paint on black canvas.
"You think they're planning to –" He shakes his head. The idea is too huge to accept all at once. "You think Al-Qaeda are going to try and hunt down all those people. Using their cell phones. That's, no, that's crazy. How would they get access to the databases?" Jacob answers the question himself. "Oh, no. Holy shit. Through their partner in the CIA."
They stare at one another.
"Derek thought whoever was he investigating had an in at a phone company," Jacob says. "The first thing he did was have me make sure Mango was safe for him to use, check that nobody else was tracking his calls."
"We have to tell someone," Veronica says. She looks shaken.
"Don't panic. Not yet anyways. It's just a theory. And I'm sure the powers that be have thought of it too by now." Though Jacob is not at all sure of this. "We don't have any evidence. And I still can't believe a CIA agent would work with Al-Qaeda."
"They would if they were being blackmailed," Veronica suggests. "Help track these phones or we reveal how you were the smuggler who set up the kidnapping and murder of your own agent plus two other Americans."
Jacob nods slowly.
"Two hundred people. A lot of them, like Peace Corps types, out in rural areas, totally on their own. My God, they'll kill them. Or take them hostage first, like they took us. We have to do something. We have to go to someone."
He shakes his head. "With what? We have zero evidence. Just theory and supposition. And go to who? If we pick the wrong person, if they find out we're chasing their trail and I was working with Derek all along…" He hesitates. "They might come after us. They probably would. Whoever it is, they're not fucking around, we know that already."
Veronica swallows. "So what do we do?"
Jacob looks back at the computer screen and considers. "There's still too many unknowns. We might just be jumping at shadows here. I say we try to find out more before we do anything."
This time Veronica lets the we pass unchallenged. "How?"
"Go back to plan A. Retrace Derek's steps, find out what he knew." Jacob points to the cluster of orange markers on the map near Kampala's taxi park. "I'd like to know who this is, for starters. Must be a friend of Derek's, they talked a couple times a week, every week. Frequently immediately before or after calling the number in Semiliki. What do you say we go pay them a visit?"
Veronica looks at him uneasily.
"Come on," Jacob says. "Downtown Kampala, broad daylight, a friend of Derek's. It's not dangerous in the slightest. I promise."
Chapter 16
Downtown Kampala is an area of wide, scarred boulevards intersected by narrow side streets, clogged by choking squalls of traffic and dense clouds of pedestrians, lined by a dizzying array of African commerce: nyama choma street-meat braziers, boda-boda motorcycle taxis, newspaper hawkers, bakeries, bookstores, Internet cafés, pharmacies, stationary shops, cell-phone stores, fast-food stalls. The grassy meridians of the boulevards are fenced by ankle-high barbed wire. Huge concrete monoliths rise above the retail level, banks and government buildings. Posters advertise Sleeping Beauty cosmetics and Celtel phones.
"I guess this is it," Jacob says, looking up at the rotting concrete stairs that lead upwards beneath the hand-painted sign HOTEL SUN CITY, then down to the hiptop computer in his hand, and the tiny Google Map of Kampala on its screen. He can't imagine why Derek would have had anything to do with this place, but according to the hiptop's GPS receiver, the Hotel Sun City is the real-world establishment that best overlaps the cloud of orange dots that correspond to Derek's twice-weekly calls to a handset located this region.
Jacob closes the hiptop's clamshell case and looks around. His shirt is already damp with sweat. The street they are on is one of the busiest in Kampala. Buzzing pedestrian traffic, aggressive sidewalk vendors, protruding metal signs, dangling vines of casually strung electrical cables, and occasional stands of bamboo scaffolding combine to make walking a careful business. The opposite side of the boulevard, across a churning river of smog-belching traffic, is occupied by Kampala's central taxi park, a gargantuan and mindnumbingly busy triangle of dirt occupied by hundreds if not thousands of matatus, East Africa's ubiquitous minivan shared-taxis, and their associated passengers, drivers, vendors and askaris. On reflection Jacob can think of two advantages to this location: anonymity and quick getaways.
"All right," Veronica says doubtfully. "Let's take