“I’m just sitting down to dinner with my wife. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”

Waiting wasn’t Knight’s strong suit. He could see the future, and he wanted it right now. Or at least, he wanted the 10 percent commission he would receive for brokering the new business, which in this situation would amount to millions, possibly tens of millions, in his pocket.

“A little more time to investigate the source of the SafariWorld tiger is all I’m asking.”

CHAPTER 24 THE HUNTERS

CHAPTER 24
THE HUNTERS

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Driving through the gates of the Adamawa Ranch, Davis felt as if he were journeying back in time. It was all so Hemingway—glamping for great white hunters. There were a smattering of luxurious canvas tents, stone-ringed fire pits surrounded by cushioned outdoor furniture, and long hardwood dining tables set with cloth napkins and gleaming silverware.

At first glance, the place seemed empty. Davis was set to be paneled for promotion at the end of the month and was running out of time. He needed to find terrorists dealing in endangered animals, and he needed to do it quickly. He prayed Knight hadn’t sent him here on a wild-goose chase.

As he approached the lodge, Davis was greeted by Niles Becker, a rugby-strong ranger from Zimbabwe (or Rhodesia, as it had been called at the time of his birth). He wore a safari shirt and cutoff jean shorts. Every inch of his skin was baked by the sun except his eyes, which bore the white outline of the camo tactical sunglasses now dangling off the top button of his olive shirt.

Becker offered Davis a coffee, and the two men retired to couches in the posh indoor-outdoor lodge. As he sipped from the fine china cup, Davis observed that the walls were decorated with photos of white men and women kneeling with their giant kills. In their hands were compound bows, rifles, severed elephant tails, or the horn of a dead rhino.

Davis could sense his host gauging his reaction to the photos, as if Becker knew there were two Americas, but couldn’t tell which one Davis was from.

“Do you like to hunt?” Becker asked his frail guest.

Davis’s eyes fell on a picture of a dead lion with a hunter lifting its lifeless head. He recognized the rifle, an Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Magnum. It was the same model that had been used to neutralize Taliban at over a mile in Afghanistan. It seemed like overkill, but what did he know.

“Hunting’s not really my thing.” Davis trod delicately.