The African Equation by Yasmina Khadra Read Free Book Online Page A

resistance. He tore me from my bed and threw me against a wall. I was no sooner on my feet than I received a blow with a rifle butt in my stomach which bent me double. The second intruder grabbed me by the hair and forced me to kneel. His blood-red eyes travelled over my body like two man-eating ants. I had never met anyone like these two in my life. The younger man seemed to be waiting for an excuse, any excuse, to shoot me dead … The giant rummaged in the drawers, turned the mattress over to see what was underneath, and took down the paintings in search of a hidden safe. Whenever he cameacross anything interesting – my watch, my sleeping pills, my wallet, my mobile phone, my belt, my sunglasses, my book – he threw it into a small, dirt-stained jute sack. The search over, he came back to me, looked into my eyes in the hope of detecting some detail that might have escaped him, lifted my chin with the tip of his Kalashnikov and yelled something at me in his language. He repeated the same question three times, in a guttural voice that made the veins on his neck throb. Not getting any answer, he hit me and pushed me out into the corridor.
    In the control room, four armed men stood with guns aimed at Hans and Tao. They were all yelling at once. A fifth barred the stairway that led up on deck, moving the blade of a sabre back and forth across the palm of his hand, as sinister as an executioner getting ready to behead his victim. There was an unhealthy gleam in his eyes, and his fixed grin chilled my blood. Puny-looking, with a bony face and unusually long arms, he gave the impression of not being entirely of sound mind, especially with the grotesque pair of glasses without lenses he was wearing so casually.
    Our attackers were young, some barely out of puberty, but they seemed to know exactly what they were doing. After lots of yelling and bursts of spittle, they ordered us to put our hands in the air. Hans, who had only had time to put on a pair of trousers and one sock, tried to calm them down, and was ordered to shut up and keep still.
    ‘No other passengers?’ a tall, thin man with bronzed skin asked the younger of the two men who had come to get me.
    ‘No, chief.’
    The chief turned and looked at me, lingering over my underpants, my bare legs. With his revolver, he shoved meagainst the wall. My Adam’s apple scraped my throat. I found it hard not to close my eyes, expecting a gunshot at any moment. I was seized with terror, and I clenched my fists to push it back.
    ‘Are you the pilot?’ he asked me in English.
    ‘No, I am,’ Hans said. ‘What do you want with us?’
    The chief laughed, revealing a gold tooth, and without taking his eyes off me retorted, ‘These damned whites! They always need everything spelt out for them.’ He went up to Hans and looked him up and down. ‘Is this your boat or did you hire it?’
    ‘It’s my boat.’
    ‘Great! … French, American, British?’
    ‘German.’
    ‘Are you in business or some kind of scam?’
    ‘They’re spies,’ the giant with the amulets said.
    ‘That’s not true,’ Hans said. ‘My friend’s a doctor. And I’m in humanitarian aid. I’m supposed to be equipping a hospital in the Comoros …’
    ‘How touching,’ the chief said ironically, turning to Tao. ‘And the chink?’
    ‘He’s Filipino.’
    ‘The skivvy, I assume. He cleans, does the cooking, wipes your arse, attends to your every need … How much would a Filipino cook fetch on the market, Joma?’
    ‘You probably couldn’t give him away,’ the giant said.
    ‘In other words, a bad investment,’ the chief said, walking around Tao.
    Tao did not flinch. He held himself erect, his face inscrutable, revealing nothing of what he was feeling.
    ‘Sorry,’ the chief said, ‘I’m going to have to dispense with your services. I hope you can swim.’
    Immediately, the giant with the amulets took Tao by the waist. Hans tried to intervene, but a blow with a rifle butt knocked him to the