Night of Knives

by Jon Evans

  Jacob considers that a moment. Then he stiffens.

  Veronica looks at him curiously. "What?"

  "Holy fucking God."

  "What?"

  "Kill the right person," he repeats. "Think about it. If you're right, if this was all a plot to get Gorokwe Western support. After you did that, who would you want to kill?"

  She shrugs, uncomprehending.

  "Mugabe," he says. "The President of Zimbabwe. They're going to shoot him down and have Gorokwe take over with American support."

  They stare wordlessly at one another for what feels like a long time.

  Then Jacob half-laughs. "Jesus. You've got to give them credit for thinking big, don't you? And we thought this was about a few smugglers and terrorists. They're gunning for their own fucking country. The president of Zimbabwe dies in a mysterious plane crash, shot down by missiles. Russian missiles, smuggled in from Zanzibar, made to look like they're going to Al-Qaeda in case they get intercepted en route. Nice touch. Good attention to detail. And then the USA, aided by nudges from Agent Strick and Dr. Murray on the ground, plus rich Mr. DeWitt and his paid lobbyists, naturally throws its support in the inevitable succession battle behind noble General Gorokwe, who they think so very highly of ever since he rescued American hostages from those nasty Al-Qaeda terrorists. Nobody's going to care that those terrorists never existed, not after the fact, Saddam's weapons of mass destruction never existed either. It's elegant. It's fucking brilliant."

  "It makes sense," Veronica says softly. "It makes everything make sense."

  "And Derek was about to find out. So they abducted us, killed him, and made it all look like the work of the terrorists whose nonexistence Derek was about to discover." Derek laughs bitterly. "And we thought Strick and Murray were corrupt. Oh no. It's much worse that that. They're fucking idealists. I bet this was never Gorokwe's idea. I bet they chose him. Danton's the money, he's involved so they don't have to sell arms to Iran or whatever. First they found their figurehead, then they rigged events to make sure the American government lined up behind him. And now that he's a staunch ally of course the USA will support Gorokwe once Mugabe's gone and he seizes power. This isn't even a coup. This is regime change."

  A long silence falls over the room.

  There is a knock on the door. Both of them flinch.

  "Who is it?" Veronica asks hoarsely.

  Lydia's voice answers. "It is us, Rukungu and I."

  Veronica sighs with relief, gets up, and pulls open the loose, rusting bolt that holds the door shut. Lydia and Rukungu enter the room and she closes the door behind them.

  "The machines gave us a million shillings," Lydia says, as if she still can't quite believe their mechanical largesse.

  Rukungu reaches into the black Adidas bag he carries and deposits a thick wad of Ugandan money on the bed beside Jacob. Veronica does a quick mental calculation. About five hundred US dollars. That leaves them with about a thousand in cash.

  "You will give us a card?" Lydia asks nervously.

  "One of them," Jacob agrees. "Mine. There's ten thousand dollars in that account, about twenty million shillings. You can take out maybe half a million a day. But they'll be tracking it. Make sure you never use it in the same bank twice in the same month, and if the machine eats the card, you turn around and walk away fast."

  Rukungu nods seriously. "I understand."

  "Nobody followed you? You're sure?"

  "No one followed us. You are safe here. We took great care."

  "And you're really going to drive us?" Jacob sounds like he can't quite believe this to be true.

  "We have agreed. But we are refugees. We have no papers. The police will stop us."

  "That's fine," Jacob pats the brick of money beside him. "This is Africa. Who needs ID when you've got money? You better go get your things ready. We leave in fifteen minutes."

  Rukungu takes Lydia's arm and leads her out of the room. Veronica breathes a little easier when they are gone. It was too crowded with four people crammed into this little space.

  "This theory of ours," Jacob says to her. "It's testable."

  She blinks. "Testable how?"

  "We still have one phone we can use." Jacob digs into his pocket and produces a candy-bar-sized Nokia. "Derek's secret phone. The one he used here. The one he called Zimbabwe with. It's safe to use, nobody else knows its number, they can't track it to us. Or even if they can we'll be gone before they get here."

  "Who do you want to call?"

  "Zimbabwe."

  Jacob puts the Nokia on speakerphone and dials a number from its memory. Three sets of doubled rings echo through the little room. Then a familiar voice replies. "Yes?"

  "Is this the man with no name?" Jacob asks.

  "He and I might be connected in some way. Jacob Rockel, I presume?"

  "Yes."

  "And is Veronica Kelly there?"

  "Yes."

  "Fascinating. Forgive me, I don't normally try to ask awkward questions, but this time I just can't help my curiosity. Are you aware an Interpol alert went out earlier today calling for your arrest?"

  After a moment Jacob says, "We weren't aware, but we're not surprised."

  "We didn't do it," Veronica says desperately. "We've been set up. We've been framed."

  "Of course you have."

  "We're calling you for confirmation," Jacob says.

  "I see. Confirmation of what precisely?"

  "The information you had for Derek. The information he called you to get. Did it pertain to General Gideon Gorokwe?"

  After a moment the voice says, "You don't seriously expect me to answer that."

  "Derek called you to ask about Gorokwe, didn't he? Because he thought Gorokwe was involved with interahamwe smugglers. And then when you found out Gorokwe was helping the Americans chase the interahamwe, and their so-called terrorist allies, you thought this was strange, so you called to ask about it, didn't you? That was the real reason you called. You wanted to ask Prester because Derek had already let slip he wasn't a suspect any more."

  "It's an interesting supposition," the man says carefully. "Let's go back to your use of the words 'so-called,' if we may –"

  Jacob says, "We need to talk to Mugabe."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Robert Mugabe. The president of Zimbabwe. We need to talk to him."

  "Right. As you do. You don't want much, do you? I'm sorry, Mr. Rockel, but if you think I can put you in touch with our oh-so-esteemed president, you are barking up not just the wrong tree but frankly a rather poisonous one."

  "Can you tell us someone who can get us in contact?"

  The British man says, acidly, "Even if I could, to be perfectly honest, I don't think I would. But it's a moot point. Mugabe's in China for some totalitarian tete-a-tete. He won't be back until next week."

  "Good," Jacob says. "Then there's time."

  "Time for what?"

  Veronica opens her mouth to explain. Jacob shakes his head. She looks at him. He reaches out and covers the phone's mouthpiece.

  "Getting out of Uganda isn't enough. Not with Interpol after us too. Kenya won't be any better. Nowhere will. Every customs officer and policeman in Africa is looking for us. You understand?"

  Veronica just stares at him. She feels overwhelmed, like she's been struck by a slow-motion tidal wave and has only just begun to tumble. "Then what do we do?"

  "This guy was a friend of Derek's. He might help us. But we have to meet him in person, show him what we've got, we can't convince him over the phone."

  She nods.

  "I'm waiting," the voice says drily.

  Jacob removes his hand from the mouthpiece. "We've been framed. If they catch us, if we get caught anywhere in Africa, they won't prosecute us, they'll kill us. These murder charges won't stick, they're just an excuse to grab us."

  "How tragic. And why exactly has this come to pass?"

  "Because we've found out something about General Gorokwe. Something serious. Something th
at could affect, that will affect, the entire future of Zimbabwe."

  "How very melodramatic. What?"

  Jacob says, "We'll only tell you in person."

  After a moment the voice says, incredulously, "I beg your pardon?"

  "We've got evidence. You won't believe us without that. We need to show you."

  "Mr. Rockel, I am not about to come to Uganda to visit a pair of wanted murderers."

  "Then we'll come to you. If you don't believe us then, you can do whatever you like, turn us over to Interpol, whatever."

  "You can't be serious."

  Jacob says, "We're dead serious. We need to get to Zimbabwe as fast as we can."

  A long pause follows. Veronica is jittery. It feels like minutes are critical now, like the Ugandan police or even military might track them down at any moment.

  "We didn't do it," she bursts out. "Prester was our friend. They tortured him to death. That's what they'll do to us if they catch us. Please. You were Derek's friend. There's no one else. Help us. Please."

  When the man eventually speaks his voice is full of reluctance, but there's a tinge of curiosity as well. "Tell you what. I'll do this much. If you actually do come here, I'll meet with you. I won't promise anything more than that. Get yourselves to Livingstone, in Zambia, near the border. Give me an email address, one that can't be traced to you, and I'll send you details of what to do once you arrive. I promise I'll listen to you. No more than that."

  "Get to Zimbabwe?" Veronica asks. She feels betrayed. This sounds like the next worst thing to no help at all. "How?'

  "As to that," the stranger says, "I'm afraid you're on your own."

  * * *

  Jacob has lost all track of time. It feels like it has stopped, like he and Veronica have been and will be forever crammed into this dark and ill-fitting pocket of space. The air stinks of gasoline, his head feels like it is being crushed in a vice. Even with the spare tire moved to the back seat there's barely room for them both in the trunk of the Toyota. Jacob lies curled in a painfully hunchbacked position, his left leg has gone half-numb, and metal protrusions stab him every time they go over a bump, which means several times a minute on the good stretches of road. The trunk is open only a crack, enough to let in a little air. Veronica shudders in his arms and moans with every exhalation, as if experiencing a terrible nightmare, but she is awake. It took a visible effort of will for her to get into the trunk at all, and this journey will occupy five hours at least. Jacob has no idea how many of those hours have passed. Time has no meaning in this stinking darkness.

  The timbre of the engine changes and the vehicle slows down. Jacob sees flashes of light outside. Another police checkpoint.

  "Quiet," he whispers into Veronica's ear. He isn't sure she can really hear him at all any more, her rational mind seems to have fled, leaving behind a terrified child - but then she stiffens, stops whimpering and starts breathing silently again. He squeezes her tightly. Her face is damp with tears.

  "It's going to be okay," he whispers.

  He hears Rukungu's voice, and that of other men, the police. They hold each other closely, muscles tense with fear, breathing through their mouths, until the conversation finally ends and the Toyota accelerates forward again. A few minutes later they turn sharply to the left and begin to move along a bumpy dirt road. Jacob's head groans, he feels like his whole body is shaking apart, his bones and muscles are being unknit by the endless, violent rattling. In one of the rare moments of calm that follow he wishes he could just hit his head and be knocked unconscious.

  He is so dazed he doesn't realize the Toyota has come to a stop until the engine switches off. A minute later the trunk lid yawns open, ushering in a blissful wave of cool night air. Rukungu has to bodily lift Veronica to freedom, and Jacob too needs his help to emerge from the trunk. He falls back against the vehicle, next to Veronica, both of them so shaken they can barely stand.

  "Where are we?" Jacob manages.

  "Suam," Rukungu says. "Near the border. It is almost dawn."

  Lydia offers them water. They drink greedily. Jacob looks around. One horizon is limned with light, outlining a huge mass to the southeast: Mount Elgon, on the Uganda-Kenya border. The Toyota has stopped beside a wide dirt road. In the distance, maybe a kilometre away, a single gas lamp illuminates a few wooden buildings and bandas. As Jacob's head clears and its ache fades away he slowly begins to realize they are on the brink of success. This border post is so remote there is no phone service, no way for the guards to know he and Veronica are fugitives. Not that Kenya is safe. They have to go overland all the way to Zimbabwe, across half of Africa, before they approach anything like safety. But this is a start.

  "Is there anything to eat?" Veronica asks.

  Lydia produces a packet of tasteless biscuits and a huge avocado that Jacob halves and sections with Derek's Leatherman. He has never eaten a finer breakfast in his life.

  "We cannot cross with you," Rukungu says. "We have no papers."

  Jacob nods.

  "Do you want us to stay?" Lydia asks.

  Veronica shakes her head. "No. You don't want to be seen with us."

  Rukungu says, "Then we will go."

  Jacob looks at him. In the predawn light he can see Rukungu and Lydia only in silhouette, in outline. He has never felt so grateful to anyone. They didn't need to take the enormous risk of spiriting Jacob and Veronica out of the country. He supposes they did it for Derek, really, but he doesn't know why they are so loyal to the memory of his best friend. He doesn't really know anything about them: where they are from, how they met, how they were parted, what Rukungu did in Rwanda and in the Congo in the years after, how Lydia came to Kampala, why and how Rukungu came to betray Athanase to Derek - all these are mysteries. All Jacob knows is that he owes them his life. He wishes there was time to inquire, to try to understand; he wishes he had cared and asked about their stories before. He had the opportunity. But they were just Africans, he didn't really care. And now it is too late.

  "Thank you," he says inadequately, and puts out his hand.

  Rukungu and Lydia shake it, formally. Veronica hugs them both goodbye. Then Jacob shoulders the little pack that contains all the possessions he has left in this world, takes Veronica's hand in his, and leads her towards the border, towards the dawn.

  Part 3

  Zimbabwe

  Chapter 29

  Veronica says, "Where there's smoke there's fire."

  Jacob half-smiles. "Except here."

  The pale plume rising into the sky half a mile away, seen over the trees that line the road, looks exactly like smoke from a big fire. Even the distant noise sounds like something far away burning furiously. High above, the noon sun is surrounded by something Veronica has never seen before: a perfectly circular rainbow.

  She takes a moment to appreciate the beauty, then takes a deep breath and looks back down to earth. No sense delaying any longer. "All right. Let's go."

  The road that carried them the ten kilometres from Livingstone to the border ends at a chainlink gate. A series of other fences steer the small queue of pedestrians into a squat building labelled ZAMBIA EMIGRATION. Beyond this checkpoint, a metal bridge about three hundred feet long traverses a steep-walled gorge.

  Jacob takes her hand as they wait, holding the small day packs that carry all their remaining worldly possessions. "Almost there."

  Veronica forces a smile. This is their fourth border in four days. She knows in theory the line is good - busy officials are likely to hurry them along, bored ones are dangerous - but the anticipation is always worse than the crossing itself. Assuming of course that they don't get caught. A fate more likely to happen here than anywhere else. The tiny posts where they entered and exited Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania were so far from modern networked civilization it will likely take months for those immigration officers to learn that Jacob and Veronica were wanted fugitives, but this is a major transit nexus. When Veronica sees computers beyond the building's glass-fronted wickets
, her stomach tenses and she starts to breathe fast.

  "Those won't be connected to anything," Jacob says quietly into her ear. His voice is reassuring, but his hand is clammy. "They'll only know if they call in our names. They won't do that unless they get suspicious. And they won't get suspicious. There's nothing suspicious about us. Nobody's even dreaming that we'd come down here. Just stay cool and we'll be fine. If you're shaking, just pretend you're sick or something."

  The line edges forward. They begin to near the uniformed immigration officer. Veronica can't believe she's here, doing this, sneaking across a border, hoping to escape an Interpol warrant. It doesn't feel real. Nothing about their epic journey across half of Africa, in the hundred hours since they escaped Uganda, has felt particularly real.

  Sunset at the Kenya-Tanzania border, watching clouds of winged termites erupt from a mound the size of a small house, with snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro looming in the distance beyond. Their roller-coaster early-morning flight to Dar es Salaam, followed by a panicky taxi ride to the railway station, arriving only ten minutes before the departure of the weekly train to Zambia. A young woman moving along the length of the train at one of its many unscheduled stops, selling live locusts, a local delicacy, from a red plastic bowl. Ghostly stick-figure men and women, more like shadows than humans, standing beside the tracks and staring as the Tazara train rolled through the desiccated, drought-blasted hills of southwest Tanzania.

  "Passport," the immigration officer says.

  Now that she is at the front of the line, in the moment of truth, she feels inexplicably calm and relaxed; her breath has slowed, her muscles have loosened. Maybe she has just run out of adrenalin. Veronica produces her passport and passes it over with steady hands. It seems strange that so much rests on that little blue booklet, that her ability to pass between nations is determined solely by the words and pictures within. The Zambian officer stamps it and hands it back without even looking at her name. Jacob receives the same treatment. Veronica's legs are weak with exhaustion and relief as they walk out of the immigration post. Only one more border post to go, and it should be the easiest of all.