Night Of Knives Part 19

"We're not really sure," Veronica admits. "We thought you might know."

"There are two of you there?"

"Yes," Jacob contributes.

"And why did you think I might know?"

Jacob answers, "We have access to cell-phone records. We know Derek called you, and you called him, repeatedly, over the last few months."

"Mobile phone records. I see. Who do you work for?"

"Telecom Uganda."

"That's not what I mean," the voice says, a little testy. "Why do you have this phone? Why are you involved in this? Why are you even still in Africa?"

"I was his best friend," Jacob says. "Who exactly are you?"

A long silence. Veronica is afraid the man will hang up.

Eventually he says, grudgingly, "Let's just say Derek and I were in some ways compatriots."

"What did he call you about?" Veronica asks. "We know he was investigating a smuggling ring. We think he found out someone American was involved, not Prester, and that's who arranged for him and the rest of us to be abducted."

After another pause, the man acknowledges, "That was what I understood as well. From inferences. He told me very little directly."

"Very little like what?" Jacob asks, exasperated.

"Pardon me, Mr. Rockel, if that is actually your name, but why should I tell you anything? How am I to know under what auspices you acquired this phone?"

Jacob hesitates. "You can't."

"Precisely," the voice says. "Pleasure talking to you."

"Wait," Veronica says. "Why did you call? What did you want to talk to Prester about?"

Another long pause. "I suppose the question itself is harmless. I called to ask for Derek's professional next of kin."

"Excuse me?" Jacob asks, befuddled.

"Either you really are an amateur or you play the part well. I mean the name of whoever has inherited Derek's work. I have something for him or her. My more official request seems to have become lost in a bureaucratic labyrinth, and I thought I might speed up the process a little."

"I'm sorry," Veronica says, "we don't have any idea who that might be."

"Pity."

"Wait," Jacob says desperately. "You're saying you have something meant for Derek? What is it?"

"Information."

"What kind of information?"

"Now that would be telling," the man says, amused. "Goodbye."

The road from Fort Portal to Semiliki weaves through the lush green hills of western Uganda, past misty crater lakes, placid villages, tiny roadside markets, vast tea plantations, a cement factory, and eleven million banana trees. Sometimes the road is wide and paved, well-signed, with painted lane markers and roadside gutters to carry away rainy-season overflow; sometimes it is well-worn red dirt; sometimes it is heavily potholed asphalt, far worse to drive on than dirt. They stop in Semiliki for gas, Snickers bars and c.o.kes, and for Veronica to take the wheel. By the time they finally see the sign that says UNHCR SEMILIKI beside an otherwise unremarkable road of pitted laterite, the sun is low above the western hills.

"Are we even sure this is the right road?" Veronica asks, as Jacob produces and consults his trusty hiptop.

"I'm sure the tracker is that way. Right now I'm not sure of much else."

Veronica takes a deep breath. It occurs to her that UNHCR Semiliki is miles away from civilization, home to numerous white NGOers, and very near the Congo border. They already know Al-Qaeda are planning attacks on western Uganda. This camp, so close to Athanase's smuggling route, will certainly be at the top of their list. And maybe they've just been waiting for the Zanzibar Sams to arrive before they strike.

But it's too late to back out now. She grips the wheel and the gearshift, puts her feet to the clutch and gas pedal, and steers the Toyota towards the refugee camp.

Chapter 24

The red dirt road is terrible, carved with more craters and ravines than the surface of Mars. It takes thirty b.u.mpy minutes to drive the eight kilometres to the refugee camp. Entrance is barred by a pair of concrete guard huts and a steel bar across the road, manned by uniformed Ugandan soldiers, and for a moment Jacob is worried they will simply be denied access and sent back; but when he invokes Susan's name, the soldiers' faces clear with recognition, and they raise the bar to allow the Toyota access.

UNHCR Semiliki is an encyclopedia of suffering, a tent city of misery in a small valley surrounded by steep and largely denuded hills. A half-dozen brick buildings cl.u.s.ter in the middle of the settlement. The camp proper boasts a smattering of thatched mud huts. But most of its thousands of shelters are blue plastic or green canvas tarpaulins stretched over frames made of tree branches. Whole families live in each. A few roads radiate out from the brick buildings at the center of the camp, but in the anarchic wedges between those roads, the tents are packed so densely that there is rarely enough room for more than two to walk abreast. There are people everywhere, the camp seems flooded with them, some well-kept and clean, most dressed in rags. A few goats and chickens pick their way through the dirt. Jacob wonders what they eat; the ground throughout the camp is entirely mud, even weeds have been trampled to death. He doesn't want to even imagine what the camp is like in rainy season.

There are more women than men, and amazing numbers of children. A few have the distended bellies that said malnutrition malnutrition. Many children, and a few adults, turn and wave, smiling hopefully as the Toyota pa.s.ses. Others stare with lifeless eyes. A few look angry, hostile. Jacob hears s.n.a.t.c.hes of French through the open window. The air holds a stale, faintly rancid smell of smoke and filth. He sees a huge tent beneath which a teacher teaches mathematics to several hundred children, in the failing red light, with no aids but chalk and a single blackboard. He sees and smells a long, low, filthy building labelled LATRINE, its wrecked door hanging open like a broken jaw. Old women lug yellow jerrycans full of water, and others queue to fill theirs from rusted taps that protrude from the ground. Pots boil over open-pit fires next to wood-and-canvas shelters.

The brick buildings with tin roofs in the middle of the camp seem like an island of peace and civilization. Here the soft background chatter of the refugees is drowned out by the hum of multiple generators. Veronica parks the Toyota at the end of the row of cars in front of another guard hut, populated by a half-dozen Ugandan soldiers. Jacob wonders if these soldiers, and those by the gate, are intended more to protect the refugees, or to keep them in the camp and under control. He wonders how effective they would be against Athanase's veteran interahamwe force.

"Susan Strachan, please, can you direct us to her?" Jacob says to the soldier who comes to investigate.

The soldier nods and leads Veronica and Jacob between two of the permanent buildings to a large shade structure made of metal struts and a green plastic ceiling. Several dozen desks are arranged underneath it, adorned by lights and laptop computers connected to a central generator via an interwoven tangle of power cords clumped on the dirt floor like old spaghetti. It is like some kind of surreal parody of an open-concept office plan. Susan sits at a desk crowded with papers near the edge of the tent. When she sees Veronica and Jacob her mouth literally drops open with astonishment.

"Surprise!" Veronica says, trying for enthusiasm.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," Susan manages. "What are you two doing here?"

"It's a long story," Jacob says. He wishes they had gone to Susan earlier, before she left Kampala. He'd intended to, but then events overtook them, he'd forgotten all about her and the Semiliki refugee camp until he saw where the tracker was going. "You have a moment?"

Susan shakes her head, still amazed. "I suppose I must, for you two."

Veronica says, seriously, "In private."

Susan opens her mouth and then closes it again. "I see. Yes." She stands up. "In that case, let's take a walk."

Susan leads them out into the camp, onto a road leading away from the gate. The long fingers of clouds above are reddening with sunset. Refugees cl.u.s.ter and watch as if Veronica, Jacob and Susan are A-list celebrities. It occurs to Veronica that just a month ago she would have been far too intimidated by this camp and its densely packed tragedies to go out and walk among the refugees like this.

A cloud of children surround and follow them, crying out for largesse: "One pen!" "Donnes-moi d'argent!" "Un bic, monsieur, madam, un bic!" "Give me money!" "What is your name?" "Quel est son pays?" Despite the children's entreaties, Susan and Jacob act like they are on a stroll through an empty field. Veronica tries to do the same, but it isn't easy.

"How are you?" Jacob asks.

"I'm well enough, I suppose," Susan says. "It's good to be back here. It's the right place for me. I don't think I'll leave anytime soon. Why are you here?"

"We were abducted because somebody wanted Derek dead. We're trying to find out who."

Susan comes to a halt and turns to stare at Jacob. "That's mad."

"No, it's not," Veronica says. "We've found out a lot of things."

"But what are you doing here? here?"

"Somebody brought something to this camp last night," Jacob says.

"What?"

"We don't know. But there's a tracker on it, we can find it, we don't need you for that. We need to know, have you seen anything? Anything that might imply there's some kind of smuggling going on between this camp and the Congo?"

Susan considers. "I couldn't tell you. It's not like this place is tightly policed. Look around, it can't be. There are tribal gangs in the camp. Some mornings we find bodies. Not from natural causes. But n.o.body ever saw anything. n.o.body ever dares bear witness. People disappear all the time. Some run away to find a job. Some never existed in the first place. False ident.i.ties to get extra rations. Some go back to the Congo, yes. That's where most of these people are from, you know. They ran away from the civil war, and now there's nothing left to go back to. But a smuggling ring? It's possible. I don't know."

"Derek invited you to Bwindi for a reason," Jacob says.

She twitches with surprise. "What reason?"

"There's someone else in this camp that he's been in touch with. Derek even came here, a month ago. Did you see him then?"

Susan looks astonished. "No."

"Did he talk to you about that at all?"

"No. I thought, he met me in Kampala, he invited me, I knew he knew I worked here, but he never asked me anything."

"Me neither," Veronica says. "I guess he never got the chance."

"Have you seen any American visitors here lately?" Jacob asks. "Have you heard anything about General Gorokwe? Do Zanzibar Sams or Igloos mean anything to you?"

Susan shakes her head three times, increasingly perplexed.

"All right. s.h.i.t. Well, never mind." Jacob looks at his hiptop. "We're not far from that tracker. Let's take a look before it gets dark."

Susan looks nervous. "Maybe we should wait. I should ask some other people."

Jacob shakes his head. "It's less than a thousand feet away. In fact," he says, turning back towards the center of the camp, following the directions on the hiptop's screen, "it's right back in the middle there."

He leads them at a quick walk back towards the brick buildings, almost bowling over two children surprised by his sudden direction shift. Veronica follows closely. Susan trails behind. Jacob rounds the corner of one of the brick buildings and comes to a sudden halt so fast Veronica nearly b.u.mps into him.

The black pickup from last night is there, parked in another row of vehicles, most of them white four-wheel-drives. Its cargo bed is empty. Jacob rushes over to it, drops to his knees, reaches beneath it, and detaches the GPS tracking device that has clung magnetically to the underside of the pickup.

"Where did this come from?" Jacob demands, indicating the black vehicle, as Susan arrives.

"Oh, the pickup," Susan says, as if everything suddenly makes sense. "Let's go back to my desk. I'll find someone who knows."

"The bureaucrats in New York don't believe what I'm doing is particularly valuable, so I don't qualify for a wall," Susan says, leading them back to her desk inside the shade structure. "They think perpetuating what you see here is more important than building a way out. Mail, bus services, mobile phones, the Internet, connections to the rest of the world, we can't have those, can we? Because then they might use them, and stop needing UNHCR, and we certainly certainly can't have that. You soon find that the first priority of almost every aid organization in Africa is to perpetuate their own necessity, actually helping people is decidedly secondary. And the Ugandan government doesn't want these dirty Congolese refugees anywhere near the rest of the country either. So I got pushed out here. Not that I mind having a view, but in the rainy season, when the wind blows, we all have to huddle in the middle or we get soaked. I'm sorry. You don't care. Do you want some food? A cup of tea? We've even got a few solar showers." can't have that. You soon find that the first priority of almost every aid organization in Africa is to perpetuate their own necessity, actually helping people is decidedly secondary. And the Ugandan government doesn't want these dirty Congolese refugees anywhere near the rest of the country either. So I got pushed out here. Not that I mind having a view, but in the rainy season, when the wind blows, we all have to huddle in the middle or we get soaked. I'm sorry. You don't care. Do you want some food? A cup of tea? We've even got a few solar showers."

"I just want to know where that pickup came from," Jacob says.

"Yes, of course. Lewis!" she calls out.

The same guard who escorted them to Susan walks over. He looks about nineteen. "Yes, Miss Sloan?"

"That black pickup. Did it arrive last night?"

"No, Miss Sloan. This morning. I was at the gate myself."

"What was in it?" Jacob asks eagerly.

Lewis looks at him, surprised. "Nothing. It's a new vehicle for the camp motor pool. We did not requisition any supplies."

"You're sure? There weren't any big metal boxes in the back?"

"I am quite certain."

"s.h.i.t," Veronica says. "Too late. They're gone."

She and Jacob exchange dejected looks.

"I suppose you're spending the night," Susan says. "I'll rustle you up a tent and a couple bedrolls. Oh, and a flashlight. Remind me to show you where the latrines are. And you must be hungry. The canteen will be serving for another hour or so. Pocho Pocho, I'm afraid."

"Pocho," Jacob says dourly. "Can't wait."

The tent is perched on the thin strip of no-man's-land between the administrative buildings and the refugee camp proper. It is small and bedraggled, and the sleeping bags are motheaten, but Veronica supposes she can't complain, not when she is literally surrounded by tens of thousands of refugees sleeping in even more uncomfortable shelters. She doesn't feel hungry or tired yet, she's too keyed up from the day, but she knows she will after half an hour of inaction.

"Are you going to be okay in there?" Jacob asks, worried.

She looks at him without comprehension for a moment, then realizes he's referring to her dislike of tight s.p.a.ces. "Oh. Yeah, no problem. Tents are fine. Don't ask me why."

"Oh." He looks baffled. "Well, I guess it's irrational by definition, right?"

A little annoyed by that, Veronica stoops and tosses her day pack into the tent, then stands, looks up at him and says, "We should go eat."

"Not yet."