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

floor. Tao didn’t struggle. He didn’t understand what was happening. His small body was engulfed by the black giant. I stood there petrified, in a daze, unable to react. I watched the giant take Tao up on deck. Not a muscle responded.
    ‘Kurt, don’t let him do it!’ Hans screamed at me from the floor.
    His cries brought me to my senses. I rushed to the stairs, swept aside the boy with the sabre. There was a kind of flash inside me, followed by blackness …
     
    Water was thrown over me. I emerged from a fog. There was blood on my vest, my boxer shorts and my thigh. I lifted my fingers to my temple: I was the one who was bleeding.
    The giant with the amulets put the bucket down on the wooden floor and dug his shoe into my side. ‘This isn’t a hotel.’
    The chief crouched beside me. He was young, in his early thirties, quite good-looking, with fine features and a straight nose. He wore his fatigues like a banker wearing a suit, with a self-assurance that was meant to be as seductive as it was intimidating. From his affected airs and graces, it was clear he was a product of the local middle class, someone who’d had a future at the head of his community but had turned bad.
    Holding our passports in one hand, he waited for me to come back to my senses and then said, ‘Excuse ourmethods, doctor. We work in the traditional way around here. With the means at our disposal.’
    I looked for Hans. He was behind me, in a corner of the control room. His eye had disappeared beneath a purplish swelling.
    ‘Let me explain the situation,’ the chief said in perfect English. ‘The ball is in our court, but the rules of the game belong to you and your friend. You behave yourselves and we’ll treat you well. You try to be smart, and I can’t guarantee anything.’
    ‘Why did you throw Tao in the sea?’ Hans screamed, beside himself.
    ‘You mean the chink? That was a question of logistics.’
    ‘You killed a man, for heaven’s sake!’
    ‘People die every day. That’s never stopped God from sleeping soundly.’
    Hans was disgusted by the chief’s words. His face was trembling with anger and his breathing was laboured. He bit his lip to restrain himself.
    ‘Did I say something stupid?’ the chief asked, cynically.
    ‘Are you trying to make me believe you don’t have any regret, any remorse?’ Hans cried, his voice throbbing with indignation.
    The chief gave a toneless laugh and looked at Hans as if seeing him for the first time. After a silence, he opened his arms wide in a theatrical gesture and said, ‘To feel regret or remorse, you need to have a conscience. And I don’t have one.’
    Hans was so disgusted, he didn’t say another word.
    ‘What are you going to do with us?’ I asked.
    The chief pursed his lips and thought over my question. ‘I’ll be frank with you,’ he said. ‘I don’t really care if youlive or die. It’s entirely up to you if you return home safe and sound or end up in a ditch with a bullet in your head … But from now on, you’re my prisoners. What you own belongs to me, apart from your family photographs. You can already say goodbye to your boat. The spoils of war.’
    ‘It’s my boat,’ Hans protested. ‘I’m not at war with anyone. I’m just passing through. You have no right …’
    ‘There are no rights here, Mr Makkenroth. And there’s only one law: the law of the gun. And tonight the guns are on my side.’
    ‘What are you going to do with my boat? Sell it off cheap? Strip it?’
    ‘The real question is: what are we going to do with you? Am I to understand that you’re more concerned about what happens to your boat than to you? … You’re my hostages, my meal ticket. I don’t care about the Geneva Convention or UN resolutions, I’ll treat you as I see fit. From now on, I’m your god. Your fate is closely linked to my moods, so if I were you I’d try to keep on the right side of me.’
    We were forced to get dressed, our wrists were tied, and we were shut