Lioness

by Nell Brien

  Without conscious thought, he took in the intruder’s size and height, judged the point of entry for the knife. On silent feet, he crossed to the door, waiting for something to tell him the position of the intruder. A breath of sound—a foot placed carelessly, a pebble dislodged—reached him.

  He slammed open the door. With one motion he had the dark figure backed hard against his chest, left forearm across the throat, right hand pressing the knife to the sternum. A quick upward push, and he would be holding a corpse.

  “Dan!” The voice was strangled. The man was careful not to move.

  “Jesus!” Campbell relinquished his hold. “Don’t you know better than to come creeping around here at night like that?” He was sweating. “You came bloody close to perdition.”

  Campbell closed the door, switched on an overhead light that threw the mounted heads crowding the walls into harsh focus. Animals, heads, horns, entire bodies of smaller creatures covered every available space, hung without much care, as if they’d been there so long no one noticed them anymore. Campbell tossed the knife back onto his desk.

  “What are you doing here tonight?”

  Stephen N’toya put a hand to his bruised throat. “Don’t you ever relax?”

  Without answering, Campbell went around the desk, opened the bottom drawer.

  “Something’s come up,” N’toya said. “We need to talk face-to-face. I thought it wouldn’t be wise to use the phone to call for an appointment.”

  “Sit down.” Campbell took a bottle of scotch from the drawer. “Want a drink?”

  N’toya massaged his throat. “Thanks.” He sat in the visitor’s chair across from Campbell’s desk, took the glass Campbell handed to him. “I saw Cat Stanton tonight.”

  Campbell grunted. “She gets around. I saw her this morning.”

  “So she said. You turned her down.”

  “I told her to go home.”

  “She’s not going to do that. What she is going to do is start asking a lot of questions. You are going to have to take her on this safari.”

  “The hell I am.”

  “Dan, listen. She’s going to stir up an ants’ nest if we allow her to poke around, looking for information about her brother’s death. She doesn’t believe that it was an accident.”

  “Stephen, I dealt with one Stanton, and that’s enough for me. Anyway, I don’t take women into the bush.”

  N’toya looked into his glass, swirled the liquid gently, raised the glass to his nose, inhaled the aroma of the single malt. He looked up. “That’s an old story, n’duga—”

  “And not your business.”

  “Until your past impacts our present—”

  “Stephen, stop. Right there.” Campbell’s voice was soft but lethal. “You are now way out of bounds.”

  N’toya let a moment pass before saying, “She says she is going to hire an outfit and retrace Joel’s route.”

  “Let her try. It’s wild country. Give her a week and she’ll be back in Nairobi eager to get on a plane to Beverly Hills.”

  “I don’t think so. I know her. If she says she is going to do it, she will.”

  Campbell got to his feet, went to the window. Through the trees he could see the house, its occupants sleeping safely in their beds. “She can’t know he died over the border.”

  “No, of course not. There’s no way she could know that.”

  The house and the trees had vanished from Campbell’s sight as another house, another time appeared in their stead. He could feel the trap closing. He was going to have to revisit a decision with roots almost two decades in the past.

  Without turning, he said, “What’s the news on that bastard Reitholder?”

  “He’s lying low, but the word’s going to reach him that she’s here. When it does, he’ll go looking for her. You know what he’ll do when he finds her.”

  Campbell did not reply. He knew only too well what Reitholder would do. He’d roast her men over a slow fire, and she’d die wishing that was all he’d done to her.

  “And he’ll leave her body for the scavengers,” Stephen said. “She’ll probably never be found.”

  “N’toya, that’s enough.” Campbell held himself very still. Another house, another time. “If you’ve said what you came to say, you know the way out.”

  “There is something else,” N’toya said.

  Campbell returned to his chair. He leaned back, propped his feet on the open drawer. His eyes never left N’toya’s face. “I’m listening.”

  “I’m picking up word of a load of ivory going down to the coast,” N’toya said. “I’m not yet sure when, or the route it will take, but it’s by far the biggest load in years. And you will never guess who’s behind it.” He looked at Campbell expectantly, waiting for his reaction.

  Campbell stared at him, then brought both feet to the floor and sat up. “General bloody Francis,” he said slowly.

  Stephen lifted his glass. “The very same. Is Tom here? He should hear this.”

  “Tom went home. We got back late this morning.”

  Stephen glanced at the bandage visible beneath Campbell’s rolled-up shirtsleeve. “You lose any men?”

  “Yes,” Campbell said. He did not elaborate.

  Stephen got up, wandered around the office, stopped in front of the head of a large kudu. He leaned forward to examine it. “Marxism being no longer the driving terrorist force it once was in Africa, funds from Francis’s usual sources have completely dried up. Even the Cubans have retired from the field. General Francis needs a large infusion of cash to keep his organization from collapsing.”

  “So he’s trading his ivory for what he can get.”

  “Our self-styled general still has fantasies of creating a Marxist paradise, but he needs cash. He’s going for broke.”

  “What about the Afrikaner Broederhood?” Campbell asked. “They’ve financed his poaching activities for years—they certainly won’t be standing aside while he dumps ivory onto the Hong Kong market.”

  “No, they’re not standing aside. Political destabilization is still their number-one priority, and they need large amounts of cash for that. They’ll have to recover what they’ve spent for recruiting, training, directing the actual killing operations, to say nothing of the concealment of the tusks. They are going to demand a massive return on their investment.”

  “So that means Reitholder will be watching Francis on behalf of his masters in Johannesburg.” Campbell gave a short grunt of unamused laughter. “Those bastards are going to go cross-eyed watching each other. Reitholder would sell his mother to a whorehouse for a fiver, but he won’t dare cross the Broederhood.” He thought for a moment. “If there’s as much ivory being moved as you say there is, it will be well protected. This is going to be a risky operation.” Campbell leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped, peaked forefingers to his chin. “Still, it’s too good to pass up.”

  “Then you’ll do it? You and your people will take the ivory in transit?”

  Campbell nodded. “Just find out the route and the time. We’ll do the rest.”

  “Good. That’s settled, then. We take out Reitholder and Francis, inflict some damage on the Broederhood. And we get the ivory.”

  “I like the we, Stephen. You planning on joining us on this one?”

  “Figure of speech. Anyway, that brings us back to Cat Stanton. She’s threatening to crash around Nairobi with her questions. If she reaches the wrong ears, we could find ourselves caught in a very dangerous spotlight, n’duga. Campbell Safaris cannot afford that.”

  Campbell picked up the hunting knife, turned it around in his fingers without speaking.

  Stephen went on. “Just get her out of Nairobi, keep her under your eye and get her the site she wants. Set her mind to rest about Joel’s accident, and she’s on her way home before all this starts.” He waited for Campbell to reply. When he did not, he stood, replaced his glass on the table. “Well, I’ll leave her to your conscience.”

  “She’s
in poor fucking company then.”

  “Good night, n’duga.” Stephen crossed to the door. He opened it, then turned. “Oh, and give my love to Morag.”

  The door closed behind him. Campbell replenished his glass with the single malt, raised it in salute to the head of a lion that occupied the center of the wall opposite the desk.

  “Poor fucking company, indeed,” he said.

  Six

  Cat tucked the telephone against her shoulder and picked pen, doodling absently. “So if we do come to an arrangement, Mr. Ward, when could we leave?” she asked.

  “Rather depends on you, Miss Stanton. Do you have all the documents required for travel close to the borders?” The voice of Brian Ward, Trackers, Ltd., was throaty.

  Cat stopped her pen abruptly without finishing the span of tiny horns, the triangular body, the stick legs of a cartoon buffalo, part of the herd Cat had drawn without noticing what she was doing.

  “No. I don’t have anything like that.”

  “Didn’t you make any arrangements at all before you left Los Angeles?”

  Cat restrained a spurt of irritation. “Of course we made arrangements, Mr. Ward. They just haven’t worked out.”

  “I understand, my dear. Heard what happened, don’t y’know. Well, least said, soonest mended, as the old saying goes.” He laughed, a short barking sound. “Just the same, you must have the proper documentation. That’s sensitive country, all those borders. Doesn’t do to tangle with the border chappies. Touchy blighters, some of them. Hold us up for ransom as soon as look at us. Now, if you’d let me show you a few nice spots with good road access, I think we’d find something to suit you.”

  “We’ve been over all this, Mr. Ward. Easy access is precisely what I am not looking for. As I say, I already know the route I want to take. I guess I’ll just have to get the paperwork that’s already been done.”

  She was beginning to regret her decision to go ahead with the appointment she had made with him on the phone yesterday, but it seemed prudent in case Stephen did not come through. After last night, she was not certain that he would.

  “Well, you could get them signed over, I suppose,” Ward said.

  “Signed over to me, you mean?”

  “No, no. To me. I would be in charge. Brian Ward, Trackers, Ltd.”

  “Yes, I’ve made a note of the name,” Cat said. He’d mentioned it several times. “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Ward.”

  “You do that, my dear.”

  Before hanging up, they made an appointment for that afternoon at three—he was willing to forgo his siesta, Ward said with a laugh, and her heart sank. She was not at all sure that he was joking. But even if she didn’t continue with Brian Ward, Trackers, Ltd., she would need whatever documents Dan Campbell had. She found his business card and dialed the number. He answered at the first ring.

  “Campbell.”

  “Cat Stanton, Mr. Campbell. I understand I will need the paperwork you have. I’d appreciate it if you would make whatever changes are necessary and send everything over to me at the hotel.”

  “Good morning, Miss Stanton. Have you signed another outfit for your safari?”

  “Not yet, but I’m talking to some people. I just need that paperwork.”

  “I can’t get away just now, but you have my address—”

  “Just send the file over by messenger.”

  “We need to talk, Miss Stanton. You have my address. It’s only ten minutes by cab.” He hung up.

  Astounded, Cat looked at the phone in her hand. She considered the idea of sending a messenger to the address on the card to pick up the documents, then dismissed it. He wanted to talk. Good. He could talk about Joel.

  The cabdriver stopped on what could have been a country road. Grass verges instead of sidewalks, the ground littered by fallen leaves. Ten minutes from downtown Nairobi, as Campbell had said, and a different world. Houses set back and glimpsed through thickets of shrubbery, the still air filled with the scent of the blue gum trees lining the road and the song of unfamiliar birds.

  Cat asked the female cabbie to wait—to her surprise a good number of the cabdrivers in Nairobi were women—and after a friendly negotiation, an agreement about the fare was reached. The woman brought out a battered magazine and settled down to wait.

  The driveway was a luminous green tunnel of flame trees. A small silver car blocked access to the back of the house. The building itself was a low rambling structure surrounded by a deep veranda with rattan chairs and glass-topped tables, fringes of crimson bougainvillea drifting from the roof.

  Cat mounted the steps, crossed the veranda to the carved front doors. She looked for a doorbell, but found only geckos clinging to the walls, raising and lowering themselves on tiny legs, reptilian athletes doing push-ups.

  “Hello,” she called. Her voice faded in the stillness.

  One of the doors was ajar. She pushed it open, called again with the same result, then stepped inside. The entry was large, with a dark, polished wooden floor, but it was filled with sunlight. A corridor to the left was lined with French doors into a garden and seemed to run the depth of the house. Cat hesitated, then crossed the hall to a wide arched doorway on the right.

  The room could have been in an English country house. Sofas piled with pillows in front of a fireplace filled with unlit logs. Chintz-covered armchairs, old oriental carpets.

  She called again. “Anyone home?”

  Only silence greeted her. A vibrant silence, as if someone had just left and the room was waiting. Feeling like an intruder into another woman’s life, Cat crossed the room to examine the silver-framed photographs on top of a closed grand piano. Sepia-toned pictures of men in uniform, many with large sweeping mustaches, veterans of colonial wars the United States had probably never even heard about. Young women of earlier generations, alone and with children, black and white alike dressed in shorts and not much else, squinting against the sun and grinning as they clung to the women’s skirts.

  Then the sound of voices shattered the silence—a woman’s voice first, raised in anger, then Campbell’s deeper tone, overpowering it.

  Cat put down the silver frame she had in her hand, crossed the room quickly, hoping to get out before she was discovered.

  A door slammed, the sound of heels drummed on the bare wooden floor. A woman emerged from the corridor. Sunlight caught silvery-blond hair, golden skin. Maybe in repose she would be lovely, but her face was twisted with rage.

  “Morag!” A door bounced against a wall and Campbell’s voice was a roar from the back of the house. “Don’t you run out on me.”

  “I hope you die,” she screamed back.

  Cat hovered, frozen in the doorway, caught between the living room and the front door. The young woman stormed across the entry, grabbed a bag on the hall stand as she passed, disappeared through the front door and slammed it behind her. From the end of the garden corridor, glass rattled in a French door as it, too, was hurled closed. The sound of an engine revving too high invaded the house, then faded rapidly as the car raced down the driveway.

  An uneasy silence descended.

  Uncertainly, Cat waited for a moment, then crept toward the front door.

  A soft female voice behind her said, “Jambo, memsahib.”

  Cat turned to find a stout African woman watching her. Her hair was cut close to a round head, revealing small delicate ears. She wore a dazzling green and orange dress, and was barefoot.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Cat said. “No one heard my knock. The door was open.”

  Unsmiling black eyes regarded her and Cat felt like an insect pinned to a board for scientific study. “I’m Cat Stanton,” she said. “I think Mr. Campbell is expecting me.”

  “You come, please. Bwana Dan is in the office.”

  The woman led the way along the corridor, opened a French door, its glass still intact. “Through the trees.” She pointed to a long, single-story building that appeared to be built of the same han
dmade red bricks used for the main house.

  The brick path, blue with fallen jacaranda blossoms, wound through trees under which flourished the carefully planned disorder of a traditional English garden, a riot of delphinium and daylilies and veronica. The scent of roses and lavender mingled with the smell of the blue gums outside.

  Cat was not sure what she had expected, but this civilized establishment was definitely not it.

  The office door was open, and Campbell rose to his feet and came from behind his desk, his hand outstretched in greeting. He was not smiling.

  “Jambo,” he said. “No trouble getting here, I see.”

  “Good morning.” Cat shook his hand briefly. He looked less worn than he had yesterday and was clean and combed, dressed in fresh khakis. But his was not an easy face. Straight heavy eyebrows, long narrow eyes, dark blue, with a fan of lines at the corners showing white against brown weathered skin. His hair was threaded liberally with silver. There was a grim, forbidding set to his mouth and jaw, but that was not surprising. He’d just been faced with a meltdown. A woman with guts, whoever she was, Cat thought. This was not a man who would take kindly to being crossed.

  Cat looked around. One wall was covered in photographs, the rest were crowded with trophies of the hunt. She expected the whole place to reek of death, but the shutters to the garden were open, and the office smelled surprisingly fresh.

  “Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable to work with all the creatures you’ve killed staring at you?”

  Campbell closed the door. “Not a bit. Should it?”

  Cat walked over to read the small plate below the head of a black-maned lion, muzzle wrinkled in a snarl, ferocious even in death. “‘December 23, 1899. Tsavo Station,”’ she read aloud. “‘Dan Campbell.”’ She looked at the man watching her. “Not one of yours, obviously.”

  “No. That chap’s a victim of my great-grandfather. Gave the old man no sport at all, you’ll be glad to know.” He studied the lion. “Bloody lazy hunter, not worth a moment of your enlightened sympathy. Acquired a taste for human meat, killed and ate forty men building the Tsavo railway before the old man was brought in to bag him.”