by Brady Hammes
Edwin went on to explain how he’d channeled his frustration into what became his first undercover operation. He arranged a meeting with a local poacher looking to unload six elephant tusks. Edwin fixed a hidden camera to his backpack and met the poacher at a hotel in Libreville, where he was presented with the product. He told the poacher he would meet him there the next day with the money, then went back to the police chief and showed him the video, demanding that he do something about it. The chief finally relented and assigned two of his officers to go with Edwin to arrest the man. The guy ended up only serving six months in prison, but the operation proved a moral success, giving Edwin the confidence to press forward.
“Then what?” Jonah asked.
“We secured seed money from donors back in London,” Edwin continued. “And I recruited a recent Cambridge graduate to act as a legal advisor. People started taking notice. Turns out there are a lot of young people disillusioned with the ‘air-conditioned apathy’ of traditional NGOs. We have an aggressive approach here at ECTF, one that doesn’t always sit well with other conservancy organizations, but I think our results speak for themselves. We currently have investigations underway in four West African nations, but this is the largest and most pressing. I can’t get into the details, but we have reason to believe that if we’re able to nab Slinky, then Osman and other key members of the trafficking ring will soon follow.”
* * *
—
THEY ARRIVED AT JONAH’S camp shortly after midnight. He pitched his tent, while Edwin and his team set up a separate camp a quarter mile down the trail. Sleep was useless, and Jonah spent most of the night contemplating the consequences of his errors. His mother used to talk about the dark hours she spent lying awake, fretting over her children, and Jonah finally understood what she was talking about. It was a terrible thing not knowing. It was a terrible thing to let a mind wander unleashed through the catacombs of possibility, because it somehow, invariably, always found its way to the thing it feared most.
When he was a kid, his mom used to read to him from a book of children’s Bible stories. His favorite was an elementary retelling of the Book of Jonah. He liked to imagine himself as Jonah, the rebel who instead of going to Nineveh to tell everyone to stop being bad, defies God and gets on a boat with a bunch of sailors and ends up being swallowed by a whale and spending days thrashing around inside its belly. And that’s how he felt now, trapped inside a prison of his own making. But in the Bible, the whale spits Jonah out after three days, and he more or less gets on with life. He remembered his mom explaining the moral of the story, which had something to do with obedience and how good people sometimes do bad things, but that God forgives all. It seemed reasonable as a five-year-old, but now, almost twenty-six years later, he wasn’t so sure. Despite his Catholic upbringing, he’d fallen away from the church in recent years, but with nothing left to comfort him, he folded his hands, looked to the canvas ceiling of his tent, and prayed for a peaceful resolution, for the safe return of his brother and sister, for a salvation he probably didn’t deserve.
GAVIN
HE AWOKE WITH A CAT next to his head, a feral-looking calico that glared at him as if demanding an explanation for his presence. He swatted it away and watched it leap onto a table, where it folded itself into a ball. He stood and stretched, his neck stiff from sleeping facedown in a nest of blankets on the floor. He went to the bathroom and removed his shirt and tried to inspect the large bandage covering the burns. He washed his face in the sink, then walked to Laurent’s office, where Sam was still sleeping. He had offered her the couch, a flourish of generosity he now regretted. It had been impossibly dark when they’d arrived, but now, as he made his way outside, the village revealed itself.
The sun was making a slow climb over the surrounding forest, stippling the land with fragmented light. A teenager piloting a bicycle draped with bananas passed by, and he watched a woman grilling something over an oil drum. He wanted to call his brother, but his cellphone had disappeared in the explosion. The early morning stillness offered a moment of clarity, a chance to reflect upon his situation, which, he concluded very quickly, was fucked. He felt panicked not knowing where he was, the way he used to feel waking up in the bed of a strange woman after a night of heavy drinking. Standing on Laurent’s porch, in his boxer shorts, somewhere in West Africa, his thoughts narrowed to how he might escape. He went back inside and shook Sam awake.
“What?” she said, surfacing from sleep.
“Get up,” Gavin said. “We need to get moving.”
“Is Jonah here?”
“That’s what we need to figure out.”
Gavin walked back outside, where he saw Laurent hobbling down the road on a pair of crutches, smiling despite his new handicap.
“Good morning, friend,” Laurent called. “You sleep well?” Standing next to Laurent was a slightly younger man balancing a tray of fruit. “We brought some breakfast. You like mangoes?”
“Thanks,” Gavin said, reaching for a slice.
“Your sister—she’s still sleeping?”
Sam stepped outside, running her fingers through her hair. “Good morning, Laurent,” she said. “How’s your leg?”
“There’s some pain,” Laurent said. “But not too bad.”
“Have you seen Jonah?” Gavin asked.
“My wife said he showed up last night—before we arrived—but then he went to his camp in the forest. She said he was with the Englishman.”
“Do you have a phone I can use?” Gavin asked.
“Sure,” Laurent said, handing him an ancient flip phone.
Gavin realized he didn’t know his brother’s number. “Do you happen to have Jonah’s number?” he asked.
“We always spoke in person,” Laurent said with a shrug.
Gavin turned to his sister, who shook her head. “I can barely remember my own.”
Gavin handed the phone back to Laurent. It burned him that Jonah hadn’t upheld his promise to meet them there, but what bothered him even more was that he was now in a situation where he couldn’t uphold his threat of getting on the next plane back to the States.
“I’m sure he will be back soon,” Laurent said.
“I doubt it,” Gavin said.
“This is my cousin Remy,” Laurent said, introducing his companion. “He is the one who will take you for the Bwiti.”
“Bonsoir,” Remy said. He looked to be in his late thirties, with a sharp receding hairline and a patchy beard. He wore sandals and a loose-fitting dashiki. A leather apron was tied around his waist and his arms were sleeved with colorful bracelets. He offered a smile that suggested his day was off to a significantly better start than Gavin’s.
“Before we go, we should discuss the fee,” Laurent said.
“What fee?” Gavin asked.
“I told your brother he would have to pay for this. We don’t have to settle it now, but Remy and the tribe will need to be compensated.”
“I’ll let Jonah settle up on that,” Gavin said.
Laurent nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Should we go now?” he said, motioning to his car.
“What about Jonah?” Sam asked. “I don’t think we should leave without him.”
“He can meet us there,” Laurent said. “He knows the way to the village.”
“Before we follow you into the jungle,” Gavin said, “can we discuss what this involves?”
“Of course,” Laurent said. “I thought your brother told you, no?”
“He gave us his version,” Gavin said. “I’d like to hear yours.”
Bwiti, Laurent explained, was the name of the spiritual ceremony based around the ingestion of iboga, a powerful hallucinogen that allowed one to revisit the consequences of past actions in order to gain a better understanding of one’s true self. His version sounded even more ridiculous than Jonah’s, like some new-age hi
ppie speak, but they’d traveled halfway across the world for this, so it seemed pointless to back out now. And besides, Sam appeared willing to give it a try, which was more than could be said for his suggestion.
“You,” Laurent said, looking at Sam, “are the banzie. You will follow the n’ganga, your Bwiti mother, who will guide you to the places you need to go.”
“And who is this person?” Sam asked.
“For you, this will be Remy’s wife. Her name is Grace.”
Remy nodded and smiled.
“How long does it last?” Sam asked. “The ceremony?”
“Two days.”
“Oh, wow. Anything else I need to know?”
Laurent went on to explain that though it was very safe, Sam would need to sign a release form absolving Remy’s tribe of responsibility should something go wrong.
“Like what?” Gavin asked.
“Just to be careful,” Laurent said, dismissing Gavin’s concern. “There shouldn’t be any problems.”
“Yes,” Gavin said, “I really hope there aren’t any problems seeing as how we’re in the middle of nowhere. But just to be clear, what do you mean when you say ‘should something go wrong’?”
“It’s nothing really,” Laurent assured him.
“Well, it’s obviously something if you want her to sign a release.” Gavin looked to Remy, then back to Laurent. “What are you guys not telling us?”
Laurent looked at the ground, then back to Gavin. “There have been instances of death, but this is very rare.”
“Jesus,” Gavin said, shaking his head. Jonah’s version hadn’t mentioned death and it further enforced his belief that this ceremony, like everything else that had occurred thus far, would turn out badly.
“Very small,” Remy added with a smile and a little pinching motion of his fingers.
“I should hope so,” Gavin said, annoyed that he was just now learning about this.
“And besides,” Laurent added. “Sam is young and in good health.”
Gavin looked to his sister to gauge her reaction to the news. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Is there an antidote in case things go wrong?” she asked.
Remy flashed Laurent a confused look.
“An antidote,” Gavin said. “She wants to know if there’s a way to make it stop—if there’s a problem.”
“No, no,” Laurent said, shaking his head. “Nothing like that.”
JONAH
“KNOCK, KNOCK.” JONAH OPENED HIS eyes to shadows in the tent canvas. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours last night, and now that morning had arrived, he wanted only to recover the sleep that had eluded him. Instead, he pulled on a shirt and unzipped the tent to find Edwin standing outside, backlit by the sun.
“Morning,” Edwin said, holding a half-eaten banana.
Jonah stepped out of the tent and began lacing up his boots. “Have you heard anything?”
“They’re fine.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the deceased have been identified and they weren’t on the list.” Edwin shoved the rest of the banana into his mouth and tossed the peel on the ground.
“Can I see the list?”
“I don’t exactly have it handy, Jonah, but I’d be more than happy to show you once we get back to town. Of course, by that time your brother and sister will most likely be waiting for you.”
Jonah wanted to believe him, but he couldn’t shake the suspicion that Edwin was lying to ensure Jonah’s cooperation with the mission. Regardless, there wasn’t much he could do about it now. The two rangers approached from down the trail, rifles slung over their shoulders.
“What’s with the guns?” Jonah asked.
“If everything goes smoothly, there won’t be any shots fired.”
The idea of being shot wasn’t something Jonah had considered until now. While Slinky wasn’t a paradigm of good faith, Jonah felt relatively confident that so long as he handed over the money, he’d let him go. But Edwin’s presence, along with heavily armed men hiding in the trees, complicated the calculus in a way that unsettled him. “Nothing has gone smoothly thus far.”
“That’s not a winning attitude, Jonah,” Edwin said, digging through his backpack. “Take your shirt off.”
“Why?”
“So I can mic you,” he said, removing a wireless microphone.
“No way,” Jonah said. “I’m not wearing a mic.”
“Yes,” Edwin said. “You are.”
“What if he sees it?”
“He won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I’ve done this before,” Edwin said. “Now take off your shirt.”
Jonah removed his shirt and Edwin taped the microphone to his chest. “It’s not a gun, but it’s potentially a lot more damaging. Make sure you speak clearly so we can pick up the conversation. Keep him close if possible. He seems like a chatty fellow, so let him talk as much as he wants. Encourage it. Explain what happened to Mateo. Ask about Osman—see what he knows. The more he talks, the stronger our case.”
“And where will you be while this is happening?”
“I’ll be in that tree over there,” Edwin said, pointing. He turned to the rangers. “These two will be in the bushes behind your tent. We’ll have eyes on him the whole time. Once you hand over the money, we’ll make the arrest.”
“And then what?”
“Then you’re done.”
“It’s that easy?” Jonah assumed there had to be a catch. He wasn’t entirely sure Edwin didn’t plan to have him arrested once he’d apprehended Slinky.
Edwin shrugged. “Why not?” He looked at his watch. “We’ve got about twenty minutes. Good luck.”
The men disappeared into the forest and Jonah sat on a tree stump. He watched an orange-breasted waxbill dart between trees and heard a talapoin monkey barking at him from somewhere overhead. With everything that had happened, he hadn’t given much thought to the elephants, though he resolved to make a trip to the bai once he’d extricated himself from this mess.
The distant groan of a motorbike ushered him to his feet. Edwin, who was crouched in dense vegetation fifty meters away, flashed him a thumbs-up, an insultingly flippant gesture in light of what was about to transpire. Jonah crawled inside the tent and grabbed the backpack. When he stepped back outside, he saw a man who was clearly not Slinky approaching on the motorbike. He was younger, mid-twenties, a tall, statuesque guy with sharp cheekbones and exceptionally white teeth. He pulled up next to Jonah and silenced the bike. “You him?” he asked, dismounting.
“Who are you?” Jonah asked.
“Sterling.”
“Where’s Slinky?”
“He sent me instead.”
“That wasn’t what we discussed.”
Sterling shrugged.
Jonah looked past the man, hoping to get eyes on the rangers in order to deliver a signal that this wasn’t shaping up the way he’d expected, but he couldn’t locate them. “I talked to him yesterday,” he said to Sterling. “He told me he’d be here.”
Sterling reached for the backpack, but Jonah pulled it away.
Sterling laughed. “Let’s not have a problem.”
“I’ll give the money to Slinky. No one else.”
Sterling pulled a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at Jonah.
“Okay, okay,” Jonah said, raising his hands. He had incorrectly assumed this guy was some harmless errand boy. “Put the gun away.”
Jonah shimmied the pack off his back, and Sterling holstered the gun in his waistband. As Jonah was handing over the bag, he heard Edwin and his men charging toward them, shouting “Baisse-toi!”
Sterling reached for his gun and that’s when Jonah saw a muzzle flash out of the corner of his eye.
Sterling’s body jolted in the manner of someone releasing a violent sneeze, then collapsed to the ground. As Edwin and the soldiers rushed in, Jonah stood above the man, watching blood leak from his head and pool in the dirt. “What the hell was that?” he shouted at Edwin. “I thought you said there wouldn’t be any shots fired.”
“I just saved your life, pal,” Edwin said, leaning down to check for a pulse. “You could be a little more gracious.”
“That wasn’t even him!”
“What do you mean?”
“That wasn’t Slinky,” Jonah said, incredulous that Edwin wasn’t able to recognize the man he’d been tracking.
“Then who was it?”
“I don’t know. One of his guys.”
“I thought you said he was meeting you here.”
“That’s what I thought too. Maybe he got spooked—I don’t know.” Jonah took off his shirt and peeled away the microphone.
“Well, this is a fucking mess,” Edwin said, grabbing the bloody backpack from off the ground and slinging it over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Jonah said, tossing the microphone at Edwin. “Your mess.”
* * *
—
JONAH LED EDWIN AND his rangers back to town. He’d witnessed his second execution in two weeks and though he felt no sadness at the man’s death, he was disturbed by the recklessness of Edwin’s method, his cowboy approach to wildlife law enforcement. As the centerpiece in Edwin’s strategy—if one could call it that—Jonah worried he may become a necessary casualty in whatever happened next. And there would be something next; Edwin had assured him of that.
Back in town, they settled at Laurent’s restaurant, where Jonah found Helen tending to a stew in the kitchen. She told him that Laurent and Jonah’s brother and sister had shown up late last night, shortly after he had set off into the woods. “They left this morning to go to the Bwiti,” she said. “So do not worry. Everything is good.”