Night Of Knives

Chapter 17

"It's a Mango phone," Jacob reports happily, as he types on his computer and interprets the results that scroll across his screen. They have taken the fruits of their investigation - a wrinkled notebook and a cheap Nokia phone - back to his apartment. "Activated three months ago. Involved in a very small set of calls. None to me, none to Prester, none to that refugee camp, no overlap whatsoever with calls from his other phone. He made sure this one was totally separate. Calls to a Celtel number in Jinja, and get this, to a bunch of international numbers. Tanzania, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and the USA. Virginia area code. He received calls from the Zimbabwe number too. Those were the only incoming calls."

Veronica stops leafing through the spiral-bound notebook. "Prester."

"Prester?"

"Look."

She shows him the notebook. The front and back pages are empty; but a single page of enigmatic point-form notes is hidden in the middle, written in a close, spiderlike hand.

"That's Derek's writing," Jacob confirms. "Know it anywhere."

The single sheet of scribbled notes says:

-Prester? Langley thinks yes

-plausible: method, motive, opportunity

-plus he's long-term consultant to Kisembe

-$50 mil exports, "negligible" production, one conclusion

-Coltan too

-Ultimately minority owned by Selous Holdings - D.

-Who is Zanzibar Sam? R. says arriving Kampala in a few weeks

-Need second-source confirmation - wait on L.

-Zanzibar - connection to Muslim world - Arab gold buyers in Congo

-interahamwe smuggling unquestionable, Islamists only hearsay

-Western connection likewise, likely through deniable cutouts

-Freeze bought-off locals' bank accounts, see who they call?

-Need. Hard. Evidence.

"It'd be nice to find something that actually answers more questions than it asks." Veronica gloomily rereads the notes for the third time. "Zanzibar Sam? D and R and L? Kisembe? Langley?"

"We'll make sense of it," Jacob reassures her. "We just have to be methodical about it. The scientific method."

Veronica frowns. This doesn't feel anything like science to her. It feels more like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing, without even knowing what it's meant to represent.

"Langley," Jacob says, rereading the notes. "Of course. That one I know. Langley, Virginia. CIA headquarters."

"How do you know?"

"I watch a lot of movies. Kisembe sounds like something we can Google." He opens a web browser, types, reads, nods. "A Ugandan gold mine. Which Derek thought was being used to hide gold smuggling. Minority owned by Selous Holdings." He types again, and frowns. "Which is not Googleable. Maybe on Edgar, or some other financial database -"

"No," Veronica says suddenly. "No, you won't find anything. Selous is based in the Cayman Islands."

Jacob turns and stares at her. "How do you know?"

"Because I remember Danton talking about it. With business associates. At dinners and conferences. It was one of - I don't know if it was his, exactly, but it was a company he was involved with." She stares at the D. scrawled next to Selous Holdings. D for Danton. That D is her connection to Derek, the reason he invited her to Bwindi, the reason she was abducted, the reason she is here.