name, but why should I tell you anything? How am I to know under what auspices you acquired this phone?"
Jacob hesitates. "You can't."
"Precisely," the voice says. "Pleasure talking to you."
"Wait," Veronica says. "Why did you call? What did you want to talk to Prester about?"
Another long pause. "I suppose the question itself is harmless. I called to ask for Derek's professional next of kin."
"Excuse me?" Jacob asks, befuddled.
"Either you really are an amateur or you play the part well. I mean the name of whoever has inherited Derek's work. I have something for him or her. My more official request seems to have become lost in a bureaucratic labyrinth, and I thought I might speed up the process a little."
"I'm sorry," Veronica says, "we don't have any idea who that might be."
"Pity."
"Wait," Jacob says desperately. "You're saying you have something meant for Derek? What is it?"
"Information."
"What kind of information?"
"Now that would be telling," the man says, amused. "Goodbye."
* * *
The road from Fort Portal to Semiliki weaves through the lush green hills of western Uganda, past misty crater lakes, placid villages, tiny roadside markets, vast tea plantations, a cement factory, and eleven million banana trees. Sometimes the road is wide and paved, well-signed, with painted lane markers and roadside gutters to carry away rainy-season overflow; sometimes it is well-worn red dirt; sometimes it is heavily potholed asphalt, far worse to drive on than dirt. They stop in Semiliki for gas, Snickers bars and Cokes, and for Veronica to take the wheel. By the time they finally see the sign that says UNHCR SEMILIKI beside an otherwise unremarkable road of pitted laterite, the sun is low above the western hills.
"Are we even sure this is the right road?" Veronica asks, as Jacob produces and consults his trusty hiptop.
"I'm sure the tracker is that way. Right now I'm not sure of much else."
Veronica takes a deep breath. It occurs to her that UNHCR Semiliki is miles away from civilization, home to numerous white NGOers, and very near the Congo border. They already know Al-Qaeda are planning attacks on western Uganda. This camp, so close to Athanase's smuggling route, will certainly be at the top of their list. And maybe they've just been waiting for the Zanzibar Sams to arrive before they strike.
But it's too late to back out now. She grips the wheel and the gearshift, puts her feet to the clutch and gas pedal, and steers the Toyota towards the refugee camp.
Chapter 24
The red dirt road is terrible, carved with more craters and ravines than the surface of Mars. It takes thirty bumpy minutes to drive the eight kilometres to the refugee camp. Entrance is barred by a pair of concrete guard huts and a steel bar across the road, manned by uniformed Ugandan soldiers, and for a moment Jacob is worried they will simply be denied access and sent back; but when he invokes Susan's name, the soldiers' faces clear with recognition, and they raise the bar to allow the Toyota access.
UNHCR Semiliki is an encyclopedia of suffering, a tent city of misery in a small valley surrounded by steep and largely denuded hills. A half-dozen brick buildings cluster in the middle of the settlement. The camp proper boasts a smattering of thatched mud huts. But most of its thousands of shelters are blue plastic or green canvas tarpaulins stretched over frames made of tree branches. Whole families live in each. A few roads radiate out from the brick buildings at the center of the camp, but in the anarchic wedges between those roads, the tents are packed so densely that there is rarely enough room for more than two to walk abreast. There are people everywhere, the camp seems flooded with them, some well-kept and clean, most dressed in rags. A few goats and chickens pick their way through the dirt. Jacob wonders what they eat; the ground throughout the camp is entirely mud, even weeds have been trampled to death. He doesn't want to even imagine what the camp is like in rainy season.
There are more women than men, and amazing numbers of children. A few have the distended bellies that said malnutrition. Many children, and a few adults, turn and wave, smiling hopefully as the Toyota passes. Others stare with lifeless eyes. A few look angry, hostile. Jacob hears snatches of French through the open window. The air holds a stale, faintly rancid smell of smoke and filth. He sees a huge tent beneath which a teacher