The top of the sun was going down behind the lower hills when they reached the bluff. Whoever hadn’t yet turned on their flashlight did so.
“Let’s take a break,” Craig said.
Doug pointed to the east. “The last traps we found were that way about half-a-click.”
Nigel said, “They keep moving them, but they keep them near the animal trails. They’ve been going higher into the mountains, but the animals will be coming lower this time of year. It’s getting cold up there at night.”
“We could split up,” he said. “Zemar and I will go farther up, you two backtrack.
Nigel swept his hand in a southeast to southwest arc. “Most of the predators hunt in those areas of the hills.”
Zemar said, “I don’t think we should split up.”
“We’ll cover more ground.”
“We’ve been out here three hours and haven’t found a thing this time. Maybe they’ve closed down.”
“They might be concerned we’re getting too close to catching them in the act.” Doug walked along the path that would take them higher into the hills. The sun finally set as he started up the trail, leaving only his flashlight beam visible for a few seconds.
Something growled.
“This way.” Zemar sprinted into the forest.
He, Doug and Nigel jogged after him. Everyone pointed their lights at Zemar’s back to keep him in sight. They had to push back or duck under branches, climb over fallen trees that now hosted their own communities. Zemar pulled away from them and vanished.
The growl, weaker, came again, followed by a snort.
“Over here,” Zemar called.
Nigel aimed his flashlight and led the way.
They emerged into a clearing to where Zemar was kneeling beside a dead male tiger.
“Fuckers.” Doug knelt down to examine it. “It’s been shot twice, once in the left rear quarter and once at the back of the neck. That one must have gone right through it.” He looked up at Craig. “It has to be at least a hundred pounds lighter than it should be.”
“It was starved to weaken it.”
Zemar patted it. “It was tortured, too. They wanted to make sure it wouldn’t get too far when released for the hunters.”
“Even if it had eluded them,” Doug said, “it couldn’t hunt. It would have starved to death within a few days.”
“That’s it,” he said. “We’ve got them now. He can hardly claim poachers brought in a tiger, starved and tortured it nearly to death just so they could hunt it.” He looked down at the tiger. “Can we take it back with us?”
Nigel took out his machete. “I’ll put something together.”
Nigel and Zemar made a stretcher and the four of them carried the tiger back to the truck.
“It hardly weighs anything,” Nigel said after they loaded it into the box. “We have to stop these motherfuckers or I’m going to do some hunting of my own.”
Zemar said, “You won’t be going alone.”
Once back at the farm, Nigel and Doug took the tiger into the hospital. Zemar went to the office.
He remained at the truck and looked around at the farm. Colter’s farm and his were fraternal twins. The layout of the buildings was similar. He could understand anyone who visited both farms thinking they were the same. But every animal that came here was here to get better and live a long and healthy life. Every animal that went to the Colter farm was going there to die.
He had never believed he could hate someone so much. He started for the hospital to get the necropsy over with.
Zemar intercepted him. “We have just received what could be the information we need from someone called Tarot.”
Zemar took him to his computer and pointed to the screen. It was the record of Colter’s orders that Zemar had shown him last week.
“And what am I looking at that’s supposed to be so helpful?”
“Tarot claims to have broken Colter’s code. Watch what happens when I apply the decryption.” He moved the cursor to the lower right corner of the screen and clicked on the DECODE button.
The farm supplies became something entirely different. The order for 1000 gallons of corn oil translated to 1000 pounds of fertilizer.
“For explosives,” Zemar said.
The order for 100,000 pounds of fuel pellets became 100,000 rounds of ammunition, further broken into different amounts of specific types of ammunition that had previously been supplies of seeds for corn, beets, alfalfa and wheat.
Zemar clicked on another button.
The origin of some of the orders changed from domestic sites to places in Mexico, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Lebanon and Kazakhstan.
“He’s been getting fertilizer for years, far more than he could possibly use. And it looks like he has others buying for him to avoid suspicion and then delivering it. He’s accumulated tons of it over the years, careful not to raise any red flags.”
“Who is Tarot?”
“And there’s this, too.” Zemar brought up an inventory of building materials and supplies. “He’s brought in enough concrete and cinder blocks to build his own neighborhood.”
“Everyone knows he’s expanding. Who is Tarot?”
Zemar shook his head. “This is our first contact.”
“So we don’t know anything about them.”
“We know what they’ve given us.”
“They could have made all this up. We can’t prove they broke any code. We can’t prove there even is a code to be broken.”
“Tarot also sent us this.” He brought up another window on the screen.
A video came on of men at the Colter farm marching with rifles in their hands and lining up to be inspected by Colter.
“And, according to Tarot, the Cotton twins are explosives experts. Is it starting to look like Afghanistan to you now?”
“It could be faked. Even if it is real, it could be inadmissible.”
“Why? Law enforcement didn’t sneak in and get it, a private citizen did. And there’s our video of the garage with the big appetite.”
“What do we tell them? A private citizen who is unknown to us hacked into Colter’s surveillance cameras, filmed them playing soldier and then sent it to us.”
“Even if they can’t use the videos, they’d have probable cause. We have the tiger now and this.”
“We can show it to Joan. Maybe she can do something with it.”
“If she can’t do something with it, I’ll do something about it.”
“We have to keep you and Saleha out of this. You’ll be leaving for Brazil in a few days. I’ll tell her I’ve been dealing with Tarot.”
“It’s your farm.”
He took out his phone and called Joan. “We need to talk.”
“Everyone wants to talk to me now, first Harry, then Kate and now you. What is it?”
“We found a dead tiger. It was starved and tortured and shot.”
“You think this proves it was Colter’s people?”
“Poachers, slickers and disturbed veterans don’t bring in their own exotic animals so they can hunt them. At the pub you said you had hold of nothing, but there’s been a second deliberate fire with more human remains found and now the tiger. And we’ve found something else, too.”
“What, a rhinoceros?”
“Joan . . . ?”
“Sorry, that was uncalled for. What else have you found?”
“It would be better if you just took a look at it for yourself. I’m not really sure what it means or what to do about it. I’m not sure what you can do about it or if you’ll even believe it.”
“Another unbelievable mystery in Dominion; gee, that’s a shocker. Will it keep until tomorrow?”
“It will keep, but you do need to see it as soon as possible.”
“Then after I’ve talked to Mattie, Kate and Harry, in that order, I will come see you. And there’s one more thing. Shana won’t be coming back to work there until you and I have resolved our own mysteries