Night Of Knives Part 7

She forces herself back to the present. Red embers are visible on the other side of the airstrip, in the interahamwe settlement, where something is flapping in the warm night wind. Veronica is glad of the wind, it swallows other sounds. Along the cliff edge to their left they see the wooden building, and beside it, looming in silhouette, the pale arc of the satellite dish.

"We have plenty of time," Jacob mutters. "It's just past midnight."

"How can you tell?"

"Astronomy. The stars rotate around Polaris during the night, they're like a clock. Come on."

The satellite dish is mounted on a metal pole set in the earth. Three metal arms project from the lip of its pale bowl, holding a small box at their apex a few feet above the dish. Three cables run from this box into the wooden building. The dish is mounted near the edge of the gorge, on the edge of an overhanging cliff. Jacob looks around as if something is missing.

"What's wrong?" Veronica whispers.

Jacob says, low-voiced, "We need power. There must be a generator, or batteries." He touches one of the cables that leads to the wooden building, so old and weatherbeaten that its planks sag towards the ground. "Inside."

They look at one another.

"It's not like we have a choice," Susan says.

She pulls open the single misshapen door as gently as possible. The one-room s.p.a.ce beyond is obviously used mostly for storage; the walls are lined by piled bags, boxes, jerrycans, tools, and random debris, looming shadowed and mysterious in the moonlight. There is a desk in the middle of the room, and on it a laptop computer. Jacob walks in and begins to feel around. After a moment Susan joins him.

"Wish we had a light," Jacob mutters under his breath. "Maybe turn on that laptop "

"Here," Susan says. "Look. There's a phone."

Green monochrome light blooms inside the hut, emanating from the clamsh.e.l.l cell phone Susan holds. Jacob kneels beside a tangle of wires, plastic and metal at the edge of the room.

"Here we go," he says triumphantly. "Car batteries. Must be seriously jury-rigged. But it will do if there's any juice left."

He takes up two wires. A spark flickers between his hands, then another, and another; then three more, with longer pauses between; then three more, in quick succession.

"What are you doing?" Tom asks.

"Turning it off and on again."

"That's all? That's our signal?" Veronica feels betrayed.

"Morse code," Jacob clarifies. "I'm doing some SOSes. Then I'll tell them what's happening, our names, everything."

"Them who?"

He hesitates. "Hard to say. The NSA is supposed to pick up every satellite signal on Earth, and they should be looking for us. Also the satellite company might pick up on it, lots of guys who work there are ham-radio types, they'll know Morse code when they see it, and they probably have the lat-long coordinates of this dish. I never said this was guaranteed. But it's a chance."

Veronica doesn't complain. Some hope is infinitely better than none. She goes back around the building, just to be sure, and when she sees a little green LED winking on and off above the dish, her heart soars. It seems incredible that they can communicate across the world with nothing but that box full of electronics, the ceramic dish below, and the few stacked car batteries inside the building.

Susan joins her, still holding the terrorists' phone, now folded and dark. They wait in silence. A long time seems to pa.s.s before Jacob emerges from the building.

"OK," he says shakily. "Might as well stop, I'm getting too sloppy."

"What do we do now?" Tom asks.

"Run. And pray."

Jacob staggers with every step, and in the growing predawn light Veronica can see his face and arms are covered with blood and muck. She supposes she looks much the same. The world has begun to swim dizzily around her. Her throat is as dry as desert rock, she aches for water. She keeps having to reach for branches and tree trunks to steady herself. Luckily there is no shortage of those, and she has been pierced by so many jungle thorns in the last few hours that she has almost stopped feeling their white-hot bites. Behind them, Tom, Judy, and Susan trudge mechanically onwards through the thick and trackless African bush.

"I don't understand why they keep biting me," Jacob groans. "I can't possibly have any blood left."

Veronica says, "We all have malaria by now. Guaranteed."

"Ten-day onset time. If we're still alive in ten days I will treat cerebral malaria as a cause for rampant celebration."

They reach another thicket so dense it is practically a wall. Veronica wants to go around, but murderous gunmen are surely on their trail already, and they have decided to continue due east no matter what, for fear of going around in circles. She groans, covers her head with her arms, and forces herself into the bush.

The vegetation around here isn't like Bwindi. This soil is too stony to support huge canopy trees. Instead, low palms and vine-covered leafy trees stand above an amazingly dense underbrush of ferns and gra.s.ses, which in turn conceal creeper vines or thorn bushes that seem to reach out with stealthy fingers to grasp at pa.s.sing ankles. The trees block out most but not all of the sun's dawning light. They have heard a few rustles of animals fleeing their noisy approach, and once something small and slimy, probably a frog, bounced off Veronica's arm, but there have otherwise been no signs of animate life. Unless she counts mosquitoes. Their ceaseless buzzing and biting threatens to drive her mad.

"Hey," Jacob says wonderingly. He has stopped walking and is staring up into the air. "You guys hear something?"

"Yes," Tom grunts. "Mozzies."

"No. Listen. I think I hear a plane."

Everyone stops and looks into the sky. Veronica realizes he's right, not all the buzzing is insectile, there's an airplane approaching - and suddenly it flashes past, white as a cloud, half-obscured by palm leaves, maybe a thousand feet above the ground. They glimpse it just long enough to register its odd shape. Its wings seem very long and narrow for its body, and two wide struts extend downwards from its tail, like a bipod support.

"Holy s.h.i.t," Jacob breathes, his voice full of hope and wonder.

"What is it?" Judy asks.

"Predator. Unmanned airplane. US military. They found us. They must have got the signal. They f.u.c.king found us."

Hope erupts like flame in Veronica's heart. Rescue is on the way.

"We should signal," Tom says, "build a fire or something -"

Jacob shakes his head. "No. They're not the only ones looking, remember? No point bringing them all the way here just to take pictures of us all getting shot. Just keep running and hope they find us first."

They push onwards. Just as Veronica begins to think they can't make it through this thicket, they will have to turn back and go around, her foot lands unexpectedly on smooth, bare dirt. It is only a foot wide, but it is unmistakeably a trail, marked with prints of bare human feet.

"Do we follow it?" Judy asks. "Or do we keep going east?"

Everyone looks to Jacob. He hesitates, then decides, "There's a camera on that Predator. They won't see us in the bush, but they might on this path. We'll stay on it until it flies over again."

They proceed north along the path. It is so much easier than fighting their way through the thorns and vines of the jungle, but even so Veronica doesn't think she can stay on her feet much longer. Her legs are starting to feel like they did on the deathmarch from Bwindi, increasingly less responsive to her mind's commands. She wonders if maybe it would be best to split up. Together they must be easy to track. Alone maybe at least one would get away or be rescued. It makes sense, like a kind of preemptive triage, but she doesn't want to be the one to suggest it. She doesn't want to be alone out here.

The black men with rifles who rise up from either side of the trail appear so suddenly and unexpectedly it is like they just winked into existence, were beamed down from some Star Trek s.p.a.cecraft. There are six of them, in rubber boots and ragged khaki uniforms. When she sees them Veronica's legs give way with shock, and she half-falls backwards, sits hard onto the ground. She feels frozen inside, like her lungs and spine have turned to ice. It's over. They have lost.

But the black soldiers do not seem eager to kill or capture. Instead they stare at the five filth-smeared white people for a moment, then begin to speak excitedly to one another in soft words that sound unlike any African language Veronica has yet encountered. It slowly occurs to her that their uniforms are nothing like the crimson headbands and bullet necklaces of the interahamwe.

She looks around, confused. The others sway on their feet, looking as dazed as she feels.

Then one of the gunmen says, in strangely accented but understandable English, "Everything is OK. Everything is a hundred percent. We come to help you."

"Who are you?" Jacob asks, his voice rasping.

The man says, as if it explains everything, "From Zimbabwe."

The Zimbabwean soldiers mutter to each other in low voices, tense but not frightened, as they move along the trail. Veronica doesn't understand what they are doing here, but she supposes right now that doesn't matter. It takes all of her concentration just to keep pace with the soldier half-carrying her. The trail has led them into another banana plantation, and the waxy leaves around them rattle in the wind. They stop every so often for one of the soldiers to shout into a ma.s.sive old radio that looks like something from a Vietnam movie. It distantly occurs to Veronica that it might actually have seen service in Vietnam, and then been donated or sold to Zimbabwe as surplus. Whatever its provenance, it doesn't seem to be working.

When her legs finally collapse it is like it is happening to somebody else; she watches the ground rise to meet her as if she is riding in an airplane. Rough, strong hands grab and lift her. She wonders if this is what shock feels like, or if maybe she is dying, if all her life's strength has finally been spent.

She emerges from something between a daze and a blackout just as the trail opens into a hilltop clearing dotted by a few dozen thatched mud huts with sagging walls. Goats and chickens pick their way along the narrow dirt paths that connect the huts, run through the small agricultural patches that surround the hill, and disappear into the bush all around.

The village itself seems empty of humans; but in the bean field beneath the hill, there is a huge helicopter, painted khaki, covered with bulbous, streamlined projections. This ultramodern vehicle seems wildly out of place here, as if it has travelled in time, is taking part in an invasion of the eleventh century by the twenty-first. There are men milling around the bean field, a few white men in military fatigues and body armour, and many black soldiers in ragged khaki. The helicopter is embossed with an American flag and with the words AIR AMBULANCE.

The sight of the American flag is like a jolt of electricity, makes Veronica's heart soar with the most intense joy she has ever experienced. She has never been so happy to be American. America has reached across the world to save its daughter. She can barely move, but she feels alive again, alive and triumphant.

Two men in civilian clothes, a wiry black man with dreadlocks and a tall gray-haired man with an acne-scarred face, supervise as she and the other survivors are strapped onto stretchers and lifted into the helicopter. A man with a red cross on his camouflage uniform stoops beside her and begins speaking to her in a Southern accent. She can't make out what he says, partly because the engine roars to life beneath them, partly because her mind has lost its ability to comprehend. It doesn't matter. She is safe now. She has been rescued. She can let herself go. The rotors of the helicopter begin to spin, and Veronica feels like her mind is spinning with them, corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up into the blue sky and the dark void beyond, losing all awareness of the world and time.

Chapter 11

She wakes to bliss. There are sheets over her body, pillows beneath her head, and her body is free of pain for the first time in recent memory. It feels like floating in a warm bath. She rolls onto her side, keeping her eyes closed, trying to draw out this deliriously wonderful daze as long as possible - but there is something against her arm, some kind of thin plastic tube. She tries to push it away but it seems stuck to her wrist. In fact it feels stuck in in her wrist. her wrist.

Veronica opens her eyes, alarmed. She is in a room decorated with wicker furniture, a big TV, a ceiling fan, and a leopard-print blanket. It looks like a hotel room except for the wheeled cart next to her bed and the IV drip in her arm. She doesn't understand where she is or why. Her memory is a jumbled collage of nightmare images, blood and slaves and feral teenagers with dead eyes, chains and guns and pangas pangas, Derek's severed head, their desperate escape through thickets of th.o.r.n.y bush.

Recollection trickles slowly into her muzzy brain. She lifts up her blanket and peers beneath. Somebody has dressed her in a hospital robe. Her numberless wounds have been treated and dressed with white gauze bandages, although several are already dark with seeping blood. She feels oddly dissociated from her body, like it used to belong to someone else. Veronica puts her hand to the side of her head and feels fresh st.i.tches. It doesn't hurt. She's drugged, she realizes distantly; that IV is overflowing with a.n.a.lgesics, maybe even morphine. Which is fine by her.

She lies in bed for a long time before deciding to mount an expedition for the TV remote control. It lies tantalizingly close, on a table not ten feet away. Sitting up is hard. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed is harder. Standing up is nearly but not quite impossible. She grabs the IV rack and uses it as support as she shuffles dizzily across the room. Through the window she sees daylight and palm trees. She wonders where she is. Maybe she's been flown back to America and that's Miami outside. She could look, but the window seems so far away. The TV will tell her. She harvests the remote control and is on her way back to bed when the door opens.

"Well, aren't you a lively one," the plump, middle-aged black woman says cheerfully. She wears an army uniform and speaks with an American accent.

"Where am I?" Veronica asks.

"You're safe. I'm your nurse, my name's Irene. Let's just get you back to bed." She helps Veronica back to a horizontal position. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel great," Veronica says enthusiastically. "What are these drugs?"

Irene laughs. "The works. a.n.a.lgesics, antimalarials, vitamins, minerals, we've put together a real party c.o.c.ktail for you. You just sit tight. I'll be back right away. They'll be glad to know you're awake."

She leaves without explaning who they they are. Veronica turns on the TV. The entertainment selection consists of CNN, some French equivalent of the Discovery Channel, a softcore p.o.r.n channel, and a very strange, cheaply made black-and-white movie which seems to be about genies who appear out of thin air and shower African crowds with money. Clearly she's still in Africa, some French-speaking nation. The third time she flips to CNN she sees Michael and Diane's faces onscreen above the words BREAKING STORY. Veronica nearly screams before she realizes they aren't ghosts, they are actually the subject of the piece. are. Veronica turns on the TV. The entertainment selection consists of CNN, some French equivalent of the Discovery Channel, a softcore p.o.r.n channel, and a very strange, cheaply made black-and-white movie which seems to be about genies who appear out of thin air and shower African crowds with money. Clearly she's still in Africa, some French-speaking nation. The third time she flips to CNN she sees Michael and Diane's faces onscreen above the words BREAKING STORY. Veronica nearly screams before she realizes they aren't ghosts, they are actually the subject of the piece.

The anchorwoman says, "Mr. Anderson and his wife were millionaire philanthropists who had come to Uganda to tour the missions and orphanages they funded. CNN has learned that earlier today, America's special forces, aided by a local militia, mounted a dramatic a.s.sault on the terrorist headquarters in which dozens of terrorists were killed. The US government reports that all the other hostages have been safely rescued and are being treated in an undisclosed location. In a related story, well-known video-sharing web site YouTube has agreed to remove the videos of these hostages that were uploaded to their site, several of which are already among their most-viewed videos ever, but copies are still reportedly widely available on similar sites worldwide. Some of these videos portray the beheadings of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, and of Derek Summers, a Canadian citizen." Derek's picture appears onscreen. "CNN has elected not to show any footage filmed by terrorists and we call on other news organizations to join us in this decision. Up next, sports and entertainment."

Derek's face is replaced by that of David Beckham. Veronica switches off the TV and stares at its dark screen. Her head is starting to hurt, both inside and out, and her blistered feet too; but at the same time, her mind is beginning to clear. She almost wishes it wouldn't. She can hardly believe what she just heard.

The door opens and two men enter. One is white, tall, lean, and middle-aged, with graying hair, a badly acne-scarred face and jewel-blue eyes. He looks like he has spent most of his life working outside. He wears nondescript jeans and a T-shirt, and holds a small metal briefcase. The other man is black, small, slim and strong, with dreadlocks cascading down his back, late thirties or early forties, dressed in black jeans, a Diesel T-shirt, North Face hiking boots, a diamond earring, a golden necklace and a chunky gunmetal watch. Veronica remembers vaguely that both these men were on the rescue helicopter.

"Miss Kelly," the white man says. "Are you well enough to talk?"

"I guess."

"Good. My name is Strick. I work for the State Department." His clipped voice has a military cadence. "This is Prester. He was Derek Summers's colleague."

"Pleased to meetcha," Prester says, in a laid-back American accent.

Strick sits on a chair beside Veronica's bed, then opens his briefcase, withdraws a small electronic device, and places it the bedside table. His scarred face and icy blue eyes are mesmerizing. "We'd like you to tell us everything that happened in your own words. Mr. Rockel has told us his version already. Then we have some pictures we'd like you to look at."

"Mr. Rockel?"

"Jacob," Prester clarifies.

Veronica nods, hesitates, stares at the voice recorder.. She isn't sure what to say. Prester sits across the room on a wicker chair, watching carefully.

Strick cues her, "Just begin at the beginning. You were in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, and -"

"No," Veronica interrupts. "I don't think that's where it started. Did you find Derek's body?"

Strick nods slowly.

"We found all of him," Prester says softly. "The Andersons too. They put their heads up on stakes by the airstrip."

Veronica groans and closes her eyes. She opens them again in time to see Strick staring at Prester.

The black man shrugs. "You want me to candycoat it? After what they've been through I think we owe them the whole truth."

Veronica says, "He was set up. Derek. It started before we ever got to Bwindi. He was in Uganda to investigate links between terrorists and interahamwe, wasn't he? That's what he said, just before he died. It couldn't have been coincidence they kidnapped him." She hesitates a moment. "And it wasn't coincidence he invited me. He thought my ex-husband was involved."

Strick blinks with surprise, and Prester says incredulously, "Your ex-husband? ex-husband?"

"Danton DeWitt."

The name appears to mean nothing to either of them.

"When did he tell you all this?" Strick asks.

"Right before - before he died."

"What did he say? What were his exact words?"

She recounts what she remembers. When Strick asks what happens next, she tells them of her desperate flight into the river valley, her escape into whitewater, how she was knocked out.

"We saw," Strick interrupts, when she gets to the part of them holding her down and threatening her life.