White Bone Read Online Free PDF

you trust. Our best shots. Two vehicles. I will make the call and confirm we’re on our way.” He squeezed the satellite phone tightly in his hand. “Keep watch for the real traitor. He will expose himself before midday tomorrow.”
    “Yes. Of course.”
    “Take care of it the moment you know. Something the others won’t forget.”
    Guuleed praised Allah, and Rambu did so along with him. Guuleed could smell something on the wind. The dead man’s blood.

8

    K nox took Nairobi’s dismal airport as a harbinger of what was to come. Immigration control looked like a row of tollbooths with hand-painted signs for RESIDENTS and NONRESIDENTS . Baggage claim was a low-ceilinged space with a poured concrete floor and two rusted, noisy luggage conveyors. A pair of plywood booths at the far end advertised LOS T LUGGAGE and VISITOR IN FORMATION . He saw lines at both.
    Knox hadn’t checked a bag. He walked past bone-weary tourists recovering from the nine-hour flight who stood now, waiting for bags. Knox hated waiting. Hated misplacing things, not for the fool it made him feel like but for the time wasted in trying to find them again. Put it back where it belongs and it’s there the next time. If he ever had kids, he intended to tell them that.
    He intended to spend time in the backyard with them, too. To read to them before bed and make sure they ate as a family everynight. Music. Movies. A love and respect for all things living. A garden, maybe. A lawn for sure.
    I find in my heart both something missing and something fulfilling.
Grace’s words, not his.
    He thought about her then, imagined where she was at this moment. Held in a room? The back of a van? He hoped she’d gone to ground. Situations changed abruptly in the field. A broken phone wouldn’t explain forty-eight hours of radio silence, but maybe she’d worked her way into an inner circle of Winston’s enemies and didn’t dare risk communication. Maybe she was traveling with people suspicious of her. Maybe her phone had been confiscated.
    Grace had good instincts and tremendous nerve. More nerve than brains, which worried him, given how smart she was. He wanted, needed, her back.
    “Here’s the deal. My brother is the most important person in my life.” His words, not hers.
    “Mister!” A tug on Knox’s jacket. “Did you check a bag?” A boy who looked no older than twelve. Boot-black skin. Leviathan eyes. A face adorable enough to win tips, but deceptively ageless. Twelve, fourteen, going on twenty. He topped out halfway between Knox’s navel and collarbone.
    Knox kept walking, never breaking stride.
    The kid wore an oversized orange vest with reflective stripes on the side. Rubber flip-flops clapped the concrete. A piece of string bunched his shorts at the hips.
    “This way,” the boy said, tugging on Knox’s wrist.
    Knox flicked him off. “Don’t touch!”
    The boy held up his hands. It was all part of the act.
I mean no harm—poor innocent me! I want only to pick your pocket and leave with your wallet
. Knox knew the boy’s cousin in Tunisia, his second cousin in Amman. Take a number.
    “Other green line is here,” the boy said, indicating a guarded doorway to their left that had no line. Overlapping safari posters and hotel advertisements served as wallpaper, occupying all available wall space. Knox was familiar with third-world rules, could play by them most of the time. Now he regretted not speaking Swahili.
    The busy green exit— NOTHING TO DECLARE —lay straight ahead. Arriving passengers were being checked, their carry-ons searched, despite the green. Knox had nothing to fear from an inspection, but for him waiting in line was right up there with misplacing things. More time wasted.
    “He’s a friend of mine,” the boy told Knox, pointing to a uniformed man, off on his own, guarding another exit from the terminal.
    “Is that right?”
    “His second wife’s son and I go to Sunday school together.”
    “Sure you do. And you’re