“No Botha,” Klay replied. His eyes strayed to the darkening ravine. He hadn’t expected the man himself, of course, but his intelligence had been solid: a Botha poaching team was in the area.

Bernard smiled. “You’d have heard a bit of gunfire.” He patted Klay’s shoulder. “Looks like you were wrong after all.”

“It happens,” Klay said.

“Not often. Someday you’ll have to tell me how you come by all that brilliant intelligence sitting at a desk in Washington, DC.”

Klay drew on his cigarette, then dropped it and stepped on it with his boot. Bernard began walking toward their vehicle. Klay followed. “I hear you’re part of their drone program,” Klay said.

Bernard checked to see that the engineer was out of earshot, and nodded. “They made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.”

Klay grunted. “I thought it was just collars.”

“It was. In the beginning.”

“Right. Well, makes sense for you.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t?”

“I’m just talking,” Klay said.

Bernard halted. He turned and faced Klay. “But you are saying something.”

Klay looked into his friend’s eyes. He forgot sometimes how dedicated Bernard was. “Yeah, all right. Would I take Perseus Group money? Terry Krieger money? If I had your problem? Sure.”

“No, if you had your problem.”

“What’s my problem?”

Bernard smiled. “Imagine you had something you actually cared about.”

Klay allowed himself a rare laugh. He knew somebody in just about every country on earth, but he needed only half the fingers on one hand to count his true friends, people he respected and trusted no matter what. Bernard was a true friend. If Bernard said he would do something, it was guaranteed. Klay had bet his life on it more than once. He didn’t just trust Bernard; he admired him. Bernard Lolosoli knew as much as Klay did about the world’s complexities, but he maintained a generations-deep connection to his family and to the earth. He possessed a joy for life that managed to flourish in spite of all that was happening around him—the poverty, the corruption, the killing. Despite it all, Bernard kept his center. After a few days in Bernard’s company, Klay always felt a little less angry, and a little more human. For a while, he felt peace.

“Okay,” Klay said. “Yeah, I’d take his money. I’d take his elephant collars. But Askari drones? Those are people trackers.”

“I know. They wanted facial-recognition cameras at our gate. They’re building a database by tribe, tying it into a cross-agency police cloud. I drew the line at their face harvesting. They weren’t happy. I won’t be able to hold them off forever. We are a Perseus Group laboratory now.” He nodded in the engineer’s direction. “That one is our minder.”

“Do your donors know?”