Fallows had met Stockton and the boys only a week ago, on the night he arrived at Hosea Kutako International. The Stockton gang were fresh off a BA flight from Toronto. Fallows had flown private from Long Island in the Gulfstream. Fallows never bothered with public aircraft. He had an allergy to standing in line to take off his shoes, and he treated it with liberal applications of money. As they were all arriving in Windhoek at roughly the same time, the resort had sent a G-Class Mercedes to gather them up and bring them west across Namibia.

They’d been in the car for only a few moments before Immanuel Stockton realized he was the very same Tip Fallows who operated the Fallows Fund, which held a heavy position in Stockton’s own pharmaceutical firm.

“Before I was a shareholder, I was a client,” Fallows explained. “I proudly served my nation by feeding myself into the woodchipper of a war I still don’t understand. I crawled away in shreds and stayed high on your narcotic wonders for close to five years. Personal experience suggested it would be a good investment. No one knows better than I how much a person will pay to escape this shitty world for a while.”

He was trying to sound wise, but Stockton gave him an odd, bright, fascinated look and clapped him on the shoulder and said, “I understand more than you might think. When it comes to the luxury goods—cigars, furs, whatever—nothing is worth more than an escape hatch.”

By the time they spilled out of the big Mercedes, four hours later, they were all in a jolly mood, and after check-in they took the conversation to the bar. After that, Stockton and Fallows drank together almost every single night, while Peter and Christian horsed around in the pool. When the boy, Christian—he was eighteen but still a boy to Fallows—asked if they could come with him to see him bag his cat, it never even crossed his mind to say no.

“The little door?” Fallows asked now. “The hell’s that? Private game reserve?”

“Yes.” Stockton nodded sleepily. The smell of Laphroaig exuded from his pores, and his eyes were bloodshot. He’d had a lot to drink. “It’s Mr. Charn’s private game reserve. Invitation only. But also, the little door is . . . a little door.” And he laughed again—almost giggled—very softly.

“Peter says it’s expensive,” said Christian Swift.

“Ten thousand dollars to look through the door. Ten thousand more to walk on the other side. Two hundred and thirty to hunt there, and you only get the one day. You can bring a trophy back, but it stays with Mr. Charn, at the farmhouse. Those are the rules. And if you don’t have your big five, don’t even bother sending him an e-mail. Charn doesn’t have any patience for amateurs.”