Cobus knew the terrain well. Soon, he and his team would reach the tall chain link fence at the park’s edge. And as they had done dozens of times before, they would trace the fence for several kilometers, checking to make sure no new holes had been cut in it. If there were, they would radio it in and search for the intruders, but the intruders would be long gone. The older-model walkie-talkies the rangers used weren’t encrypted, and Cobus suspected that the poachers eavesdropped on their channels, just as he had listened in on ISIS communications in Iraq.
Several hundred meters from the fence, the rangers heard a loud, shrill bleating that sounded like a steam engine overheating.
Cobus shouldered his rifle and took off with Basani and Lawrence, crouch-running silently through the chest-high grass. Though Cobus couldn’t place the source of the bleating, it sounded like an animal crying out for help. His muscles tightened in anticipation of a gunfight with the poachers whose spoor they were following.
Cobus and his team arrived just in time to see the small gray body drop to the earth with a thud. He immediately slung his rifle back down at his side. The rangers lowered to one knee, disappearing into the camouflage of the nearby brush. They watched in silent awe as the body lay wet and motionless. Then the glistening mass stirred.
Its mother, a two-ton white rhino, turned to her newborn calf and began cleaning him. Cobus stared in wide-eyed reverence as she used her giant horn to lever her son to his feet for the first time. The baby rhino faltered, then regained his footing. He wobbled, struggling to keep his balance as he stood beneath his mother’s snout.
Cobus heard a sniffle and turned to see tears streaming down Basani’s cheeks. He put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her body close.
“We’ll name it Oupa,” he told her, hoping that having this new baby boy to carry on her husband’s legacy might bring her some consolation.
Basani turned to Cobus, her eyes red and voice bitter. “Someday, they will kill him too.”
Cobus felt the darkness infecting her. He couldn’t let that happen. If her light was extinguished, he feared he would have no path out of the darkness.
“Not this one,” he said, willing her to believe it. “We will protect him.”
Basani looked at the baby. She knew that a rhino that close to the border of Mozambique had a short life expectancy, and if it wandered over the border, its life would be measured in hours.
CHAPTER 2
KNIGHT
los angeles county, california
By the time Randall Knight made it to gate 5 at the racetrack, most of the crowd had found their way to the stands. Santa Anita didn’t have the scope and pageantry of Churchill Downs, but the Colonial Revival features and the explosions of flowers reminded him of the track where he spent his childhood in upstate New York. And just like Saratoga, for several days a year Santa Anita became the center of the racing universe. A crackling electricity permeated the air as tens of thousands bet their hopes and dollars on animals they knew only by their statistics and odds.