Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

No one there.

He dropped to his knees and looked under the bed. No one.

Oudry opened the door to the only cupboard in the room. Empty.

‘He’s fled,’ Oudry said to Kinzonzi, who was standing by the bed pressing a finger into the mattress.

‘What is it?’ Oudry asked, going closer.

‘Blood.’ He took the torch from Oudry. Shone it on the floor. Followed the trail of blood to where it stopped in the middle. A trapdoor with an iron ring. He advanced on the hatchway, ripped open the door and shone the torch down into the darkness beneath. ‘Get your gun, Oudry.’

His comrade went outside and returned with his AK-47.

‘Cover me,’ said Kinzonzi, descending the ladder.

He reached the bottom and held the pistol and torch in a double grip as he swivelled round. The torchlight swept over cupboards and shelves along the wall. Continued over a free-standing unit in the middle of the floor with grotesque white masks on the shelves. One with rivets for eyebrows, a lifelike one with a red asymmetrical mouth going right up to the ear on one side, one with empty eyes and a spear tattooed on both cheeks. He shone the light on the shelves on the facing wall. And stopped suddenly. Kinzonzi went rigid. Weapons. Guns. Ammunition. The brain is a fantastic computer. In a fraction of a second it can register tons of data, crunch them and reason its way to the correct answer. So when Kinzonzi swung the torch back on the masks, it already had the right answer. The light fell on the white mask with the asymmetrical mouth. Displaying the molars. Glistening red. The same way the blood on the wall under the nail had glistened.

Kinzonzi had never had any illusions that he would live a long life. Or that he would die any other way than fighting.

His brain told his fingers to squeeze the trigger of his pistol. The brain is a fantastic computer.

In one microsecond the finger squeezed. At the same time as his brain had already finished its reasoning. It had the answer. Knew what the outcome would be.

Harry had known there was only one solution. And there wasn’t any time to waste. So he had smacked his head against the nail, a little higher this time. He had hardly felt it when the nail perforated his cheek or when it struck the metal ball inside. Then he had lowered himself on the bed, forced his head against the wall and pulled back with his full weight while trying to tense the muscles in his cheek. At first nothing happened, then the nausea came. And the panic. If he threw up now, with the Leopold’s apple in his mouth, he would suffocate. But it was unstoppable, he could already feel his stomach contracting to send up the first load through the oesophagus. In desperation, Harry raised his head and hips. Then let himself fall hard. And felt the flesh of his cheek give, tear, rip open. Felt the blood stream into his mouth, down the trachea, activating the coughing reflex, felt the nail bang against his front teeth. Harry put his hand in his mouth, but the apple was slippery from all the blood, his fingers slithered on the metal. He inserted one hand behind the ball, pushed while pressing his jaw down with the other. Heard it scrape against his teeth. Then – in a huge surge – the vomit came.

Maybe that was what had forced the metal apple out. Harry lay with his head against the wall looking at the shiny death-bringing invention bathed in his sick on the mattress beneath the U bolt.

Then he got up, naked and on shaky legs. He was free.

He staggered towards the front door, then remembered why he had gone to the house. At the third attempt he managed to open the trapdoor. He skidded in his own blood on the way down the steps and fell into the pitch black. Lying on the concrete floor gasping for breath, he heard a vehicle pull up. He heard voices and doors slamming. Harry struggled to his feet, groped in the dark, took the steps in two strides, got a hand on the hatch and closed it as he heard the front door open and the savage click of the apple.

Harry moved back down the ladder with care until he sensed the cold concrete floor beneath his soles. Then he closed his eyes and strained his memory. Conjured up the image of his previous visit here. The shelves to the left. Kalashnikov. Glock. Smith amp; Wesson. The case with the Marklin rifle. Ammunition. In that order. He fumbled his way forward. Fingers strayed over a gun barrel. The smooth steel of a Glock. And, there, they recognised the shape of a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 calibre, the same as his service revolver. He took it with him and fumbled on towards the ammo boxes. Felt the wood on his fingertips. He heard angry voices and footsteps above. Just had to open the lid. Needed a bit of luck now. He stuffed his hand in and grabbed one of the cardboard packets. Ran his fingers over the contours of the cartridge. Fuck, too big! As he raised the lid of the next wooden box, the trapdoor opened. He grabbed at a packet, had to take a chance on it being the right calibre. At that moment light penetrated the cellar darkness, a circle, as from a spotlight, lit up the floor around the steps. It gave Harry enough light to read the label on the packet. 7.62 millimetres. Fuck! Harry looked on the shelf. There. The box next to it.. 38 calibre. The light went from the floor and juddered across the ceiling. Harry saw the silhouette of a Kalashnikov in the opening and a man on his way down the steps.

The brain is a fantastic computer.

As Harry pulled open the lid of the box and took a cardboard packet, it had already done its calculations. It was too late.

‘There wouldn’t be a road here if we hadn’t been running a mining business,’ Tony Leike said as the car bounced along the narrow cart track. ‘Entrepreneurs like me are the only hope for people in countries like the Congo to get to their feet, to follow us, to become civilised. The alternative is to leave them to their own devices so that they can continue doing what they have always done: kill each other. Everyone on this continent is both a hunter and a victim. Don’t forget that as you look into the imploring eyes of a starving African child. Give them a bit of food and those eyes will soon be looking at you again, from behind an automatic weapon. And then there is no mercy.’

Kaja didn’t answer. She stared at the red hair of the woman in the passenger seat. Lene Galtung had neither moved nor said anything, merely sat there with an erect back and retracted shoulders.

‘Everything in Africa goes in cycles,’ Tony continued. ‘Rain and drought, night and day, eating and being eaten, living and dying. The course of nature is everything, nothing can be changed, swim with the flow, survive for as long as you can, take what’s offered, that’s all you can do. Because your forefathers’ lives are your life, you cannot make a change, development is not possible. That’s not African philosophy, just the experience of generations. And it is the experience that has to change. It is experience that changes mindsets, not the other way round.’

‘And if it’s your experience that white people exploit you?’ Kaja said.

‘The idea of exploitation has been sown by white men,’ Tony said. ‘But the term has proved to be a useful tool for African leaders who need to point to a common enemy to get their people behind them. Right from the dismantling of colonialist governments in the sixties, they have used white people’s feelings of guilt to acquire power, so that the real exploitation of the population could begin. The whites’ guilt about colonising Africa is pathetic. The real crime was to leave the African to its own butchering and destructive ways. Believe me, Kaja, the Congolese never had it better than under the Belgians. The revolts had no foundation in popular will, but in individuals’ greed for power. Tiny factions stormed the Belgians’ houses here by Lake Kivu because the houses were so elegant they assumed they would find something there they desired. That was how it was, and that is how it is. That’s why properties always have at least two gates, one at each end. One through which robbers can charge in and one through which inhabitants can flee.’