Night Of Knives

Chapter 34

Harare International Airport is a gleaming white elephant, an empty edifice of marble floors overseen by fading posters of Zimbabwe's various tourist destinations and the Big Five safari animals. The woman at the British Airways ticket window looks very bored. Jacob waits nervously while his Bank of Montreal MasterCard is processed, but to his great relief the woman returns to the window with two airline tickets.

Their plan is almost pathetically simple. Their last ten dollars bought them a taxi ride to the airport. British Airways flies overnight to Heathrow. Their status as Interpol fugitives will doubtless lead to detainment by British Immigration, but that's a chance they're willing to take. At least they'll be out of Africa and back in civilization. Arrest might even be a good thing; the light of publicity will shine on their trumped-up accusations of homicide, and may even reveal the truth. Their notoriety as former Congo hostages won't hurt either.

All they have to do is get past Zimbabwe Immigration and onto the plane. It's possible that their names have already been flagged, that they will be arrested for Interpol's sake - but the more Jacob thinks about it, the less likely that seems. Zimbabwe isn't exactly a poster-child member of the international community. There's a good chance they don't even receive Interpol alerts. And even if they are arrested by Mugabe's police, even that isn't worst-case; they are, after all, bizarre as it still seems, trying to save Mugabe's life.

Armed with their tickets, they walk through the cavernous arrivals hall to a small outdoor observation platform above the runway. There is no one else sitting at the wrought-iron tables and chairs. They have just enough money left to order a single Coke from the girl behind the small snack bar. Jacob hopes there isn't a departure tax.

They sits and look out on the runway. Jacob's heart convulses when he sees a black army helicopter in the distance – but it is flying away from them. He supposes its presence is normal, this is a military airbase too. It occurs to him that back in Canada today is Remembrance Day.

The only other craft in sight is a narrow white 727 parked next to the runway. After a moment a slow smile spreads across Jacob's face. He knows this legendary airplane, he remembers reading about its story with great interest: it once carried sixty South African mercenaries who stopped here a few years ago to pick up weapons from Zimbabwean co-conspirators, en route to foment a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. The mercenaries were captured, arrested, jailed, and eventually deported; the airplane remains in legal limbo. Jacob is oddly comforted by this reminder that he and Veronica aren't the only Harare Airport passengers to have been in dire and melodramatic straits.

The glass doors that lead into the airport open. When Jacob sees the man who murdered Derek step out of those doors, followed by several armed and uniformed soldiers and then Athanase the interahamwe leader himself, he thinks at first that this has to be some kind of nightmare, a terrible dream-vision, can't possibly be reality. He and Veronica stay seated, frozen by the sheer impossibility of this horror, as the soldiers and casually dressed interahamwe surround them.

"Jacob Rockel," Athanase says, smiling thinly. "Veronica Kelly. We meet again. Enchantée pour le deuxieme fois."

* * *

There is nowhere to go. Even if there was, Jacob is too stunned to move. One of the soldiers goes behind him, grabs his arms and pulls them behind his back. Jacob does not resist as his wrists are handcuffed. All he can do is grunt with disbelief. Beside him Veronica too is shackled. Both are grabbed by their throats and dragged to their feet. The snack-bar girl watches with appalled fascination.

The world goes dark and Jacob feels fabric against his face. A hood, his head has been covered. Blind and handcuffed and helpless, he is dragged along the airport's smooth marble floors, then out into the open air again.