tu camino,” he whispered.

  “English, please,” Amy responded. The heaviness of the night clung like a shroud. Salsa music wafted in a tepid breeze, but the revelers were a distant reminder of where she was not.

  “As you wish,” he replied. He moved closer. The odor of sweat and his unwashed body assaulted her senses. She suppressed the impulse to step away from him. She would not be intimidated.

  “Where is he?”

  “At a hacienda not far from town.”

  “You can get me there?”

  The man nodded, his eyes lost in the slivers of moonlight and blackness that disguised them both. “I have a car waiting.”

  He turned and disappeared in the dark alley. Amy kept close behind, her weapons hidden but within easy reach. They drove in silence. He navigated without headlights and soon they maneuvered without roads through badly maintained rows of sugar cane. It took less than an hour.

  “He is up ahead. I wait for you here.”

  She smelled the deceit in his sweat. She did not trust this man.

  Amy exited the vehicle. She shivered inside despite the heat. The walled compound was not far. A few lights shone within. The first quarter moon was the only other illumination. She kept low heading for the large persimmon tree near the wall. Stephen waited there for her.

  She crept up beside him.

  “Our target is confirmed?” she whispered. Her heart beat fast. She took two calming breaths to slow the adrenaline rush that came too soon.

  “He’s in a storage building,” he replied. “At the far end of the complex.”

  “How are we getting in?”

  Stephen looked up at the massive persimmon tree that towered above them. Its limbs hung low on either side of the wall.

  “If he is injured how do we get him out?”

  “You worry too much, Amy.”

  Amy shrugged to dissipate the nervous energy inside her. “Guards?”

  “Two that patrol the perimeter within.”

  “When do we move?”

  “Soon. I arranged a diversion to distract them.”

  They hunkered down to wait –a companionable silence with their shoulders touching. Stephen chanted a Sanskrit prayer she did not recognize. Amy took long slow breaths to calm herself.

  It was time. Stephen’s deep brown eyes focused on her sapphire orbs that did not blink. An ominous shiver passed through her. “I’ll always be here for you, Amy,” he whispered.

  Stephen was not a large man, nor was he young. But years of yoga training had given him strength beyond what appearances would predict. He gave Amy a leg up to the lowest branch and pulled himself up beside her. They crawled to the other side of the wall where Stephen attached a rope with evenly spaced knots and let it hang down. Her eyes questioned him.

  “To facilitate our escape. Ready?” His eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

  Amy nodded.

  Stephen extracted the cell phone from his pocket and pushed send. Small explosions rocked the far end of the enclave. The guards ran to investigate. Amy and Stephen dropped down from their perch and headed to the storage shed. Amy drew her gun. There was no lock on the door. Stephen opened it. The buzz of flies and the stench of rotting flesh overwhelmed them.

  Dogs barked in the distance. Amy’s heart raced as if to burst from her chest.

  “Run!” Stephen commanded.

  They ran for the wall. Towards the rope and escape. The dogs were close now. Stephen tripped and landed hard on his knees.

  “Give me your gun!” he ordered. Amy moved to help him up.

  “Go, Amy. Don’t look back!”

  She climbed –adrenaline fueling the panic that threatened to engulf her. Half way up she heard gun shots and risked a glimpse in Stephen’s direction. A low growl raised the hackles on her neck. She looked own. A Doberman leapt and caught her thigh ripping through her trousers. With her other foot she kicked him away and pulled herself over the wall.

  Breathing hard she reached the rendezvous point but no car waited. Blood oozed slowly from her leg. She considered returning to him. The enclave was fully lit now, but no one came in pursuit. She took her knife from the sheath strapped to her calf and cut the cloth from her wound. It was not deep, but it would leave a scar.

  She made her way back to Cartagena’s port. A boat waited to take to her to the plane and on to Trinidad. They were expecting three. She had no answers. They patched her up and fed her bloody clothes to the sharks. She stood at the railing and stared out into the Caribbean as the sun rose over the horizon.

  Chapter 2

  “South Africa’s government in Pretoria has approved the relocation of rhinos out of Kruger National Park to secret locations across all of southern Africa to combat a surge in poaching”. -From a government news release

  The bar just outside of the north Parfuri Gate of Kruger National Park didn't pride itself on cleanliness, and the beer wasn’t cold, and Nathan Reynolds fit right in. At midday there weren’t many customers. The thatched roof and boards attached to a bamboo frame leaked in humid air through the gaps. A pair of ceiling fans gave the impression of a sultry breeze. Square wooden tables sported burn marks from forgotten cigarettes and water rings from drinks left too long. Reynolds hadn’t changed his clothes in over a week and he smelled like it. He was on his second beer when he pulled out a pack of Winfields and had his first cigarette of the day. He held the sweet mixture of nicotine and tobacco in his lungs for a few moments before exhaling.

  The strings of beads that served as a door moved aside. As the man walked in, Reynolds noticed the bartender leaving around the back.

  “Those things will kill you.” The man addressed the smoke-filled space above Reynolds’ head.

  “Something else will get me first, I imagine,” Reynolds replied with edgy annoyance. He turned to face the tall, thin black man. From Kenya with at least a bit of Masai blood by the looks of him, Nathan surmised. His shirt and well-ironed trousers were too formal for this place.

  “May I sit down?” the man asked in impeccable British English.

  “Pull up a chair. I was expecting you.” The lone remaining patron dozing at the bar decided it was time to leave, and he staggered out through the door of beads.

  “Mr. Reynolds, an associate of mine tells me you handle certain merchandise in the area.”

  “Does this associate have a name?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Reynolds took a last drag on his cigarette, crushed the butt on the dirt floor of the bar, and considered lighting up another. “No,” Reynolds replied turning his head to look into the other man’s face.

  “I seek ivory, Mr. Reynolds, and I have heard that you are good at procuring it.”

  “Maybe a few rhino horn too?” Reynolds added with a trace of detached sarcasm.

  “No. I am not interested in rhino horn this t
rip. My employer only wants ivory. We wish to know your terms, and delivery specifications.”

  “I can deliver anything you desire. The particulars depend upon you.”

  “Explain.”

  “How much ivory do you want and how much are you willing to spend?”

  “Cost per item?” The black man contained his irritation with difficulty.

  “$5,000 USD each tusk, payment up front, delivery within forty-eight hours.” Reynolds knew that a good-sized elephant tusk would go for triple that on the Asian market. The Chinese were a wealthy people right now, and they vied with competitors from Viet Nam, Korea, and Thailand for the limited supply.

  The black man in the pressed trousers did not blink at the price. “I am curious, Mr. Reynolds. Why do you bother with middle men such as myself when you could make a bigger profit if you sold direct.”

  “The story is a long one, and it’s not any of your business. Do you want the merchandise or not?”

  The black man took offense at Reynolds’ tone. “Yes,” he replied, nostrils flared.

  “Have the payment wired here within the next two hours.” Reynolds pulled a crumpled slip of paper out of his shirt pocket and handed it to the man sitting across from him. On it were two strings of digits: a mobile phone contact and an account number.

  “You haven’t asked how many I want.”

  “I can supply as many as you can afford. I will text delivery location and time when I receive confirmation of payment.”

  The black man stood up, pulled a card from his pocket, and handed it to Reynolds. “You can reach me at this number for the next twenty-four hours. “ He sneered with an air of superiority at the shabby surroundings and left the bar. Nathan Reynolds lit up another cigarette.

  ----------------------------------------------------

  Reynolds returned to his bush camp inside a remote corner of Kruger Park. Kruger is the premier game park of South Africa. Located in the northeast section of the country adjacent to Mozambique along the eastern edge and touching Zimbabwe on the northern tip. It has an abundance of wildlife. This makes it a prime target for poachers wishing to collect ivory and other exotic goods. A few dollars often turned a border guard blind to contraband headed to the Indian Ocean for easy shipment to markets in Asia.

  The rainy season began early this year, but the rains were light –not a good omen for farmers. Most of his team’s gear sat under cover -more to keep out prying eyes than precipitation. Three men shaded by a tarp to thwart a brutal sun played cards. They sat on camp chairs using an upturned crate as a table. They looked up at Reynolds as he approached.

  “The bastard showed up?” the black man in the baseball cap inquired as he placed his four queens face up.

  “Wired $150,000 U.S. to the account a half hour ago.” Reynolds almost purred.

  The two white men playing poker threw their cards down in defeat. Jeffrey, the one in the faded green camp shirt spoke up, “About time we got some positive cash flow here. Supplies are low, and we need to get transmission work done on one of the jeeps. “

  The black man in the baseball cap stood up, pocketing his winnings. “Our agents will pick him and his associates up when they collect the merchandise.”

  Paul was the other member of Reynolds’ team. He was small, almost effeminate in his gestures, but he pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up higher on his nose and looked up at his colleagues. “We don’t want them to connect us with this operation. Last time things were a little too close for comfort.”

  The black man in the baseball cap reconsidered his previous answer. “We’ll wait until they reach the coast and load up the merchandise on boats. That should be far enough away to avoid suspicion.”

  Reynolds was in a very good mood. “Excellent. Now that we have some cash in the account let’s go for the bastards at the other end of this supply line.”

  Paul was incredulous. “You mean the terrorist-backed poachers operating south of here? “

  The black man in the baseball cap looked at Reynolds, “I thought you lost them a few weeks ago.”

  “We located them again thanks to Mavis.” Reynolds replied.

  The man in the baseball cap's smile filled his face showing brilliant white teeth. One could imagine that at night they almost glowed against his dark brown skin.

  Poaching in Kruger Park is the bane of South Africa's wildlife conservationists. Elephants and rhinos were the most common targets. In 2012 close to seven hundred mutilated rhino corpses rotted in the remote regions of the park. If reports were correct more than two animals had their horns hacked off every day just in Kruger.

  Elephants hadn’t done much better. At the turn of the twentieth century several million pachyderms roamed Africa. Now the most optimistic counts numbered less than three quarters of a million. Twenty-three tons of ivory were confiscated in 2011 from twenty-five hundred elephants. Illegal wildlife trade was filling the coffers of various affiliated terrorist cells to support their training camps and provide funds to launch operations all over Africa.

  Who was supplying the arms to these groups was less clear, but Reynolds and his team had been responsible for removing some of the Asian market middlemen the poachers from Kruger needed. They were bolder now and used more technology to collect their booty. They had helicopters to chase down elephants, and they killed entire herds with hand grenades before going in to take the tusks.

  Several groups, not all of them based in South Africa, believed that wildlife tourism was the only way to save the animals of Africa. Without it, they argued, they might just as well turn them over to the poachers and give up trying to preserve them. The carnage left behind was devastating. But with one decent- sized pair of elephant’s tusks, a measly ten kilograms of ivory, selling for $30,000 USD, the temptation was difficult to resist for a man who couldn’t feed his family on the salary he made. That is if he even had a job that brought him an earned income.

  The poaching game had two sets of competing players: the organized terrorist groups who had the means to wreck massive destruction on the herds and the small-time poacher who killed one or two animals when need demanded to keep his children from living in abject poverty.

  Reynolds had some sympathy for the latter. But he thoroughly despised the former. That’s why he was here. He had grown up in South Africa, but his parents fled to England in the nineties in fear of the end of apartheid. He was only in his teens then, and he had no choice but to go with them. He got an engineering degree in the UK and came back six years later to the country he loved to help save the animals.

  The black man in the baseball cap shook Reynolds’ hand and prepared to leave. They had worked together before and respected each other’s talents. Reynolds watched as David Como got in his jeep and left.

  Paul stood in front of Reynolds and his indignation could not be contained. “We don’t have the manpower or the equipment to handle professional terrorists. Do you intend to get us all killed?”

  “I know it would be foolish to attack their camp, Paul. I just want to give Como and his organization enough information to do what we can't.” Reynolds was defensive. He turned away and left Paul fuming where he stood. Jeffrey shrugged his shoulders when Paul looked to him for support.

  Reynolds knew Paul was right. They didn’t have the ability to go after the rebel outpost, but he felt so damned helpless when it came to these butchers who were ruining what Reynolds considered the most important natural resource the country had. He walked over to one of the tarps and threw it aside. He smiled like a father gazing at an adored child. Mavis, the micro-drone the team had used to find the poachers’ camp two days earlier, sat in front of him. Reynolds looked at her with undisguised affection.

  Kruger Park is large. It covers an area about the size of Israel. Government funds are too limited to pay for patrols for the whole park. The wealth of wildlife and the lack of armed resistance make it a haven for organized poachers. Reynolds studied MAV -micro aerial vehicle -technology during his c
ollege years in Europe. These drones were quiet compared to other small radio-controlled aircraft and they could carry a camera that would send data back to a ground-based station. Mavis was autonomous, meaning that her flight did not need constant supervision. Reynolds had perfected an interface that got Mavis to fly a hundred meters or less above the plains and relay information back with the location of endangered herds. She could also spot areas of suspicious human behavior.

  This technology could make poachers more efficient, but it was still squirrelly and required trained expertise to keep it running. Paul was a genius when it came to software design. Jeffrey handled most things mechanical, but Mavis was Reynolds’ baby. He had a knack for understanding her limitations, and he pushed passed them with every innovation he tried. Mavis was a third-generation MAV. Version one had died at the talons of a fish eagle who thought she was dinner. Mavis was slow and less than fifteen centimeters wide. At a distance it was easy to think she was a clumsy bird in flight. Reynolds had invaded the raptor’s nest to retrieve the camera from the mangled body of MAV1. MAV2 was just lost. They had a vague idea where, but a search of the area didn’t find her. MAV3, whom they had nicknamed Mavis, was Reynolds’ latest darling. By luck she had located the first poacher enclave, but that success had gotten Reynolds funding to continue his work and the support of international animal rights organizations.

  She also let him put a few of the local middlemen dealing in ivory out of business. Reynolds wasn't concerned about the personal danger. He could be reckless at times and neither Paul nor Jeffrey had any control over him when he got an idea into his head. So far the dealers in contraband animal parts had not linked Reynolds or his team to official raids at drop points. But that was due to luck rather than careful planning. In reality he knew his luck would not hold forever. Getting the ivory out of the country had always been a precarious business. The government had secret stockpiles of ivory and rhino horn confiscated from poachers. Policy demanded its destruction. Many considered this a waste of valuable resources. Why destroy a powerful lure that could entrap greedy merchants? Or better yet, sell the contraband themselves to agents in the black market. Where that money would end up was a sore point for Reynolds.