Night of Knives

by Jon Evans

  "Weak how?"

  "I turned thirty."

  "Oh. Yeah. That can be weird." Veronica knows that all too well.

  "And I had just broken up with my long-term girlfriend. We didn't even like each other any more, we were just staying together by default, you know? Momentum. That and neither of us wanted to have to look for someone new." Jacob shrugs. "We finally broke up and I suddenly realized I'd basically spent the last ten years watching movies and playing video games. Some other guys I graduated with, they moved to California, a couple of them are internet millionaires now. And I'm a lot smarter than them. I used to think that mattered, being smart. But it doesn't. Not if you never do anything with it. I had a good job, but what for, right? I realized had never actually done anything. Then Derek calls and says this is the land of opportunity. A whole continent leapfrogging land lines, new cell networks everywhere. And I figured, even if I miss the brass ring, at least I'll have gone and lived in Africa, right? At least I'll have done something more with my life than work and play World of Warcraft. So he found me a job at Telecom Uganda, at a mere eighty per cent pay cut. The grand plan was, I'd work there a year, figure the lay of the land, meet some funders, then we'd start a company here, try to build an empire." He shakes his head. "Now I just want to not die. How's that for perspective?"

  "Yeah," Veronica agrees.

  "I must sound like a jerk, eh? You came here to help starving AIDS orphans and here I am talking business opportunities."

  "You don't sound like a jerk," Veronica said truthfully. "And honestly, I didn't really come here for the orphans. I came because my whole life went to shit. Basically this was as far away as I could find."

  Jacob visibly decides not to ask for details. She likes him for it.

  "I got divorced," she says eventually. "From a guy I should never have married in the first place."

  Veronica falls silent. She doesn't want to talk about it. Even now, even here, the hurt is still too fresh, that she devoted seven years of her life to Danton, abandoned her career and let her whole life fall into orbit around his, only to be discarded like used Kleenex when she turned thirty. Now that they're over it's almost like those seven years never really happened, like she somehow jumped from twenty-four to thirty-one overnight. That Rip van Winkle feeling was part of why she came to Africa. To start her life over, leave all her mistakes behind.

  "I thought the hardest thing was going to be not being rich," she says. "Funny, isn't it. My ex was rich. Very. I never knew exactly how rich, he wouldn't tell me, but double-digit millions, at least. Inherited, he was an only child. I grew up poor, in Buffalo, my dad was on unemployment half the time and my mom was an artist, and even when I met him, I mean, I was doing OK, I was a nurse, I was even doing a little modelling too, that's how I met him, but it was still San Francisco, I was sleeping in a bunk bed. Then all of a sudden I moved to a mansion, got used to spending, I don't know, probably like a thousand dollars a day. I mean, that was nothing, I wouldn't even think about it. You get used to it. Believe it or not. Seven years of that and then, boom, divorce. I never missed him. Not for a fucking moment. I thought the hard part was going to be being poor again. Now here I am. Like you say. How's that for perspective."

  "You didn't get half, eh?"

  She shakes her head. "I signed a pre-nup. I should have known right then, huh? But I thought it was really his mother who was insisting. Then I think he was worried it wouldn't stand up, so he … he did some shitty things when we got divorced. Even before we separated. Private investigators, shit like that. Whatever. Doesn't matter now. So I came here, got a job at this NGO I used to do fundraising for when I was a trophy wife, all full of big plans to reinvent myself, start a school for nurses, do something admirable. But I was about to give up that too. It was a crazy idea anyways, starting a college all by myself. And Africa, it's just too much, I can't live here." She sighs. "Never mind. None of that seems to matter much now, does it."

  Jacob nods quietly.

  * * *

  Veronica looks across the cave at Derek, sitting crosslegged next to Susan, and thinks of their first meeting, at a party at the French embassy. Incredible to think it was only ten days ago.

  If she hadn't been at that party she wouldn't be here now, and she hadn't even wanted to go. Her three housemates were all attending, and Veronica been looking forward to having the house to herself for once. It wasn't easy adjusting to having roommates again, not after spending seven years as the reigning lady of a multimillion-dollar estate. But Bernard, the local managing director of HIV Research Africa, the NGO where Veronica worked, had made it clear he expected to see her at the embassy party, and so she found herself that night sitting with Belinda, Linda and Diane on the verandah of their shared house, a sprawling, musty colonial relic decorated with Persian rugs and mahogany furniture, waiting for their driver to arrive.

  The unkempt grounds were surrounded by a high wall topped by broken glass, and an armed askari guard watched the gate around the clock. Kampala was not a particularly dangerous city, but Veronica was always grateful for his presence. He seemed to keep the real Africa outside. The real Africa was filth, beggars, anarchic shantytowns, cratered streets, teeming poverty, fat corrupt bureaucrats; a place where everything was ugly and shabby, and nothing worked. Their rickety house was filled with dust, cobwebs, balky plumbing and uncomfortable furniture, but it still felt like an oasis, a sanctuary in a sea of chaos.

  The car that came for them was a rusting, dented Suzuki with seats made mostly of duct tape. HIV Research Africa was small and poor, hired local drivers because it couldn't afford the customized SUVs and full-time chauffeurs that most African aid organizations boasted, but Veronica couldn't complain. No one else had offered her a job. What she did for them was largely makework. Her reports could easily have been written in France or America rather than Uganda. She was in Africa only because Bernard had known Veronica when she was rich, and took pity on her when she fell from that state of grace.

  The Suzuki bumped along Kampala's dark and uneven streets, with Veronica in the back seat pressed between Belinda and Diane, both sizable women. She couldn't help but think wistfully of the private jets, limousines and Ferraris in which she once rode. Arrival at the embassy was a great relief. The stone-walled complex, adorned with sculptures, paintings, and several tricolour flags, was crowded with well-dressed people sipping champagne. More than half the guests were white, and Asians outnumbered Africans. The servants and guards were of course all black. Beef, chicken, and South African boerevors sausage were served up from a big propane barbeque, a colourful salad washed with boiled water was mostly ignored, and every guest in sight held a cold bottle of Nile or Bell beer.

  She had been in Kampala only three weeks but more than a dozen of the faces she saw were familiar. It was a city of millions, but expats lived in a tiny bubble: their own well-guarded homes and workplaces; a few dozen cafes, bars, hotels and supermarkets where they mingled; and drivers to carry them between the islands of their neo-colonial archipelago. Africa was only a backdrop, they didn't really live in it at all.

  Veronica couldn't shake the feeling that not much had changed from the colonial era. Half of the guests were NGO workers ostensibly here to save Africa from its misery, but they were still white people living like kings in an exotic land on the pretext of uplifting the locals. Only the justification had changed, from moral and religious conversion to aid and economic development. But from what Veronica had seen, most African aid benefited aid workers a lot more than the Africans.

  She was making polite conversation to a half-drunk Brit named Simon when she heard a South African voice cut through the babble of conversation: "What I wonder is if Africans are even capable of love. I've never seen it, not here. I've seen them spend their lives shagging like bonobos, I've seen them leave their babies to die by the side of the road without shedding a tear, but I've never seen love."

  Veronica excused herself soon afterwards, found her way to a co
rner of the yard, looked around, and wondered what she was doing here, at this party, in this city, on this continent.

  "Excuse-moi, mademoiselle," a smooth male voice said, and a hand touched her shoulder from behind. "Est-ce que je te connais?"

  He was tall, lean and muscular, with deep blue eyes, a sardonic smile, and a Chinese dragon tattooed around his bicep.

  "I'm sorry," she said, "I don't – je ne parle pas francais."

  "No? I thought for sure you were French."

  "Not me. Born and raised in Buffalo."

  "Surprised to hear that. American women don't usually look like you do." He seemed totally relaxed, a small smile playing on his lips.

  She couldn't resist. "What do I look like?"

  He took a moment to inspect her. Veronica felt herself starting to blush and commanded herself to stop. This was ridiculous.

  "Casually stylish," he said. "At home wherever you may find yourself."

  She couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sorry, but that's definitely not me."

  He inclined his head. "If you say so. I'm Derek."

  "Veronica." After a moment she asked, "What do you do?"

  "I'm a security consultant."

  "What does that mean exactly?"

  "I'm afraid in part it means avoiding specific answers to that question," he said, smiling ruefully. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude."

  "No, not at all," she said quickly.

  A tall, thin, awkward-looking man with a goatee stepped up to Derek and muttered something in his ear.

  "My friend Jacob," Derek said to her, and she and Jacob shook hands. "I'm sorry, we have to take care of something. To be continued?"

  Veronica smiled, shrugged. "Sure." Not really expecting it to happen.

  But half an hour later, there Derek was again, at her side with a full glass of champagne to replace her just-emptied one. They spent most of the rest of the night in conversation. She went home giddy. When he called her a few days later to invite her out to a weekend in Bwindi there were butterflies in her stomach for the first time since she was a teenager.

  But Veronica knew at the same time it was crazy to be thinking about him. She would have to go home soon. The only thing she had really learned from her month in Africa was that she couldn't live here, not even in the expat bubble. She just wasn't tough enough, not any more.

  * * *

  "I always wanted to come here," Veronica says softly, ending the lull.

  Jacob blinks, looks back to her.

  "Even when I was a kid. I saw The African Queen on TV once and I wanted to be a nun here like Katherine Hepburn. Then I read Out Of Africa. When I graduated I applied to come here as a nurse with Doctors Without Borders, but they turned me down. I mean, of course they did, I had no experience, but I was devastated. I was going to join the Peace Corps, but you can't control where you're assigned. I didn't want to end up in India or Peru. I wanted to come here." She half-laughs. "So I finally made it here. And I hated it."

  Jacob doesn't ask why. She supposes the reasons to hate Africa are self-evident.

  "I should have come when I was younger. I bet I would have loved it then. When I moved to San Francisco we hitchhiked all the way, me and my friend Rebecca, Buffalo down to Mexico, then back up the coast. We'd sleep outside, go days without showering, get in cars with strange men, we wouldn't care. Then in SF I was a real wild child, drugs, parties, go to bed at three, wake up at six and report to the ER. I was tough, back in the day, I could handle anything. Believe it or not."

  "I don't doubt it," Jacob says.

  "Yeah. Well. Not any more."

  Veronica thinks of the Ugandan guard who bled to death not five feet away from her, the day they were taken. If that had happened seven years ago Veronica would have rushed to his aid immediately, no matter what else was going on, she would have at least tried to save his life. She's a nurse, that's her job, her duty, to help the sick and wounded. Instead she just stood there, stunned and useless, while he bled to death.

  "I've been thinking about how long they'll have to keep us here," Jacob says. "Assuming everything goes right. Let's just assume that for the moment."

  Veronica swallows. "Yes. Let's."

  "I figure at least a few weeks. Probably a more like a month."

  "A month?"

  "Sorry. But Gabriel has to reach civilization, contact our embassies, show proof we're here and still alive, negotiate terms, make ransom arrangements. I've been here long enough to know nothing in Africa happens fast. Plus the whole time he has to be paranoid about them tracking him back to us. It'll probably be days before -"

  Jacob falls silent for a moment as several figures step through the waterfall.

  "Shit," Jacob mutters. "I was just going to say, before we even see him again."

  Gabriel is instantly recognizable by his height. He is accompanied by a figure wearing a pale hooded robe that looks Arabic, not African. Veronica sits up with surprise, her weakness momentarily erased by adrenalin, and begins to pull her shirt back on. The others too stir and turn towards their visitors. Gabriel looks cold and distant. Veronica can't see the other man's face at all through the shadow of his hood.

  "Stay where you are," Gabriel instructs them.

  They obey. The hooded figure inspects each of them in turn. He seems to take a particular interest in Derek. When the hooded man comes near Veronica she tries to watch him carefully without looking directly at him. His robe is wet from the waterfall, and she can see through his half-fallen hood - actually a headscarf - that despite his dress he is dark-skinned, ethnically African not Arab.

  "How are things going?" Derek asks Gabriel, his voice controlled. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

  "Quiet," Gabriel orders, distantly, as if instructing someone else's dog.

  The man in the robe finishes his inspection, and their visitors depart.

  It is Jacob who breaks the silence. "Well. That was unexpected."

  "That was not good." Derek's voice is grim. "That was very not good. That was a dishdash."

  "A what?"

  "Dishdash. What he was wearing. An Arab robe."

  "He was black, not Arabic," Veronica says.

  "Exactly. Ethnically African, culturally Arabic. Pretty small group of people fit that description, almost all of them in the Horn of Africa, which happens to be a thousand miles away over some of the nastiest terrain on earth. So what the fuck is this joker doing in Central Africa? And what the double fuck is he doing looking at us?"

  Veronica realizes that the anger in his voice is masking fear. For the first time since their abduction, Derek sounds frightened.

  "Maybe he's a trusted third party," Michael offers. "An arbitrator. To verify that we're okay and help both sides negotiate."

  "Maybe. And maybe he is the other side."

  Veronica blinks. "What does that mean?"

  "I mean maybe Gabriel isn't trying to ransom us back to governments. Maybe dishdash man was here to inspect the goods he's about to buy. Us."

  "Us?" Tom asks, puzzled and alarmed. "Why would he be buying us?"

  Derek's smile is mirthless. "Why indeed. What kind of Arabic-influenced organization would want to purchase a group of captured Westerners?"

  Veronica doesn't understand. Neither does anyone else, except maybe Susan from the look on her face.

  Then Jacob says, stunned, "No fucking way."

  "I look like I'm joking?"

  "How would he even have made contact?"

  "Lot of Islamic influence in this region," Derek says. "Idi Amin converted and got a lot of money from Arab states while he was butchering Uganda. Muslims went untouched. There are mosques and Muslim schools everywhere over the border, nice places, well-funded, well-respected. Join Islam, join a strong community, get a quality education for your children, become middle class. Powerful incentive. Especially if you're anti-Western to begin with."

  Veronica still doesn't get it. He's right about the Muslim influences, certainly. She remembers the m
osque in Fort Portal, a city they passed through on the way to the Impenetrable Forest; its gleaming green minarets were so much cleaner and better-built than the rest of that chaotic town, the mosque looked like it had fallen from a different world. She remembers the Muslim primary school in Butogota, the nearest town to the national park. But what kind of Muslims would want to ransom Western tourists, why -

  "Oh my God," The bolt of awful realization jolts Veronica up to a sitting position. She feels like she is going to throw up. "No. You can't be serious."

  "They're definitely active in this region," Derek says. "I know that for a fact. And it wouldn't be the first time in Africa. Far from it. This is where they started. August 1998. Bombs go off at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds, mostly Africans. For most people it was the first time they ever heard of Osama bin Laden."

  Diane gasps. Michael and Tom start with appalled understanding. The name hangs in the air.

  "You can not be serious," Veronica repeats dully.

  "What do we do?" Judy asks quietly.

  Derek takes a deep breath. "Not much we can do except hope I'm wrong."

  Veronica lies back down and tells herself this can't be happening. The African Arab is just an intermediary. Derek must be wrong. They are not about to be sold to Islamic terrorists.

  Chapter 7

  Men appear outside, half a dozen, their silhouettes warped by the shimmering curtain of the waterfall. When they enter Veronica recognizes them as their jungle abductors. Two of them hold rifles; the others have pangas dangling from their belt. They are led by Patrice.

  The one-eyed man produces a key, undoes their chains, withdraws them from the anchor rock, then reattaches them to the big padlock so the captives remain yoked together by their ankles. The others go among them, grabbing their arms and pulling them to their feet without niceties. It all happens very quickly. Veronica allows herself to be pulled along after Patrice, through the waterfall, out of the cave. The sudden sunlight is blinding.