Night Of Knives

Chapter 30

Entering the grounds of the Victoria Falls Hotel feels like walking into the nineteenth century. This elegant relic of colonialism boasts musty hallways, mahogany doors, faded paintings of great British explorers, ancient maps of BOAC air service to Africa, a smoking room walled with books, and high tea service. Even the furniture in Lysander's room looks like something from the set of a Jane Austen movie. His modern Toshiba laptop looks terribly out of place on a rolltop mahogany desk.

Jacob and Veronica wait tensely as Lysander and Lovemore go through the contents of Jacob's CD for the third time, watching the Toshiba's screen intently, as if there might be a hidden message within. Veronica realizes for the first time that actually they have very little evidence. Incomprehensible matrices of telephone and GPS records; some blurry, night-time photos from Jacob's camera; a few more from Prester's Razr phone, and their own testimony - all of which could easily have been faked.

Lysander turns from one of the night shots to Veronica. She braces herself for an interrogation: but instead he says, wonderingly, "He was the one who held you down. I saw it on YouTube."

Veronica blinks and looks more closely. It is the photo of Casimir, the musclebound interahamwe who murdered Derek. She remembers how he pulled her choking to the ground, and held her while the Arab put the machete to her throat. "Yes."

Jacob says, "He killed Derek."

Lysander frowns. "I never saw that. YouTube didn't host that, it was on more prurient sites. Easy enough to find if you wanted, and apparently millions did, but not I."

Veronica doesn't have anything to say to that.

"If what you're telling me is actually true, and please note I'm not saying I'm fully convinced yet, but if it is, then … " Lysander shakes his head, appalled. "Then this is one of the most horrifically stupid ideas in history. I want Mugabe gone as much as the next rational man, but Christ almighty, there's not a lot of happy precedent for shooting down airplanes carrying African presidents. The Rwandan genocide was sparked when President Habyarimana was shot down. That's a million dead. The president of Burundi was with him, and that civil war still hasn't ended. There's another quarter million. Mobutu was supposed to be dead dictator number three on that flight. God knows what would have happened if the paranoid bastard hadn't changed his plans, but we know the wars after he finally did buy the farm killed three million more, and counting. You've seen what happened to eastern Congo. Then there's Mozambique, Samora Machel shot down by the South Africans, deny it though they try. I don't know how many people died, nobody does, but I do know that civil war took them back to the bloody Stone Age, they didn't even have matches or soap by the time it finally ended. You only blow up the big man if you don't have enough support for a proper coup. Because once he's gone all his jackals start fighting for the scraps. There's an old African proverb, when the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. Well, I know Zimbabwe a long sight better than any starry-eyed American, and I 'm telling you, never mind trampled, an assassination right now could start off a bushfire that would burn the whole bloody country."

After a moment Jacob says, cautiously, "You sound like you believe us."

"No. I sound like I think I can't afford not to. But this isn't proof, what you have here, it isn't even evidence, it's barely circumstantial. I was wondering why you hadn't gone to the media if you were for real. Now I know. If I take this to my superiors they'll laugh me out of the room."

Veronica says, "I don't mean to pry, but who exactly are your superiors? The British?"

"If you don't mean to," Lysander says curtly, "then don't."

Veronica falls silent, her face reddens, she feels like she's committed some unforgivable faux pas.

"If you're here to mislead me, if you're really part of that smuggling ring like Interpol says, believe me, you have come to the wrong place," he continues. "This has become a country where people disappear. Especially in this last month. Important people, powerful people, have begun to disappear. People have started whispering about death squads working for Mugabe. Make no mistake, you'd do far better to turn yourselves in than to come here and try to deceive me."