Night Of Knives

Chapter 25

Jacob, Veronica and Rukungu march through the night. When Jacob shines his flashlight around them he sees that these hills above the refugee camp have been stripped bare of trees, ravaged by the demand for firewood and arable land. The resulting erosion has obviously eaten away from the soil; jagged rocks protrude with increasing frequency as they climb the steep slope. Jacob wonders if rainy-season landslides will soon threaten the camp itself. The trail they follow leads them through tiny, ragged, and ever less fertile plots of farmland.

Rukungu moves slowly but unstoppably, and carries the spectrum analyzer as if it is a balloon. Veronica is beginning to wheeze. Jacob too is soon exhausted, his muscles have not yet recovered from the Congo, and this climb is gruelling. He forces himself to continue on weak and rubbery legs, aiming the flashlight straight down on the ground, to illuminate the ground on which they walk. He wonders if its light is visible from below. At least it is a good flashlight, a small but durable Maglite that shows no signs of darkening.

"I have to stop," Veronica pants. "I can't make it all the way up without a break."

"Me neither," Jacob gratefully seconds.

Rukungu turns to them. "Go slow. Softly, softly. But do not stop."

They follow his advice, take smaller steps. For a while it works. Then both lungs and legs begin to burn again. Jacob is on the verge of demanding another halt when Rukungu stops on a flattish patch. While Jacob and Veronica catch their breath, Rukungu kneels beside a large boulder, carefully thrusts his hands beneath, and withdraws a dusty panga.

"What's that for?" Veronica demands nervously.

"For making a path. Come."

"Five minutes," Jacob grunts.

Rukungu nods. Jacob turns off the light and focuses on his breath. Eventually the stars stop swimming in the sky and fix in one place. He is ravenously hungry, he wishes they had stopped long enough to eat, right now he would devour pocho as if it was made of chocolate truffles.

"What time is it?" Veronica asks Jacob.

He consults his hiptop. "Ten."

She turns to Rukungu. "How much further?"

"Myself, thirty minutes. With you, I think one hour."

They continue, leaving the farming plots behind; the slope has become too steep and stony to eke out any crop. There is no longer any trail, they have to improvise their route through bushes and rocks. Jacob is glad the refugees have cut down all the trees for firewood or construction. Thick forest would take hours to climb through.

When they finally reach the crest of the ridge the night is so dark they see nothing of the hills around them at all, nothing but the distant glow of the few electric lights in the camp's administration center. At least the mosquitoes are now few.

"There is a road," Rukungu says, pointing downwards, away from the camp. "Past the road there is a river. Past the river is the Congo."

Rukungu takes the flashlight and begins to lead them downhill. Jacob follows uneasily. They are placing an enormous amount of trust in this man they just met. He could take the light and leave them and they would probably never find their way back. He could turn on them with his panga and kill them both. Jacob supposes if Rukungu were going to do these things he already would have. Somehow this is unconvincing comfort.

He is beginning to wish he had declined Rukungu's offer. He hadn't quite realized it would mean marching for hours through barren African wilderness in the moonless dark. And now that it's actually happening, the idea of spying on a rendezvous between smugglers and Al-Qaeda on the very border of the Congo, with no recourse if something goes wrong, seems completely insane.