from its tail, like a bipod support.
"Holy shit," Jacob breathes, his voice full of hope and wonder.
"What is it?" Judy asks.
"Predator. Unmanned airplane. US military. They found us. They must have got the signal. They fucking found us."
Hope erupts like flame in Veronica's heart. Rescue is on the way.
"We should signal," Tom says, "build a fire or something -"
Jacob shakes his head. "No. They're not the only ones looking, remember? No point bringing them all the way here just to take pictures of us all getting shot. Just keep running and hope they find us first."
They push onwards. Just as Veronica begins to think they can't make it through this thicket, they will have to turn back and go around, her foot lands unexpectedly on smooth, bare dirt. It is only a foot wide, but it is unmistakeably a trail, marked with prints of bare human feet.
"Do we follow it?" Judy asks. "Or do we keep going east?"
Everyone looks to Jacob. He hesitates, then decides, "There's a camera on that Predator. They won't see us in the bush, but they might on this path. We'll stay on it until it flies over again."
They proceed north along the path. It is so much easier than fighting their way through the thorns and vines of the jungle, but even so Veronica doesn't think she can stay on her feet much longer. Her legs are starting to feel like they did on the deathmarch from Bwindi, increasingly less responsive to her mind's commands. She wonders if maybe it would be best to split up. Together they must be easy to track. Alone maybe at least one would get away or be rescued. It makes sense, like a kind of preemptive triage, but she doesn't want to be the one to suggest it. She doesn't want to be alone out here.
The black men with rifles who rise up from either side of the trail appear so suddenly and unexpectedly it is like they just winked into existence, were beamed down from some Star Trek spacecraft. There are six of them, in rubber boots and ragged khaki uniforms. When she sees them Veronica's legs give way with shock, and she half-falls backwards, sits hard onto the ground. She feels frozen inside, like her lungs and spine have turned to ice. It's over. They have lost.
But the black soldiers do not seem eager to kill or capture. Instead they stare at the five filth-smeared white people for a moment, then begin to speak excitedly to one another in soft words that sound unlike any African language Veronica has yet encountered. It slowly occurs to her that their uniforms are nothing like the crimson headbands and bullet necklaces of the interahamwe.
She looks around, confused. The others sway on their feet, looking as dazed as she feels.
Then one of the gunmen says, in strangely accented but understandable English, "Everything is OK. Everything is a hundred percent. We come to help you."
"Who are you?" Jacob asks, his voice rasping.
The man says, as if it explains everything, "From Zimbabwe."
* * *
The Zimbabwean soldiers mutter to each other in low voices, tense but not frightened, as they move along the trail. Veronica doesn't understand what they are doing here, but she supposes right now that doesn't matter. It takes all of her concentration just to keep pace with the soldier half-carrying her. The trail has led them into another banana plantation, and the waxy leaves around them rattle in the wind. They stop every so often for one of the soldiers to shout into a massive old radio that looks like something from a Vietnam movie. It distantly occurs to Veronica that it might actually have seen service in Vietnam, and then been donated or sold to Zimbabwe as surplus. Whatever its provenance, it doesn't seem to be working.
When her legs finally collapse it is like it is happening to somebody else; she watches the ground rise to meet her as if she is riding in an airplane. Rough, strong hands grab and lift her. She wonders if this is what shock feels like, or if maybe she is dying, if all her life's strength has finally been spent.
She emerges from something between a daze and a blackout just as the trail opens into a hilltop clearing dotted by a few dozen thatched mud huts with sagging walls. Goats and chickens pick their way along the narrow dirt paths that connect the huts, run through the small agricultural patches that surround