Night of Knives

by Jon Evans

  "None of us will touch you," murmurs the man behind her. She knows by his voice that he is smiling.

  Each of the soldiers with flashlights opens one of the cell door's two padlocks. She is thrust forward into the black hole, surrounded by scores of other prisoners who stare at her with slack, unreadable expressions as the door is resecured behind her. She tries not to hyperventilate, she can't afford to, there isn't much oxygen in this air, and it might set off another panic attack, she's close enough already.

  The floor is flat cracked concrete. The jagged walls and ceiling are marked with odd striations. The metal wall-thing in the middle of the chamber is a row of metal lockers that barely fit under the low ceiling. Their familiar appearance is surreal. A water pipe runs from the corridor ceiling into and along the other side of the room, where it feeds several head-high nozzles, all dark with rust. She sees and feels a ventilation shaft, a sighing draft carrying hot air from a metal grille in the floor directly in front of her to another in the ceiling.

  The flashlights are switched off.

  "Have a nice day," a guard advises her mockingly. The men who brought her here walk away. Their boot-sounds and lamplight diminish down the corridor, leaving Veronica in darkness.

  Chapter 36

  The air is so hot and stuffy, the stench so vile, that at first it is almost impossible to breathe, Veronica just stands gasping in the darkness as a surprised and speculative murmuring arises all around her. There is nothing she can do. Obviously the men who brought her expect her to be attacked by her fellow-prisoners. Maybe she should beg for mercy, or maybe that will show weakness; maybe she should try to act the haughty untouchable white woman, or maybe that will just provoke them. She reaches into the pocket of her cargo pants for her Leatherman, at least they didn't search her, at least she can try to defend herself, not that that will mean anything if they all rush her -

  "Veronica?" a loud voice says, a familiar voice. "Veronica Kelly?"

  She gasps. "Lovemore?"

  A babble of Shona conversation breaks out. Then suddenly there is a strong hand on her arm. She flinches, but Lovemore's voice says, "It's me. It's all right."

  She doubts that very much. "What are you doing here?"

  He speaks in a low voice, into her ear. "We must be quiet. The guards speak English. Sometimes they listen in the dark. They captured me in Harare. They don't know I was with you, or they would have killed me. They only know I was a friend of Lysander's. They said they captured him. Have you seen him?"

  She shakes her head, then remembers he can't see her even though their faces are almost close enough to touch. There are men all around her now, using all the available space, she feels limbs pressed against hers, it is weirdly like being at a rock concert. "No. But I saw the missiles. They're just down the hall from here."

  "Izzit?" Lovemore considers. "So close."

  "Who are all these other men?"

  "Hostages. These are sons, brothers, uncles of powerful men. The women and children are in another cell. When Mugabe is gone Gorokwe will try to use them in negotiations to take power. I don't believe it will work. I don't believe men in power care more for their sons and brothers than their power. I think there will be war. And it will happen as soon as Mugabe returns, before word of these kidnappings reaches him."

  Veronica remembers Lysander's warning: Important people, powerful people, have begun to disappear. People have started whispering about death squads.

  "The day after tomorrow," Veronica says. "If Lysander was right. We have to try to get out of here."

  Lovemore grunts. "The mice voted to bell the cat."

  Veronica leans towards Lovemore and whispers into his ear, "They didn't search me. I've got tools."

  He stiffens. "What tools?"

  "A Leatherman. A phone. A lighter. Some cigarettes. My wallet, my money belt, they even left me my passport."

  "Izzit," he breathes. "Then maybe, this ventilation shaft -"

  He takes her hand and raises it upwards. The ceiling is low enough that she can easily touch its uneven surface. She feels her way along it, guided by the wispy air currents from below, until she finds the place where they disappear, a two-foot-square rusty grate in the ceiling. It is set solidly into the rock that surrounded it, appears to have been welded in place like the iron bars that blocked the main entrance. They'll clearly never get through that.

  The shaft slopes down at about a thirty-degree angle, the grille in the concrete floor is three feet over from its counterpart on the ceiling. Lovemore has to talk men into moving off it. Veronica kneels to the ground. She can feel the hot air rising, looking into the shaft is like facing into a weak hair dryer. She grabs the metal bars and pulls. This grille is as solidly set in the concrete floor as its counterpart in the stone ceiling. She would need a real hacksaw, not the Leatherman. Brass padlocks are one thing; inch-thick metal bars are entirely another.

  "Sorry," she says. "No good." She casts about for ideas. "Maybe we can rush them, next time someone comes in. There's like sixty of us, just four of them."

  "No," Lovemore says, and he sounds alarmed. "Four men with Kalashnikovs? They will not hesitate to shoot."

  "Then what?"

  "They don't plan to kill us. Not all of us. They bring us water sometimes, enough to live. We must wait for opportunity."

  Veronica frowns. She feels certain they'll be waiting forever. But he's right, there's no breaking out of this prison, not with what they have. "Will these other men help? Have you told them what's going on?"

  He hesitates. "No. I fear one might be a spy. And they may help, but not with violence. These men are wealthy, educated. They have been beaten and tortured, they are weak and frightened. They will not risk themselves."

  "What -" Veronica swallows. "What did they do to you?"

  "I have suffered worse."

  "They're torturing Jacob."

  After a moment Lovemore says, "If they will torture a white man, then they will kill him."

  "I know."

  * * *

  Veronica sits beside Lovemore with her back to the uneven rock wall. She feels rubber-limbed, overpowered by lassitude and despair. She vaguely wonders just how little oxygen there is in this air. The cell is sardine-packed but the rest of the men find a way to give her a little extra space. She is ashamed, now, that she thought they would attack her. Most seem to speak good English, and several have asked in halting voices who she is and why she is here. Her terse answer - that she is American, and she made an enemy of General Gorokwe - seems enough to satisfy their curiosity. Most of the cell's inhabitants seem too enervated for conversation. The absolute darkness is matched now by eerie silence.

  It occurs to Veronica that, in a perverse and bloody way, she has almost succeeded at what they set out to do when they left Victoria Falls. She knows where the conspiracy is based, she knows where the missiles are, she knows the details of Gorokwe's plan, that he almost certainly intends to shoot down Mugabe when he lands in Harare the day after tomorrow. There's only one small problem. It's almost funny, but she can't laugh.

  The longer she sits the more she feels acutely aware of the half-mile of solid rock above her, as if she can feel its gravitational pull. This cell feels more and more like a mass coffin. She starts to tremble, and her breathing grows strained again, her heart begins to lurch, she can feel another panic attack on the verge of eruption, there is a faint humming in her ears -

  No, not just in her ears, not just an artifact of her brain. Veronica can actually feel the air throbbing with a low hum on the edge of human hearing. Her panic is dissuaded for a moment by surprised curiosity.

  "What's that?" she whispers.

  Lovemore sits up a little straighter, then says, "The lift. Some trick of acoustics. They are coming."

  The wait, listening intently. Soon they hear the dim rhythmic slapping of rubber boots on stone. Lamplight flickers in the tunnel outside, and the iron grid of bars begins to gleam. The sight of the cell makes Veronica moan,
it's easier coping in the darkness, but she steels herself, makes herself sit up, pay attention, and ignore the gibbering panic in the back of her mind. This might be important. The guards are coming, and a new man not in uniform is with them.

  As the guards aim their weapons at the crowd, and unlock the doors, the newcomer begins to shout out a short phrase. He repeats it several times before Veronica realizes it is a name. Slowly a man emerges from the mass of prisoners and, shivering with fear, approaches the door. He is escorted outside. Gorokwe's man says something in Shona and a ripple passes through the crowd.

  "He says this man's father has agreed to the general's terms," Lovemore whispers, "and so he is being released."

  Another name is called out. This time half-a-dozen men step forward. Veronica smiles despite herself. Gorokwe's man calls out a question, and apparently only one man answers it correctly. The others slink back into the mass. The selected man steps towards the open doorway, to freedom.

  Gorokwe's man issues a curt command. The guards don't hesitate. The guns' muzzle flashes are much brighter than the lamplight, and in that enclosed space the gunshots are incredible, deafening. Veronica sees dark blotches appear as if by magic on the body of the man at the door, sees him twitch as if dancing, then collapse to the concrete floor like a shop-window dummy. He scrapes spastically at the ground for a few seconds, and then he is still. The floor beside him is badly scarred, one of the bullets struck the concrete floor and gouged a deep rut surrounded by a web of cracks and chips of concrete.

  Veronica can barely hear Lovemore's translation of the words that follow. "This man's family would not negotiate."

  Nobody makes any sound at all, it is like everyone has gone mute. Gorokwe's man walks away, bearing the light with him. In the dwindling lamplight Veronica sees blood seeping from the body in the corner, filling and flowing down the cracks in the concrete floor.

  * * *

  Veronica is shocked, numb, half-deaf, utterly drained, and so overwhelmed with terror and desperation that she can barely feel anything else at all; but as she stares at the cratered floor beside the dead man, a idea flickers to life in her mind.

  She forces her way through the silent crowd of prisoners to the grid of bars that cover the ventilation shaft in the floor, kneels down and feels with her fingers. It's true that these bars are set in concrete. But that stray bullet revealed something about this concrete: it is weak, old, and flaking. And only about an inch of it grips the grille.

  Veronica draws out her Leatherman, unfolds its hardened steel, selects its sharp awl, grabs the tool in her fist, and stabs it hard into the ground at the edge of the metal grate. There is a loud chink. She feels at the concrete with her finger. A chip as big as her thumbnail has broken free.

  "Lovemore," she says, suddenly feeling strong again, rejuvenated by sudden hope. "I think I've got something here."

  * * *

  The other prisoners are doing their part almost too well: their loud babble is giving Veronica a headache. She can barely hear the sounds as Lovemore stabs the Leatherman again and again at the floor between the two of them. The noise and utter darkness is dizzying, disorienting. It takes her a few seconds to realize he's stopped.

  She reaches out to survey the damage. The concrete around the edges of the grille has been reduced to less than half its initial depth, and flakes cover the nearby floor. Her hands encounter Lovemore's fists, wrapped around the iron bars, pulled as hard as he could. Veronica adds her strength to the effort. They gasp for air, but the grille doesn't move.

  "Not yet," Veronica groans.

  "Harder," Lovemore insists. "Use your legs."

  She does, she pulls with all her might, as he does the same - and with a crack so loud Veronica fears the guards might have heard, the grate pulls free. The high-volume conversation around them dwindles for a moment as the prisoners realize what has happened; then the noise swells up again, this time with a jubilant tone.

  Veronica feels around inside the now-open shaft. It is walled by uneven rocks, and its thirty-degree angle will make it difficult to descend, but they have no choice. She takes a deep breath. She has never wanted to do anything less than to descend into this dark, narrow, slanted pit with no known bottom.

  "We can't all go," she says.

  "They know. I have spoken with them. We will go first. Perhaps some of them will follow later, but they are not eager to go deeper into the mine."

  Veronica certainly understands that: she's not exactly eager herself. But it's that or throw herself on Danton's eventual mercy. If she can just get out of this mine, according to Lovemore they're near the Mozambique border, she can get out to there and seek help from someone, maybe get to South Africa, to the civilized world. Even being captured on an Interpol warrant will be better than this.

  It occurs to her that maybe, just maybe, if they do somehow manage to escape this abandoned mine, it might not be too late to stop Gorokwe, to blow the whistle before Mugabe is murdered. Maybe she can turn Danton's weakness into a fatal error. By imprisoning her instead of killing her they have brought her into the vulnerable belly of the beast. Now she knows where the missiles are, and when the assassination will happen. If only that when was not too soon - but it is. Less than forty-eight hours. She'll be lucky to even get to a phone in that time, much less make somebody believe her. But she has to try. If they assassinate Mugabe, if Lysander was right, soon afterwards all Zimbabwe will erupt in a civil war that might kill hundreds of thousands. She can't really wrap her head around what that means, the sheer scale of the disaster beggars the mind; but Veronica thinks of that little girl who tried to ride with them on the oxcart, and tries to imagine a city full of little girls like that, all of them dead.

  * * *

  Descent into the slender ventilation shaft is awkward. The walls of rough-hewn rock are full of sharp stony protrusions; they serve as ledges and handles, but also jab and scrape. It is steep enough that initially Veronica props herself up with a foothold or handhold at all times, rather than risk sliding down the sharp rocks into Lovemore beneath her, and maybe sending them both tumbling to their deaths. She eventually settles on lying on her belly, allowing the grip of her body on the stones to keep herself from falling, and worming her way down in reverse. At least the ongoing physical effort helps to keep panic at bay. The air is thick with dust dislodged by their passage, and she has to breathe through her shirt. She seems to be moving faster than Lovemore, her feet keeps connecting with his hands. Of course he is weaker: he was beaten and tortured before being left to languish in that nightmarish cell.

  They have the Leatherman, her phone, her money belt and wallet, her cigarettes and lighter. It isn't much. Veronica turns on the phone only once while downclimbing, after half an hour, when the voices above are no longer audible. Green light blooms from its screen, enough to illuminate a narrow shaft continuing both up and down without any visible end. The sight is so horrifying she immediately switches the phone off and has to bite her lip until it bleeds to forestall another panic attack.

  Veronica decides not to think about where she is, or about the future, near or distant. The present is all that matters, and in it she is climbing down. The future does not exist.

  It gets steadily warmer as they descend, and her sweat-soaked hands begin to slip off the rocks. She is already desperately thirsty. At least there is a draft, hot air rising past them. She can't imagine where that air is coming from.

  A small eternity seems to pass before Lovemore grunts, "Floor."

  She follows him down to a flat surface that seems unnatural after their long descent. Lovemore is doubled over, panting for breath. This worries Veronica more than she lets on. Going down is easy compared to climbing up, and they might have descended as much as a kilometre below ground level. At least they haven't been intercepted.

  She checks her phone. Nine PM. Somewhere up above, night has fallen. They have thirty-six hours to try to avert a bloody civil war, and all they've succeeded in doing is g
oing deeper into this mine with no idea how to get out. It's not going to happen, Veronica realizes, they're not going to be able to get the word out and save Mugabe, she doesn't even know who to call. She and Lovemore have to focus on saving themselves.

  The phone's LCD seems incredibly bright in the absolute darkness of the mine. Its pale green glow illuminates another corridor with inset rail tracks, almost exactly like the level above. Veronica supposes there isn't a whole lot of room for originality in mine design.

  "No signal?" Lovemore asks, with the ghost of a smile.

  "Very funny."

  Veronica realizes she can look around at this corridor's low ceiling and narrow walls with something like equilibrium. Maybe her body has run out of the enzymes and chemicals required to manufacture a panic attack. Maybe this mine has served as involuntary exposure therapy. After the ventilation shaft this tight corridor seems almost spacious.

  Lovemore's face and body are streaked with blood. He is wider and thicker than her, was less able to keep clear of the sharp stones of the shaft walls. None of the cuts are serious, but they worry her all the same, the opening and descent of the shaft seem to have consumed all of his strength reserves, he looks worryingly frail and feeble.

  "What do we do now?" she asks, and her voice is more frightened than she had intended.

  Lovemore says, "We must walk into the wind."

  She blinks. "But - no, the wind's coming from below. We have to go up now."