Night of Knives

by Jon Evans

  Veronica chokes for air, tries to look around. Gorokwe's forearm across her throat is so tight that she can barely move her head, but out of the corner of her eye she sees Danton, crouched behind a tree. His eyes are wild, he is panting like a dog, and one side of his face is covered with rivulets of blood, he suffered a head injury in the crash.

  "Drop it," Gorokwe orders.

  She briefly considers trying to stab him, but he'll shoot her, her only value right now is as a human shield. She lowers her arms - then lobs the Leatherman into the bush towards Lovemore, rather than drop it for Danton to use.

  Gorokwe grunts with anger and slams the base of his gun into the side of Veronica's head. She actually sees stars, her knees buckle, only his arm tight around her throat keeps her upright. She can't breathe, he's crushing her windpipe, the world around her is going hazy. She doesn't even have the strength to struggle. When he loosens his grip long enough for her to draw a single rattling breath she slumps halfway to the ground before he catches her and draws her back up, this time holding her under her arms instead of around her neck.

  Gorokwe shouts out something in Shona. Veronica suspects it is a threat to kill her if Lovemore does not show himself. Lovemore does not respond. Her head hurts like fire. Gorokwe's legs are both between hers, she can't kick backwards at his groin. She could try stamping on his feet, but he will just kill her if she becomes too much of a problem. Instead she just lets herself go limp and closes her eyes to slits, pretending to have been knocked out by that blow.

  Gorokwe grunts and moves forward towards where Lovemore disappeared, muscling Veronica's deadweight along with him, keeping her body before him. The general advances slowly into the bushes, following Lovemore's blood trail, keeping Veronica before him, holding her easily with one arm, his strength is incredible.

  There is no sound except for Gorokwe's footsteps on the slippery undergrowth. Veronica hopes Lovemore had the presence of mind to set some kind of ambush, to double back on his trail - but it doesn't seem likely, he is clearly bleeding badly, his wound is serious, and he was already weak.

  Something rustles in the bush not far ahead. Veronica manages to keep herself from tensing. The concussion makes it very easy to feign unconsciousness. She looks at the noise, hoping it is a bird or a monkey, but she can't see anything move, and that means it must be Lovemore. He's maybe twenty feet away. If he shoots, he'll almost certainly hit Veronica and give away his location, maybe he's a crack shot but he's badly wounded, he won't hit Gorokwe except by freak chance.

  Veronica, still hanging like a rag doll, gives the thumbs-up sign in what she hopes is a surreptitious way, and hopes Lovemore understands.

  Two shots blast out from the forest, two flashes from only about twenty feet away. The sounds are overwhelming but Veronica was half-hoping for them; she manages to keep hanging limp. Nothing happens. Either Lovemore missed entirely or he never intended to hit.

  Then Gorokwe reaches his gun out over Veronica's shoulder, aiming at Lovemore, and Veronica finally goes into action.

  She grabs his gun arm with both hands, shoving it upwards as he fires. The recoil ripples through her as she bites into his bicep as hard as she can and twists her own body towards him. She feels herself snarling like an animal. As his blood fills her mouth she manages to rotate her body further so her legs are between his, and as he fires again, again into the air, Veronica brings her knee up as hard as she can. Gorokwe grunts and folds forward into her. She doesn't resist, she falls backwards and pulls him with her, so they both topple into the bush, and the gun goes off a third time right next to her head. Then he punches her with his free arm so hard that she can't help but let him go. He is kneeling on top of her, aiming the gun at her face, and she is stunned, she can't move.

  Then the general's whole head snaps hard to the side, and blood begins to gout from it, and he goes limp and falls off her.

  Lovemore lurches into view, holding his gun with one hand. The other, soaked in blood, is clamped over his stomach. He keeps the gun aimed at Gorokwe's fallen body.

  "It's okay," Veronica manages. "It's over. He's dead."

  She doesn't need to check for the absence of a pulse. There is a gaping, dripping exit wound in the side of the Gorokwe's head.

  Lovemore drops to his knees. Veronica sits up. She is almost deaf in one ear, and her head hurts. She gingerly disentangles Gorokwe's weapon from his fingers, thinking of Danton, they can't leave it lying around. Then she turns to Lovemore. "Keep pressure on it. Let me see."

  She reaches around behind him and feels with her fingers. He stiffens and groans as she touches the ragged edge of the exit wound. Of course she shouldn't have done that, her hands aren't clean, but it hardly matters now, his wounds are already filthy. She puts down Gorokwe's gun, pulls the general's shirt off, and ties the bloody rag around Lovemore's waist. It isn't much but it will have to do.

  "Keep pressure on," she instructs him. "Both front and back. If you don't lose too much blood you're going to be fine. It'll hurt like hell but you'll be OK, we should have time to get you to a hospital."

  He nods weakly.

  "Can you get up to the road?"

  "If I must."

  She picks up Gorokwe's gun again and walks back into the bush.

  Danton is where she left him. He stares at Veronica wide-eyed as she approaches.

  She smiles thinly, keeps the gun trained on him, keeps her distance. "Expecting someone else?"

  His jaw works but no words come out.

  "What's the matter, Danton? Everything not going according to plan? Does it seem like all of a sudden your daddy's money really doesn't matter so much?"

  "Please," he manages.

  "Please what?"

  "Please don't shoot me. I let you go. I told them not to touch you. All I wanted was to save lives."

  "That's such a lie," she says, furious. "Being rich wasn't good enough, you wanted to be powerful, you wanted to be a big man. That's all this was ever about."

  "Maybe you're right. But I wanted to help people, I really did. I thought we would help people. It just all started going wrong somehow. I didn't know how. I wanted to get out but it was too late, don't you understand? I couldn't get out. They would have killed me. I was a prisoner just like you."

  "Where's Jacob?" she asks.

  "I'll talk. I'll talk to CNN, the New York Times, whoever, I'll tell everyone everything. I've got names, dates, Veronica, you won't believe who's involved in this. It wasn't just me, it was never my idea, they came to me for help. I'll testify against them all."

  "We don't need your testimony," Veronica says. "Remember what you told me? 'Certain revelations will come to light. Everyone will be exposed. I'm the opposite of expendable.' You remember saying that, when you were fucking gloating?"

  "Please," he begs. "Don't do this."

  "Where's Jacob?"

  "Please. I'm sorry. He didn't talk. Not until it was too late. I didn't want to, I said we should let him go. I'm sorry, Veronica, I'm so sorry. Please. You won't do this. I know you won't do this. You're a good person."

  "That was before I met you," Veronica says bitterly.

  She aims the gun at her ex-husband's heart and pulls the trigger.

  Chapter 39

  "She's awake," a woman says.

  "Ms. Kelly?" a man's voice asks.

  She opens her dazed eyes to a well-kept hospital room. Everything is clean and white. She is connected to an IV and a vital-signs monitor, one she recognizes, an old DRE model she used to work with in San Francisco General. There are two black women in nurse's uniforms standing attentively near the bed, and a tall, handsome, white-haired white man in a sharp suit.

  Veronica struggles for some memory to connect her to this scene and fails. "Where am I?"

  "Johannesburg," the man says. "Milpark Hospital. You were medevac'd here last night from Mutare. You probably don't remember that, I'm told you were under sedation for the better part of three days."

  "What - what h
appened?"

  He gives the nurses a look. They reluctantly depart.

  Veronica lifts her head, almost all she can manage right now, and looks around. "Wait. Where's Lovemore? What happened to Lovemore?"

  "He's next door." The man grimaces. "They threw him in as a kind of sweetener, I suppose. It took no end of negotiation to get the two of you out of there. At first they were going to hang you."

  "Hang me? For - for what?"

  "Attempted assassination. But then, luckily for you, a series of rather embarrassing files began to turn up at BBC and CNN and Al-Jazeera, it's been the lead story for a good two days now and shows no signs of stopping. You can see it for yourself after I leave. Although I suppose you already know the whole story, don't you?"

  She starts to shake her head and quickly thinks better of it. "Not all of it."

  "We're still amazed ourselves. After that, I guess Mugabe decided you didn't quite fit into all the international outrage, and it was in his best interests to jump on that bandwagon rather than keep pointing the finger at you. Or maybe he's just grateful you saved his life. It still wasn't easy to get you out of there. Back-channel negotiations and briefcases full of money, not that you ever heard me say that, because of course we don't negotiate with fascist dictators."

  Veronica tries to remember what happened. She remembers shooting Danton, that actually happened, it wasn't a dream. She remembers waiting by the side of the road with Lovemore, both of them shivering in the warm sun, barely conscious. She remembers the pickup truck that appeared on the road, full of sturdy labourers with picks and shovels, and the way they lifted her so gently into the back of the truck, as if she might break. After that, nothing. They must have taken her to hospital in Mutare. She hopes they took Danton's wallet from her, there were hundreds of US dollars within.

  "Who are you?" she asks.

  "Stanton. Deputy chief of mission at the embassy here."

  "Okay. What's going to - what happens next?"

  "Nothing, until they're ready to discharge you. Doctors say that won't be for a few days yet. You don't need to make any decisions until then."

  * * *

  "Veronica," Lovemore says.

  His voice is weak but clear. His torso is swaddled in bandages but otherwise he looks fine. Veronica still feels weak and dizzy when she walks, and she's still recovering from exhaustion, the concussive blow to her head, and the multitudinous little wounds she suffered during their escape from the mine, but she can feel herself regaining strength with every passing hour.

  "Lovemore. Good to see you. How are you?"

  "The doctors here are excellent."

  "They should be. Johannesburg, world capital of gun violence, they must have plenty of practice. Maybe I should try to get a job here. I've gotten some good gunshot experience in the last -" she calculates, and is amazed by how little time has passed since that day in Bwindi - "few weeks."

  Lovemore doesn't answer.

  "What are you going to do when you get out?" she asks.

  "I have no passport. I expect they will send me back to Zimbabwe."

  "Do you want to go back?"

  His face clouds. "No. I would stay in South Africa if I could. There is hope here."

  "Is that so. How about Uganda?"

  "Uganda?"

  "I'm going to go back to Uganda." Veronica was not certain of this until this moment. "I'm going back to Kampala. I'm going to start a school. A nursing college. I bet I could work something out where you could come with me."

  "I don't know anything about Uganda."

  "It's a good place. Or it can be. There's hope there, anyways, definitely. And I'm sure I can scare up enough money to start up a school. I bet the US government will be willing to help. And anyways a certain notoriety never hurt any fundraising. Heck, I can sell my story to the British tabloids. Whatever. It won't be easy, I'll need help, but after this last month, you know what, I bet it'll seem like a piece of cake."

  After a moment Lovemore says thoughtfully, "Pygmies."

  Veronica blinks, caught off guard. "What?"

  "That's what I know of Uganda. There are pygmies there. I've heard they know the jungle as the San know the desert."

  "Yes, I guess so."

  He says, "I would like to see them."

  She smiles. "Well. I think that can be arranged. Is it a deal?"

  "Yes."

  They shake hands very seriously.

  "You don't want to go back to America?" Lovemore asks. "In Zimbabwe there is nothing for me. There is no hope. But I thought there was everything in America."

  Veronica hesitates. She imagines going back home, back to a world of shopping malls, freeway traffic, Internet dating, air conditioning, office jobs, mortgage payments and parking meters. The idea repulses her. If she goes back the rest of her life will seem hollow and plastic, a vacant shadow.

  How ironic that Africa is called the dark continent. Even the sun here is so much brighter.

  "Not for me," Veronica says thoughtfully. "Not any more. I think what I want is here."

  Epilogue

  "There you go," Veronica says. "Home sweet shipping container. But you can't beat the view."

  "You certainly can't," Tom says, amazed. "That's the bloody Nile down there, isn't it?"

  "It is indeed. You can swim in it, there's a trail that goes down, but watch the currents. There's a Class Five rapid around the bend."

  "Worse than the one you went through at the mine?" Judy asks.

  Veronica chuckles. "I don't know and I have no desire to find out."

  "And this is your school?" The British woman looks around at the cleared half-acre plot surrounded by thick greenery. A dozen metal shipping containers surround a single one-story wooden building. A Land Cruiser and a Pajero are parked by the red dirt road that leads south to Jinja proper.

  "Welcome to the Jinja School for Nurses," Veronica says. "You wouldn't believe how much cheaper it is to have a shipping container delivered than a classroom built, and really, they're almost as good. One real building for headquarters, five classrooms, three students' quarters, one staff quarters, the ablution block next to the well there, one for storage, and our house," she points out in turn. "We've got thirteen students enrolled already, but only four staying here, handy for you, leaves one container free as a guest house. Five of them actually live in Kampala and commute here every day, ninety minutes each way. They get Sundays off but you'll see them all tomorrow."

  "You've built all this one year," Judy says, impressed. "No, less, it was one year today we were rescued, and I gather it you were quite busy foiling dastardly plots for the first month of that!"

  Veronica smiles sheepishly as Tom and Judy laugh.

  "We were so sorry to hear about Jacob," Judy says, suddenly serious. "And such a pity about Susan too. So hard to believe."

  Veronica can't find it in herself to feel any sympathy for Susan. "More of a pity about Dr. Murray. You know he came back to Africa after he was acquitted? He's in Nairobi now? It was all his plan, I think. And Strick only got ten years. They let him plea bargain so he wouldn't tell secrets in public. They both should have gotten death."

  A brief, awkward silence falls.

  "But what you've done here," Tom says, looking around, "it's bloody amazing, it really is. Can't have been easy."

  "It's a lot of work," Veronica sighs. "There's so much left to do. The well isn't up to much, we need to start piping water up from the river, but for that we need more power, and the solar panels barely keep us going. Jinja has good reliable power, there's a hydro station just south where the Nile meets Lake Victoria, but you wouldn't believe the hoops you have to jump through to get connected. Then the Internet, we've got it over a mobile-phone card right now, it works but it's so slow, almost useless for classes, we have to get a satellite dish. And we want to paint all the containers with different murals, start a garden, get more medical equipment, we've got barely enough, get more teachers, we've only got two right now, so I'm
teaching classes even though I haven't practiced in eight years, the students keep catching me making embarrassing mistakes, and of course fundraising, we've gotten some good publicity but we still spend half the time not knowing where our next shilling is coming from, and then the government wants to tax us –" She stops. Tom and Judy are laughing again. "What?"

  "It's just all so familiar," Judy manages. "You sound just like we did when we were starting the business."

  "Bollocks," Tom says cheerfully. "She sounds like we did just last week. It's good to be busy, isn't it?"

  Veronica blinks, a little surprised, she hasn't really had time to think about it. "I suppose it is. But listen, drop your bags off, take a shower, it's a solar heater so the water's really only warm in the day, we'll go down to the river and have a beer, then after lunch we'll take you into Jinja, it's a lovely little town, much nicer than Kampala."

  "That sounds like a cunning plan." Tom picks up their bags.

  "To the honeymoon suite, husband!" Judy orders.

  "Bloody hell," he mutters with mock frustration. "I knew I shouldn't have married you."

  "Too late now, innit? Get those bags inside, husband. Chop chop!"

  They disappear chuckling into the shipping container.

  Veronica walks over to the ablution block. "Is the shower working again?" she calls out.

  Rukungu appears in the door. "Yes."

  Both his voice and his face are devoid of all expression. Veronica pauses. She doesn't know what to do about Rukungu. Since Lydia's death he has seemed more automaton than man. She feels guilty for making him work, the more so since he works like a horse without complaint. But it's probably best for him to keep busy. "Maybe you could start digging out the garden, then?"

  She expects an dull yes, but Rukungu hesitates, looks thoughtful.

  "What is it?" she asks hopefully. This is more life than he's shown in weeks.

  "The place you chose for the garden," he says eventually. "It is not a good place. The soil is bad. The sun is wrong."

  "Well – yes, maybe so. I'm not a farmer. Where do you think?"