CHAPTER 27

Niassa Game Reserve

Mozambique, Africa

April

REECE HAD OUTLINED A basic campaign plan and was feeling increasingly confident in his ability to operate the drone, but he lacked a ground force to physically interdict the poachers. His research indicated that the poachers were part of a larger syndicate as vast and complex as the terrorist organizations he’d targeted in the military. Endemic corruption at all levels of government, low socioeconomic conditions, and high demand in Asia were fueling an illicit trade that generated more money than the illegal trafficking of small arms, gold, diamonds, or oil. There wasn’t much Reece could do about the demand, but he could impact the supply.

Reece was in Mozambique to keep a low profile, not to end up in what he assumed would be one of the worst prisons on earth. That meant he couldn’t lead the antipoaching teams themselves, as doing so would require interaction with authorities, something that he intended to avoid. He ran the dilemma by Rich Hastings and the two of them came up with a plan. Rich would use the resources of the safari company to beef up the capability and number of their game scouts, and Reece would act as their eyes and ears. Rich would assign experienced trackers to work with Reece and, once they got “eyes on” the poachers, they’d call in the game scouts.

The government-provided game scouts were mostly good men with the right intentions, but they lacked any real training or experience when it came to weapons and tactics. Rich and his PHs, most of them ex-military and all of them highly competent in the field, could act as advisors to the game scouts when it came to larger operations. They would scale up their antipoaching efforts during the off-season when the activity was at its peak and scale it back during the hunting season when the PHs and game scouts had traditional duties to attend to, the ones that actually paid the bills. Reece would focus most of his time on coordinating the antipoaching efforts while doing some general scouting for the safari operations as an apprentice or “appy” PH.

Special Reconnaissance (SR) was a core SEAL mission during much of Reece’s time in the Teams. More recently, the SR role was spun off to specialized teams on each coast that performed highly technical surveillance operations in support of direct-action elements like Reece’s troop. Even though Reece hadn’t done an SR-only mission since his first deployment to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, it was something that he and his men had trained to do for years. In his war against the poachers, Reece would shift back to the SR role full-time. It would take some adjustment not to be the one leading the strike force onto the objective, but it was the smart play. Instead of being the quarterback on the field, Reece would become the offensive coordinator calling the plays from the skybox.

• • •

The fisherman steered the dugout canoe carefully to avoid the boulders at the river’s bend. Without a moon the stars still gave the older man enough illumination to navigate the waters he knew so well. The light reflecting off the calm surface made steering the boat as easy as navigating a modern highway, not that he’d ever seen one. He used his hand-hewn steering pole to stop the craft, listening intently for any sign of movement on the nearby bank. All he could hear were the normal forest sounds: a steady hum of birds and insects interrupted by the occasional bark of a baboon. Satisfied that he was alone, he poled the canoe toward the shoreline.

“Okay, he’s moving again, ” Reece said quietly into the Motorola handheld radio, staring intently at the IR image on the iPad tethered to his drone’s controls. “He’s ten meters out from the bank, one hundred meters south of the scouts. ”

He heard Hastings’s radio break squelch twice, indicating that he’d understood.

Reece was sitting on the tailgate of his Land Cruiser, on the opposite side of the river from the action, coordinating the events as they played out before him on the screen.

“Land-based guys are moving toward the bank with the cargo. Let’s wait until he gets out of the boat to intercept. He’s five meters out. He’s beached. He’s out of the boat, time to move. ”

Reece could see the six game scouts move forward in a line formation with Hastings at their center, keeping them moving in the right direction. When the scouts were thirty yards from the bank, the two land-based poachers dropped their cargo and fled to the east.

“Coming your way, Louie, ” Reece advised.

The PHs and their trackers were waiting in a blocking position directly in line with the poachers’ escape path. Louie waited until they were ten yards out before he fired a round from his massive. 500 Nitro over their heads. The fireball and concussion from the express rifle left the poachers in shock as they dove to the ground at the feet of the blocking force. Louie and the other PHs quickly pounced on the men and secured their hands with thin rope as they searched them for weapons. The main force of game scouts tackled the fisherman as he tried to climb back into his beached canoe.

The lead game scout placed the three men under arrest, carefully inventorying their contraband from the scene, with everything cataloged and photographed for use during prosecution. All told, the men seized a. 375 H& H magazine rifle along with ten rounds of ammunition, a Chinese-made single-shot shotgun with two shells, two axes, three pangas, and a tireless bicycle loaded down with 150 pounds of elephant ivory from what looked to be nine different elephants, all of whom were young bulls and cows. The three men were a sight to behold: barefoot and dressed in hand-me-down clothes from Western tourists, including, ironically, the Dartmouth Crew jersey worn by the getaway canoe driver. The men were separated and questioned, with audio recordings made of each interrogation. They had no idea that their apprehension had been guided by one of the most wanted men in the world, aided by technology they didn’t know existed.

Reece sat back and smiled. This was their third interdiction operation in two weeks and the men were really getting the hang of it. They’d taken thirteen poachers into custody and seized guns, ammo, ivory, meat, hides, and a truckload of wire snares. In this little corner of Africa, they were beginning to make a difference. Reece shook hands with Muzi and Gona and thanked them for the great job they’d done in helping him track the poachers to their point of exfil. It was after midnight. Reece and his team would be back at it in the morning.

• • •

Without the wartime stress of preparing for and leading men into combat that had preoccupied him in the SEAL Teams, Reece’s mind was clear and calm. He rose with the sun, pushed himself hard all day, and slept soundly at night. He’d found peace here in the primal rhythm of the wild. He had a mission, an enemy, and was part of a team he trusted—he had purpose.

His sun-streaked hair hung to his shoulders and his beard nearly touched his chest. His skin was burned to a shade of walnut from his time at sea and from the relentless African sun. The simple but nutritious diet of game meat and vegetables coupled with the nearly constant physical activity had made his body lean and hard. The chiseled separation between his muscles was visible, as were the thick veins on his arms; his body fat hadn’t been this low since he completed BUD/S nearly two decades earlier. He wore khaki shorts and an olive-green cotton safari-style shirt with the RH Safaris logo embroidered above his chest pocket. His boots were locally made buffalo hide veldskoen and he wore a wide-brimmed slouch hat. The old. 404 rifle had become a trusted friend that was never more than an arm’s length away and he wore its thick cartridges on his belt like a gunfighter. He looked far less like a fugitive naval officer from California and more like an African-born professional hunter.

• • •

After two months of antipoaching operations, Reece and his team had taken a serious toll on the opposition. They’d arrested three dozen men, both local bush meat poachers as well as those working under professional poaching syndicates, burned numerous camps, and seized three pickup-truck loads of wire snares. Word had gotten out that this was no longer a good place to be if you weren’t respecting the game laws. Rich was confident that they would see game numbers rise sharply in the concession as a result.

With the change in season, hunters from the United States and Europe had begun to arrive, and the PHs shifted their focus to the day-to-day operations of the safaris while Reece continued to scout for poaching activity. The bush pilot who brought the hunters into and out of the camp’s airstrip would sit idly in camp during safaris, keeping the plane ready in case of a medical emergency that would require an air evacuation. He was bored to death waiting for the call that never came, so Reece put him to work. For major operations, he became the drone pilot and Reece became the ground force commander for the game scouts. The antipoaching force was competent and capable, and Reece provided tactical leadership while staying in the shadows. All the poachers knew was that the game scouts had gotten really good at their jobs; none were aware of the trained commando leader quietly pulling the strings.

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