White Bone

by Ridley Pearson

  “No. Public Works. I am guessing.”

  “Do you have a way to know when she’s online? An alarm? A signal? Can you tell me who else, where else, she hacked? Raided. Whatever.”

  “No. Most people, yes, I can tell you all this. I can show you video calls or online order for escort. What I like about Grace Chu, she gave me none of that. She made me work.”

  Knox didn’t understand this techie world at all. Thankfully, Grace had come to it late. In her heart of hearts she believed she was still in Army Intelligence. She viewed accountants, of which she was one, as boring people and wanted nothing to do with that lifestyle.

  “If you know her name, you accessed her hotel account.” The words bubbled up, unbidden. He didn’t like this punk referring to Grace by name. “So you’ve hacked the hotel’s accounts. Many of the hotels, I’m thinking.”

  The punk didn’t contradict him.

  “You can show me her charges. Room service. The dates of her stays.”

  “I can tell you if she bought tampons in the gift shop.”

  “Shut your face.” Knox took a step forward. The kid reeled back. “Her accounts. Now.”

  The guy could type at superhuman speed; Knox waited less than five minutes.

  “Print it out,” Knox ordered. He kept his voice intentionally calm. “Now. I’m going to ask you again. Do you have ways of knowing when she comes online again?”

  The punk didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “I’m going to give you a local number. You will text it, if that happens. If you so much as think she might be online, I’m going to hear about it.”

  “Yes. Okay.”

  “Same thing if anyone attempts to hack the Ministry of Public Works.”

  “I can do that.”

  “If I have questions, I will reach you through the boy, Bishoppe. You’re to consider him me. Do you understand? You get rough with him, you get rough with me. You ignore him, you ignore me. Clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “The people who taught her that? They work for me. Do you understand? I’m telling you that within the hour, they will know you. Your digital fingerprint, or whatever you geeks call it. They will know your equipment. They will know your way. You run, I will find you.”

  “You tell them I will work for them.” The kid didn’t seem the least bit intimidated; his initial wave of panic had worn off.

  Knox collected the printout and stepped toward the door, hearing Bishoppe’s sandals hurry away from the other side. He’d been listening in.

  “You know, I might have recommended you if you weren’t holding back on me,” Knox said. “But you are.” As feeble as it felt, it was worth a try.

  As Knox pulled open the door, the guy called out. “I have messages. The kind they print out and slide under the door.” His finger traced the screen. “Reservation confirmed for Kibera tour. Who the fuck wants to tour Kibera?!” He added as an aside, “People pay for that? Then someone named Radcliffe confirmed a meeting at the Jockey Pub.”

  He scrolled down, by which point Knox was reading over his shoulder, heart pounding. He could see Grace reading these words in his mind’s eye, could hear her internal reactions. He knew her too well, he realized. She was on his brain. “Hotel transportation arranged . . . so on and so on . . .”

  “Print it, please.”

  “Here’s one: ‘The guest for whom you left a package is not registered with the hotel, nor has a reservation on file. We regret to inform you that it is strictly against hotel policy—’”

  The boy’s reading was slow. Knox took over. “‘—to hold items or luggage for third parties. Please see the concierge or the hotel manager for the return of your property. Regrettably, any such item will be destroyed after twenty-four hours of the issuance of this notice as per our security standards.’”

  It was signed by the hotel assistant manager, Clare Umford.

  20

  From the moment the sun had dimmed on the first day, Grace had worked feverishly to stay alive. Relying upon her military survival techniques and the Maasai lore provided by Olé, she sought first to keep the insects off and the animals away.

  “They are attracted to our human smell,” he’d said. “Fear causes us to sweat. Running causes us to sweat. From the moment we panic, we are telling the animals where we are and how desperate we are. Mosquitoes can smell humans as far away as fifty meters. They are attracted to carbon dioxide. Some people give off much more of this than others. Maasai wear very little clothing, because clothing holds scent. The animals are put off by the dung and urine of other animals—it is how many of them declare territory. In the bush, Maasai cover ourselves with dung to disguise our human smell.”

  “Perfume,” Grace had mused.

  “If you will. Yes. Just that.”

  Now, despite her reluctance, she stripped. As she shed her clothing, she recognized an opportunity. She could use her clothes to stage evidence of her death. If Leebo or others returned in an attempt to confirm her death, she would leave them what they wanted. It was something she hadn’t considered previously, and it filled her with purpose.

  Working fast, Grace tore and shredded her clothes, laying them across the ground, dragging pieces into the bushes. In doing so, she told a story. Animals were certain to investigate, perhaps even fight over the remnants. She used sticks to break up the crusted sand, making what might pass for a freshly contested battleground between animals and a desperate woman.

  Let them use their imagination, she thought.

  Shivering from chill, embarrassment and the fear that accompanied her nakedness, she went the final step and removed her underwear, straining to rip them apart. Arms crossed, tears threatening, she stood in place for several minutes, unable to move. Then, finally, she trudged over to the waiting piles of dung.

  The moment came, the moment when she had to dig through the crust of each for the moist, grassy manure within. It was cold, sloppy and horrible-smelling, and it took a good bit of courage to smear it over her limbs. Bugs buzzed around her head. She smeared the foul paste under her arms, over her legs and between her buttocks, onto her neck, chest and belly.

  When it came time to spread the horrible stuff onto her face she was crying, her stomach heaving.

  But as she rubbed it into her skin, she felt something change. She was aboriginal. Old. Maasai. Olé’s teachings came flooding back. Edible plants and grasses. Tools. Weapons. Poisons. Water sources. Navigation.

  She kept her high hiking boots on. No amount of risk was going to make her go barefoot. She packed the dung onto and over the boots. She finger-combed dung through her hair. Feeling light-headed, she broke a thin branch from a prickly bush and snapped off enough of the thorns to hold it. Three feet in length, it gave her a dangerous whip with which to defend herself.

  The trick with the bugs was to move, and keep moving. She considered the best vantage point from which to watch for her abductor’s return. She pushed away despair, invited anger.

  This spot of torn clothes was her “kill zone.” From here, she would establish a pattern as she searched for the abandoned vehicle, working outward in a spiral. If out there, it would be several kilometers away; it would tell its own fiction. She could search while keeping the kill zone as a center point. She had a plan, a mission.

  When her killer returned, she would attack him, wound him and leave him to the elements. Quid pro quo. She set this as a priority. Aware that the mental and emotional toll would be her biggest challenge, she braced for the unexpected, told herself to take failure as motivation, setbacks as lessons.

  Start small, she thought. Stay alive one more hour. Keep to the plan at hand. Walk. Bigger ambitions would have to wait.

  21

  Knox was heading to the front desk to ask after the assistant manager when his phone buzzed. His mood changed instantly; he imagined Dulwich calling to say Grace ha
d been found, alive and well. Gone to ground just as expected. That she was asking after him, wondering what had taken him so long. He viewed the screen.

  Not safe. Gather belongings. Side doors. Five minutes.

  He casually raised his head, still walking. Maya Vladistok, phone in hand, offered a sideways glance. A uniformed policeman, an officer, was staring at his mobile phone, head down, seemingly engrossed. Knox took the stairs and walked the lobby balcony to reach his room. He never unpacked; lived out of his duffel. Packing amounted to collecting his toiletries, putting his Dopp kit into the duffel, and zipping it up. He was wiping down the room when a knock on the door startled him.

  “Police.”

  The only way out was the door—or to break a window with the desk chair and bail out from three stories up.

  “Mr. Knox, you will please open the door?”

  The cop knew his name. Not good. Knox checked the peephole. He recognized the sergeant from the lobby. The policeman had been waiting for him. Alone. An arrest would typically involve patrolmen, not a sergeant. Either he wanted only to speak to Knox, or Knox was about to learn firsthand about the Kenyan corruption he’d been hearing about. He moved the equivalent of a hundred dollars in cash into his right pocket.

  “How can I help you, officer?” he shouted as he considered the window. He carried one hundred feet of AmSteel rope in his bag; about the thickness of a shoelace, its nearly five-thousand-pound tensile strength was more than enough to support his rappelling.

  Forced to make a split-second decision, he elected not to run. He unlocked and opened the door. Took a bathroom towel and dropped it to the floor to prop the door open. Before the sergeant asked, Knox was already presenting his passport.

  The sergeant was black-skinned, round-faced and forbearing in his examination.

  “It’s your visa, Mr. Knox, that’s the problem,” he said.

  Knox waited. Nothing about this was right. Cops didn’t chase down bad visas. Sergeants didn’t make hotel calls. Knox’s visa was standard issue. No wonder Maya had tried to warn him.

  “Your visa was executed at the airport?”

  Here it comes, he thought, wondering if a hundred dollars would be enough. “Yes. Of course. The stamp is right there. Issued upon entry, just like everyone else’s. It cost me fifty U.S. dollars, cash. The exit document’s right there. It’s all in order.”

  “It’s not right, I’m afraid. You will need to leave the country.”

  “What? Why?”

  “This visa was issued incorrectly. You will need to apply for a tourist visa once you land. At the granting of that visa, you may return to Kenya.”

  “I just got here. My visa’s good. What’s wrong with the paperwork?”

  “Please collect your things. You will come with me.”

  “Please check that you have the right John Knox. It’s a common enough name.”

  “There is no mistake. I apologize. It’s a clerical error. You are not alone in this.”

  “Obviously, there is. Look,” he said carefully, “if it’s a matter of the funds not being properly recorded, maybe this can be worked out between the two of us.” Knox took a step closer, his hand slipping into his pants pocket. “I’d just as soon handle it here as have to go across town to an office and stand in line.” He found the man’s recessed eyes off-putting.

  “You will collect your belongings. There is a British Airways flight three hours from now. You will be on it.”

  “Are you sure we can’t work this out?” Knox produced the wad of shillings.

  “Any attempt to bribe a public official results in a mandatory six months. Are you sure that’s the way you want to go, Mr. Knox?”

  “Perhaps I got the amount incorrect?”

  “Second warning. There will not be a third.”

  “Then I suppose we’ll have to settle this at the U.S. Embassy,” Knox said. “If you wish to meet me there, you are invited to do so.” Knox returned the man’s cold stare. “I will leave the country only if advised to do so by my embassy.”

  “There is no room for negotiation, Mr. Knox. There will be no trip to your embassy.” The sergeant lumbered forward, snatched Knox’s small duffel and turned for the door. Knox smelled bitter sweat. “Your paperwork is incomplete and can only be corrected at a consulate or embassy out of the country. You will be coming with me whether by choice or by force.”

  You and who else? Knox wanted to say. Mixing it up with a cop, even a corrupt cop, was a bad idea. The window was the better choice, after all. “I will call my embassy. You will wait outside, please.” Knox removed his phone slowly from his pocket, so it could not be mistaken for a weapon. He showed him his phone. “To be fair, sergeant, you may wish to know that I am recording our conversation to the voicemail of my lawyer. Your badge number is 9527. No matter what you do to me or my phone, there is no undoing this recording. If you’d like to reconsider your refusing me access to my embassy—the United States Embassy—now is your chance.” He waited, expecting more of a reaction. The sergeant stared ahead stoically, almost comically unimpressed.

  “Call whomever you like. You’re coming with me. Now, please.” He gripped Knox’s bag more tightly. Most of what Knox needed was zipped into the many interior pockets of his travel jacket, but if the man kept his bag there would be the discovery of the go-bag and other circumstantial evidence that might require explaining.

  Maya Vladistok appeared in the doorway then, a step behind the policeman, who turned to account for her. Her eyes were frantic; her breathing revealed she’d hurried.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded.

  “It’s nothing, sweetheart,” Knox said, trying to cover for her. “A misunderstanding about my visa.”

  “I know you,” the sergeant said to Vladistok. Addressing Knox, he spoke condescendingly. “This is the attorney you called? I should have figured as much.” He spoke to Vladistok. “You’re lucky I don’t arrest you.”

  “How will your captain feel about such publicity?” Vladistok said, clearly unintimidated.

  The sergeant’s confidence lessened as he turned and backed up a step in order to keep both Vladistok and Knox in sight.

  “Her? No,” Knox said. “The attorney I called is in England. This woman is my . . . friend. A close friend, if you understand. That’s all.”

  Vladistok appeared to consider speaking for herself, but Knox gave a slight shake of the head. “I’ll catch up with you later, sweetheart.”

  She refused the role. “What seems to be the problem, officer? You claim to know me, but I don’t know you. If you know of me, well, that’s different. Then you know how good I am at what I do, and that I’m very well connected. Including within the police department. Yes? Which precinct are you with? Allow me to make a call, which is within this man’s rights.”

  “He’ll be coming with me. And if you attempt to interfere with my performance of duty, we both know where that gets you.”

  “Sweetheart,” Knox said more deliberately, “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  The officer turned to Maya, his tone condescending. “You make any calls and it’s just going to make things harder on him.”

  Maya moved past the policeman and into the hall. “Well, let’s just see, shall we?” She pulled a mobile out of her purse. “You wait here,” she said to Knox. “Don’t go anywhere just yet.”

  She dialed the phone and placed it to her ear, walking out of sight. The policeman backed out of the hotel room, never taking his eyes off Knox. “Come back here!” he called nervously down the hall while his attention remained fixed on Knox.

  Knox heard it before the sergeant. Wheels moving quickly behind a rattle. The sergeant never saw the baggage cart. He turned his head in its direction, but too late. The cart carried a young European boy, sitting on its empty platform, holding the sides like he was riding a sled.
Two older teenage boys were pushing hard from behind. They had the thing really moving.

  The thud of the collision, the whoosh of expelled air, the call of high young voices and the trampling of light feet as the teenagers hurried away mixed with the casual sounds of the lobby below. Then, what seemed like an eternity later, a telling thud was followed by a hush as the lobby went chillingly silent. This silence was shattered by high-pitched screams.

  Knox hurried out of the room. His duffel lay on the tile by the banister. He peered over and down into the lobby. The sergeant lay in a crippled, ungainly, inhuman form, blood splatter surrounding him, a pool of it around his head like a crown.

  A woman looked up and pointed.

  “There! Him!”

  Heads snapped up, took in Knox leaning out over the rail.

  The same woman shouted, “You!”

  22

  Knox stepped back, mind reeling. He grabbed his duffel and headed for the fire stairs, descending two at a time.

  He considered hotel security barely a step above the Boy Scouts. Their reaction time would be slow. They’d take elevators. Knox reached ground level, punched through an alarmed door to the outside. A side door, as Maya had suggested.

  Keeping his head down, he turned left, away from the front entrance. He used the windows as mirrors. Walked fast, but did not run. He slipped his arms through the straps and slung the duffel on as a backpack.

  He thought of Grace and what a mess he was making of this.

  When a woman spoke as she passed, he nearly missed it.

  “Government Lane, River Road, Koja stage.” He repeated what he’d heard in order to remember it. Glancing behind him, he saw Vladistok’s back. She did not slow, did not break stride. She had given Knox the one chance to hear her, and no more.

  Already working his phone’s map, he cut between parked cars and dodged moving vehicles to cross. Reaching the opposite sidewalk, he reversed direction and paralleled Maya, now a half-block ahead. Wedged into hundreds of Kenyans, a full head taller, Knox hunched his shoulders, shrank down in order to make less of a spectacle.