Though all these “special economic zones” that Knight visited on the border of China were ostensibly run by local business interests, he could see the triads’ fingerprints everywhere. They had taken their expertise at gambling, prostitution, and smuggling contraband from China and set up shop just over the border, in countries where land and local officials could be leased on the cheap.

And throughout the journey, one place kept coming up: Thakhek, a name that could be uttered to Knight only while breaking eye contact and lowering one’s voice. It was the spring from which all the tigers throughout the region seemed to flow. Knight suspected that Thakhek—whatever it was—would be essential to Lee’s plan to deliver tigers to market on an industrial scale.

Even by Knight’s thorough investigative standards, it was an extremely long thread he had tugged to arrive at this ramshackle thatch-roofed restaurant on the side of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The table where Knight sat overlooked a small brook that ran through the jungle ravine below. Though unable to understand a word of Lao, he was hungry, so he put his faith in the owner’s hands when the man came to take his order. Knight immediately had second thoughts as his eyes fell on a skinny monkey, chained to a post in the corner of the restaurant as it ate a bag of Fritos. Surely, the monkey was a pet and not a dish, Knight tried to convince himself. They wouldn’t waste a perfectly good bag of Fritos on a mere protein source.

Minutes later, the Laotian man brought a bowl of noodle soup as Knight spoke on the phone with Perkins. He gave the soup a stir and was relieved to find no mystery meat.

“The samples from the Tiger Palace weren’t a match for the cub,” he informed Perkins. “But I’ve got a lead on where it might have come from.”

“I know you’re looking into the farming business while you’re over there,” Perkins said, his frustration evident, “but you need to wrap up the SafariWorld claim, Randall. We’re beginning to look bad. If their claim is legitimate and we lose a major zoo client over it, you’re going to lose your job.”

In the specialized insurance business, the last thing you wanted was a reputation for dragging your heels on claims. The rule was to pay fast or investigate fast. Any claim under $250,000 wasn’t even worth investigating, but on a sizable claim such as this, Knight might be able to buy two months from the time of the incident.