doesn't sound quite right. Would a man like Dr. Murray actually have met with Athanase, and put himself in a position where he could be blackmailed, if he had Strick to do the dirty work for him? And Danton too? Any two of them, maybe, but all three – it doesn't sound right, it feels like a jigsaw piece that doesn't quite fit. But it must be true. What other reason could there be for Murray, Strick and Danton to conspire?
"They'll be looking for us," Jacob says. "We have to get out of here."
"How?"
"Entebbe. The airport. We have to get out of the country before they can find us."
* * *
He has just turned onto the Entebbe highway when his hiptop rings. Jacob puts it to his ear for a moment, listens. "Are you sure?" he asks. Then, in a taut, brittle voice, "All right. Thank you. It's a misunderstanding, Henry. Don't worry. It will all be cleared up soon."
He hangs up. Then he pulls the Toyota over to the side of the highway and brakes so hard the tires screech and Veronica is thrown up against her seat belt.
"What is it?" she demands.
"That was Henry," Jacob says, his voice weak. "He says the police just came to his house. You and I are wanted for the murder of John Katumbi, aka Prester John, whose body was apparently discovered in my apartment."
Veronica feels like she is falling. "Oh my God."
"They'll have notified the airport. We can't fly out."
She thinks a moment. "We have to drive to the border. To Kenya."
"There's a half-dozen police checkpoints on the Jinja highway alone. And that's on a normal day. Probably twice that when they're actually after someone. We're lucky he called before we reached one on this road. The police have cell phones, they'll broadcast our descriptions via text message. A runaway white couple isn't exactly hard to find in Uganda."
"Can't you do something about the broadcast?"
Jacob hesitates. "Not if it's already gone out - but maybe."
He grabs his hiptop, tries to log in to Telecom Uganda's master database server - and stares at the words LOGIN FAILURE. He retries, typing his password very slowly and carefully. Same result.
"They locked me out," he says dully. "Maybe last night, maybe just now. Prester must have told them what I could do. I never put in a back door. I should have, of course I should have, but I never thought I'd need it, I just never imagined we'd find something this big. What a fucking idiot I am."
"It's okay," Veronica says.
"No, it's not. We have to turn our phones off, all of them. I made them invisible but if they look hard they'll be able to reverse that and track us. Take the battery out too. Just to be sure."
She nods quietly. Cars whiz past in both directions as they remove the batteries from their cell phones. Veronica feels like they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg. She wonders how long before a police car passes and notices the two white people pulled over on the shoulder.
"How can they do this?" Veronica asks. "How can they make the Uganda police come after us?"
"Because they have friends in high Ugandan places. Remember what Danton wrote about bought-off locals?" Jacob takes a deep breath. "This is bad. This is extremely bad. If the police find us, no way we live long enough to tell our story to anyone who cares. We'll be shot trying to escape or something. Like Prester."
"Then what can we do? Where can we go?"
Jacob shakes his head. "I have no idea."
Chapter 28
Jacob stares out at the Kampala-Entebbe highway, stretched before them like a black ribbon laid across Uganda's green hills, and tries to think of a way out. No solution is apparent. Despite the equatorial heat he feels cold, his heart is thumping, panic is threatening to swamp his mind like a tsunami, wash it clear of all reason.
Veronica reaches out and takes his hand. He squeezes it tightly. There must be a way out. There has to be, for Veronica's sake, he got her into this mess, he has to get her out. This is a solvable problem, it has to be.
"Lake Victoria," he says. "Maybe we can charter a boat to Tanzania."
"There are police at the port. They'll be looking for us."
"Yeah. Fuck."
"Maybe the Canadian embassy? Or the media?"
He considers. "No. Embassies don't help you when you're wanted for murder. They'll just turn us over and promise to visit