Night Of Knives Part 18

It only takes Danton a moment to readjust. "I heard what happened, of course. I'm glad you're okay. But Veronica, if there's something you want to see me about, you should call ahead. You should call Julia. I'm on a very busy schedule, I really don't have time to chat."

His mention of Julia reawakens Veronica's rage. Julia is one of Danton's personal a.s.sistants. It was Julia who informed Veronica that Danton had decided to divorce her. He couldn't even be bothered to tell her himself.

"I'm sure you're very busy," Veronica says. Her voice sounds shrill even to herself. "Is there trouble with Selous Holdings? Out at the Kisembe mine? Is Athanase giving you some kind of problem?"

Danton's expression doesn't waver, and it is that which convinces her she's right. If he actually didn't know what she was talking about he would have reacted somehow. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"Did you know I was in that group, in Bwindi? Did you know and go ahead and say it was okay anyways?"

He blinks with surprise at the accusation, and she realizes no, he hadn't known. But that doesn't mean he wasn't responsible. It's like Prester said. He didn't know because he didn't want to.

"Veronica, I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't think you do either. It's time for you to go. You should go home. You've been through a traumatic experience and I think your mental health has suffered -"

"You're f.u.c.king right I have. Being married to you."

"Veronica, please. Don't make me call security. Don't make me humiliate you like that."

"Oh, come off it. You can't wait to humiliate me. You never could. Seven years and you throw me out like a, like a used condom."

"I'm not going to waste my time justifying myself to you. You know what I think?" Danton sounds angry now. "I think you knew all along you were infertile. You knew and married me anyways."

The accusation is so outrageous Veronica can't find the right words to respond.

"So don't you come to me talking about things you don't understand. You're not getting any more money from me. You've gotten more than enough already. Seven years of the high life is more than most women like you get. Plus alimony for life. You should count yourself lucky."

"Lucky? Lucky? Lucky? You piece of s.h.i.t. You You piece of s.h.i.t. You piece of s.h.i.t. piece of s.h.i.t." She can't believe she used to tell this man she loved him, that she slept beside his hairy, walruslike body most nights for seven years and told herself she didn't mind his snoring, didn't mind the carelessly indulgent way he treated her, as if she was more pet than wife, didn't mind the selfish, mechanical way he f.u.c.ked her on the rare occasions he was roused to s.e.x. She can't believe she once hoped to bear his child. She wants to walk over and smash his face, crush his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, gouge his eyes out.

Danton's face hardens. He reaches for the phone on his coffee table.

"They're blackmailing you, aren't you?" she asks. "The terrorists. Blackmailing you and Strick. What are they making you do? What do they want?"

Danton freezes. Then he turns and stares at her as if he has actually noticed her presence, in a way he never has before, as if he is really looking at her for the first time ever. Veronica realizes she just made a mistake, maybe a terrible one, in her effort to score a point and make him feel something. She shouldn't have given away what they know.

"You don't know what you're doing," Danton says quietly. "If you keep playing with fire, you will get burned alive." He pushes a b.u.t.ton on his phone, waits only a moment, of course his call is answered immediately, all his calls are answered immediately.

"Get over here," he says to the phone. "I have a security situation."

"You can't do it," Veronica says. "Whatever they want you to do. People will die. Innocent people. G.o.d knows how many. You have to turn yourself in."

Danton looks at her, considering. For a second she wonders if he's going to allow her to depart.

Then he says, "You know why I'm here, Veronica? To save lives save lives. I suppose I might as well try to save yours too. You should be grateful. I'm giving you one last chance. Stop interfering and go home. Today. No one's going to warn you again."

"To save lives?" Jacob asks, puzzled. His hands falter in mid-gearshift and the Toyota nearly stalls. He isn't accustomed to piloting a right-hand-drive stick-shift. "That's what he said? I mean, even if he's lying -"

"There's no if about it."

He decides not to argue the point. "Fine, but it's kind of a weird lie to tell, don't you think?"

Veronica shrugs.

"You didn't find out anything else?"

She hesitates. "Not really. I think he might suspect we know about Strick."

Jacob starts. "What? How?" If true, it's disastrous. The element of surprise is almost the only thing in their favour.

"Just his att.i.tude, his face when he said he had friends in the US government."

"What were his exact words?"

She shrugs. "I don't remember. I was too wound up."

Jacob frowns. There's something about her body language. "You didn't give anything away, did you?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. But, I mean, we were married. He's supposed to know me pretty well. Maybe not though. He never paid that much attention to me."

"He never paid attention to you?" Jacob asks incredulously.

"Not after we got married. The way he saw it, his wife's job was to impress his friends, keep him warm at night, run the occasional errand, bear his children and acknowledge his supremacy. Not someone to have a meaningful relationship with."

"Jesus. Why did you stay?"

She sighs. "I don't know. I mean, for a long time I really believed he loved me, in his way, he was just distant and hard-working and reserved. The lies we tell ourselves. And... you know, being his wife was the good life. Villas, penthouses, yachts, private jets, expense accounts, beautiful people, amazing parties. He went away on business a lot and it was all mine. I guess on some level I must have known what I really was. And I guess I was okay with it. It was his idea to get a divorce."

"He dumped you? Why?"

"I can't have children. Endometriosis. I didn't know, whatever f.u.c.king conspiracy theory he wants to believe. You know what I think? I think when we found that out, he decided right then, that day, that moment, he would divorce me when I turned thirty. I'm pretty sure he hired a personal trainer to try to seduce me. He was worried the pre-nup wouldn't hold up in court. He definitely hired a private investigator to take pictures of me taking drugs. They were in the divorce papers I got served with two weeks after my thirtieth birthday."

After a moment Jacob says, angrily, "Well, you're almost lucky."

"Lucky?" She half-laughs. "How you figure?"

"You deserve a lot better than him."

They drive on in silence for a while through the breathtaking Ugandan countryside. Rolling hills drift past, thick green vegetation laced with red-dirt roads, maybe half of it occupied and farmed. All colours are brilliant under the searing equatorial sun. Everything seems airbrushed, too vivid to be real. Even the cultivated areas are beautiful, geometrically patterned fields cut by shining irrigation ditches, dun-coloured zebu zebu cattle with scimitar-shaped horns thick as elephant tusks, little cl.u.s.ters of round bamboo-and-mud cattle with scimitar-shaped horns thick as elephant tusks, little cl.u.s.ters of round bamboo-and-mud bandas bandas in the shadows of tall trees. The ugly towns they pa.s.s through are like scars on a supermodel's face; brutal concrete sh.e.l.ls and wooden huts in fields of filth-strewn dirt, as furrowed and uneven as a frozen ocean, littered with piles of bricks and clumps of filth. in the shadows of tall trees. The ugly towns they pa.s.s through are like scars on a supermodel's face; brutal concrete sh.e.l.ls and wooden huts in fields of filth-strewn dirt, as furrowed and uneven as a frozen ocean, littered with piles of bricks and clumps of filth.

The road is good, but there isn't much traffic. A few private cars; a few of what Derek called NGO a.s.sault Vehicles, white 4WDs with logos painted on their doors and six-foot radio antennae attached to their front b.u.mpers; one bright red EMS Postbus; and dozens of sixteen-seat minibus matatus matatus hurtling past in both directions, with toppling mounds of baggage roped precariously to their roofs, stopping without warning anywhere and everywhere to absorb and disgorge pa.s.sengers. Spike belts and yellow metal barrels indicate the police roadblocks that are ubiquitous on all African highways. To Jacob's relief, all the police wave them on without inventing some traffic transgression and demanding a "fine." hurtling past in both directions, with toppling mounds of baggage roped precariously to their roofs, stopping without warning anywhere and everywhere to absorb and disgorge pa.s.sengers. Spike belts and yellow metal barrels indicate the police roadblocks that are ubiquitous on all African highways. To Jacob's relief, all the police wave them on without inventing some traffic transgression and demanding a "fine."

Jacob remembers what he wanted to tell Veronica. "Derek's phone rang this morning. His other phone. The one from the Sun City."

She blinks, looks at him. "Who was it?"

"That number in Zimbabwe."

"Did you answer?"

"No. They didn't leave a message."

Veronica shakes her head. "This doesn't make any sense. Zimbabwe, Danton, Strick, Al-Qaeda, interahamwe, Zanzibar Sams that are actually Igloos, it's like something out of Lewis Carroll, none of it makes any sense."

"It does to someone."

"Why are we even going to this camp? What are we possibly hoping to achieve?"

"Understanding," Jacob says sourly.

"You really think we'll find something?"

"Susan works at this refugee camp. That's why Derek brought her to Bwindi. He visited this camp, and made phone calls to someone else there. Whoever shot Prester is going to this camp. Whatever's going on, it's all going on there."

"And we're driving straight into it. And we know from that phone Susan picked up that they were already planning some kind of attack in western Uganda."

Jacob shrugs, annoyed. He's not going to back out now. He's already made that perfectly clear. "You want to get out and take a matatu back to Kampala, go ahead."

He waits tensely while Veronica thinks.

At length she says, "No. I want to know. But first thing we do is go to Susan, make sure someone knows we're there. And we don't do anything crazy. We definitely don't go back over the border. I'm not going back into the Congo."

Jacob half-smiles, relieved. "Yeah. Been there, done that, got the bloodstained T-shirt. No more Congo. It's a deal."

They stop for lunch in Fort Portal, a small collection of low, dusty buildings in the foothills of the cloud-wreathed Ruwenzori mountains. The town's two significant buildings were the local tribal chief's hilltop castle, which looked like a modern Western university building, and the town mosque. Veronica sees that mosque and thinks of the Arab man who held a panga panga to her throat. She, Derek, Susan and Jacob stopped in Fort Portal for lunch on the way to Bwindi, at the same hotel where he parks now, the Ruwenzori Travellers' Inn. She opens her mouth but leaves her protest unspoken. No sense running away from memories. And they know the food here is good. to her throat. She, Derek, Susan and Jacob stopped in Fort Portal for lunch on the way to Bwindi, at the same hotel where he parks now, the Ruwenzori Travellers' Inn. She opens her mouth but leaves her protest unspoken. No sense running away from memories. And they know the food here is good.

They eat beef stew with rice and chapatis. Outside, peasant farmers walk rusting bicycles used for cargo; each supports four or five beer-keg-sized bundles of bananas fresh off the tree. A group of women obviously from Kampala, wearing bright clothes and mobile phones on lanyards, their hair cut fashionably short or braided with purple highlights, pa.s.s through the more soberly dressed local foot traffic like swans through ducks. Their amused-by-hicksville expressions are the same as those of New Yorkers in Iowa.

"I'm thinking of calling Zimbabwe," Jacob says, after tapping at his hiptop for a bit.

"Zimbabwe?"

"That number Derek used to call. The one that called him this morning."

"Why?" To Veronica it sounds like asking for trouble.

"It seems like it's all going down at this camp, doesn't it? Any information we can get before going there might help."

"What if whoever it is is on the other side? What if he figures something out and calls them to warn them?"

"He can't," Jacob says. "Unless they've got a satellite phone."

"I thought there was cell service up by the camp."

"There is. But only a single Mango base station, the other networks don't reach it at all. Probably half the reason Derek got me my job. I just disabled incoming calls and texts via that base station for every phone but yours and mine."

"What? When?" Veronica asks, amazed.

"Just now, when you were ordering."

"But - Jacob, that's a refugee camp. People's lives could be in danger."

"Right now I'm more worried about our lives," he says sharply, and then in a softer voice, "It's no big deal. Outgoing calls still work."

"Huh." Veronica shakes her head. Jacob's abilities, and their ramifications, continue to astonish her. "OK. I mean, yeah, I'm sure curious, so why not. What the h.e.l.l. Let's call Zimbabwe."

Jacob starts to dial, then looks around. "Once we're back in the car. Privacy."

"Be funny if the call didn't work," Veronica says sourly, once they have paid the bill and returned to the Toyota. "Half my international calls from here never get through."

Jacob smalls. "Not me. All my calls are flagged as highest priority... Here we go." He taps at his hiptop, switching it to speakerphone, and she hears the doubled rings of a phone call to England or a former English colony; then the click of an answer.

"h.e.l.lo?" asks a plummy English voice that sounds both eager and wary.

Veronica looks at Jacob and realizes he has no idea what to say.

"h.e.l.lo?" the voice repeats, more wary this time.

She takes the initiative: "We're returning your call from this morning."

A brief pause. "And with whom exactly do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

"My name's Veronica Kelly. I'm with Jacob Rockel. We were friends with Derek."

She ignores Jacob's appalled stare. There's no point in complicated lies and evasions. The truth may set them free; even if it doesn't, lies won't do them any good.

"Veronica and Jacob," the voice says doubtfully. "I seem to recall from YouTube that you were with him in the Congo."

"Yes."

"I called this morning to speak to his partner. Prester."

"I'm sorry," Veronica says, "Prester isn't available. He's, he's been shot."

"Shot? I see. An accident? Or an act of malicious intent?"

She pauses. "Intent."

"By whom?"

"We're not sure exactly. That's what we're trying to find out. We think," Veronica says, flinging caution to the wind, "it has something to do with the Zanzibar Sams, which are actually Igloos."

After a long pause the voice says, "I think we may have a bad connection. Could you repeat that?"

"Zanzibar Sams, which are actually Igloos."

"Ah. No, the connection is fine. What in G.o.d's name are you talking about?"