don't want to die. I'll do anything you want. You can do anything you want to me. Just please don't kill me, please, anything you want, anything, just please don't kill me, please, please."
Her voice dissolves into wracking, incoherent sobs. The cameraman grunts, a satisfied sound. The Arab lowers the panga. The man on her knees gets off, and the man behind her gets up and yanks on the chain he holds, pulling Veronica brutally to her feet. Veronica is led like a dog over to the structure where the others huddle. It covers a space about twenty feet by ten, made of thick branches lashed together by vines, roofed by a ragged patchwork of canvas and plastic tarpaulins. Two plastic buckets sit by the cliff wall.
Veronica collapses to the ground. She can't stop crying. Her head hurts and when she puts her hand to her face she discovers her head is half-covered in dried blood. Jacob comes to her, takes her in his arms, holds her wordlessly. The others too have been leashed, and then padlocked to a huge cinderblock half-sunk in mud. Veronica's chain is added to the tangle. Then the men in dishdashes and the cameraman walk away, back towards the trail that climbs to the airstrip.
Veronica holds Jacob tightly, like a frightened child. Judy sits next to them. She too has been crying. She puts her arms around Jacob and Veronica, and then Tom joins their communal embrace. Michael and Diane stay back. It takes a long time before Veronica's sobs peter out into silence.
At length Veronica whispers, "What happened to Susan?"
Jacob shakes his head. "They took her away."
Slowly they disentangle.
"I wish I knew where we were," Tom says sadly. "I'd just like to know where I was."
Veronica thinks it a very strange sentiment, but Judy nods her understanding.
"I can tell you exactly where we are," Jacob says bitterly. "The heart of fucking darkness. The perfect storm of bad guys. The guys with guns are interahamwe. The ones in dishdashes are terrorists, probably fucking Al-Qaeda, for real."
"Interahamwe?" Judy asks. "Are you sure? Some of them are teenagers. The Rwandan genocide was eleven years ago."
"I saw Derek's face. He wasn't guessing. He recognized the guy with glasses, he knew him. But you're right, not the kids. The interahamwe are the older ones with dreads. Ran away from Rwanda ten years ago and been killing their way across the Congo ever since. The kids must be local recruits. Probably taken away after their parents were murdered, raised by monsters. But the ones in dishdashes, speaking Arabic? They're not interahamwe. The Muslims were the only group in Rwanda that didn't participate in genocide. It's perfect, when you think about it. The terrorists have money, weapons, international connections. The interahamwe have muscle and places like this." Jacob waves at the scores of men working in the red mud around them, digging and sluicing and sifting. "They run these slave-labour open-pit mines, fucking fifteenth century technology, then smuggle what they get to the Islamists who sell it in the Middle East. I figured this was a gold mine at first, but I've been looking at what they keep, and it's not gold. I think it's coltan."
He sounds as if he thinks it matters that he has figured out who has captured them and what is being mined here.
"Coltan?" Tom asks.
"World's most efficient heat conductor. Used in cell phones, PlayStations, advanced electronics. Eighty percent of the world's supply comes from the Congo. Shit, I've designed chips that had to use coltan in the heat sinks, I've written it down as a requirement in the specs. Never even thought about where it came from." Jacob looks around. "Hell of a way to find out. Karmic payback or something."
"Look," Judy says suddenly, straightening up and pointing.
Everyone looks to the trail that leads up to the airstrip. Susan is at its base, being led across the gorge by the Arab man. She walks like a sleepwalker, hunched over in a kind of dazed shuffle, dragged along like a recalcitrant pet. The men in dishdashes follow. There is blood around Susan's mouth, and she no longer has a bra on beneath her torn T-shirt.
They Arab man attaches Susan's chain to the cinderblock. She crumples to the ground, her face slack and her eyes unfocused. Veronica wonders distantly why she hasn't yet been raped herself. Maybe she looks too wretched to bother with. Maybe they just wanted the blonde girl first and are saving Veronica for later.
Judy