CHAPTER 26

Niassa Game Reserve

Mozambique, Africa

March

REECE SET HIS MIND to developing a strategy to better address the poaching problem. He had his mission. Now it was time to gather intel.

Rich Hastings was delighted to have a seasoned combat leader dedicated to antipoaching, and he offered him every resource available. Reece’s first request was a wall-sized map of the area and all the reports of poaching activities they’d collected. Within minutes, Reece was staring at a pile of notes an inch thick. Hastings’s team had been diligent about compiling the raw data from the field but hadn’t had the resources to apply it tactically.

Reece had seen the same thing happen in the early days of the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq. Teams would gather laptops, cell phones, and written materials from raids on high-value targets, only to see those intelligence gold mines go stale without procedures in place to exploit and analyze them effectively. Once they understood the benefits of sensitive site exploitation and coordinated with the intelligence analysts waiting back at base, their effectiveness in dismantling the enemy network increased exponentially.

It was important that the PHs remain in the field scouting and interdicting the poachers, so Rich and Reece remained in camp, compiling the reports and developing a plan. Reece was amazed that many of the targeting techniques employed by the Rhodesian SAS in the 1970s were the same ones developed by him and his contemporaries three decades later; too bad they hadn’t consulted with guys like Hastings back in 2003.

Hastings’s command of the local geography was essential in locating each poaching event, which was marked on the oversize map. As they pinned each poaching site on the map, patterns began to emerge; the poachers used two main travel corridors, the roads and rivers. The hunting blocks themselves were essentially devoid of human population, so the poachers had to come from somewhere. Movement on roads would be risky, especially during the day, but would be faster and safer than overland travel. After the poachers infiltrated the game-rich reserve and bordering hunting blocks, they would have the logistical problem of moving the meat, hides, or ivory back to their point of sale. It is roughly fifteen times more efficient to move goods by water than by land under the best conditions, and the roads in this part of the world were less than ideal. Those same rivers that flowed rapidly during the wet season turned into sand pits in the dry winters. Reece’s theory was that the poachers moved by water during the wet months and reverted to land travel only when the rivers ran dry.

“That’s about right, ” Hastings agreed. “We’ve always suspected that the local fishermen were in on it. The bulk of the poaching takes place during the wet season. Part of that is the ability to use rivers and the other reason is that we are not in the field as actively during the wet months because many of the roads are impassable. When we’re out there scouting and hunting, we’re a big deterrent. During the wet months, our PHs are usually back in Zim or South Africa visiting their families, which limits our presence. The poachers know this and work around it. Even if we could afford to run antipoaching patrols all year, we couldn’t get around without a helicopter. ”

“Too bad you don’t have a UAV. ”

“What’s a UAV? ”

“Unmanned aerial vehicle. A drone. ”

“Hell, we’ve got a bloody drone. None of us know how to fly the thing, but we’ve got it. ”

“What? ”

“Some Russian client brought it with him last season along with some old Soviet-era night vision that looks like it belongs in a museum. He wanted to use it to find game. We told him it was bloody unethical. He could hunt the way we do or find another outfitter. He got pissed and spent the rest of his trip drinking in camp and shacking up with his twenty-year-old supermodel ‘translator. ’ He left the drone and night vision as a tip, kind of a joke, really. We were pissed because none of us had any use for it. We attempted to use the night vision scouting for cats, but the batteries ran out, so it’s sitting in the shed with the drone. ”

“So, you still have it? ”

“Of course; it looked expensive, but we didn’t have anyone to sell it to. ”

“Can we check it out? ”

“Sure, come with me. ”

Hastings led Reece out of the dining area and toward what looked like a small thatched storage building. The building was dark inside and it took a few moments for Reece’s eyes to adjust after being in the bright sunlight. Rich Hastings pointed to the back corner of the structure. Reece couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the dust-covered quadcopter-style video drone sitting on the concrete slab. It was an Inspire 2 drone, complete with a Forward-Looking InfraRed (FLIR) camera and an iPad Mini–equipped remote control. The instruction manual was still in the plastic wrap. Reece brought it back to his makeshift headquarters in the dining area.

“Think you can fly this thing? ” Rich asked.

“Maybe. Where’s the night vision? ”

“I’ll get it. ”

According to the specs, the drone had a flight time of almost a half hour and could travel at 58 miles per hour. The maximum operating temperature was 102 degrees, which meant he couldn’t fly it in the heat of the day here. That wasn’t a problem, though, as Reece planned to use it at night. He began charging the batteries as he read over the instructions, hoping to give it a test flight once the air cooled down that evening. The misconception about drones was that you could have eyes in the sky everywhere at once. They had one drone and its range and flight time were fairly limited, meaning that they would still have to develop a plan as to where best to deploy it. The drone was a game-changing asset, but not a magic wand.

That evening, Reece was ready to give the drone its maiden flight. All the PHs were back from the field and they gathered around, beers in hand, to watch Reece crash the expensive-looking flying machine. The camp staff weren’t exactly sure what was about to happen, but they soon joined the crowd to see the spectacle. Reece feigned confidence as he carried the drone down to the fire pit area overlooking the river. The camp staff murmured in a collection of languages at the sight of the alien contraption. Reece activated the motor and the drone rocketed skyward. The joyful reaction of the native camp staff drowned out the whir of the four small rotors and Reece couldn’t suppress his grin. As the device held a hover, the iPad displayed a bird’s-eye view of the camp and surrounding landscape. Carefully, Reece steered the drone over the river and eased up to its maximum speed. The flowing river and its banks were thick with animals at this hour, and the view from above was like something on a nature show as Reece steered the craft. He got the hang of flying it quickly and brought it around for a low pass over the camp. The staff cheered and the PHs raised their beers in a salute to their new friend’s flying skills.

Reece toggled the display to activate the FLIR camera and the scene was converted instantly to blacks and grays highlighted by the heat displays of the wildlife below. Elephants, giraffes, impala, and even crocodiles showed up in fiery reds and oranges. The craft stopped and hovered over a lioness stalking through the riverine grasses in search of prey, invisible to the naked eye but clear as day on the screen. The camp staff were bewildered and amazed at what they saw, unsure whether this visitor in camp was a genius or some kind of magician. After twenty minutes of flying, Reece brought the drone in for a landing to the cheers of the staff and applause of the PHs, who were relieved that their new reconnaissance asset had not crashed. He smiled at the prospect of using it in operations against his new enemy.

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