carved into sharp points.
The faintly drafty air is dense, hot and dusty. The lamplight is dim and flickering. At first the only sounds are occasional drips of water, distant tik-tik-tik noises, which she took to be miners working with hammer and chisel. Then Veronica begins to hear voices, so distant that she wonders at first if they are her imagination. They pass a large chamber with whitewashed walls, where two more armed soldiers sit on a wooden bench.
Veronica turns her head to look, then suddenly stops walking and stares. She knows the two gleaming coffin-shaped boxes stacked behind those soldiers, close enough that she can read their etched Cyrillic letters. The Iglas, the missiles, the weapons that will assassinate Mugabe.
Her guards shove her onwards hard enough that she stumbles. When she looks back she sees them glance curiously into that chamber themselves. Her mind whirls as she continues on and the voices grow louder. It makes sense that they're here, it's hard to imagine a more secret or secure hiding spot than half a mile underground, and probably very few of Gorokwe's men know what is in those boxes and why. Maybe even her two escorts don't know that Mugabe will be shot down the day after tomorrow. Maybe she should tell them, maybe they will find a burning patriotism within and try to save their country from bloody ruin - but that doesn't seem likely, and anyways it's too late, they have stopped in front of a wall of rusted iron bars.
The metal grille is set into the walls and ceiling, blocking the corridor completely. It has been crudely but firmly welded together, blobs and seams are visible. The door in the middle of the cage is chained securely shut. An unsettling chorus of dull, hoarse voices emanates from behind the iron bars: dozens of voices, maybe more. The air stinks of filth and sweat.
A man grabs her wrists and unlocks her handcuffs. The guards turn to the bars. Two of them point their rifles inside; the other two activate flashlights and aim them inside. Veronica gasps with horror. Her first impression is of a solid mass of naked human misery. There are maybe sixty men inside, crammed into a space maybe thirty feet square. When the lights come on they fall silent and shrink back from the guns, press themselves against what look like metal walls in the middle of the chamber. All are black, naked or stripped to their underwear, covered in dust and filth, many with bleeding or swollen faces.
"None of us will touch you," murmurs the man behind her. She knows by his voice that he is smiling.
Each of the soldiers with flashlights opens one of the cell door's two padlocks. She is thrust forward into the black hole, surrounded by scores of other prisoners who stare at her with slack, unreadable expressions as the door is resecured behind her. She tries not to hyperventilate, she can't afford to, there isn't much oxygen in this air, and it might set off another panic attack, she's close enough already.
The floor is flat cracked concrete. The jagged walls and ceiling are marked with odd striations. The metal wall-thing in the middle of the chamber is a row of metal lockers that barely fit under the low ceiling. Their familiar appearance is surreal. A water pipe runs from the corridor ceiling into and along the other side of the room, where it feeds several head-high nozzles, all dark with rust. She sees and feels a ventilation shaft, a sighing draft carrying hot air from a metal grille in the floor directly in front of her to another in the ceiling.
The flashlights are switched off.
"Have a nice day," a guard advises her mockingly. The men who brought her here walk away. Their boot-sounds and lamplight diminish down the corridor, leaving Veronica in darkness.
Chapter 36
The air is so hot and stuffy, the stench so vile, that at first it is almost impossible to breathe, Veronica just stands gasping in the darkness as a surprised and speculative murmuring arises all around her. There is nothing she can do. Obviously the men who brought her expect her to be attacked by her fellow-prisoners. Maybe she should beg for mercy, or maybe that will show weakness; maybe she should try to act the haughty untouchable white woman, or maybe that will just provoke them. She reaches into the pocket of her cargo pants for her Leatherman, at least they didn't search her, at