the son of that famous scientist, some sort of ologist.”
“Paleontologist,” Douglas offered helpfully.
“Yeah, it was his son, Dick Leakey, who put a crimp in their operations when he got put in charge of the Kenya Wildlife Service. He formed up those antipoaching commando teams, and they and the gangs had them a regular war goin’ on down there in Tsavo. Then Leakey lobbies for a worldwide ban on ivory, and he gets it, and pretty soon the Adids are back in the cattle business. I met Dick once. He was a pilot, y’know—”
Fitzhugh interrupted, saying that yes, he knew, and that one day Leakey’s plane developed mechanical trouble in midair and crashed, and some said it was no accident.
“Yup. Crippled up Dick Leakey for life. He had him a helluva lot of enemies, and the Adids were at the top of the list. Anyhow, the old man sent Hassan to graduate school in the U.S. Hassan got him an MBA from—the University of Florida, I think it was—and after the poaching party was over with, he went legit, bought a couple hundred thousand acres near Mount Kenya, and went into the mirra trade, ivory to dope, and then he got into everything else.”
Adid’s degree was from the University of Miami, not the University of Florida. He must have been proud of it; it was the sole object on the wall behind his desk, positioned to catch the light from the window overlooking traffic-fumed Kenyatta Avenue. It appeared that he treasured his privacy and liked to keep a low profile. A simple plastic sign reading THE TANA GROUP hung on the door to a spare reception room, where a stout woman announced the three visitors on an intercom, then led them through two doors with electronic locks and into Adid’s private office, which was smaller and more modestly furnished than the lavishly appointed acreage Fitzhugh had pictured. The man himself, studiously casual in open-neck shirt and raw silk sport jacket, looked to be in his early forties. He was a little under six feet tall, with coat-hanger shoulders, a slender, almost delicate frame, a small head, and very dark, very piercing eyes—miniature black holes that took everything in and let nothing out.
He was an ardent soccer fan, and when he learned that Fitzhugh was the Fitzhugh Martin, he spent several minutes tossing him bouquets of praise and reminiscing about the Ambler’s glory days on the Harambe Stars.
“It’s an honor to meet you, truly it is.”
Fitzhugh squirmed in his seat and made a dismissive gesture.
“But I see I must be embarrassing you. You’re a man who is humble about his achievements. Would it embarrass you more if I asked for your autograph? I would like to give it to my son. He plays with a club.”
Fitzhugh replied no, it would not embarrass him, for it wasn’t the laudatory comments that made him uncomfortable but Adid’s gaze, which seemed to bore through his skin. There was a weird disconnect between it and what he was saying. While the tongue flattered, the eyes studied, and Fitzhugh got the disconcerting impression that Adid knew everything about him, or at least as much as he needed to know. He’d been sized up.
A pen and notepad were pushed across the desk. He wrote, “To Hassan Adid, My Very Best Wishes,” and signed his name, adding “The Ambler” as a flourish.
“Thank you, my son will be thrilled,” Adid said in his low, adenoidal voice, then turned his attention to Douglas and apologized for wasting time.”You didn’t come all this way to listen to us talk about soccer,” he said, and spread his hands on the desktop, his long fingers like the ribs of a fan. “So I think I could be of some benefit to you, and of course you to me. I’m always looking to diversify.” He gestured at the photographs on a side wall, showing the many facets of the Tana Group: an office building under construction, a mining operation, a sloping field abloom with mirra. “And lately I’ve taken an interest in aviation. Actually, it’s an old interest of mine. I took some flying lessons when I was in the U.S. There are some excellent flight schools in Florida. Where did you learn, Mr. Braithwaite?”
“The U.S. Air Force.”
“You can’t ask for a better school than that. What did you fly? Were you a”—he mimed a pilot jockeying a joystick—“top gun?”
“Not quite. I flew A-tens. Warthogs.”
Dare did a theatrical double-take and said, “All this time and