Ivory Ghosts

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Book: Ivory Ghosts Read Online Free PDF
Author: Caitlin O'Connell
the truck off. “We may be stuck here for the night.”
    I went to the cab and grabbed the water bottle, took a swig, and passed it to Sean.
    “Cheers.” Sean guzzled some water, wiped his mouth, and gave me a big kiss. “God, you look gorgeous caked in mud.”
    I smiled as he started shoving more branches under the tires. I went back to a different tree on the other side of the truck to cut more while Sean went into the bush to cut even more.
    A few minutes later I heard a funny noise. Like a gasp. I dropped my machete, pulled my revolver out of its holster, and ran into the bush. There, right in front of me, was an enraged old buffalo—hideously gnarled horns—pinning Sean’s chest up against the park boundary fence. Sean’s eyes were pleading with me to shoot as I stood frozen in place.
    —
    A heaving breath nearby startled me out of my waking dream. My eyes shot open. In the dark blue light of early morning, I lay still, trying to orientate to the noise.
    A tree branch broke, and I spun my head around to see a large elephant chewing thorny branches outside the window screen just a foot away from me. There was something very unsettling about looking up the prehensile nose of the world’s largest land creature. I didn’t dare move for fear of scaring her.
    I took a deep breath and watched the elephant eat. Her slender tusks and pointy forehead told me that this was a cow. Her thick, vaudeville eyelashes closed as she chewed contentedly. I could almost feel her breath, slow and deliberate, passing through the end of her trunk. Her velvety, deeply wrinkled skin moved in swaths when she shifted her weight. The smell of elephant leather permeated my nostrils as I listened to her chew.
    When she finally moved away from the window, I looked at my watch. It was six thirty. I covered my head with my sarong and lay there a bit longer before mustering up the energy to start the day. After much more chewing and slow breathing, the elephant finally walked off.
    I sat up feeling swollen and itchy all over. Even my eyelids weren’t spared.
    I made my way to the kitchen and lit a match under the kettle. I had a little reading to do before meeting my local contact, Mr. Baggs. I wanted to make the most of the visit without his suspecting that I was snooping around.
    I got dressed and moved my backpack out onto the porch table. While sipping my tea, I opened a dossier entitled
Ivory Trade Routes Between China and Africa 2010–2014
, compiled by the Hong Kong chapter of the Wildlife Investigation Agency. The report included seizure records and DNA evidence from confiscated ivory, indicating Zambia and Angola as the main hot spots in southern Africa.
    I opened a two-page map spread. The Caprivi region of Namibia lay at the center with arrows pointing down from Angola and Zambia and across from Zimbabwe. The Susuwe Ranger Station sat at the center of the ivory smuggling corridor.
    During the most recent international elephant management conference held in Kruger, I had presented a paper on this subject. A poaching incident in Garamba National Park in the Congo two years earlier, with the possible involvement by the Ugandan government, marked the beginning of a shift in players on the poaching front. The incidence of poaching events across Africa escalated, led by rebel groups looking to buy arms. They were teaming up with organized crime syndicates throughout Africa, including American government-backed armies, to provide global distribution for illegal ivory.
    Due to this extreme poaching pressure, preservation groups in East Africa argued for a return to a complete ban on the ivory trade, as had been put in place in 1989, after poaching in East Africa had reached a peak, reducing the elephant population to half of what it had been just ten years earlier. They believed that illegal ivory would eventually make its way into legal shipments.
    At the same time, groups in southern Africa wanted to retain the right to raise money for
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