bleeps a warning sound. He blinks, looks up from the online technical documentation he is studying, and switches windows to the Google Map of Prester's phone.
"He's on the move," Jacob reports.
Veronica looks outside. It will be dark soon. She hadn't really considered the possibility of following Prester at night. But they have a car, as long as they stay distant, they should be fine. "All right. Let's go find him."
Jacob nods and grabs his hiptop.
"You take that everywhere," she observes.
"Not to Bwindi. Figured a disposable phone would be fine there. But almost everywhere, yes. Don't leave home without it."
"I thought that was the Leatherman."
"I've got that on me too. Souvenir. And you never know, it might come in handy again."
Veronica frowns. "Let's hope not."
* * *
"No, wait, go back," Jacob orders, looking up for just a moment, then back to his hiptop's shining screen. He soon realizes it's almost useless; none of the real-world roads around him appear on the online map. Kampala wasn't planned or surveyed, it just grew. "The other way. Southwest."
"I have no compass, sir," Henry says. "You must give me roads for directions."
"I can't. According to this map, we're in the middle of empty wilderness."
"Go straight and then left," Veronica tells Henry.
"Thank you."
They turn off a paved boulevard onto a wide dirt road without electrical power; neither town nor shantytown, but a region between. The buildings here are low and lit by flickering candles. The Toyota's headlights briefly illuminate shadowy figures walking or standing along the road. The dirt thoroughfare is pitted and rutted, scattered with entropic debris and pools of stagnant water. A few piles of organic trash have been set by the road to burn. The last line of street lights dwindles behind them, and Jacob begins to feel uncomfortable. He is on the verge of suggesting they turn around when Veronica says, in a relieved voice, "That must be it."
The it in question is an island of light in the sea of darkness; a large property illuminated brightly from within, surrounded by a wooden fence. Cars ranging from rusting matatus to gleaming black BMWs are parked on the streets and in vacant lots all around. Thatched roofs arranged in a U-shape sixty feet square are visible within the wall, and the open gate reveals a thronging crowd of Africans beneath those largely open-walled roofs. It's some kind of outdoor nightclub, half the people inside are dancing ecstatically, giving themselves totally to the music. Nearly everybody is holding a bottle or a cigarette or both. The babble of conversation is audible a hundred yards away, mixed with the thumping beats and lilting melodies of African music. Four burly men at the gate watch carelessly as people pass in and out. Others congregate at the nearby nyama choma grilled-meat stand.
Henry pulls to a stop about a hundred feet away and looks around to be sure all the doors are locked before he switches off the lights. "This is a place for bad people," he says, worried. "The men who come here are drinkers and fornicators. Ganja smokers. They have closed their eyes and ears to the Lord's message. They have no discipline, no restraint."
"Sounds like my kind of place," Jacob jokes.
Henry looks at him with sad disapproval. It is like being glared at by a priest. Jacob wants to apologize but decides to just shut up. Henry always makes Jacob a little uneasy. He's still not accustomed to having a servant, and being called "Mr. Rockel" by an older man.
"Can you hear anything from his phone?" Veronica asks.
Jacob frowns. "Doubt it. It should turn on by itself if it picks up any usable audio. The software's not perfect, but I'm guessing there's too much background noise in there… " He taps at his hiptop, and the car suddenly fills with loud, muddy music. Jacob quickly turns it off. "Nope. He could recite Kublai Khan at maximum volume and we wouldn't pick it up. We won't get anything from in there unless he actually uses his Razr. Maybe not even then."
"Shit."
"Yeah. We can't follow him in there. Not surreptitiously. We're probably the only white people within half a mile. Well, maybe we'll get lucky and he'll develop a hankering for nyama choma." Jacob produces his Canon Rebel camera and a long lens from his backpack, assembles them, lowers his window just enough to insert the lens, and peers through the viewfinder at the nighclub. It's hard to make out individuals amid the constant motion. He sees