Night Of Knives Part 21

"There will be no danger. I can take you to a place where they do not see us. But you can see them. You will see everything."

Veronica looks at Jacob. She wants him to say no.

"You trusted us," Jacob says. His voice is quiet but Veronica can sense his excitement. "We ought to return the favour."

Chapter 25

Jacob, Veronica and Rukungu march through the night. When Jacob s.h.i.+nes his flashlight around them he sees that these hills above the refugee camp have been stripped bare of trees, ravaged by the demand for firewood and arable land. The resulting erosion has obviously eaten away from the soil; jagged rocks protrude with increasing frequency as they climb the steep slope. Jacob wonders if rainy-season landslides will soon threaten the camp itself. The trail they follow leads them through tiny, ragged, and ever less fertile plots of farmland.

Rukungu moves slowly but unstoppably, and carries the spectrum a.n.a.lyzer as if it is a balloon. Veronica is beginning to wheeze. Jacob too is soon exhausted, his muscles have not yet recovered from the Congo, and this climb is gruelling. He forces himself to continue on weak and rubbery legs, aiming the flashlight straight down on the ground, to illuminate the ground on which they walk. He wonders if its light is visible from below. At least it is a good flashlight, a small but durable Maglite that shows no signs of darkening.

"I have to stop," Veronica pants. "I can't make it all the way up without a break."

"Me neither," Jacob gratefully seconds.

Rukungu turns to them. "Go slow. Softly, softly. But do not stop."

They follow his advice, take smaller steps. For a while it works. Then both lungs and legs begin to burn again. Jacob is on the verge of demanding another halt when Rukungu stops on a flattish patch. While Jacob and Veronica catch their breath, Rukungu kneels beside a large boulder, carefully thrusts his hands beneath, and withdraws a dusty panga. panga.

"What's that for?" Veronica demands nervously.

"For making a path. Come."

"Five minutes," Jacob grunts.

Rukungu nods. Jacob turns off the light and focuses on his breath. Eventually the stars stop swimming in the sky and fix in one place. He is ravenously hungry, he wishes they had stopped long enough to eat, right now he would devour pocho pocho as if it was made of chocolate truffles. as if it was made of chocolate truffles.

"What time is it?" Veronica asks Jacob.

He consults his hiptop. "Ten."

She turns to Rukungu. "How much further?"

"Myself, thirty minutes. With you, I think one hour."

They continue, leaving the farming plots behind; the slope has become too steep and stony to eke out any crop. There is no longer any trail, they have to improvise their route through bushes and rocks. Jacob is glad the refugees have cut down all the trees for firewood or construction. Thick forest would take hours to climb through.

When they finally reach the crest of the ridge the night is so dark they see nothing of the hills around them at all, nothing but the distant glow of the few electric lights in the camp's administration center. At least the mosquitoes are now few.

"There is a road," Rukungu says, pointing downwards, away from the camp. "Past the road there is a river. Past the river is the Congo."

Rukungu takes the flashlight and begins to lead them downhill. Jacob follows uneasily. They are placing an enormous amount of trust in this man they just met. He could take the light and leave them and they would probably never find their way back. He could turn on them with his panga panga and kill them both. Jacob supposes if Rukungu were going to do these things he already would have. Somehow this is unconvincing comfort. and kill them both. Jacob supposes if Rukungu were going to do these things he already would have. Somehow this is unconvincing comfort.

He is beginning to wish he had declined Rukungu's offer. He hadn't quite realized it would mean marching for hours through barren African wilderness in the moonless dark. And now that it's actually happening, the idea of spying on a rendezvous between smugglers and Al-Qaeda on the very border of the Congo, with no recourse if something goes wrong, seems completely insane.

Well, you always wanted your big adventure, he thinks to himself. he thinks to himself. Adventure, noun. Long periods of tedium interspersed with brief moments of terror. Adventure, noun. Long periods of tedium interspersed with brief moments of terror. Except Jacob has learned this Devil's Dictionary definition is incomplete: in real adventures, the tedium is usually coupled with total physical exhaustion, and the terror never really goes away, it's always there in the background, gnawing at him like sandpaper. Except Jacob has learned this Devil's Dictionary definition is incomplete: in real adventures, the tedium is usually coupled with total physical exhaustion, and the terror never really goes away, it's always there in the background, gnawing at him like sandpaper.

"Look," Rukungu says softly.

Jacob looks. Lights in the distance, headlights, bouncing up and down, the road is clearly as bad as that leading into the camp. Rukungu immediately switches off the Maglite. The vehicle rounds a gradual curve until it parallels the ridge they just crossed.

"We must hurry," Rukungu says. "This torch is too bright."

He gives Jacob back the flashlight, produces his Nokia phone, and uses its screen to light their way down the ridge. Veronica follows, with Jacob behind her, using his hiptop as light. They follow a narrow path that seems to have barely worn its way into the thick trees and bushes. Jacob twice sees footprints too small to be Rukungu's. Prints left by a child's feet. Or a pygmy's. The vegetation here is thin, Rukungu doesn't need to use his panga panga. Jacob wonders why he brought it, then. Maybe for self-defense. Maybe this isn't as safe as he promised.

As they descend, the vehicle pulls offroad and stops, almost directly beneath them. They are only a few hundred feet away now. Jacob's muscles are taut, almost cramping with fear and adrenalin. He has to force himself to breath slowly, quietly.

The vehicle's engine switches off, its doors open, and Rukungu stops so suddenly that Veronica almost collides with him.

"What is it?" Veronica whispers.

"You are very loud. We must wait for more noise."

"From where?" Jacob asks, low-voiced.

"The other vehicle."

"We're almost in range of the a.n.a.lyzer," Jacob says. "Just twenty metres closer."

"No."

Jacob doesn't argue. Ahead of him Veronica is breathing fast. Jacob reaches out and takes her hand. She squeezes back tightly. Then Jacob lets go, shrugs his backpack off as silently as he can, and kneels. He gently opens his pack, withdraws camera and lens, and begins to a.s.semble them by touch, working slowly and gently. His heart is thumping but his hands are steady. He remembers soldering circuit boards together, back in university, he was always good at that. Twice he slips slightly, metal clicks against plastic and Veronica inhales sharply, but Jacob isn't worried, they're surely far enough away that the men in the vehicle can't hear anything. Those men are speaking, conversing in low voices, but he can't make out any words or even the language.

"They come," Rukungu mutters.

Jacob looks west and sees two more headlights in the distance.

Rukungu says, his voice so low Jacob can barely hear him, "You must be silent. Absolutely silent. No light."

He begins to move further downslope. Veronica takes a deep breath and begins feeling her away along the path too. Jacob follows, but he can't move quickly with the camera, and soon she and Rukungu have disappeared into the darkness ahead.

Veronica's outstretched hand touches something warm and she almost gasps before identifying it as Rukungu. He is crouched behind something, a rock outcrop. Beyond a dirt slope drops maybe twenty feet to the road, lit by the approaching headlights. Veronica huddles next to Rukungu. At least the outcrop, plus the low trees and bushes on this stony ridge, should screen them from view. She can smell cigarette smoke. They are almost directly above where the first vehicle is parked. The men there are smoking, she can see their incandescent red dots of their cigarettes. Veronica badly wants one herself.

The second set of headlights wash over the first vehicle, a matatu like any other. Four men loiter around it, standing or leaning against the vehicle, smoking and waiting. They could be the same men Veronica saw last night in the sc.r.a.pyard, she can't be sure. Light reflects from the white matatu onto the second vehicle as it pulls in alongside. It is big, blocky and angular - a Humvee. Its doors open and three men emerge. Veronica squints. The headlights are aimed away, and the diffuse light isn't enough to recognize faces, but one of the men is small but built hugely, like a bodybuilder. Veronica shudders. It's him, she can't recognize his face but she's sure of it; there, only fifty feet away, stands the Al-Qaeda terrorist who beheaded Derek.

The two groups of men engage in a brief and businesslike discussion. Veronica does not understand their language. She wonders if Rukungu does. If so he makes no obvious sign of it, just watches patiently.

Veronica is suddenly aware of someone on her other side. She twitches, turns her head, and is relieved to see Jacob kneeling next to her, holding his camera with zoom lens attached. He rests it cautiously on the edge of the outcrop, aims it down at the two vehicles and seven men, and pushes the b.u.t.ton. Veronica stiffens, but no sound or light emerges from the camera, Jacob must have switched it to some kind of stalker mode.

The smokers below carefully crush their cigarettes beneath their feet. Then the short, wide man who killed Derek opens the back of the Humvee, revealing a forest of yellow jerrycans. All seven men begin to move the jerrycans out onto the road. Veronica can smell gasoline.

Jacob leans over to whisper gently into her ear. "I read about this. Gasoline smuggling. That gas actually got trucked in through Uganda in the first place, but there's no government in Congo, so no taxes, so the price there is so much lower it's cheaper to bring it back in from the Congo than to buy it in Ugandan gas stations."

Veronica doesn't care and wishes Jacob didn't either. She wants to snap at him to focus. This isn't a time to be interested in the economics of smuggling. This is exactly the kind of knife-edge dangerous situation he promised they wouldn't get into.

Below them, the rear doors of the matatu are opened. Veronica breathes in deeply as she sees the two coffin-sized metal boxes within, the same boxes she saw on the pickup last night. She sees something written on them, stencilled letters she can't quite make out. Jacob returns to his camera. The metal boxes are heavy, it takes four men to carry each from the matatu into the Humvee. Once they are loaded, the bodybuilder and two other men get back into their vehicle and drive away, heading west again, towards the Congo. Veronica watches their taillights disappear. She feels relieved but also disappointed. They are safe, but they haven't learned anything new. She was expecting something more important, more decisive.

The four men from the matatu load the vehicle with jerrycans. Jacob reaches out to adjust the zoom. The camera lens extends outwards and knocks loose a pebble that rattles loudly down the rock outcropping.

Veronica freezes as one of the men below turns around to stare at the unexpected noise. Her skin tingles with acid electricity, her heart fills her throat. The man stares into the darkness for a second, then says something and points, directly at them. The others stop working and follow his lead. She feels like they're staring straight at her. She couldn't breathe even if she dared.

Then Rukungu opens his mouth and an inhuman sound emerges, a warbling, high-pitched animal noise, some kind of mammalian chitter. The men below visibly relax, and one chuckles. Veronica starts to breathe again, shallowly and silently. The man who pointed at them is the last to turn away. He goes to the matatu's pa.s.senger-side door and gets into the vehicle. The last few jerrycans are loaded, the rear doors are slammed shut.

The pa.s.senger door opens again and the man emerges with a flashlight in his hand. Veronica's heart convulses again as he s.h.i.+nes it into the darkness. She crouches lower, as do Jacob and Rukungu crouch lower, all three are fully obscured by the rock outcrop.

But Jacob's camera is still perched the rock, its lens aimed straight at the man with the flashlight.

Veronica closes her eyes. They won't see it, she tells herself. It's too dark.

Then she hears a surprised and outraged shout, and an icy fist clenches at her gut.

"Run!" Rukungu orders.

Jacob grabs the camera and sprints noisily back up the trail. More shouting erupts below. Veronica stays where she is, hunched over, she feels paralyzed, like a rabbit caught in headlights, until Rukungu shoves her so hard she almost topples over. It breaks the spell. She too turns and rushes uphill, stumbling on the uneven ground, in the darkness she can't make out the path. She hears Jacob running above her and deliberately turns diagonally away. They're better off splitting up.

Then she hears the firecracker noises of gunfire behind her, an automatic weapon. She throws herself to the ground, heedless of the the thorns and branches that claw at her face and arms. The gunfire continues briefly. Then she hears running noises from below. They are following. Veronica considers trying to flee, but she'll make too much noise, they're too close, and they're faster and stronger. Best to hide and hope.

She curls up in a ball and looks behind her, down the ridge. Two lights are coming up the path. She is less than twenty feet away from the trail, not near as far away as she hoped. She can see the face of the man holding the first flashlight, the form of the second man behind him, and the rifles they carry. They rush right past her, pursuing Jacob; but the other two-man team, with the second flashlight, is climbing much more slowly, and examining the ground as they come. Both hold drawn pistols.

Veronica stays rigidly still and silent. She wants to run, to leap to her feet and scramble away, but it is too late now. She can't bear to watch, she wants to close her eyes, but doesn't let herself, she needs to know what's happening. She tries to tell herself that she will be fine, that somehow this will all be over soon.

The two men with pistols veer off the path, straight towards her. Veronica twitches with dread. She has to hold her breath to keep herself from moaning with terror. Their light is aimed at the ground, they are studying that circle of illumination carefully. They are thirty feet away, maybe less, they will see her in seconds.

Light flickers from up the ridge, light like a gunshot, but there is no sound. The two men following her turn to look. There is another flash, and another, they seem to be coming every two seconds. The men speak briefly. Then they return to her trail. They heard her, she realizes too late; they noticed somebody stopped running after the gunfire. They know she is close to the path.

Light from their flashlight washes over her. She cringes away as one of them exclaims triumphantly, and suddenly they are both standing over her, aiming their light directly at her face, speaking to one another in surprised tones. Veronica curls into a fetal position. All she can see of them is that they wear jeans and leather boots, good quality, these men aren't poor. One stoops, grabs her arm, pulls her roughly to her feet.

"No," she says weakly, knowing there's no use in fighting back, trying to resist by going limp, like a child. "No. Let me go. Let me go."

She makes a pathetic attempt to pull away. In response the pressure on her increases, her arm is pulled behind her back and forced upwards until she cries out from the pain. Her shoulder feels like it is on the verge of dislocation. Veronica is hyperventilating, panting like an animal. It is all she can do not to stumble and fall as her abductors march her back to their vehicle.

Chapter 26

Her captors are laughing now, exchanging eager banter. They propel her across the road and shove her hard against its wall of the matatu, she gets her free hand up just in time so that it instead of her face absorbs most of the impact. Then that arm too is grabbed and forced painfully behind her back. She is dragged alongside the matatu and bent headfirst over its hood. She kicks out feebly, tries to wriggle free, but it is no use, and then her arms are forced higher, agony arcs through both her shoulders, and she screams.

Her arms are allowed to lower a tiny amount. Veronica stops trying to resist, she just lies there numbly, moaning, her arms held behind her back, the matatu's hood against her face. Its engine is still warm from the drive. A single powerful hand pressing down on her arms keeps her pinned face-down. Her captors discuss something. She doesn't understand their words, but she gets the idea that one of them is arguing in favour of something, and the other is reluctant, but eventually gives in.

Moments later something metal touches her temple. She swivels her head instinctively so she can see what it is. A gun, a pistol, held to her head. The second man fumbles with the zipper of her jeans. Veronica tries to think of something to say to make them stop but the only sounds emerging from her mouth are helpless animal grunts. She tries to fight but there is too much weight on her; the more she tries to wriggle free, the more her shoulders howl with pain.

The b.u.t.ton pops free. She whimpers as her jeans and underwear are yanked down to her knees. She hears a loud grunt, then, and unexpectedly, some kind of warm, thick liquid splashes over her lower back, and the flashlight that has illuminated her goes careening into the night. The hand on her wrists and the gun against her head pull suddenly away. As Veronica reflexively stretches out her arms, releasing her tortured shoulders, she hears a horrible gurgling sound, and then a man falls right on top of her, his whole weight pushes her into the hood for a moment before he rolls limply away, leaving her free.

Veronica stands, turns, and screams again. In the dim light of the fallen flashlight she can see there is blood everywhere, blood all over her legs and lower body, and two men lie dead at her feet. A third stands in the darkness, she can't see his face but the panga panga in his hand is wet with blood. She instinctively turns to run, but her jeans trip her up and she falls hard on one of the bodies. Veronica scrabbles away, clumsily pulling her jeans and underwear back up, gasping with shock and horror. The third man picks up the fallen flashlight and illuminates himself. It is Rukungu. in his hand is wet with blood. She instinctively turns to run, but her jeans trip her up and she falls hard on one of the bodies. Veronica scrabbles away, clumsily pulling her jeans and underwear back up, gasping with shock and horror. The third man picks up the fallen flashlight and illuminates himself. It is Rukungu.

"Be silent," he hisses.

Veronica somehow manages to get to her feet. She is shaking so violently that she has to lean on the matatu to steady herself.

Rukungu inspects her. "Are you wounded?"

She shakes her head.

"The other men will return. They have Kalashnikovs. We must run, not fight."

Veronica takes three deep breaths, recovers enough of her self-possession to stand unsupported. "Yes. Okay. I'll follow you." Her voice sounds foreign to herself, an old woman's voice.

By the time Veronica and Rukungu begin their descent back to the refugee camp, his water bottle is empty, her throat aches with thirst, her head hurts and she is dizzy with exhaustion. Her adrenalin has drained away, she is covered with the blood of two dead men, all she wants is a Gatorade and a shower and a warm bed. She forces herself to keep marching onwards after Rukungu. Going downhill requires less effort but more attention, and she staggers frequently. Every step causes both her shoulders to pulse with dull pain, but she doesn't think there's any serious damage or dislocation, both her arms seem to work fine, they just hurt.

"Veronica," a cautious voice calls out. "Rukungu."

Veronica stops, amazed. Rukungu aims the flashlight and picks out Jacob, seated slumped on a big boulder, covered in dirt. Veronica sways with relief. He's okay. He got away. She finds the strength to rush up to him and hug him.

He hugs her back clumsily. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." She manages a smile. "Lot better than I look. How'd you find us?"

She is not terribly surprised when he holds up his trusty hiptop. "GPS. I backtracked to our route up, recognized this rock."

She looks down and realizes this boulder he is sitting on is the same one beneath which Rukungu's panga panga was hidden. She also sees Jacob's water bottle, still half-full. She grabs it, takes a few deep swigs, and pa.s.ses it to Rukungu, who finishes it." was hidden. She also sees Jacob's water bottle, still half-full. She grabs it, takes a few deep swigs, and pa.s.ses it to Rukungu, who finishes it."

Jacob says, "I had to dump my camera. I turned on the flash and put it on automatic, threw it downhill, they went after it instead of me." Veronica nods; those were the flashes she saw. She's impressed by his presence of mind during a crisis, but then she's seen it before, in the Congo. There is an iron core beneath Jacob's geeky exterior. "Had to leave the spectrum a.n.a.lyzer too. That's fifteen thousand dollars down the drain."

"You're alive."

He smiles. "Good point. Cheap at the price."

"Never mind the pictures. We got away."

"Oh, I've still got the pictures, I took out the memory card before I tossed the camera. What happened to you?"

"Two of them got me." Veronica turns to look at Rukungu, who waits silently a little distance away. "He killed them."

"Jesus."