about to shout Cut!
Jacob says, "You mean Strick?"
"No. Strick is many shitty things, but on the take is not one of them. He's an asshole but a clean one. All God and country and ramrod up his ass. No, it's gotta be some shark in a suit further up the food chain. Someone in Kampala, in the embassy. That's all I can tell you, I don't have any names." He looks at Veronica. "But you had one for me, didn't you? Danton DeWitt."
"Danton's not in the CIA," she says shrilly. "This is ridiculous."
"No. He'd be the outside partner. I looked him up today. Commodities trader, right? Legal smuggler, in other words. With lots of holier-than-thou charitable interests in this here dark continent, right? And an Old Rhodey mother? Makes sense to me."
"No," she insists. "Danton's not … he's a selfish prick, but he's not evil. He wouldn't have worked with monsters like that. No. It's not possible."
"I bet he didn't know," Prester says softly. "That's how it works around here. You don't ask where the diamonds and the gold and the coltan and the timber came from. You don't ask where your good buddy got all those dollars, or why he needs all those guns and pangas and whips. You don't ask how many slaves died and how many women got raped and how many children got press-ganged. You don't want to know."
Veronica shakes her head. "No. I still don't believe it. Danton wouldn't get involved with this."
"Yeah? You think he's too goody two shoes? That surprises me. His daddy made all the money, didn't he? I've met lots of spoiled rich kids, and none of them ever struck me as particularly lawful good."
"No. You don't understand. Danton wouldn't do it because he'd think it was beneath him. He already has money. What he wants is to be a big shot. Smuggling gold or whatever in Africa would be too small-time for him. Too pathetic."
A moment of silence hangs over the apocalyptic wasteland.
Then Jacob says to Prester, intently, "What else do you know?"
Prester shrugs. "That's all I got. The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Derek. He kept his whole life close to his vest."
"So what do you expect us to do now?" Veronica demands.
"Do? Nothing. Quite the opposite. The whole reason I'm telling you this is to keep you out of trouble. I heard you talking earlier, on the patio. I'm warning you. Don't do it. Don't go poking around wondering what happened to him, or what your ex-husband was up to. Not even when you get back home, and definitely not here. This cover-up added up to at least six corpses already. Once you've gone that far it's real easy to add two more. And you ask me, our terrorist friends are far from finished. You know what was in the phone that British girl picked up in their camp? Cell-phone numbers for two hundred Western NGO workers in Congo and west Uganda."
Jacob sucks in breath sharply.
"Yeah. We figure they were going to try to lure them into ambushes, capture more hostages. We should be able to stop that, but I expect they've still got plenty up those long sleeves. So you go home. Leave the intelligence to the professionals, be glad you've still got your heads on your shoulders, and don't go asking anyone any awkward questions. You are way out of your league here. Clear?"
Neither Jacob nor Veronica answers.
"I'm sorry. He was a good man. He loved Africa. And not in that let's-fix-it way most white folks get when they come here. He loved it for what it is. More than I can say." He takes one last look around the lava field. "Come on, let's head back. Be dark soon. Strick's made arrangements for you both to fly out tomorrow, collect your shit in Kampala, then fly back to New York. First class, on the government dime. Enjoy the ride. I figure you've earned it."
* * *
Veronica can't sleep. Partly because she can't find any position that doesn't aggravate one or more of her blisters and bruises and wounds. Mostly because she can't stop thinking.
Veronica knows she should go home. It is the right thing to do, the safe thing. The idea of staying is crazy. She can be on an airplane out of Africa tomorrow. But an airplane to where? She has no idea where home is any more. The black hole that was her marriage consumed her