He glanced in the back of the shop to see the owner’s wife tending to their sick child. The owner, who had returned to the task of cooking, coughed violently into his hand. Knight knew he was closing in on the source of the cub and, with it, the source of the disease that had wiped out SafariWorld’s tigers. Knight dropped his spoon in his soup, not wanting to roll the dice on whether their contagion had found its way into his meal.

“Just give me a week. The claim will be void, and we’ll be in the tiger farming game.”

Knight scanned the restaurant and found a rack of illegal tiger wine bottles for sale. There may not be any more wild tigers in Laos, but he had certainly found himself in tiger country. And he couldn’t help but fear a connection between the store owner’s illness and the locally produced beverage.

Perkins relented. “One week, Randall. You have one week.”

“I’ll keep you posted.” Knight hung up, placed a wad of kip on the table, then went to meet his driver, who was waiting outside in an inconspicuous Hyundai.

The Hyundai weaved around potholes as it pressed deeper into the jungle. The sun was already retreating toward the mountains by the time they arrived at a long driveway. Knight signaled for his driver to stop. He then waved a large stack of money at the driver, indicating that it would be his upon Knight’s return if the driver didn’t abandon him. The driver nodded, and Knight headed off down the driveway on foot.

A quarter mile down the driveway, he reached a walled compound in the jungle, with razor wire atop the perimeter fence. He stepped carefully toward the guard post, prepared to launch into his scripted cover story. He would spin them a yarn about how he was an agriculture specialist who had just been hired by a Chinese company that was razing the old-growth forests in the region to plant rubber and banana trees. Any mention of the Chinese would open a lot of doors in Southeast Asia and Africa, for the Chinese had ingratiated themselves with local leaders throughout the developing world. Moreover, gift giving was popular in Chinese culture, and Knight would claim he wanted to impress his boss with some tiger wine or perhaps a tiger tooth necklace. The story had worked in Vietnam and Myanmar, and it would certainly work here. But Knight was surprised to find the guard post empty and the gate hanging open.

Curious about the security lapse, he checked his surroundings, then slipped inside the compound. He soon located the main office and pressed open the door.

“Hello?” Knight called out. He tried again in Lao. “Sabaidi?”