"Lovemore," Veronica croaks. "Look."

He doesn't react.

"Look." She grabs at him clumsily. "Up."

His head slowly turns upward, towards the distant blotch of … not light, exactly, but a different shade of darkness than what they have been moving through for hours.

"What is it?" he asks dully.

"I think it's the outside."

At least the air is clean up here. That has been the only good thing about the climb. Their ascent has been far longer and more gruelling than Veronica expected. Her muscles are near collapse, her toes are covered in blisters, the skin on her hands has been ribboned by sharp rocks. Her blood- and sweat-wet fingers keep skidding away from handholds. This slanted six-foot-square shaft is far more dangerous than the smaller one they descended. Veronica's feet have slipped off footholds once, and Lovemore's twice. All three times they barely avoided tumbling to their deaths, and survival cost them several deep cuts. Her thirst is burning, ravenous, and the pebble she sucks on has ceased to help, the inside of her mouth feels as dry as paper. Lovemore seems in even worse condition. He has almost ceased to engage with the world.

"We're almost there," she promises him. "Just a little farther."

"You go."

"You first." She wants to be below him in case he faints.

He sighs, takes two shivering breaths, then forces himself to resume his upward progress. Veronica climbs behind him. She is only dimly aware of her external pain. It pales next to her all-consuming thirst.

When she looks up next the blotch seems hardly larger. She wants to cry. You can't spare the moisture, she tells herself firmly. Just climb. This will be over soon and you will forget this nightmare ever happened.

Climbing a forty-five degree slope is equally unlike rock climbing and walking erect; it requires locomotion on all fours, like an animal. Veronica tries to climb like a monkey. It actually seems to help a little. When she looks up next the the blotch is noticeably larger, and definitely a paler shade of black than its surroundings. She remembers with something like despair that the exit is probably blocked by a grate, as at the other end of the shaft. If it has been welded in place she doesn't know what they will do. Lovemore certainly doesn't have enough strength to climb back down. Veronica doubts she does either.

Nothing they can do about it now. Above her, Lovemore is moving faster, proximity to the surface seems to have lent him new strength.

"It's open," he grunts when they are only a hundred feet away.

She refuses to believe him, refuses to hope. But it's true. The shaft leads straight into open air. It isn't until they reached the edge that they realize why; the exit is in the middle of a sheer rock wall, directly above a wide river. The moon is clouded but there is enough light to see the boundary where the cliff meets the river twenty feet below. They can hear and smell the rushing water beneath them. Water. She has to hold herself back from simply throwing herself into the river and drinking deep.

"What do we do now?" Lovemore asks.

Veronica thinks a moment. There aren't a whole lot of options.

"We rest, get some strength back," she says. "Then we jump. It doesn't look shallow." She has no idea what shallow water looks like in darkness, but saying it makes her feel better. Than a horrible idea occurs to her. "Wait. Are there crocodiles?"

"No," Lovemore says. "In the Zambezi, the Limpopo, yes. But not here."

She sighs with relief.

"But I cannot swim."

She stares at him. "Really?"

"I'm sorry. I never learned."

"Well. We can't climb back down. I was a lifeguard once." She thinks back to when she watched children in the neighbourhood pool when she was sixteen. Not exactly the same as supporting a full-grown man in a powerful river at night. But she has no choice. "Just trust me and don't panic, and I'll keep you up."

After a second Lovemore says, "I trust you."

"Good." Veronica looks at the water. She knows she should wait, gather her strength. But she doesn't think there's much left to gather, and she is overcome by a blinding urge to just get this over with. "Fuck it. Follow me."

She steps back down the shaft, lowers herself like a sprinter on blocks, then takes a stumbling running jump into the river. The fall is so terrifying she almost screams.

But the water is deep and cool and deliriously refreshing. Veronica is drinking from it even before her head breaking the surface. She has to pull away and remind herself not to drink too much too fast.

"Hurry!" she cries, floating in the strong current, trying to stay near the shaft entrance.

She is almost too successful; Lovemore nearly falls directly onto her. He comes up spluttering and thrashing, panicked despite her warnings, grabs Veronica's arm with a vicegrip and drags her head down below the waterline. His body is convulsing like a landed fish, pulling them both deeper into the river. Veronica kicks as hard as she but barely manages to get her head above water for another breath.

She fights to free herself but he is far too strong. Veronica gives up the struggle and allows him to pull her closer, wraps her other arm around him so she holds him from behind, and kicks again, with all the strength left in her legs. Their heads emerge from the river again for a few seconds. Lovemore is still thrashing uncontrollably.

"Calm down!" she orders him.

They fall back into the water. Then Lovemore goes limp, and his vicegrip on her arm loosens. Veronica grabs him in a bearhug and pulls them back up above the waterline. It isn't easy treading water for two, Lovemore is dense with muscle, but she manages.

"Sorry, sorry," he coughs.

"It's okay. Just hang loose."

She can't tell if the rushing sound ahead indicates rapids or a waterfall, but she knew they don't want to find out. They swim clumsily for the shore opposite the mine. The river shallows into a pebbly bed, and they stumble onto rocky land. Above them she could see the outlines of trees against the clouds; thick, untracked African bush.

"Free," Veronica says, almost disbelievingly, and collapses to the ground.

 

* * *

 

Now that her thirst is gone Veronica is bitterly aware of her hunger, and of the blisters, cuts and scrapes that cover seemingly her entire body. She tries to imagine what it would be like to be safe, well-fed and pain-free. It seems like an impossible dream.

Ahead of her Lovemore fights his way through the trackless bush. He staggers with every step, but Veronica isn't worried about him like she was in the mine. Freedom and water seem to have given him back some strength. She follows wearily in his steps. Branches slap at her face, her soaked shoes squelch noisily on the slippery underbrush. She hopes they are moving east.

"What is it?" she asks, when he stops.

"A footpath."

She has to squint to see it in the moonlight, a thin dirt path.

"There are many who live now in these hills," Lovemore says. "They come from the cities, they lose their homes to sickness or Operation Murambatsvina and they come here to live in the bush, as their grandparents did."

"Do we follow it?"

"Yes."

The trail is narrow, uneven, and often impeded by roots and branches, but it's much better than fighting their way through dense forest. Veronica's breath grows ragged and her mind fogs with exhuastion, but she doesn't let herself stop, until Lovemore comes to a halt so sudden she almost collides with him.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Be silent," he whispers. "Look. Up that msasa tree."

Veronica follows Lovemore's gaze up to a tall, leafy tree that overhangs the path. There is something on one of its uppermost branches, she can't quite make it out in the dappled shadows, but she knows immediately, on some instinctive level, that she doesn't want to be any closer to it.

"Leopard," Lovemore says softly. "They leap on their prey from above."

The tawny shape is immediately above the path. "You mean if we kept walking –"

"More likely it is just sunning itself. It is very rare for them to attack humans."

His actions are not near as confident as his words; he takes her hand and leads her in a wide semicircle around the predator. Veronica looks over her shoulder as they return to the trail, just in time to see the leopard stand and stretch with malevolent grace, and her breath freezes in her throat, but after stretching it lies back down again.

They continue, fuelled by adrenalin. The path leads upwards and then opens without warning onto a wide dirt road. To their left the sky is just beginning to shine with the dawn. To their right, the road crosses a wooden bridge, leading back towards the mine.

"That way to Mozambique," Lovemore says, looking east, to where the road skirts a sheer ten-foot cliff.

"Does this road go to the border?" she asks.

"It goes near. Afterwards there are trails."

"Let me guess. It's like this all the way. Steep hills and cliffs."

"Yes."

She sighs. "Can we get there before they follow us? Do you think they'll track us?"

"Is Mozambique where you want to go?"

She is taken aback by the question. "Where else?"

Lovemore considers. Then he says, "Yes. You must go east. You must escape. But I will go back to the mine."

"To the mine? Are you crazy? What for?"

"To try to stop them."

"What? How?"

"I don't know," Lovemore says. "But I know they have made a mistake in bringing us here. They have brought us like vipers into their heart. We know they will attack tomorrow, we know their missiles are in that mine. Maybe I can find a weapon, and find the stairs into the mine. I must try. There will be war. Mugabe must go, but not like this. So many will die. There are so many already close to death. I must at least try."

Veronica tries to find the right words. "I understand. I know what you mean, I'd want to try too if we had any chance at all. But please, don't be crazy. They've got guns, we've got nothing, we're on our last legs here. We can't stop them. It's too late, we don't have time. Mugabe's flight is probably already in the air."

"You go to Mozambique," he says. "Escape. Tell the world."

"I don't think I can get there without you."

"I'm sorry. I can't go with you. I can't leave my people."

Veronica looks east, along the road that has been blasted through the hillside and curls beneath a sheer granite cliff. Then she looks west, towards the mine.

"We'll go and see," she offers. "If it looks like we can do something, we will. Maybe I can help. If not, if it just looks useless, we go to Mozambique."

Lovemore looks at her for a long moment before he acquiesces.

 

* * *

 

The intersection where the dirt road meets the paved road seems deserted. A faint mist has risen here, making the hills around them seem ghostly, unearthly. Down the main road, they can see, half-lost in the mist, the edge of the chainlink fence surrounded by the yellow mounds of discarded ore. They make their way cautiously, staying to the shoulder of the road, ready to leap into the bush at the slightest sound, but the hills are silent, not even a bird sings.

From the base of one of the great heaps of dirt they can see the low buildings and gravel parking lot of the mine. Four men guard the main entrance. Veronica and Lovemore are as far away from them as possible, and it's too misty to see well, but she thinks they are all carrying rifles. Otherwise the complex is deserted. The fence seems to be in good repair and surrounded by barbed wire everywhere.

"Your Leatherman," Lovemore says to her.

She looks at him. His breath is still ragged. "What are you going to do? Climb the fence, cut the wire, walk in and challenge Gorokwe to a duel?"

"The mineshaft. If we can destroy the elevator –"

"It's guarded," she says. "Even if you do, there'll be stairs out somewhere, and they'll be guarded too. You can't stop them."

"I must try."

She shakes her head. "No. I won't let you do it."

"Please. Give me the Leatherman. You go to Mozambique and tell the world everything that has happened. Please, Veronica. So many could die. Think of Rwanda. Imagine if it was your country. I must try."

After a moment she swallows, nods, surrenders the Leatherman. He limps to the fence, and begins to climb. Veronica doesn't move. She looks out at the gate guards. They haven't noticed anything yet. Lovemore sways and almost falls as he climbs the fence, and its rattle as he rights himself seems to carry a terrifyingly long way, but the guards do not react. Once at the barbed wire he hangs on with one hand and begins to saw with the other. It looks awkward and incredibly difficult.

After only a short time he stops to rest. When he looks around and sees Veronica his eyes widen and he makes a shooing gesture. She stands up reluctantly. Then she looks past Lovemore and quickly drops back down to her belly. He turns and sees: the guards have noticed him. Two of them are coming.

Lovemore drops down from the fence, doubles over and assumes a hunched-over posture with his arms dangling right down to the ground, and runs away with a strange leaping gait. Veronica thinks he must be hurt, but once the mound of dirt is between him and the guards, he straightens back up, motions to her to follow, and rushes into the bush.

She runs after him, but not far – he stops just far enough into the bush to be invisible, then moves along the bushline. His whole body is glistening with sweat, his breath is ragged, but he moves with grace. Veronica follows. He stops when they can see the guards again, walking across the parking lot. Their rifles are at the ready but they seem more suspicious than hostile.

Lovemore drops to his knees, takes a few deep breaths, opens his mouth, and emits a loud, nasal ooking that echoes across the misty hillside. Veronica is so startled she nearly cries out. It does not sound like a human noise. Then he beats the bush around him with a kind of epileptic rhythm, and ooks again.

The guards stop walking, and peer carefully in their direction. After a brief discussion, they turn back to the gate.

"Baboon," Lovemore explains. "Very common."

She nods.

"We can't enter the mine now." His voice is grim, defeated. "They will be watching carefully, to shoot and kill the baboons."

She nods again. "I'm sorry. We have to go to Mozambique. At least we can escape, and get the truth out."

He doesn't argue. They stand and begin to walk again, moving back through the bush.

"Do you all know how to make perfect animal noises?" Veronica asks as they emerge onto the dirt road, thinking of Rukungu at the refugee camp. "Is it part of the standard African grade-school curriculum or something?"

"No. I learned in Botswana, from the San. They live in the wild."

She supposes Rukungu too has lived in the wild, in the untamed Africa she has hardly seen at all herself. Veronica suddenly wishes she had at least seen the gorillas in Bwindi before was kidnapped. Living in Kampala it was easy to forget just how wild Africa is, full of baboons, crocodiles, elephants, leopards like the one they saw just now, perched on that tree branch above the path, waiting for prey to pass beneath –

Veronica's eyes widen. She stops, turns and looks back to the paved road that winds its way through steep hills.

"Wait," she says. "I have an idea."

 

* * *

 

Veronica stands shivering beside the paved road that winds its way up to the mine. The sun has risen, but it does not penetrate the thick mist that seems to have emanated from these hills. She tries to breathe hard, to warm herself up, but all her reservoirs of inner strength seem exhausted, the cool damp air seems to be sucking the heat directly from her blood. It isn't even that cold but her teeth begin to chatter. She looks around for Lovemore, but he has disappeared into the bush. She suddenly wants a cigarette, but they were soaked by the river. Her Zippo will still work, she considers trying to warm herself with it, but rejects the idea as futile.

Then she hears an engine in the distance. She straightens up. Her heart begins to pound, and her teeth cease to chatter. The vehicle is coming from below, moving towards the mine. She waits to see what it is. In the mist she can only see a few hundred feet, down to where the road meets a dirt tributary and then bends around the base of a sheer forty-foot cliff. If it's a Jeep full of soldiers, then that does them no good - but no, it's a white hatchback, and the driver is unaccompanied by any passengers, it's almost perfect. A 4WD would be better, but this is hopefully good enough, and it's probably the best chance they're going to get.

Veronica takes a deep breath. Then she walks out into the middle of the road and begins to wave her arms at the driver, hopefully signalling him to stop. She feels a little ridiculous.

The hatchback, a Suzuki, stops in front of her. Veronica stays where she is a moment, then sinks down to the ground, feigning a dramatic swoon worthy of a nineteenth-century novel. In her current state physical collapse is not hard to fake. After a moment the door opens and the driver steps out to investigate, amazed by the sight of a filthy and bloodstreaked white woman lying in the middle of the road. Veronica moans loudly, hoping to cover any sound, as Lovemore steps out of the roadside foliage behind the man.

Despite his injuries and exhaustion Lovemore moves fast and catlike, the Leatherman gleaming in his hand. The driver senses something and turns to face him, but too late. The multi-tool's metal blade sinks into the man's gut. The man gasps with amazed shock. So does Veronica; this wasn't part of the plan. Lovemore withdraws the blade. The driver lifts his arms pathetically to protect his face, and opens his mouth to cry out, but as he does so, Lovemore takes a quick step forward, ducking underneath and then into the man's upraised arms, and as their bodies press together, Lovemore finishes his motion by reaching the blade up and into the other man's throat.

For a moment the two of them seem frozen together, locked in place. Then Lovemore steps calmly away, and the driver claps his hands to his neck to try to staunch the pulsing fountain of blood. Veronica thinks with distant horror of Derek's murder. Lovemore grabs the man and pulls him off the road and into the woods as he topples to the ground. There is blood everywhere, so much blood Veronica can almost taste its rich iron scent.

"Hide the blood," Lovemore snaps at her. "Cover it with dirt."

She numbly follows the command while he hides the body in the bush. A minute later he is back on the road, wearing the man's trousers. They are too short for him.

"You said you weren't going to hurt them," she says helplessly.

"We can't afford the danger. He went through the checkpoints. He must have been going to the mine."

"How can you know that? The road goes past the mine too. How can you be sure?"

"Get in. Please. We have no time."

 

* * *

 

Getting the Suzuki hatchback up the steep dirt road is easy enough. Getting it through the twenty feet of bush that leads up to the cliff is surprisingly not too difficult either. The ground is rocky enough that the vegetation here is mostly bush, trees big enough to stop its progress are few and far, and in first gear the Suzuki's tires are more than equal to the uneven dirt and underbrush. All the same Veronica is glad Lovemore is driving.

As they pass through the bush there is a sudden rustle of motion up above them, and Veronica leaps with alarm as a series of loud nasal snorts echo through the air - but it is only a small family of monkeys, expressing their displeasure at this human invasion before they move away. Veronica smiles ruefully.

When they reach the top of the overlook, about fifty metres square of cracked but flattish rock, the seething sun in the eastern sky is beginning to burn away the early-morning mist. Lovemore halts the Suzuki at a suitable-seeming location, hidden from where the asphalt road winds directly beneath the cliff.

"You really think this might work?" Veronica asks, breathless.

Lovemore says, simply, "I don't know."

The more she thinks about it the more she dares to think that they actually have a chance. A single and desperate chance, but that's much better than no chance at all. Their capture has brought them into the heart of the conspiracy, and because of that, because of Danton's mercy, they know enough to be dangerous. They know where the missiles are, and they know they will leave today and be taken west, to Harare Airport, where Mugabe will touch down in less than twenty-four hours.

But most of all, their enemies are hamstrung by their secrecy. General Gorokwe may command hundreds or even thousands of troops, but Veronica is certain that the number of people who know exactly what is meant to happen to President Mugabe today is very small. Gorokwe, Susan, Danton, Athanase, Casimir, a handful of faraway Americans; perhaps a few more trusted lieutenants; and no one else. No one but herself and Lovemore. And Jacob and Lysander, if they are alive. In her secret heart she doubts it.

Veronica is no longer cold. She is burning with rage and anticipation. Maybe their escape has already been discovered, maybe they are already being hunted, maybe they will soon be recaptured and killed, but right now she doesn't care. Right now this solitary hope of vengeance, or justice, or both, seems worth any price.

 

* * *

 

The road beneath describes a U-shape around the cliff face. From one end of the U, they can see for a few hundred metres to the east, towards the mine. At the other end, the cliff is sheerest, and the road runs closest to the wall of rock. Lovemore watches from the cliff edge while Veronica waits beside the Suzuki.

She hears an engine, and tenses - but it is coming from the other direction. She looks down on the road and sees a share-taxi, a pale minivan stuffed with people, climb laboriously up the road beneath them, then round the U and disappear. Moments later Lovemore stands up – but then shakes his head and drops back down again, and a nondescript gunmetal Toyota, not nearly big enough to hold the missiles, drives past.

Then Lovemore stands up again, and this time he starts back towards the Suzuki; and as he steps away from the cliff, he nods meaningfully. Veronica hears an engine. No, two engines. And Lovemore is holding up two fingers.

"Shit," she mutters under her breath. She had hoped for only one car. That would make sense. They are on a clandestine mission to assassinate a president, what are they doing driving in a convoy, have they never heard the phrase covert operation? But apparently there are two vehicles.

Veronica takes a deep breath. Her stomach is suddenly tight and squirming. The Suzuki's engine is already purring, and its gearshift rests in neutral. She kneels next to its open door, reaches inside, pushes the clutch down with one hand, and guides the stick into first gear with the other. Lovemore coming around the car and crouches in front of her, peering over the cliff edge.

"Say when," Veronica hisses.

The approaching engines grow louder and clearer as they round the bend. Surely she has to do it now, now, any longer will be too late, they will get away, and this is their only chance. Every instinct screams at her to go, tells her that Lovemore doesn't know, he's waiting too long, he can't judge how much time it will take, she has to trust her own gut, not his -

Veronica makes herself wait for Lovemore's signal. He can see and she can't.

"Now," he breathes.

She releases the clutch as smoothly as she can. The Suzuki shudders but lurches successfully into first gear, leaves Veronica and Lovemore behind as it crosses the few feet to the edge, then noses over the the cliff and unceremoniously disappeares.

A half-second later an almighty crash erupts from the road, followed by the ear-torturing scraping sounds of metal and concrete; a less loud, but somehow satisfying, crumpling thud; and then another, and then a short, oddly rhythmic series of bumping noises. It is all over by the time Veronica and Lovemore poke their heads over the cliff edge to see.

It is immediately apparent that their four-wheeled missile has missed its target.