Ivory Nation by Andy Maslen (free children's ebooks online txt) 📕

Frank nodded and sniffed, once.

‘Thanks. You’d better get going,’ he said. ‘The major’ll be wondering what I’ve done with you.

Gabriel found Taylor with Eli on the outskirts of the compound. Eli was firing single shots at metal targets mounted on the bone-white branches of a lightning-struck tree some sixty yards distant. The steel circles plinked and spun as she hit them steadily, working left to right.

She turned as Gabriel walked up, and grinned.

‘A beautiful girl shooting an automatic weapon,’ Taylor said. ‘If there’s a better sight in the world, I’ve yet to see it.’

‘How’s it feel?’ Gabriel asked Eli.

‘Sweet. Like one of our old Galils. Want to try it?’

Gabriel took the AK from her. The wooden pistol grip was warm from her hand. He tucked it against his shoulder and sighted on one of the targets, crystal-clear in the scope’s reticle. A warm, sweet-smelling breeze was blowing left to right and he made a best-guess adjustment to compensate.

He fired. Missed. Swore.

Behind him, he heard Taylor whisper to Eli, ‘Looks like your friend hasn’t been keeping up his range practice!’

Gritting his teeth and refocusing on the target, he took better care this time. He emptied his head of everything but for the tiny black circle mounted beneath the splintered branch tip. He squeezed the trigger to first pressure.

Something moved on the branch above the target. He moved the crosshairs up a little. Shuddered.

16

LONDON

Detective Superintendent Calpurnia ‘Callie’ McDonald looked up from the report she was reading. Seeing who was standing in the doorway, she grinned, her red-lipsticked mouth widening.

‘Well now, if it isn’t my most dedicated detective chief inspector,’ she said, her Edinburgh accent as clear now as it was the first day she moved south from Lothian and Borders Police. ‘Please tell me you have something I can take to the commissioner? I swear to you, Stel, the bloody woman’s going to be the death of me!’

Stella closed the door behind her and sat in the chair facing Callie. The two women had a long and complicated history stretching back to the time Stella had virtually single-handedly rolled up a conspiracy stretching to the top of the British legal system.

Callie had protected Stella when all looked lost and then promoted her to head the Special Investigations Unit inside the Met.

‘The shooter was in Africa. Recently,’ Stella said.

Callie’s eyebrows shot up.

‘Really? Because what I’m hearing is that he was an Israeli.’

Stella shrugged, then handed over the single sheet of paper Lucian had given her.

‘The one doesn’t preclude the other,’ she said. ‘He might have trained there. It’s Botswana, by the way.’

‘You can be that specific?’

‘A soil sample and the jaw of a termite confirm it, apparently. I want to go out there, boss.’

Callie placed the paper on her desk.

‘Why?’

‘It’s a lead, isn’t it? If the shooter was out there, someone might know him, or know something about him.’

‘What, you think they all just hang around together, sharing a bottle of wine in the International Assassins’ Club?’ Callie said in a sarcastic tone of voice. Then she coloured. ‘Oh god, Stel, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I’m just under the cosh, ye know? Everybody up to and including the prime minister is looking for answers and everyone on Birch is running on caffeine and adrenaline.’

Stella smiled. Walked over to a filing cabinet. Extracted a bottle of Glenlivet single malt and a couple of cut-glass tumblers. She poured a finger into each glass and handed one to Callie.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, taking a sip of the whisky.

‘Really?’

‘Really. Anyway, I’ve got a plan that doesn’t involve palling around with the barman at the Assassins’ Club.’

Callie rolled her eyes.

‘A plan. Am I going to like it?’

‘You might,’ Stella said, regarding her boss over the rim of her glass.

Callie sighed.

‘Go on, then.’

‘Remember Don Webster?’

‘Oh, Mr Leave-it-to-the-big-boys, you mean? How could I forget?’

Their paths had crossed before and Don had managed to put Callie’s nose out of joint before retreating with a suitable apology and asking for her help.

‘He’s kept in touch ever since that business with the Russians,’ Stella said. ‘In fact, he’s offered me a job on a couple of occasions.’

Callie’s eyebrows arched even higher.

‘Has he now? Why, the bloody nerve of the man! I told him no poaching the first time I met him. I hope you said no.’

Stella grinned.

‘I did. But I’m thinking he could help us out for a change. You know, get me into Botswana and provide some intelligence backup. I get the sense they work from a different rulebook to ours.’

‘Backup? Hmm,’ Callie said. ‘And you’d turn him down if he tried poaching you again?’

‘As long as you keep giving me interesting jobs, boss,’ Stella said with a wink.

‘Och, you cheeky wee thing!’

Don was driving home in his Jensen Interceptor when his phone rang. He’d had one of the guys in the motor pool retrofit a hands-free kit, hiding the modern controls on the dash.

‘Don Webster,’ he said.

‘Don, it’s Stella Cole.’

‘DCI Cole! How nice to hear from you. How’s life in the Met?’

‘At the moment, hectic. The small matter of Operation Birch. And please call me Stella.’

‘I saw your guv’nor on the news last night. The hyenas were out for blood.’

‘Which, and forgive the lack of small talk, is why I’m calling you.’

‘Fire away, Stella.’

‘Our forensics team just identified the source of a speck of soil found in the sniper nest. It came from Botswana.’

‘Hmm. Unusual place for an Israeli physics teacher to be travelling. Could it have come from the PM, do you suppose?’

‘We asked his office for a list of his official engagements in the week leading up to the assassination.’

‘And?’

‘Radio silence. I checked his Twitter feed. No holiday snaps from Botswana, either. I’m wondering whether Lieberman was a teacher at all. What if the prime minister is right and he was a Mossad agent all along?’

‘I have to say, from what I know of the workings of organisations like the Mossad, that seems unlikely. Anyway, what can I do to help?’

‘I