The four men started back toward the train station, while Mike and I followed the fence as far to the west as it went, before it curved off.
The Bronx River Parkway—elevated at this point—was overhead. Traffic was whizzing by, and it was refreshing to hear the road noise after the silence of the train yard.
We walked on for fifty yards, and then fifty more.
It was all park and woodland, to be sure—remnants of what had been described a century ago as the wilderness that made Bronx County such an inviting place to create the city’s wildlife zoo.
I shined my light through the mesh fencing but could see only trees and dense growth around and below it.
“Don’t go so fast,” I said to Mike.
“Catch up, then.”
I ran to close the distance between us.
Mike was stopped at a break in the wire, too small for anyone to pass through. He pushed against it with both hands, but it didn’t give.
“Is that a problem?” I asked.
“Probably not. Probably just corrosion that caused it.”
He kept going, farther and farther away from the parkway underpass.
“Look, Mike, if it’s the zoo you want to see, it opens at ten tomorrow.”
“Almost done, Coop.”
Ten feet forward and he found another hole, still too small for a human passage. I followed behind Mike and reached out my hand to touch the sharp edges of the damaged fence. It wasn’t barbed wire, but it might as well have been.
I knew he wasn’t turning back until he reached the far end of the zoo border.
I paused, lifted my light, and saw the outline of the monorail away in the distance. It felt good to have a familiar visual anchor on this walk.
“See this?” Mike said, and I jogged to get to his side.
“What?”
“This isn’t an accident, Coop, like some of the other spots,” he said, untwisting a thin metal strip that had been fastened—like a tie—to the top of a section of the wire mesh. “Someone’s created an entrance here.”
Mike knelt down and untied a similar strip at the bottom of the same piece of fence, and when he stood up and pushed against it, the section swung open like a small gate.
“Throw some more light on me,” he said, standing just inside the opening.
We both aimed our beams inside the wooded area. There was about ten feet of low brush directly ahead, and then a mass of old growth and fallen trees.
“Higher,” he said.
I directed my beam over the tall pile.
“Trees, Mike. That’s all I can see up ahead. More trees.”
“Be careful, Coop,” he said, stepping in. “It’s muddy.”
“It’s so close to the Bronx River,” I said. “Like wetlands. No wonder they can’t keep animals here, on this side of the park.”
“Watch your step.”
I got a few feet in, but it was like walking in quicksand. My sneakers sank in an inch or two, and I had to pull up hard to move forward.
“Forget it,” I said. “You and the guys can come back in here tomorrow.”
Mike had stopped at the edge of the dense mound and began to circle it. I lost sight of him when he rounded the enormous log to my right.
“The beam, kid. I need your beam.”
“It’s disgusting in here,” I said. “I’m covered in mud up to my knees. You really want to do this now?”
“Five minutes. Just give me five minutes,” he said.
Mike was shouting to me and it seemed as though he was getting farther away.
I looked over my shoulder at the opening in the fence and thought about turning back, but Mike called to me again.
“Eureka, babe,” he said. “I think I’ve found the Holy Grail.”
I sidestepped the muddiest section of the path and walked around on a bed of twigs and dead leaves, making a loud cracking noise as I plowed forward.
“Are you serious?” I called out to him.
“Better than Tut’s tomb, Coop. Hurry up.”
When Mike came into view, I saw that he was on one knee, dragging a handful of branches out of the way.
I stood behind him and leaned in, over his shoulder, shining my flashlight into the brush.
“Oh my God,” I said, struggling to understand what I was actually looking at—all these gleaming white objects, almost glowing from within—a thick mound beneath all the brown branches. “They’re tusks, aren’t they? They’re elephant tusks, hidden under this load of debris.”
“A tangled mass of dead trees and fallen branches, hiding a stockpile of ivory—a king’s ransom in blood ivory, Coop. Ready to be sold on the black market,” Mike said, getting to his feet. “Ivory is the lure that can kill, kid. It makes for the perfect deadfall.”
FORTY-FIVE
“Let’s go back to the car,” I said. I had started to shiver—either from the idea of the magnitude of the enterprise we’d uncovered or from the night chill. “Call Peterson from there.”
Mike was taking snapshots of the poached-ivory pile with his cell.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let me get Mercer on it.”
He speed-dialed the number and Mercer picked up right away.
“Hey. It’s me,” he said, turning to take my arm and walk me out of this suddenly terrifying Bronx wilderness so I didn’t sink farther into the mud. “Call Peterson. Tell Vickee to get Scully on this as soon as possible. We found the perfect intersection—kind of what that Liebman guy was telling us about.”
Mercer answered him but I couldn’t hear that part of the conversation. I was being careful not to lose my footing on the wet ground.
“Say you’re importing heroin in kilos,” Mike said, “and you’re bringing in illegal ivory, too. This place is the geographical center of the universe for those trades, man. Drugs in the rail yard, and ivory in the brush at a remote corner of the zoo, directly adjacent to the drug stashes. Even if someone tripped over it here, you’d think it was a hundred years of dead elephants.”
Mike waited while Mercer spoke.
“Thanks. Call you from the car in five,” he said, hitting the End Call button and slipping the phone in his pocket. He removed the flashlight from his pocket and we continued our way around the mound.
“You think this is Kwan?” I said.
“I do, but more important than that, it’s what we’ve got to prove somehow,” Mike said. “Let Scully claim this discovery for the department, and Prescott won’t even be able to own a place on the podium.”
Mike was pumped by his find, justifiably pleased by his persistence in following his gut tonight.
“Good work,” I said. “Sorry I almost pulled you off it.”
“Lighten up, babe. This is what I do best,” Mike said. “Detect.”
“I know that.”
“Sherlock deduced,” he said. “I detect.”
“You got it from your dad,” I said. “It’s in your DNA.”
“Meanwhile, Mercer claimed there’s an APB for my arrest,” Mike said, bumping his body against mine. He was almost giddy about unearthing this illegal—this hugely valuable—stockpile. “The whole NYPD is looking for some loopy cop who kidnapped a muddy blonde.”
“Don’t turn yourself in yet,” I said, laughing with him.
“No chance.”
We rounded the tall mound of trees and logs, and I heard a rustling sound on the dark path ahead of us. I stood still.
“What is it?” Mike asked. “Let’s go.”