“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

“All right.” Klay turned for the door. “Get back to it.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Outside on the street, he texted Hungry: “Where are you?”

“Silverton HQ. Depos,” she responded.

“Need to talk.”

“Call in 30?”

“In person.”

“The Klipspringer. 3:30?”

He sent a thumbs-up emoji. And later, the room number.

•   •   •

They stood in the middle of a hotel room identical to the one where they’d made love days earlier. A faucet dripped in the bathroom. Sunlight burned through the muslin drapes, casting a yellow stain on the carpet. She’d come straight from the national prosecutor’s office. “What is it, Tom?”

Klay sat in a side chair and motioned for Hungry to sit on the bed. The hotel had been convenient to the restaurant that night and sufficiently down-market that she was unlikely to be recognized in the lobby. He hadn’t noticed the tacky furniture then and couldn’t recall whether the orange bedspread he was looking at now was the same design as in their former room.

Hungry looked at him with a puzzled expression and remained standing.

“I need to know how you arrested Botha,” he said.

“How? We pulled him over on N1, outside his game farm in Polokwane.”

Klay’s phone rang. It was Tenchant. He turned off the ringer and put the phone in his pocket.

“But how did you know to be there, Hungry?”

“We got a tip. We have a corruption hotline. The team monitors it. We get dozens of them every week.”

“Dozens? And you respond to all of them?”

“No. Not all.”

“So, why did you act on this one?”

“Is this an interrogation?”

“Humor me, please.”

“Officer Sehlalo phoned me and told me the tip looked legitimate,” she said warily. “There’d been a break-in at the police station in Polokwane. The safe was opened. According to the tip, an officer on Botha’s payroll had done it and Botha would be transporting the stolen rhino horns personally. We got a date and time. It checked out. Rhino poaching is outside my jurisdiction, but Botha has a hand in everything in this country. He knows the president personally. I knew we’d never flip him, but I thought, why not shake his tree, see what falls out. I authorized Julius to proceed. He organized a few of the Hawks and intercepted the car. The tip was accurate. They recovered the horn.”

“So, it was Sehlalo?”

“With my authorization. Julius Sehlalo is part of my team, my trusted team.”

“I went to see Botha this morning. He said he was in prison for me. Because of me, is what he said.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Her confusion was turning to anger. “I do know that you must not trust Ras Botha. Everything he says is a lie within a lie. He’s a master manipulator. You know that.”