White Gold Read online

  White Gold is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Alibi Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2017 by Caitlin O’Connell

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9781101883488

  Cover design: Tatiana Sayig

  Cover images: Shutterstock

  randomhousebooks.com

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Bad Deal

  Zambezi Nights

  Gulf of Tonkin

  Going All In

  Bird Street

  The Wrong Ally

  Old Ties

  Lantau Island

  Horse Racing

  GI Bug

  Nine Dragons

  Abandon Ship

  Tiger Spoils

  King Cobra

  Ivory Stash

  Grizzly Acts

  Tiger’s Tale

  Up in Smoke

  Tailors, Snitches & Sequencing

  Xishuangbanna

  Lu Lu the Elephant

  Elephant Tree House

  DNA Extraction

  Tricky Liaisons

  Chicken Feet

  The White Swan

  Confessions

  Five Stances of Kung Fu

  Unexpected Guest

  Guangzhou Market

  Da Xin Ivory Carving Factory

  Scramble to Hong Kong

  The Guilty and the Dead

  Testing Bonds

  Murder at Monkey Table

  Premonitions

  Spy Planes

  Rude Awakening

  Standing Committee

  Releasing the Captor

  Forbidden Love

  Elephant-Back Safari

  Surprise Attack

  Finding Lu Lu

  Lost Daughters

  Connecting the Dots

  Reunion

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Caitlin O’Connell

  About the Author

  Bad Deal

  BEIJING, CHINA

  Large blocks of ivory littered the table like fat mahjong tiles. I rotated a cube in my fingers, rubbing my thumb over the silky surface. Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades, every drip reminding me that I shouldn’t have come into the back room of an ivory stall at the Beijing Arts & Crafts Emporium with two strange men.

  A match flared over my shoulder, illuminating the faint crosshatching beneath the translucent yellow surface of the ivory. The flame danced around the edge of the block, demonstrating its authenticity. Any counterfeit material would have melted.

  I pushed my hair away from my face as I scrutinized the fine grain of the ivory. Even the best imitations of bone or plastic couldn’t simulate the herringbone pattern of dentine. And like a dense hardwood, the grain in ivory is indiscernible. Tragically for the elephant, its incisors carve down to exquisite detail, making it one of the most sought-after natural substances in the world.

  The herringbone pattern was unmistakable, yet the yellow color didn’t ring true. It was too superficial. As if someone were trying to pass off a recent illegal shipment as “antique,” and therefore legal for certain foreign markets including many states in the U.S.

  I picked up another cube and rolled it in my palm. I was stalling. I hadn’t worked out an exit strategy for posing as a buyer and getting as far as I had. With a giant bald-headed man looming over me, one enormous tattooed arm over the other, and Nigel Lofty’s largest dealer in China nodding at me from across the table, I needed to seem discerning, not hesitant.

  The dealer’s eyes were expressionless, hidden within fleshy slits under a glistening bald scalp. He took a long crackling drag on his hand-rolled cigarette, the glow illuminating the room.

  Ivory trinkets dotted the dusty shelves behind him. Large carved figures cast shadows like forgotten ghosts of the once-aristocratic society that could afford ivory art in the time of dynasties, long before the Cultural Revolution. Even twenty years ago, buying ivory chopsticks as a wedding present would have been considered a lavish indulgence.

  Ten years ago, however, with a burgeoning middle class, larger carvings were starting to sell out of musty antique shops of questionable legal standing, or in government-operated Friendship Stores, as they were called, established for foreign buyers, before a middle class existed. And after the onetime legal sale of government ivory stockpiles from southern African countries occurred almost a decade ago, shops were unable to keep up with demand. Carving factories that had shut down were reopening and new factories were starting up. The problem was that it was getting harder and harder to distinguish legal from illegal stocks. New reports from the field indicated a rise in elephant poaching, dating back to just after the sale.

  The dealer eyed me methodically. This was no time for art appreciation. This was strictly business. And there were many clambering for a piece of the action, legal or not.

  Keenly aware of his scrutiny, I pushed the blocks aside and held his gaze. “I’m looking for something less processed—more…natural.”

  “I see.” The dealer grinned with an overbite of crooked cigarette-stained teeth. “Something more…natural.” He sucked on his cigarette and bobbed his head. “We have a very fine new shipment in. Special price for bulk uncut stock.”

  He nodded to the wall of muscle behind me and mumbled in Mandarin. The large man turned and bent down, his long black ponytail at the back of his bald head shifting sideways as he pulled a wooden trunk from a hidden compartment in the wall. He placed the trunk on the ground and opened it, revealing a false bottom to the container.

  I tried not to gag at the smell of decay as my eyes adjusted to the contents. Ivory stashes were often hidden within legitimate shipments of tea or dried fish or trinkets such as wood carvings and other curios from Africa. Beneath the Chinese characters stamped on the box were words written in English reading FISH MEAL.

  The dealer waved a hand over his goods and smiled slyly. “A sampling.”

  The dealer lit a dim overhead lamp, revealing putrid flesh hanging in shards from the base of slender, blood-streaked tusks, riddled with bullet holes. Judging from the range in sizes—none of them very big—these tusks probably originated from a whole family gunned down at one time.

  An illegal haul like this with bullet holes used to be common in the ’70s and ’80s, prior to the ivory ban in 1989, when poaching with automatic weapons in Africa had been at an all-time high. The ban had put a stop to that over the next decade or so, but after another sale and another rise in poaching in the last few years, shipments like this were becoming increasingly common again. I had seen two such caches in Namibia, both from fresh poaching incidents, including one I witnessed while flying over the border of southern Angola.

  As I stared at the ivory, I couldn’t help imagining the scene of the crime—starting with the explosive rapid-fire popping from AK-47s—the Russian automatic weapon that most poachers in Africa seemed to have access to. A family group of elephants roars, screams, and trumpets as they suddenly find themselves surrounded by gunfire.

  The matriarch charges and is immediately sprayed with bullets. She can’t sustain the amount of lead that penetrates her body from all sides. Her back legs buckle. From a crouched position, she tries to hold herself up, waving her trunk at he
r assailants, but in her weakened state, her outrage is quickly subsumed by pain.

  Bellowing at the sight of their downed beloved leader, the others rush toward her and try to hold her up with their tusks as they, too, are sprayed with bullets. Tusks cradle the matriarch as her family surrounds her faltering body, trying to lift her up. But each family member suffers the same fate. None can sustain the deadly pummeling from the firing squad. They no longer have the strength to pull up their leader, nor can they escape death themselves.

  The matriarch goes down first. And then the others.

  It is silent for a moment after the last shot is fired.

  When it’s clear that the deed is done, urgent voices call out as the poachers rush the spoils with their machetes. And in a matter of minutes, centuries worth of knowledge—an entire family culture—is lost, elephant faces hacked off to remove their incisors.

  Shaking off this horrible vision, I took a deep breath. I knew this dealer was dirty, but I had no idea he was this dirty. How could this man show a new buyer such a blatantly illegal supply so casually? This kind of hard evidence was exactly what my boss, Craig, was looking for from this dealer.

  I no longer had any doubts about what I was doing in this store—and in China. I had to stop the slaughter of elephants from happening, no matter the risk.

  I waved at the tusks dismissively. “I’ll need more volume than this. And clean. No bullet holes. I understand you can get access to certain”—I paused—“government stocks?”

  He nodded eagerly. “I have excellent sources in Uganda.”

  “And natural mortalities of big tuskers? The conscientious buyer will pay more, of course.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. We provide all the necessary documentation.” He smiled. His emphasis on the word “documentation” seemed to imply that any amount of false documentation could be prepared at any time for any shipment as needed.

  “Good.” I returned a measured nod, pretending to be satisfied with this impressive new contact.

  I took note of his mention of Uganda. These were the sources we needed—high-level government officials—whose activities could help us build a case against the kingpins like Nigel Lofty, who I followed here from Namibia. But I couldn’t do any more now. I needed to figure out how to extract myself.

  Craig had contacted the police to inform them of my presence in Beijing in case I needed assistance, but I hadn’t anticipated this scenario to unfold as it had and wasn’t sure how long it would take them to respond.

  The dealer rubbed his bony hands together deliberately. “Now, on the matter of payment…”

  “I’ll be in touch about—” As I worked on a plausible excuse to leave, I was distracted by a noise outside the door.

  The dealer’s eyes jerked toward the door. Sounds of a distant scuffle came through the dense wood, followed by a bang and a thump—like the sound of a body hitting the floor. As much as I didn’t want the police ruining my cover, their appearance would solve my extraction problem.

  I swung around to see the big man behind me reaching for something strapped under his armpit as he turned toward the door. I saw the glint of stainless steel in his hand the moment before the door smashed inward in a blinding flash.

  Dark silhouettes burst into the room wearing night-vision goggles and shouting in Mandarin. I ducked as the dealer’s henchman fired three rounds over my shoulder from behind and missed the intruders.

  Two red laser–guided shots were fired at the dealer and his crony in rapid succession. My ears rang as the impact of a third shot penetrated my chest.

  My head hit the concrete—the floor giving way, leaving me breathless and heavy, like I was sinking fast in a cold dark body of water. The sharp taste of blood washed over my tongue as I curled into a ball and hugged my knees to my chest until I couldn’t hold on any longer.

  Zambezi Nights

  ZAMBEZI RIVER, CAPRIVI

  Jon poured warm water down my back from a ceramic pitcher. The waning yellow moon rose almost full and glistened in a wavering path on the fast-flowing river. We were drifting south in the current, passing a pod of hippos surrounded by a halo of sparkling gold water. The balmy air had a slight edge to it—a change of season was coming.

  I hadn’t planned on taking a bath, but after Jon and I shared a leg of lamb paired with a delicious Syrah from the Cape, I couldn’t resist the large metal tub perched over the Zambezi in the moonlight. My body ached after a day of counting elephants from the cramped cockpit of a Cessna 182 with pockets of turbulence making for a very bouncy ride. Collapsing into a hot tub and losing myself in the Zambezi moon was a most welcome end to the day.

  When Jon saw that I had forgotten the soap, he cleared his throat outside the reed wall to the bath and asked if I’d like him to bring it to me. Graciously accepting his offer, I quickly found myself absorbed in other favors.

  After pouring water down my back, he gently caressed my shoulders and back with a loofah sponge, and then scrubbed my feet and ankles. Gentle kisses moved from toes to feet to shins and up my inner thighs. I leaned my head against the side of the tub, soaking up his penetrating kisses like a dry sponge.

  I watched his torso muscles gently tense as he moved. I drew my fingers along his triceps as the light from the gas lantern cast flickering shadows on the reeds around the tub.

  Jon removed his clothes and slipped into the tub behind me, his legs resting outside mine on either side. I nestled my head into his shoulder and our hands clasped over my middle. We stared up at the moon in silence as the papyrus tufts tickled at the deep gray-blue sky in the gentle breeze.

  Hippos hooted, snorted, and hummed under their breath. I closed my eyes and listened to them fill the night with their territorial murmurs back and forth and up and down the river. A pair of Pel’s fishing owls serenaded us from deep within the reeds as we passed.

  Clay banks with sloping sides replaced the wall of papyrus on either side of us as we traveled down the river. Up ahead on the left, a path led down to a sandy beach. A large family group of elephants hurried down the slope and ran into the water up to their bellies, fanning out on either side of the matriarch. All was quiet as we drifted past, but for the trickling of water spilling from trunks as they poured generous drinks into thirsty mouths.

  An elephant growled its objection as a large crocodile motored past, just a little too close to a baby. Its rugged spiky dinosaur tail swished back and forth as it skirted the elephants and headed southeast, following the current toward the great Okavango Delta.

  We lay there long enough that the water turned cool and the space more confining, despite the mild air. Jon turned the hot tap on and the bath expanded again. Our shoulders relaxed as Jon whispered my name so softly, so genuinely, as if I were the only woman on earth. “Catherine,” he whispered out of charged lips, as he had a hundred times before, “stay with me.”

  “Catherine?”

  My eyes shot open and Jon’s whispers morphed into the harsh tone of a familiar language moaning in the background. I squinted to make sense of quick jerky motions all around me. The voice that just called my name—it was no longer Jon’s voice. I knew that voice.

  I looked down at my prostrate body in a hospital gown, and the pressure that had been Jon’s touch became the line of an IV bag at the base of my hand. What had just been the fragrant African night air was now pungent with antiseptic fumes. The reed walls turned sterile white and an unnerving beeping sound pulsed in my right ear.

  I shut my eyes, hoping it wouldn’t be too late to reconnect with my subconscious—to slip back into the tub again and float into the heart of the Okavango Delta, far, far away from here.

  “Catherine?” That familiar voice called my name again and I opened my eyes.

  “Catherine, are you awake?”

  I couldn’t focus on the person standing over me. I tried to sit up, but my head and chest weighed a thousand pounds.

  “Don’t try to move.” There was a light touch on my shoulder.
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  “Craig?”

  “Yes, it’s me. I’m right here.”

  I looked up at his blurry face that was slowly coming into focus. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in a hospital in Beijing.”

  “Shit.” I slowly got my bearings. I remembered the flash of pain the moment before I passed out in the back room of the emporium. I grabbed my hospital gown, feeling for chest wounds. There was a searing pain in one of my left ribs. “What happened?”

  “A grazed rib. And a bad concussion. You’re bloody lucky to be alive.”

  As I pressed around my rib, I remembered the impact of the shot. It felt like I had always imagined it would—all those nights waking up in my bed in the Caprivi, clutching my .45 in both hands, wondering, waiting, and imagining the scenarios before falling into dreams of being shot in the chest. There was that sickening weight of sudden impact and then the excruciating pain as the bullet penetrated my flesh, the force knocking me off my feet.

  My eyes came into focus and I could now see that Craig was holding flowers. I smiled weakly. “You brought flowers. How sweet.”

  “I couldn’t help myself.” He set the pot containing a stalk of delicate yellow orchids on the table. “Didn’t take you for a romantic, but it’s hard to pass up an occasion for orchids.”

  “I have to get shot to merit an orchid?”

  Craig smiled and ran his fingers through his freshly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair. He pulled his pants up a bit at the knees and sat down in the visitor’s chair next to my bed. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your edge,” he said, neatly crossing his legs in one of his meticulously tailored suits. Only in Hong Kong could one afford such a luxury in our line of work.