Night Of Knives Part 20

He disappears into the tent without another word, taking the flashlight with him. It takes his gangly body a moment to negotiate the doorflaps. Veronica looks around. She is dimly lit by the electric lights of the central buildings and the open flames that dot the refugee camp. Mosquitoes are buzzing everywhere, she's glad she brought insect repellent, and the background hum of conversation in the distance is ever-present, like static. Veronica doubts she has ever been in a more densely populated patch of real estate that didn't involve skysc.r.a.pers.

She follows Jacob inside. Being in a tent, lit by flashlight, feels like being back in summer camp, when she was a teenager, when the world seemed bright and full of promise. Jacob has unpacked and turned on his breadbox-sized spectrum a.n.a.lyzer, has both it and his hiptop out, and is examining the readouts on their respective screens.

"Did that thing get anything useful from the sc.r.a.pyard?" Veronica asks.

Jacob, studying his hiptop, shakes his head. "A few phones. None Mango except the one I already knew about."

"What are you doing?"

"Checking the GPS record. They didn't go over the border. The pickup went offroad just before the turnoff to the camp, at about six this morning, stopped there for twenty minutes, then came back."

"So they're gone," Veronica says.

"Maybe not. I don't think they would have crossed the border by day. They would have waited until tonight. Probably the middle of the night, a few hours yet."

"You want to go back out there now? I - no. No. Absolutely not. Jacob, we agreed, we wouldn't do anything crazy, and going out to where these things are hidden in the middle of the night all by ourselves is crazy."

"That's not what I want to do right now. I want to find Derek's contact."

"Who?" she asks.

"The other phone signal from this refugee camp, remember? Whoever it was that Derek came to visit. Wasn't Susan. Somebody else. Somebody here. Maybe they know something."

"I thought you said you couldn't track locations out here. Only one base station."

"Right. That's why I brought this." Jacob taps the spectrum a.n.a.lyzer like he's petting a good dog. "It acts like a portable base station all by itself. It also boosts the signal from the existing station, which allows my hiptop to connect over GPRS to Kampala and the Internet, which is pretty amazing all by itself, if you think about just how deep in the middle of nowhere we are right now. I just checked the central database to see if Derek's contact's phone is here and active. Guess what? Yes it is. Somewhere in this camp, right now."

"Great. How do we find it?"

He pets the a.n.a.lyzer again. "We get this within a hundred metres of that phone, close enough to triangulate its location."

"Oh."

"So let's go take this puppy for a little walk."

Veronica leads the way with their flashlight. Jacob carries the heavy and c.u.mbersome signal a.n.a.lyzer, and has strapped on his day pack as well, full of other equipment. They walk in a slow circle around the camp's administrative center. n.o.body asks them what they are doing; n.o.body else is out and about. He isn't surprised. Outside of major cities, Africa lives on a dawn-to-dusk schedule.

The spectrum a.n.a.lyzer picks up plenty of cell phones within its range, almost all of them Mango, but none are the phone that Derek called. Soon they are back at their tent and the a.n.a.lyzer is running low on power. Jacob wishes he had thought to charge it fully before leaving Kampala. He brought both a hand-crank recharger with him, but they don't really have time for either.

"No good?" Veronica asks.

Jacob shakes his head.

"Maybe it's not in the camp. We didn't know exactly where that phone was, right? We just know it was six kilometres from the base station."

"Right. But everything else six klicks out is just bush. It has to be here. Nothing else makes any sense. Let me make sure it's still alive." Jacob puts down the spectrum a.n.a.lyzer and logs on to the Kampala master database server with his hiptop, via that same base station. The GPRS connection is painfully slow, but he's only sending and receiving text; once connected it doesn't take long to establish that the phone in question was active and six kilometres from Semiliki base station as of fifteen seconds ago.

Veronica turns to look at the overcrowded sea of refugees. Most of the fires are dying down now, the camp is mostly darkness.

Jacob nods. He's thinking the same thing. "It's out there. Let's go find it."

Veronica hesitates.

"Nothing's going to happen to use. We're mzungu mzungu. We can shout for help. There are soldiers, they'll hear us. We'll be fine. Anybody asks, we're just going for a walk. Come on."

She reluctantly accedes. They venture out into one of the roads that radiate out from the centre of the camp. Veronica keeps her flashlight aimed at the road, which is remarkably clean. Jacob supposes there's no such thing as debris out here. These people have so little that every rag and sc.r.a.p is valuable.

Occasionally he sees people sleeping out in the open beside of the road. Their eyes gleam in the light and they stare at him and Veronica but do not react. Some of them are children sleeping alone. They seem to Jacob like ghosts, somehow, insubstantial, so unrooted to the world that he can almost believe that after he walks past them they will actually cease to exist.

The camp doesn't actually end, it just bleeds into scarred plots of scraggly-looking farmland, and the number of visible goats and chickens slowly increases. Veronica and Jacob decide not to cut through the inhabited wedges; instead they return to the center and try another of the eight radial roads, moving quietly, whispering to one another, as if something terrible might awaken. He knows it's ridiculous but he can't shake the feeling.

Midway down the third road Jacob's spectrum a.n.a.lyzer suddenly bleeps. Veronica starts as if at a gunshot. Jacob crouches over its screen excitedly. They've made contact. The cell phone in question is within range.

Jacob goes forward twenty paces along the road, slowly rotates, goes back another twenty paces, and repeats, studying the a.n.a.lyzer the whole time. Radio is a weird and unpredictable medium and it isn't easy to work out where the signals are coming from, but they seem to get stronger to the south. He walks off the road and into the densely populated shelters, holding the a.n.a.lyzer ahead of him as if it's a gigantic compa.s.s. Veronica follows.

The shelters are so tightly packed together that Jacob has to be careful where he steps so as not to tread on a person or a structural support. The refugees around them begin to come to life, a soft hum of surprise radiates out from Jacob and Veronica as they make their way through the settlement. People sit and kneel up and stare at the two white people they pick their way through the shelters, they have a murmuring audience of hundreds, maybe more. Jacob pretends not to notice, but he is breathing fast now, and the hairs on his neck are p.r.i.c.kling, all this attention is eerie and maybe dangerous, they won't have time to yell for help if these refugees decide to jump them and take all their things, but they can't go back now. His arms are aching, and the a.n.a.lyzer's battery monitor is flas.h.i.+ng red.

Suddenly the signal strength begins to dwindle. Jacob stops and rotates until it regains its strength, then walks in the new direction until the signal diminishes again. They slowly spiral inwards until Veronica puts her hand on Jacob's shoulder to stop him and he looks up from the a.n.a.lyzer's screen.

"That tent," she says.

It is the only actual tent within fifty feet, made of ancient, much-repaired canvas, leaning drunkenly on sagging poles. Its door hangs open, the zippers are broken. Veronica stoops and aims the flashlight inside. Jacob crouches beside her. There is a man sleeping within, lying diagonally on the uncus.h.i.+oned floor, and a small pile of belongings beyond.

"Excuse us," Veronica says tentatively, aiming the light at the man's head.

His eyes open and he immediately sits straight up, shading his face with one hand, reaching instinctively into his small pile of possessions with the other. He is short, compact, and muscular, with a broad nose, low forehead, deep-set eyes, and very dark skin, almost like some bigoted caricature of an African. Jacob guesses his age at thirtyish.

After a second he utters something curt, half-question, half-demand. His voice is gravelly, his eyes and face are flat, expressionless. Jacob doesn't understand his language.

"Excuse me," Veronica says soothingly, and aims the flashlight at herself for a second, then at Jacob stooping next to her. "Can we talk to you for a moment?"

The man says nothing.

"Do you have a mobile phone in there?" Jacob asks, wondering if the man understands English at all.

"No. No phone. Why do you come here?" His voice is hostile. His accent is French, which makes sense, most of these refugees are from the Congo.

Veronica looks helplessly at Jacob. He hesitates, then realizes what he should have done some time ago: he puts the a.n.a.lyzer down on the dirt, pulls out his hiptop, opens it, and simply dials the number of the phone they seek. A second later the bundled clothes that serve as the man's pillow begin to vibrate, subtly but unmistakably.

The man's expression hardens. He rises from his seated position into a crouch, ready for action. Jacob flinches and puts his hand on Veronica's shoulder, about to pull her away.

"We're friends of Derek," Veronica says quickly. The man's expression flickers, he knows the name. "I'm Veronica, this is Jacob. What's your name?"

He answers, eventually, "Rukungu."

"Rukungu. Hi. It's nice to meet you. Can we come in and talk?"

After another long, wary moment Rukungu says, "No. I will come out."

"Where is Derek?" Rukungu asks, when they get back on the road.

He turns towards the perimeter of the camp. Veronica and Jacob follow. She tries to think of a way to break the news gently.

Jacob says, "Derek is dead."

Rukungu's pace doesn't even falter. "How?"

"He was abducted. We were too. Taken into the Congo. He was killed by Al-Qaeda and interahamwe."

"It was all over the news," Veronica says lamely. In this refugee camp the rest of the world might as well not exist.

"How did you find me?"

"I was Derek's best friend," Jacob says. Veronica winces at this avoidance of the truth.

"Derek said he told no one about me. No one."

Jacob hesitates. "He didn't. We followed your phone."

Rukungu looks at him and says nothing.

Veronica says, "We need your help. We need to know what's going on."

"I will speak only to Derek."

"You can't. I'm sorry. Derek is dead."

"Then I will speak to no one," Rukungu says flatly.

"We're trying to find out who killed him. Who was responsible," Jacob says. "I was his best friend."

"So you say," Rukungu stops and turns on Jacob, steps into his personal s.p.a.ce, moving so suddenly that Veronica takes an alarmed step back. He looks ready for violence. "But how can I know this is the truth?"

Veronica can't think of any way to break the tense silence that follows.

Then Jacob smiles, as a light bulb visibly goes off in his mind. "I'll show you." He reaches for his hiptop. "Look."

Rukungu looks suspicious but grudgingly circles around to look as the much taller man punches b.u.t.tons.

"This is us at university," Jacob says. "At a Nirvana concert, six months before Kurt Cobain killed himself. Twelve years ago now."

Veronica leans in, curious despite herself, and sees a picture of a two kids barely out of their teens; one is tall and skinny, the other shorter and pudgy, with unkempt hair and sallow skin. She recognizes both, but only barely.

"This is Derek?" Rukungu asks, and his voice echos her own amazement.

"Yep. And this is him when he got back from Bosnia." Jacob pushes keys, and then Derek appears again, still young but trim and muscular now, she can see the man he will become within his not-quite-fully-formed features. His dragon-tattooed arm is around a slender redhead. "And here's us in Thailand, a few years ago. Not my most flattering picture, but hey."

It's true: Jacob is lying on a beach, pale and pasty and rail-thin, staring up at the camera with bloodshot eyes. Derek is beside him reading a Martin Cruz Smith novel.

"I was badly hung over. His then-girlfriend took it. Then they broke up while I was there, it was awkward."

Rukungu looks at the pictures, then at Jacob, not quite convinced.

"Come on," Jacob says, exasperated. "What do you want, a notarized statement? We were best friends for twenty years. Ask me anything."

The African man asks, "Do you know Lydia?"

Jacob looks at Veronica, surprised, then back to Rukungu. "You mean the, the lady in the Hotel Sun City?"

"Yes. Yes, the Sun City. Is she still there? Is she well?"

"Sure. We saw her last week. We gave her money, I'm sure she's fine. But, I mean, you know she has... "

"Yes," Rukungu says shortly. "I know. Is she still strong?"

"Strong enough," Veronica says gently. "Do you know her?"

He doesn't answer.

"Is that why Derek was taking care of her? Because you asked him to?"

"She could not come here."

"Why not?"

"There are banyamulenge banyamulenge here who know her." He uses the word like an epithet. Veronica doesn't know what it means, and from his expression neither does Jacob. here who know her." He uses the word like an epithet. Veronica doesn't know what it means, and from his expression neither does Jacob.

"What did you do for Derek?" Veronica asks, "Why are you here?"

Rukungu looks at her, then at Jacob, and comes to some decision, "I was waiting for Derek. He said there would be a transfer this week, and he would come. I was to take him to bear witness. He was right. Tonight is the new moon. There will be a transfer."

"How do you know?" Jacob asks.

"Because I was one of them."

"One of who?"

Rukungu looks at Jacob as if the question is stupid. "One of Athanase's men."

Veronica sucks in breath sharply.

"I can take you to the transfer," Rukungu says. "It is not too late. It will happen at midnight."

"No," Veronica says quickly. "No, it's too dangerous."