The world is bouncing up and down. No: she is bouncing up and down. Her head hurts beyond description, it feels as if it has been split open, like a coconut. Veronica opens her eyes and is a little amazed to find they still work. She is hanging upside down, draped over the shoulder of some strong but dangerously thin man. They are climbing an uneven scree of rocks and tangled bushes. Her head is level with his thighs. Veronica opens her mouth and throws up weakly all over the back of his legs. He doesn't even break stride. His ankle is marked by a ring of scar tissue. She wonders dizzily if he was the one who found her, if he drew her from the water and saved her life, or if she clawed her way onto dry land herself, semiconscious. She can't remember. She feels physically broken, a rag doll barely strong enough to breathe, but she doesn't feel dazed, her mind isn't rattled, her thoughts are sharp and her memories intact up to the moment her head hit rock.
Watching the world upside down is a queasy and headache-worsening experience. She keeps her eyes closed during the journey. She can tell the man carrying her is near the edge of his endurance too, his muscles are quivering. Finally he stops, drops to her knees, and dumps Veronica ungently onto mud.
She opens her eyes and her heart sinks. She is back in the gorge, in the shadow of the overhanging cliff. There is another man in front of her, standing above her, holding something. The little man in glasses, filming her with the videocamera. A hand grabs Veronica's hair and pulls her up to her knees. She moans, her voice weak and hoarse. She does not resist as someone behind her wraps a rusting chain tight around her neck and locks it with a battered brass padlock. Maybe thirty feet away, in the ragged wooden structure at the base of the cliff, the other captives huddle, watching aghast.
The man with the camera approaches her, zooming in.
"Fuck you," Veronica says dully, and tries to spit at the camera.
The man behind her, the muscular man who killed Derek, pulls hard on the chain around her neck. She falls onto her back, gagging. Three men in dishdashes stand around her. One kneels behind her head, holding her chain. Another sits on her legs, pinning them. The third, the Arab, draws the panga from his belt. Veronica hears herself moan. The cameraman films the Arab as he poses dramatically, then lowers the blade to Veronica's throat. She feels the cold metal against her skin. The mud is soft and damp beneath her. She can't breathe.
"Please, no," she whispers.
The camera turns to her. The panga rises into the sky. The Arab tenses, waiting like a home-run hitter ready for a fastball. Veronica starts to cry. This can't be happening. This can't be the moment of her death.
"No, please," she weeps. "Please, I don't want to die. I'll do anything you want. You can do anything you want to me. Just please don't kill me, please, anything you want, anything, just please don't kill me, please, please."
Her voice dissolves into wracking, incoherent sobs. The cameraman grunts, a satisfied sound. The Arab lowers the panga. The man on her knees gets off, and the man behind her gets up and yanks on the chain he holds, pulling Veronica brutally to her feet. Veronica is led like a dog over to the structure where the others huddle. It covers a space about twenty feet by ten, made of thick branches lashed together by vines, roofed by a ragged patchwork of canvas and plastic tarpaulins. Two plastic buckets sit by the cliff wall.
Veronica collapses to the ground. She can't stop crying. Her head hurts and when she puts her hand to her face she discovers her head is half-covered in dried blood. Jacob comes to her, takes her in his arms, holds her wordlessly. The others too have been leashed, and then padlocked to a huge cinderblock half-sunk in mud. Veronica's chain is added to the tangle. Then the men in dishdashes and the cameraman walk away, back towards the trail that climbs to the airstrip.
Veronica holds Jacob tightly, like a frightened child. Judy sits next to them. She too has been crying. She puts her arms around Jacob and Veronica, and then Tom joins their communal embrace. Michael and Diane stay back. It takes a long time before Veronica's sobs peter out into silence.
At length Veronica whispers, "What happened to Susan?"
Jacob shakes his head. "They took her away."
Slowly they disentangle.
"I wish I knew where we were," Tom says sadly. "I'd just like to know where I was."
Veronica thinks it a very strange sentiment, but Judy nods her understanding.
"I can tell you exactly where we are," Jacob says bitterly. "The heart of fucking darkness. The perfect storm of bad guys. The guys with guns are interahamwe. The ones in dishdashes are terrorists, probably fucking Al-Qaeda, for real."
"Interahamwe?" Judy asks. "Are you sure? Some of them are teenagers. The Rwandan genocide was eleven years ago."
"I saw Derek's face. He wasn't guessing. He recognized the guy with glasses, he knew him. But you're right, not the kids. The interahamwe are the older ones with dreads. Ran away from Rwanda ten years ago and been killing their way across the Congo ever since. The kids must be local recruits. Probably taken away after their parents were murdered, raised by monsters. But the ones in dishdashes, speaking Arabic? They're not interahamwe. The Muslims were the only group in Rwanda that didn't participate in genocide. It's perfect, when you think about it. The terrorists have money, weapons, international connections. The interahamwe have muscle and places like this." Jacob waves at the scores of men working in the red mud around them, digging and sluicing and sifting. "They run these slave-labour open-pit mines, fucking fifteenth century technology, then smuggle what they get to the Islamists who sell it in the Middle East. I figured this was a gold mine at first, but I've been looking at what they keep, and it's not gold. I think it's coltan."
He sounds as if he thinks it matters that he has figured out who has captured them and what is being mined here.
"Coltan?" Tom asks.
"World's most efficient heat conductor. Used in cell phones, PlayStations, advanced electronics. Eighty percent of the world's supply comes from the Congo. Shit, I've designed chips that had to use coltan in the heat sinks, I've written it down as a requirement in the specs. Never even thought about where it came from." Jacob looks around. "Hell of a way to find out. Karmic payback or something."
"Look," Judy says suddenly, straightening up and pointing.
Everyone looks to the trail that leads up to the airstrip. Susan is at its base, being led across the gorge by the Arab man. She walks like a sleepwalker, hunched over in a kind of dazed shuffle, dragged along like a recalcitrant pet. The men in dishdashes follow. There is blood around Susan's mouth, and she no longer has a bra on beneath her torn T-shirt.
They Arab man attaches Susan's chain to the cinderblock. She crumples to the ground, her face slack and her eyes unfocused. Veronica wonders distantly why she hasn't yet been raped herself. Maybe she looks too wretched to bother with. Maybe they just wanted the blonde girl first and are saving Veronica for later.
Judy goes over to Susan, tries to hold her, somehow comfort her. Susan recoils from the contact as if Judy is some kind of loathsome insect. Judy hesitates, then returns to the others.
The Arab man produces a key and begins to unlock chains from the cinderblock. Veronica tenses as Michael and Diane are detached from the anchor.
"No," Diane says, frightened. "No!"
The strongman who killed Derek takes the end of their chains and begins to pull them away.
"You're not taking us anywhere," Michael says like a petulant child. He grabs his chain and Diane's and tries to pull them free. "No. We're staying. We're staying here. Don't be stupid. I can get you money. I can get you a million dollars."
The man with the camera barks an order. Another dishdash man takes the panga from the Arab, walks up to Michael, and unceremoniously thrusts the weapon into the American's stomach. Veronica gasps. Michael lets go of the chains and grunts as if with mild surprise. The blade doesn't penetrate very far, only a few inches, pangas are designed for slashing not thrusting, but Veronica knows that's enough to perforate the intestine.
Michael stares disbelievingly down at himself as the blade is withdrawn and blood gouts forth. Diane begins to scream. The strongman yanks hard on their chains, choking her silent and pulling Michael to his knees. Then he has to scramble to his feet again as he and Diane are forcibly dragged away from the wooden shelter, across the ravine. The cameraman and the other men in dishdashes follow. The trail of blood Michael leaves behind glistens in the sun.
On the other side of the gorge he collapses like a toy whose battery has run out. The other prisoners stare, silent and aghast, as the Americans are carried up the trail that ascends to the airstrip.
"I just want to go home," Veronica whispers, but no one seems to hear her.