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

Finally the bone was within reach. He placed his fingers around it and pulled steadily. The high, whispery squeals as he dragged it past thorns set his teeth on edge. As it came free, he realised it wasn’t a skull at all.

He was looking at a complex curved piece of plastic. No more than three millimetres thick, it was white on the convex side and a dull black on the concave. One edge was smooth and clearly shaped by machine, but on one side, the plastic had been fractured or torn away somehow.

‘What are you?’ he murmured, holding it in the sunlight and turning it this way and that.

He rubbed it on his shirt to remove the thin scrim of red dust. Now he saw it. The paint wasn’t plain. It was pearlescent. As he tilted it, a second colour, a pale mint-green, glistened through the white.

The insight popped into his head unbidden. A flashbulb going off.

‘Auto trim,’ he said triumphantly. He turned and called over to Eli, who was on her hands and knees about thirty metres away.

‘El—’ he stopped before he uttered the second, betraying, syllable. Shit, stay focused, Wolfe! ‘Rachel, I found something.’

Eli got to her feet and ran over.

‘What is that?’ she asked.

He gave it to her.

‘I think it’s a bit of vehicle trim.’

Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinised the fragment of plastic.

‘You think it’s from the poachers’ vehicle?’

‘Who else would it be?’

She nodded, pulling on her earlobe and turned the plastic over.

‘There’s mud in it,’ she said. She turned away from Gabriel. ‘Hey, O’Meara, get over here!’

Stella trotted over. She swiped a hand across her forehead.

‘What is it?’

‘Alec here found this,’ she said, passing the plastic to Stella. ‘Look at that.’

She pointed to the crust of red mud lodged in one of the intricate little mouldings on the black side.

‘You said you tracked Lieberman to Botswana because of a soil sample,’ Gabriel said. ‘Do you think you could repeat the trick to track the poachers?’

‘I suppose we might be able to. But in all probability, it’ll be local and won’t tell us anything beyond what we already know.’

She produced a clear plastic bag from her pocket, dropped the trim into it and sealed it.

They spent another hour at the site, but turned up no further physical evidence.

‘We should get back,’ Gabriel said. ‘There’s nothing else here for us.’

‘Wait!’ Eli said.

‘What?’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

Gabriel shrugged. ‘Not following you.’

‘The pictures! Major Modimo’s got a thing for them, or didn’t you notice in his office?’

She strode off to the Land Cruiser and pulled open the passenger door. Gabriel and Stella watched as she spoke briefly to the major, who then emerged from the cab, smiling at Eli and gesturing towards his men.

As they rejoined Gabriel and Stella, Eli said, ‘The major thinks a photo of him and his men standing guard while we examine the skeleton would be a good start.’

Gabriel grinned. He and Eli knelt by the crudely disfigured skull while the soldiers struck a variety of martial poses, grim-faced, rifles pointed out at imaginary enemies. Hands on hips, the major faced Stella, who wielded the Canon, shooting dozens of pictures, so that the camera’s electronic shutter buzzed as loudly as the insects that swarmed around them.

‘Now, how about one of me with the ladies,’ the major said.

He stood between Eli and Stella, encircling their waists with his arms and grinning as Gabriel fired off a few more shots. He saw Eli wince. Why?

‘And one of us shaking hands, Mr Jensen,’ the major said.

One of the soldiers asked shyly if he could pose with Eli, and before long each man was requesting a photo with Eli, Stella, Gabriel or all three. Finally, after agreeing she would upload all the shots to the major’s PC at the barracks, they finished up and prepared to leave.

The last job onsite was for Stella to lift the plaster cast of the tyre track, bag it and lay it gently on the Land Cruiser’s rear row of seats.

They were back at the barracks two hours later.

After retrieving the camera’s SD card from the slot on the major’s surprisingly up-to-date computer, Stella turned to go. The major was looking oddly at Gabriel. She couldn’t read his expression.

‘I am a great reader, Mr Jensen,’ he was saying. ‘Charles Dickens is one of my favourite authors. The great Chinua Achebe. Many American writers, too. Ernest Hemingway. Alex Hayley. Stephen King. But not just fiction. I like to keep abreast of current affairs, too. As well as the Botswana Guardian, I read the International Herald Tribune. And the Times of London.’ A beat. ‘For whom you are writing your story. Remind me of the editor’s name again.’

‘Raymond Shaw,’ Gabriel answered smoothly. Basic background for a legend. Get your colleagues’ names straight.

‘Ah, yes. Mr Raymond Shaw. I called the Times while you were conducting your search.’

Stella’s gaze flicked from Modimo to Gabriel, to Eli, and back again. It was like watching a poker game between three very experienced players. Nobody displayed a tell. The major continued.

‘Here’s the funny thing. I mentioned I was hosting two journalists writing a piece for the Times. I asked to speak to one of the commissioning editors.’ He paused. ‘Guess what?’

‘What?’ Gabriel said, smiling.

‘Nobody in that department had any knowledge of this piece you claim to be writing. I gave them your name and that of your colleague, here,’ he said, nodding at Eli. ‘They had never heard of you. I explained I had seen your National Union of Journalists cards so they ran your names through their database. The oddest thing. You aren’t in it.’ He leaned forwards. ‘Tell me. Whoever you are. Did you think we were just a bunch of simple African soldiers, ready to swallow whatever—’

‘Major—’ Gabriel began, but Stella cut him off.

‘Major Modimo, we owe you an apology. And an explanation. Can we sit?’

The major sat behind his desk and motioned for the others to take a seat each.

‘I’m waiting,’ he said, ‘with bated breath.’

‘I’m sorry