The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 42

The governor’s forces had been badly outnumbered even before the invading army’s arrival. Now they were dwindling by the minute as those troops not prepared to give up their lives defending their governor took to their heels and fled, and the battle for Luhaka became a rout.

To the sound of screams and rattling gunfire, the two hundred men of Jean-Pierre Khosa’s advance guard stormed the grounds and buildings of the governor’s mansion firing on anybody who attempted to stand in their way, and anyone who tried to escape. The tall spiked iron gates hung mangled from their hinges where the General had ordered them to be rammed through by an armoured personnel carrier. Dead soldiers, invaders and defenders in about equal numbers, littered the front lawns. The somewhat neglected neo-classical façade of the governor’s palatial home, with all its yellowed white stone columns and balustrades, was pocked and cratered from small-arms fire, and its dozens of windows were nearly all shot out.

Inside, several of the governor’s personal bodyguards lay scattered about the wide entrance hall. Their blood was spread across the marble floor and up the main staircase and adjoining corridors by hundreds of red boot-prints. Gunfire echoed from all around the building as the invaders hunted down and systematically wiped out those who remained. No prisoners were to be taken: General Khosa’s orders. Only one resident of the building, the governor himself, was to be left alive for his brother to deal with personally. The dead body of a maid dangled from an upper-floor balcony, shot in the back as she attempted to fling herself to her probable death to the ground below. The butler who had refused to tell the invaders where the governor was hiding had been beheaded, along with all the staff who hadn’t managed to get out in time.

Jean-Louis Khosa wasn’t a commander to lead from the rear. He had been the first man inside, and the first of his brother’s bodyguards to die had been dropped by a bullet from his Colt revolver. Now he swept triumphantly through the residence ahead of a phalanx of his men, surveying his new prize and the spoils of war it would yield. In truth, there was little of value in the place. The Persian rugs now littered with spent cartridge casings were tatty and frayed. Along every wall were empty patches where large gilt-framed paintings had been taken down to auction off. For all that he filled his own pockets from the coffers of his province, Louis Khosa had been living far beyond his means for a long time and the signs of decay were everywhere.

‘We will have to redecorate this place after we take power,’ the General said to his men, and they laughed. Just then, his cellphone buzzed in his breast pocket. He hesitated a moment before realising what it was, having spent so much of his time recently out of signal range, then fished it out and saw that the caller ID was César Masango.

‘Are you calling to receive the news of my victory, César? Then you may be the first to congratulate me, ha, ha, ha!’

Masango didn’t sound as though he shared Khosa’s jocular mood. His tone was anxious, even frightened. ‘I have been trying to call you, Jean-Pierre. There is a problem.’

‘What problem?’

‘I received a text message from Promise Okereke. It is the hostages. The American girl and… and…’ Masango hesitated as if he was too afraid to finish. ‘The son of the white soldier. They have escaped.’

Khosa gripped the phone so tightly that the plastic casing creaked. ‘How could this happen? When did they escape?’

A heavy sigh on the end of the line. ‘They were found missing this morning, during Okereke’s rounds. I swear I do not know how they managed to get out, Jean-Pierre. I assure you, this is only a temporary setback. They cannot have gone far. We will find them.’

‘Yes, you will, César. And this time we really will cut off the boy’s hands. Both of them. And the girl’s, which we will send to her family with a demand for more money. And, one more thing, César.’

Masango replied hesitantly, ‘Yes, Jean-Pierre?’

‘I want Okereke blinded as a punishment for his incompetence. Put out his eyes with a hot iron.’

‘I will see that it is done, Jean-Pierre.’

The news risked spoiling Khosa’s day. He steamed on through his brother’s mansion with gnashing teeth and a face like thunder. Moments later, though, there was better news from a wiry soldier in a sergeant’s uniform who scurried up to say, ‘Mon général, we have cleared every room and there are no more of the enemy left alive. We found the governor hiding in a bathroom in the servants’ quarters.’

‘Very good, Sergeant. Take me to him.’

‘Oui, mon général.’

Louis Khosa was being held at gunpoint in a small storeroom on the top floor. The yellowed paint was peeling off the walls and there was a smell of mildew, but not sharp enough to mask the scent of fear coming off the governor himself. Like his younger sibling he was a large, powerfully built man, but his body posture was slumped in defeat. He was wearing a rumpled white cotton robe that hung open at the chest, as if the attack that morning had caught him unawares and still in bed. Life in the political fast lane.

‘Leave us,’ the General snapped at his men. The soldiers filed out of the room. Face to face for the first time in years, the brothers stood looking at each other in uneasy silence — though most of the unease was on Louis’s side.

The General took off his mirror sunglasses, and his wide-set eyes penetrated deeply into his brother’s face. He took in the greying, receding hairline, the sallow complexion, and the paunch that the bathrobe couldn’t hide. His brother’s use of skin-lightening cream, something Jean-Pierre abominated, didn’t extend to his whole body and his bare chest was several shades darker than his face and hands.

‘You do not look good, Louis.’

Louis Khosa could barely make eye contact with his brother, especially as he stood now before him, victorious and decked out in all his military finery. ‘Let me go, Jean-Pierre. You have beaten me, but let me go. You will never see me again.’

‘If I let you go, you will come back with more men and kill me.’

‘No. One brother does not kill another.’

Jean-Pierre Khosa laughed. ‘That is a good one, coming from the man who would have had me hung and butchered like a pig, for the amusement of his Jew friends. Where is Mendel? I was looking forward to meeting him one last time.’

‘Mendel is gone,’ Louis Khosa said with a mournful shake of his head. ‘He cheated me and took all the money. Now there is nothing left. I even had to sell my gold rings,’ he added, looking at his hands.

Jean-Pierre Khosa rocked his head back, planted his hands on his hips, and filled the little room with his booming laughter. ‘The Jew was too clever for you, Louis. Did I not always warn you about him? I told you he was false. I told you he would deceive you and betray you in the end. But you would not listen to me. Me, your own brother, who loved you and looked after you all those years.’

Louis Khosa hung his head and looked pitiful. ‘I am sorry, Jean-Pierre.’

‘Do you know what is the worst thing about betrayal, Louis? It is to realise that the fault is your own. That allowing yourself to have been deceived is your mistake, because you were too weak and foolish to know you should never have trusted that person. This is how you feel now, Louis. And I understand, because it was how you made me feel when you chose to side with Mendel instead of your own brother.’

‘I am sorry, Jean-Pierre,’ Louis Khosa repeated, still shaking his head. ‘I made a mistake. I ask you to forgive me.’

‘Look at me, Louis. What do you see?’

Louis Khosa looked up with red-rimmed, liquid eyes, like a dog waiting to be kicked.

‘You see the man who has defeated you,’ Jean-Pierre Khosa said. ‘I am a leader now, and you are just a follower. I am strong, and you are weak. I am a lion, and you are just a worm. Say it.’

‘I am a worm.’

‘Say it!’

‘I AM A WORM!’

Jean-Pierre Khosa smiled. ‘And what do we do to worms, Louis? What else is there to do to such a pathetic and worthless creature? We squash them. We step on them, and we wipe their remains off our shoe.’

‘Please, Jean-Pierre. We are brothers.’

‘You broke my heart, Louis,’ Jean-Pierre Khosa went on, tapping his own chest with a finger. ‘But you also taught me a lesson, and for that I thank you. You taught me never to trust another man, even if he is my own flesh and blood.’ He pointed the finger at Louis, his eyes beginning to bulge now as they filled with rage. ‘Trust means nothing. That you are my brother means nothing. Flesh and blood are only good for eating. I have lived by this lesson. This is how I have made myself strong. Do you know what I trust, brother? I will show you what I trust. I trust this.’

Without breaking eye contact, he moved his right hand to his belt and drew out the big shiny Colt revolver. He held its muzzle under Louis’s nose and the man’s eyes widened in fear, thinking he was about to be shot.

But Jean-Pierre Khosa wasn’t ready to pull the trigger just yet. First, he wanted to show Louis the thing that he knew would crush him even more entirely than a worm squashed under his boot.

‘Now let me show you what else I trust, Louis.’

Slowly, savouring every second of these last moments together with the man he had once loved and now hated more than anyone in the world, Jean-Pierre Khosa replaced the revolver in its holster and reached into the pocket where the leather pouch nestled. His fingers closed on it and he took it out, clasping the pouch tightly in his fist, his eyes dancing at the thrill of what was inside. His sacred totem. The symbol of his absolute superiority and undying power to do whatever he desired, for as long as he desired it. Literally, the jewel in his crown.

Louis Khosa could only goggle as Jean-Pierre loosened the drawstring that held the pouch closed. Dipped his fingers inside, closed them with a thrill of excitement around the hard, cold object. With a flourish, he whipped it out for the condemned man to see before he was executed.

And then both men stared as one at the lump of plain grey rock on Jean-Pierre’s upturned palm.