White Bone Read Online Free Page B

During her service in Army Intelligence, she’d been trained to survive and escape captivity. She’d scored higher than any woman before her. She was no U.S. Navy SEAL, but she was no Shanghai shopper, either.
    No time for hysterics. Think, plan, act.
    As the sun tracked, she would know east from west, north from south. Nighttime presented the greatest risks. Her bodily odors would betray her. Olé had been clear about that: her prey would smell her first.
    If not an accident, she’d been dumped with the intention of killing her. Whoever was responsible wanted it to look accidental. Attacked and eaten. Stung. Bitten. Exposure. She couldn’t believe that her return trip to the conservation group, Larger Than Life, had caused her situation. Someone had caught up to her there, or had gotten ahead of her and had been waiting. The thought sent a chill through her.
    Her real hope remained with John. How long until he acted on that text she’d sent? How effective would the crumbs she’d been leaving since the start of the trouble prove to be? Crumbs too complex for a stranger to decipher, and no piece of cake for Knox, but solid nonetheless.
    Another unexplainable chill swept through Grace. Another slow, controlled breath helped her overcome it. None of it mattered. She had only herself to save her. No daydreaming. No false hope. No reliance on the abstract. One hour at a time.
    Think. Plan. Act.

7

    G uuleed’s lanky frame belied his ferocity. Not only did he possess physical strength, he had the mental fortitude it took to lead a roughshod band of wannabe bandits. He naturally spoke in a growl, the result of years of Turkish cigarettes, hollering orders and a general indifference to others.
    He flicked ash out of where there had once been a car door.
    The camp consisted of six tents, the largest of which served as the mess. They were tucked side by side along the fever tree–lined banks of a stream of muddy water. It could be easily forded in the trucks. The idea was to present the image of a safari camp, since they did business as one. They ordered supplies, bought fuel and water under the company name. With over four hundred safari operators in Kenya, no one could track them all.
    Guuleed’s company not only served his poaching needs but served to launder money by inventing twenty to thirty paying guests each night and reporting much of the phantom income.
    “The ambush wasn’t coincidence,” he told Rambu, his first lieutenant. The two men occupied the front seat of a battered Land Cruiser riddled with bullet holes along its right side. The gas tank had been patched with fiberglass earlier in the day. The vehicle reeked of the fumes. As the sun pushed for the horizon, bugs of all kinds took flight. The threat of malaria flew with them.
    Rambu, a brute of a man with near purple skin and a face that had seen too much sun, did not speak. His droopy eyes gave him the look of a young Sylvester Stallone, which accounted for his mispronounced nickname. He knew better than to question Guuleed. His boss had been in a bilious mood of late.
    They stood out of the shade, in the direct sunlight, where the insects weren’t quite as plentiful. Rambu’s acne-scarred face, wide shoulders and massive thighs had helped him earn his position as Guuleed’s pit bull, when in fact he was more kind-hearted than his men knew.
    “Find me a traitor. Doesn’t matter who. You pick.” Guuleed intended to send a message to his men about loyalty and leaking information to Koigi and his rangers. His only real concern had little to do with poaching or his men, or even loyalty. His beautiful wife and their six children had been made bargaining chips. “Xin Ha is holding me responsible for the closing of the health clinic.”
    “Clear down in Oloitokitok? You? Responsible, how?”
    “It’s believed I overlooked a warning. Completely false. I believe it’s because we were sloppy killing Faaruq and the others. They died in the same manner.