Night of Knives

by Jon Evans

  When she steps onto the bridge she gasps aloud at the sudden sight of gargantuan Victoria Falls. The majestic curtain of water to her right, the source of that towering plume that is not smoke, tumbles over a four-hundred-foot cliff into a gorge that curves sharply before passing beneath this bridge. Amid the whitewater below she can see little inflatable blue-and-yellow rafts: tourists rafting the mighty Zambezi. They look like children's toys. More tourists, all white, some looking distinctly pale and nervous, cluster around the bungee-jumping booth midway across the bridge. Veronica half-smiles as she passes. After her last few weeks, bungee jumping seems about as nervewracking as a stroll through a flower garden. She wonders whether she's grown tough or just numb.

  There is another lineup to enter Zimbabwe. Veronica is taken aback; she thought this was a pariah state. From the voices and accents most of these would-be adventure tourists are are British, Australian and South African, with a sprinkling of Europeans. Two immigration officers are on duty. To Veronica's relief one is a woman. Yesterday's email from their only hope, their still-nameless contact in Zimbabwe, told them to go to the woman on duty.

  They have to fill out forms before presenting their passports. Jacob's hands are now shaking from tension, it takes him three attempts to legibly complete a form, and this makes Veronica nervous too, surely this is exactly the kind of thing they look for, Jacob's face looks pinched and he is sweating heavily, he might as well be wearing a SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER T-shirt - but no one seems to notice. The woman takes Veronica's passport and thirty dollars cash, reads her name, hesitates a moment, then gives her a knowing look through the glass. Veronica doesn't move. The woman smiles slightly, smooths a very modern visa sticker onto one of the passport's last virgin pages, stamps it, hands it back, and waves her on. Jacob rejoins her as they walk into Zimbabwe.

  "We made it," she says giddily.

  He does not share her euphoria. "We have forty dollars cash left, and we can't use cards. If our man with no name doesn't show, we're finished."

  * * *

  According to the email, they are meant to meet him outside the nearest Total gas station. A long road winds from the bridge up towards the town of Victoria Falls, past empty fields of dry bushes and grass. They pass little gaggles of white tourists, and a few men selling yoghurt drinks, before they reach a remarkably modern strip mall that boasts a tourist information office, souvenir shops, and the green-and-blue logo of Standard Chartered Bank. A massive and apparently brand-new hotel/casino complex built to First World standards is just opposite. Veronica is amazed: isn't Zimbabwe supposed to be a wretched, dangerous place?

  "There," Jacob says, pointing at a red sign. "Total." He pronounces it the French way, stressing the second syllable.

  She looks. Like all gas stations, Total has a big board which displays its prices. But this station's board says

  PETROL NO

  DIESEL NO

  PARAFFIN NO

  No one is waiting for them outside. The little shop within the station is named La Boutique: its windows are cracked and the door hangs open as if broken. When they enter, the attendant, a young man reading some kind of photocopied book, stares at them as if customers are an unheard-of innovation. The shelves are covered with dusty containers of motor oil and spark plugs, and there are two large Coca-Cola fridges, both empty.

  "No Coke?" Jacob asks, disappointed.

  "No."

  "Do you know where I can get some?"

  The young man shakes his head. "No Coke anywhere."

  They retreat from this empty shell that was once a gas station. Veronica is more shocked by the absence of Coca-Cola than that of gasoline. She stops between the gas pumps, which are actually rusting from lack of use, digs into her cargo pants and produces her last pack of Marlboro Lights.

  "What the hell," she says to Jacob's questioning look, "how often do you get to smoke in a gas station, right?"

  He shrugs and takes a cigarette. She looks around. The elaborate casino complex is almost entirely deserted, weeds are growing in its lawns. Two of the souvenir shops are closed. There are no vehicles moving on the street.

  A small boy approaches from across the street and asks, "Change money?"

  They shake their heads in unison.

  The boy looks around furtively, then whispers, loudly, "Are you Jacob and Veronica?"

  They stare at him. Eventually Jacob says, "What if we were?"

  "You go down to Vic Falls Park. You go to jungle there."

  The boy scurries away before they can interrogate him.

  "I guess he wants to meet in private," Veronica says.

  Jacob nods. "There was a sign for Victoria Falls Park just after the bridge."

  They retrace their steps to this sign and follow a narrow concrete path away from the road, towards the falls. Veronica wonders what the boy meant by jungle. It is already apparent that Zimbabwe, like southern Zambia, is a dry country of brown grasses, wiry bushes, termite mounds and thorny trees, nothing like verdant central Africa.

  A fat ranger at a guardpost informs them that admittance to the park will cost twenty of their last forty US dollars. Veronica tries to negotiate, but the ranger just stares at them stonily. Eventually she shrugs and pays; what choice do they have?

  "I guess we can get money from the ATMs here if we really have to," she says as they advance through the turnstile. "Or a credit card advance."

  "I think Zimbabwe's been cut off from the global banking networks. Hyperinflation and failure to make payments, or something."

  Veronica winces. If this meeting with their mysterious stranger doesn't pan out they will be out of both money and options."We should have gotten money in Livingstone."

  "Then they'd know we were there, and they'd figure out we were coming here. We have to stay completely off the grid. No cards, no phone calls, no international flights."

  They advance into forested parkland along a path of cracked and broken concrete slabs. The roar of water grows as they advance, until suddenly the forest opens and they see the falls' entire length edge-on. They are a full half-mile across. A rainbow shimmers amid the whitewater as the mighty Zambezi plunges endlessly over a sheer cliff. In the distance, the gorge bends sharply to the right, towards the bridge. The air is thick with ambient water.

  "Look," Jacob says, pointing to the right, to the lip of the gorge opposite the falls. There is a small patch of deep green vegetation where the spray is densest. Surrounded by dry grasses, it looks like an oasis in the desert.

  They follow the paths along the dry side of the gorge and into a whole new ecosystem: palm trees, huge ferns, intertwining vines, leaves so dense they block out the sun. It reminds Veronica uncomfortably of the Impenetrable Forest. The concrete slabs in this bizarre patch of jungle are drenched with the perpetual spray, they have to pick their way carefully past mud and puddles.

  The man waiting for them is tall and athletic, mid-twenties. His arms are ropy with muscle, his high cheekbones are carved into a statuesque face. His head is so closely cropped it is almost shaved, and his skin is very dark. His movie-star looks are marred by a sickle-shaped scar on his left cheek. He wears jeans, a red T-shirt, and a denim jacket. Something about him, his watchful readiness, reminds Veronica of both Derek and Rukungu.

  "Jacob Rockel, Veronica Kelly," he greets them. His accent is African; this is not the nameless man from the phone. "Are you alone?"

  After a nervous moment Veronica admits, "Yes."

  "My name is Lovemore. Please, wait."

  Moments later another man, short and white and tubby, emerges from the path that brought them here. He wears jeans, a T-shirt, muddy boots and a battered leather rucksack, and walks with a slight limp. A shock of brown hair and a dense pepper-and-salt beard adorn a shrewd, professorial face that has seen maybe fifty years.

  "Terribly sorry for all this cloak and dagger guff," he says with a self-deprecating grin, shaking their hands casually. "Mostly childish nonsense, if you ask me. But we're living in i
nteresting times here in Zimbabwe, have to dust off a few of the old tricks. Our esteemed government seems to feel the need to keep an eye on harmless old me."

  "You're who we talked to on the phone?" Veronica asks warily.

  "The very same. Lysander Tennant, at your service, in the flesh. You've met my driver and minister without portfolio." He nods towards Lovemore. Then his face hardens, and his voice, while remaining courteous, turns curt. "Now then. I don't mean to be unwelcoming, but you'll understand, I can't be found harbouring international fugitives without bloody good reason. I really shouldn't be talking to you at all. I'm here only out of that which killed the cat, and a certain morbid loyalty to our dear departed Derek. So you'd best think of this as a job interview. I'll give you five minutes. What happened in Uganda? What do you have for me?"

  Jacob looks at Veronica.

  She shrugs - what choice do they have? - and says, curtly, "General Gorokwe is going to assassinate Mugabe with surface to air missiles."

  Lysander's stony face is wiped away for a moment by sheer amazement. Then it returns and he says, skeptically, "Really. And why would he do a silly thing like that? He wouldn't have a hope in hell of taking charge afterwards."

  Jacob says, "He thinks he does. He has American support. This whole thing was an American plan from the start. Gorokwe is just their instrument."

  "An American plan?" It takes a few seconds for Lysander to digest those words. He looks at Lovemore, who is listening intently. "That's - no. That's ridiculous. They wouldn't, nobody could be that stupid. That would be madness. Sheer bloody madness."

  But this time he doesn't sound dismissive. He sounds worried.

  "Maybe so," Veronica says, "but that's what they're doing."

  "They who? The White House? You can't possibly expect me to believe -"

  "No. A few diplomats and CIA agents who faked that Al-Qaeda scare in the Congo so that the US government would line up behind Gorokwe. Now that he's a friend of America, they'll back him to take over when Mugabe dies. I know it sounds crazy. But that's why Derek died, that's why Prester died, that's why we got kidnapped in the first place, that's why they're after us now. They're going to shoot down Mugabe first chance they get and try to install Gorokwe as president."

  Jacob adds, "We have evidence."

  Lysander looks from one of them to the other for what feels like a long time. Then he looks at Lovemore, who nods, slowly.

  Lysander says, reluctantly, "I suppose you'd better show me."

  Chapter 30

  Entering the grounds of the Victoria Falls Hotel feels like walking into the nineteenth century. This elegant relic of colonialism boasts musty hallways, mahogany doors, faded paintings of great British explorers, ancient maps of BOAC air service to Africa, a smoking room walled with books, and high tea service. Even the furniture in Lysander's room looks like something from the set of a Jane Austen movie. His modern Toshiba laptop looks terribly out of place on a rolltop mahogany desk.

  Jacob and Veronica wait tensely as Lysander and Lovemore go through the contents of Jacob's CD for the third time, watching the Toshiba's screen intently, as if there might be a hidden message within. Veronica realizes for the first time that actually they have very little evidence. Incomprehensible matrices of telephone and GPS records; some blurry, night-time photos from Jacob's camera; a few more from Prester's Razr phone, and their own testimony - all of which could easily have been faked.

  Lysander turns from one of the night shots to Veronica. She braces herself for an interrogation: but instead he says, wonderingly, "He was the one who held you down. I saw it on YouTube."

  Veronica blinks and looks more closely. It is the photo of Casimir, the musclebound interahamwe who murdered Derek. She remembers how he pulled her choking to the ground, and held her while the Arab put the machete to her throat. "Yes."

  Jacob says, "He killed Derek."

  Lysander frowns. "I never saw that. YouTube didn't host that, it was on more prurient sites. Easy enough to find if you wanted, and apparently millions did, but not I."

  Veronica doesn't have anything to say to that.

  "If what you're telling me is actually true, and please note I'm not saying I'm fully convinced yet, but if it is, then … " Lysander shakes his head, appalled. "Then this is one of the most horrifically stupid ideas in history. I want Mugabe gone as much as the next rational man, but Christ almighty, there's not a lot of happy precedent for shooting down airplanes carrying African presidents. The Rwandan genocide was sparked when President Habyarimana was shot down. That's a million dead. The president of Burundi was with him, and that civil war still hasn't ended. There's another quarter million. Mobutu was supposed to be dead dictator number three on that flight. God knows what would have happened if the paranoid bastard hadn't changed his plans, but we know the wars after he finally did buy the farm killed three million more, and counting. You've seen what happened to eastern Congo. Then there's Mozambique, Samora Machel shot down by the South Africans, deny it though they try. I don't know how many people died, nobody does, but I do know that civil war took them back to the bloody Stone Age, they didn't even have matches or soap by the time it finally ended. You only blow up the big man if you don't have enough support for a proper coup. Because once he's gone all his jackals start fighting for the scraps. There's an old African proverb, when the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. Well, I know Zimbabwe a long sight better than any starry-eyed American, and I 'm telling you, never mind trampled, an assassination right now could start off a bushfire that would burn the whole bloody country."

  After a moment Jacob says, cautiously, "You sound like you believe us."

  "No. I sound like I think I can't afford not to. But this isn't proof, what you have here, it isn't even evidence, it's barely circumstantial. I was wondering why you hadn't gone to the media if you were for real. Now I know. If I take this to my superiors they'll laugh me out of the room."

  Veronica says, "I don't mean to pry, but who exactly are your superiors? The British?"

  "If you don't mean to," Lysander says curtly, "then don't."

  Veronica falls silent, her face reddens, she feels like she's committed some unforgivable faux pas.

  "If you're here to mislead me, if you're really part of that smuggling ring like Interpol says, believe me, you have come to the wrong place," he continues. "This has become a country where people disappear. Especially in this last month. Important people, powerful people, have begun to disappear. People have started whispering about death squads working for Mugabe. Make no mistake, you'd do far better to turn yourselves in than to come here and try to deceive me."

  Jacob says, "We're not lying, and you know it."

  "What I think I know or don't know doesn't matter right now. The question is, what can I prove?"

  Jacob looks like he wants to say something, but Veronica, sensing that this is the key moment, shoots him a look, and he shuts up. Lysander looks at Lovemore.

  "I certainly understand the appeal of assassination," Lysander mutters. "It's not as if anyone supports Mugabe but his cronies. He's lost the plot, his wife's a hyena, and his government's a kleptocracy. But consider Amin, consider Bokassa, consider Mobutu. Consider the fact that our fine upstanding General Gorokwe is happy to conspire with the likes of Athanase. Then consider what I found out for Derek. That the general was profoundly involved in the Gukurahundi massacres of the early eighties. Zimbabwe's own little micro-genocide, twenty thousand dead. There's no actual surviving proof, but the men who told me are reliable sources. He's a genocidist himself. Gorokwe could easily be ten times worse than Mugabe."

  "And that's if it's a bloodless coup," Lovemore says grimly.

  Lysander nods. "Exactly. If this does happen, if Gorokwe actually pulls the trigger, then love him or hate him, we'd best all start praying everything goes exactly according to his plan. Because God only knows how big a bloodbath this will set off if it goes wrong."

  After a second Veronica asks, "So what
do we do?"

  Lysander's frown deepens. "We, is it? I suppose it is. Very temporarily. Very well. We go back to Harare tonight. That's the capital, the big city. I'll report from there, ask Vauxhall for assistance, call in all my favours. Mugabe's due to fly back from China in four days. We've got that long to try to find out where they are, what their plan is, and how to stop them." He shakes his head. "Interpol fugitives. Surface to air missiles. Bloody hell. I need a drink."

  * * *

  "I'm afraid we're going to have to take the train," Lysander says, as they sit in the hotel's gardens, eating scones, sipping Earl Grey, and watching the glorious view of sunset over Victoria Falls. "We can't take the chance of your names on flight records, they might be keeping an eye out for you, and I don't have any friends in the local airport. In Harare or Bulawayo I could get you documents, but not here. No choice but the overnight train."

  "That sounds fine," Jacob says. "We took the train from Dar es Salaam to Zambia."

  Lysander smiles wryly. "I think you'll find today's Zimbabwe Railways to be considerably less luxurious."

  Veronica winces. The Tazara train that took them into Zambia was anything but luxury. "Aren't there any buses?"

  "Good heavens, no. Nobody's going to waste petrol on a ten-hour drive, not in this country. You do realize petrol - I'm sorry, gasoline - is not legally available for sale anywhere in this country?"

  "Why's that?" Jacob asks, amazed.

  "Various reasons. One is that the government has no foreign exchange with which to buy it. Another is that they fix petrol's price so low that stations can't afford to sell it. But the real reason is that there's big money in the black market, and most of it goes to government cronies. Unfortunately their distribution networks are as dubious as they are. Here in Vic Falls we're right near the border, there's plenty of supply. And Harare's black market is apparently inexhaustible. But in much of the country right now there's no petrol available no matter how many US dollars you wave in the air. They simply don't have it."