Page 92 of Duty Preserved

“Before we start,” she said, setting her satchel on the counter, “how is Alyson?”

“I talked to her last week. Briefly.” I pulled a stool out for Faith and took the one across from her. “She’s back in the States. Her family is with her. She’s recovering.”

“Good. That’s good. The surgeries?”

“Ongoing. More ahead.”

What I didn’t say was that Alyson’s voice on the phone had been flat and quiet. Every sentence in the same careful monotone. The woman who used to narrate her own life at full volume had sounded like she was talking through a prison visitor window.

“She’s tough,” Faith said. “She’ll find her way back.”

“She will.”

Faith opened the folder and set it on the counter between us. “Shall we?”

The poaching report. This was why she was here.

“Of course.”

I pulled the copy of my documentation toward me. The second carcass, the one from three days ago. I’d collected tissue samples at the site for the national DNA registry and documented the wound channel for ballistic estimation. I had photographs of the carcass and the horn removal from every angle. The lab work I’d finished yesterday. KWS needed all of it for the official record.

“Cause of death is a single large-caliber gunshot wound, entry behind the left shoulder.” I spread the photographs across the counter. “The round penetrated the chest cavity and caused massive internal hemorrhaging. Consistent with the first carcass. Same wound placement, and we believe same caliber.”

Faith studied the photographs without flinching. She’d seen this before. Not here, not at Ol Pejeta, but across conservancies throughout the region.

“Tissue samples are logged. I have the histology if you need it, but cause of death isn’t ambiguous.” I laid the lab report beside the photographs. “Horn removed with a saw. Clean cuts, no hack marks. The rest of the carcass was intact. Nothing else taken.”

“And the spent casing?”

“The rangers recovered it at the second scene. A .375 H&H Magnum.” I found the evidence log and turned it so she could read the entry. “That’s a big game hunting round. Expensive relative to out here. Not what a subsistence poacher carries.”

Faith’s pen paused over her notebook. She didn’t look surprised.

“You expected that,” I said.

“I expected something like it.” She set down the pen. “The cigarette pack. The Afrikaans brand. You documented it at the second carcass site.”

“It’s in the file. Baraka found it in the grass near the shooting position.”

Faith leaned back on her stool. “Since the first carcass, I have been making calls. KWS colleagues at other conservancies and the like.” She folded her hands in front of her. “The cigarette pack confirms what I have been hearing.”

“What have you been hearing?”

“That there are foreigners from South Africa who have been poaching in the Laikipia region for the past several months.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a lined notebook filled with her handwriting. “Lewa lost a bull in March. Borana lost two animals in April and May. Mpala had a carcass in June. Each time, the signature was the same. Single heavy round behind the shoulder and the horn taken with a saw.”

She turned a page. More dates, more conservancy names.

“Between the kills, people have seen unfamiliar vehicles on access roads. White men in the area who were not tourists and were not staying at any of the lodges. Sightings in Nanyuki, in Rumuruti. Always passing through, never settling.”

“How many men?”

“The reports vary. Maybe a handful for some. A half dozen or more for others.”

I looked at the notebook. How many animals have these men slaughtered needlessly?

The door opened behind me.

Donovan and Andrew came through it.