Night Of Knives

Chapter 10

"They won't come for the rest of us yet," Jacob says thoughtfully, in his slightly nasal voice, as if proposing a solution to an interesting puzzle. "Not today. They'll want to maximize the media coverage. They have enough now to make a big splash, they'll want to draw it out as long as possible."

"Media?" Judy asks.

"That's why we're here. That camera. It's like those hostages in Iraq. Al-Qaeda doesn't just kill the people they grab, they kill them on video. And not for Taliban's Funniest Home Videos. For CNN. Bet you a million dollars the footage from that camera will be edited and released to Al-Jazeera sometime this week. They know what they're doing. Dead bodies are a story that runs once. Live hostages have legs."

"Then we've got a chance," Tom says desperately. "People are looking for us. They could have tracked the helicopter. They might know we're here."

Jacob shrugs. "I doubt it. Everyone gets around by air in eastern Congo, they have to, there aren't any roads. I'm thinking, if they couldn't find us at Gabriel's, they won't track us down now. Maybe that's why they kept us there for a few days, let the trail cool down. Or maybe Gabriel decided to renegotiate his price after he grabbed us. Either way, I strongly doubt anyone knows we're here."

Veronica sags to the ground, defeated. There is no out, no escape from the terrorists. Sometime in the next few days, maybe later today, they will all be killed. She will be beaten and gang-raped and murdered with a panga.

Then Jacob says, "But maybe we can tell them."

After a communal moment of silent surprise, Tom asks, "How?"

"That satellite dish up there. All I need is five minutes alone with it. Or with that Thuraya satphone of theirs."

"Up next to the airstrip?" Tom shakes his head, and his chain rattles. "Might as well be in Timbuktu, mate. Unless you have a way to get loose of these bloody chains."

Jacob has no answer. The hope that briefly flowered in Veronica's heart quickly wilts. She turns and stares dully at the river. The workers are keeping their distance from the white prisoners, the nearest team of men is a good hundred feet downstream, digging near the riverbank, filling hand-woven baskets with red mud. They are desperately gaunt, they remind Veronica of Holocaust pictures, but they work ceaselessly under the sharp eye of their whip-wielding overseer. Veronica can't believe she is in this horrific place. She can't believe a place like this even exists.

"They didn't even leave us guards," Jacob says. "Nobody's watching us. They're overconfident. There has to be some way out of here."

But nobody has any suggestions.

"Look on the bright side," Tom says to Jacob. "You're Canadian. They might let you go. Not us, not her, but maybe you."

"Derek was Canadian."

"Yes, but he… " Tom hesitates. "I thought he said he was set up."

Jacob nods slowly. "Yeah. He did."

Veronica blinks. A memory creeps through her despair and into her pounding head. Derek's last words, shouted to the others: This was never a random kidnapping, this is a fucking execution. Islamists and interahamwe, working together, that's exactly what I was here to investigate, someone set me up -

And before that, in the helicopter, even more mystifying: Was it you? Did your husband send you? Danton DeWitt. Did he send you? Did you know he was involved? Is that why you came to Africa?

"This isn't coincidence," Jacob says. "Derek gets kidnapped by the same people he was investigating? No way that happened at random. He was set up. We all were. Someone knew he was going to Bwindi and wanted to stop him before he found something."