The Outlaw (5 page)

"Capital," said Mr. Knight. "Arrange them all around you as best you can. When the police catch up with the van, there may be some shooting. It's probably nothing to worry about. Beogo will tell his men to fire only at the driver's cab."

"Do you know who the kidnappers are?"

"Maybe." Jake heard the hesitation in his father's voice. "Look, I don't want to scare you, but you might as well know. Beogo says there is a man called Yakuuba Sor who has a tattoo exactly like the one Kirsty described. He leads a gang of outlaws called the Friends of the Poor, and they live in the desert in the far north of Burkina Faso."

Yakuuba Sor,
thought Jake.
Even the name sounds evil.
"What does Sor want?"

"He has not yet contacted us with his demands. But Commissioner Beogo seems to believe that the Friends of the Poor are an African branch of..." Mr. Knight hesitated.

"An African branch of what?"

"It's probably nothing," said Mr. Knight. "Like I said, I don't want to scare you."

"A branch of what?" repeated Jake.

"You're breaking up," said his father. "I think I'm losing you."

"It's just money, isn't it? All they want is money, right, Dad?"

The phone crackled and went dead.

"What's wrong?" asked Kas.

"I lost him," said Jake. He looked down at his phone. There was no signal.

"What did he say?"

"He said we should hide in the middle of these crates. Make a sort of barricade in case there's any shooting."

"Shooting!"

"Shooting is good, Kas. Shooting means it's almost over. The police know exactly where we are and they're coming for us. They've got two police cars coming from the north and two police cars from the south, and they're going to make themselves a kidnapper sandwich."

But Jake spoke with more confidence than he felt. With no phone signal, they could no longer relay their position to Dad. The police operation would work only if the kidnap vehicle stayed on the same road and did not make any sudden changes of direction.

"Does Dad know who's behind all this?" asked Kas.

To tell or not to tell,
thought Jake. At the banquet Kas had enjoyed Beogo's stories about black-hearted outlaws in the deserts of the north, but only because there seemed little chance of meeting one. He put a hand on his sister's arm. "They're not sure," he said. "Come on, let's make that barricade."

Jake switched on the flashlight and they started arranging the crates in a protective circle, five crates high and two crates deep. It felt good to be doing something constructive at last.

"Cute," said Kas, surveying their handiwork. "It's like those dens we used to make when we were little."

Suddenly the van swung hard to the left, careering off the smooth macadam onto what felt like a rough dirt track. With no seats to cushion the impact, every rut and hole made Jake and Kas wince or cry out. Then came the big one, the mother and father of all potholes. The van's undercarriage slammed into the edge of the hole with a sickening crunch.

"Take cover!" shouted Jake, wrapping his arms around his head as the packing-crate walls shivered and collapsed. His head was protected, but the rest of him took a real battering. Kas, too, by the sound of it.

Jake rubbed his elbow and felt the sticky warmth of blood.

"We've gone off-road, haven't we?" said Kas.

"Yes."

"That's it, then. There's no way the police can find us now."

"You never know," said Jake. "They might see the tire tracks."

"Or they might not. Anyway, I need the toilet."

"Try not to think about it."

They sat in silence, bracing themselves against the sides of the van as it juddered over a series of bone-rattling ruts and dips.

"I wonder if we're on the news," said Kas. "Can we listen to the radio on your phone?"

"Not without a signal."

"We're stuffed, aren't we? Totally cut off."

"Of course not," said Jake. "As soon as we get within range of another tower, we'll start broadcasting our position again. It's not just Ouagadougou that has phone coverage, Kas. All the big towns do."

"What if they're not taking us to a big town? What if they're taking us to a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere? What if they're going to keep us as their slaves?"

What if?
Jake wondered again who the Friends of the Poor were, and why his father had sounded so strange on the phone. The group was an African branch of something bigger, he'd indicated.
A branch of what?

"None of this would have happened if we had stayed away from the gold banquet," said Kas. "It's like this is our punishment for participating in the exploitation of African miners."

Right, that's it,
thought Jake. "Like you care about African miners," he muttered.

"What?"

"You heard me. All you care about is having a nice big audience for the Daily Melodrama on Channel Kas."

"I can't believe you said that," whispered Kas. "I can't believe you think—Jake, what's happening? We're slowing down!"

The van braked hard and came to a stop. Jake shoved his phone into the back pocket of his trousers and listened, the hackles rising on his neck.
A door opening and closing. Footsteps coming around the side of the van, stopping by the back doors. The click of a key turning a lock. The creak of a hinge. A cruel, guttural voice.

"
Descendez
Get out."

Jake forced his bruised limbs to obey. Kirsty followed.

Countless stars filled the sky. In Ouagadougou the light pollution from houses and vehicles made it hard to see the stars, but out here in the bush they shone brightly.
Ad astra per aspera,
thought Jake.
Through adversity to the stars.

The waiter stood before them. Jake kept his eyes lowered so as not to make eye contact. In the red glow of the van's taillights, the tattoo on the man's left forearm showed up clearly: a spider in its web, just as Kas had said.

"Let me introduce myself," said the man. "My name is Yakuuba Sor."

"What do you want?" asked Jake, keeping his eyes lowered.

"To start with," said Sor, "I want your phone."

"I don't have a phone."

Sor raised his fist and struck Jake hard across the face, making him stagger and fall. He heard a rush of white noise in his ears.

"I think you do," said Sor.

The
grain merchants of Djibo had gathered in a private courtyard belonging to Al Hajji Amadou. They met every Tuesday at dead of night to fix their prices in time for Wednesday, which was the weekly market day. It had been seven months since last year's harvest, and the merchants knew that most people's granaries were now empty. This was the time of year when Al Hajji Amadou and his cronies were able to cash in on widespread hunger by pushing their grain prices sky-high.

They sat in a circle around a glowing kerosene lamp, talking loudly and laughing often. They passed a calabash of millet water around the circle, taking turns sipping the cool, floury liquid.

The Chameleon adjusted his disguise and rode through the archway into Al Hajji's courtyard. He tethered the sheikh's white stallion to a pillar, jumped down to the ground, and strode in among the grain merchants.

"So this is where hyenas go at night!" he cried, and his voice was that of a man ten years his elder.

Al Hajji Amadou jumped to his feet. "This is a private courtyard," he said. "Who are you?"

"My name," said the Chameleon, "is Sheikh Ahmed Abdullai Keita, Beloved of God, Friend of Djinns, Pillar of Righteousness! It is the djinns of the desert who have guided me into your foul midst."

"I have heard of you," murmured Al Hajji Amadou. "The prayer caller at the mosque tells me that you are a miracle worker." He approached the sheikh and offered him the calabash of millet water.

The Chameleon took a sip and passed the calabash back.

" The hour is late," said Al Hajji Amadou. " What do you want with us, holy man?"

The Chameleon shook his head from side to side so that his locks swung like pendulums. Then he began to laugh—a deep, resonant laugh. "The djinns of the desert mock you," he said. "Each week you meet here in the darkness, but the djinns see you as clear as day. You whisper your nefarious plans in each other's ears, unaware of the djinns who eavesdrop along the seams where earth meets heaven. You think you prosper, but tragedy is just a few short hours away."

Al Hajji Amadou frowned. "What tragedy?"

"You say to yourselves,
We are rich, we have everything we need, we will drive up the price of grain to cripple the poor. We will make them sell their animals to buy our grain. We will enrich ourselves at their expense. We will cruise on the river of their tears.
"

"What would the djinns have us do?"

"Halve and halve again the price of grain. Do not exceed a thousand francs a sack. This is the djinns' command."

The merchants chuckled at this preposterous idea. "The djinns have no head for business!" cried one, laughing so hard that he almost spilled the millet water in the calabash.

"Djinns don't need to eat," cried another. "If they did, they would know what a valuable commodity is a sack of millet!"

The Chameleon was the only man not laughing. "Woe to you who laugh now," he said. "Soon you will weep. Not one of you will sleep a wink tonight. You will sweat. You will toss and turn upon your beds. You will see the djinns with your own eyes. You will rise in the morning and go to market with all your limbs a-trembling, and if you do not price your millet according to the djinns' command, you will be cold in the ground by sunset."

Stunned silence followed. The merchants reeled from the force of these fighting words. Al Hajji Amadou glowered and pointed a quivering finger at the Chameleon. "Listen to me, miracle man. We buy our millet at a price and we sell it when and how we like. We are sophisticated, independent men, and we do not take orders from any saint or sprite."

"Brave words," said the Chameleon. "I wonder if they will be your last." He turned and ran back toward his stallion. "Behold!" he cried. "The djinns of the air are coming to bear me aloft on their warm, invisible hands." As he reached the place where the stallion was tethered, the Chameleon stopped and raised his arms.

The merchants held their breath. They did not notice the tiny clips that Paaté had sewn onto the Chameleon's "magic" moccasins. They did not notice the tiny shuffling movement with which he clipped the moccasins together. They did not notice him wriggling his left foot out of its shoe and poking his left leg forward through a discreet slit in his robes. They did not see him place the foot into the stallion's nearside stirrup. All they saw was a miracle that made them gasp and tremble. Seen from the back, the Chameleon's illusion was perfect: before their very eyes, the assembled grain merchants watched the famous sheikh rise into the air, hovering fully two feet off the ground.

The Chameleon floated up and forward and came to rest in the saddle of his horse. "Remember what I told you," he said. "Not one of you will sleep a wink tonight. You will see the djinns with your own eyes. Be very careful how you price your millet at tomorrow's market. Do not exceed a thousand francs a sack." He flicked the reins, spurred his steed, and rode out into the street.

It had taken him a long time to work out how Sheikh Ahmed had performed his levitation in Mondoro, but in the middle of one sleepless night the answer had come to him: clips on the shoes, a slit in the robe, and something firm to step onto.

The Chameleon chuckled to himself. He was delighted to have given those shifty shopkeepers something to worry about. He was even more delighted to have a new illusion in his repertoire.

Sor
allowed his hostages a two-minute toilet break and then ordered them back into the van. Jake felt sick at the thought of having to breathe that stale stock-cube air, but protesting would do no good. He helped his sister into the van and got in behind her. The doors slammed, and they were once more in darkness.

"I can't believe he hit you," said Kas. "That must have really hurt."

Jake touched his cheekbone and nodded.

"You should have handed it over straightaway. Dad said not to resist, remember?"

"It wasn't Dad's phone, it was mine! Besides, that phone was our best chance of rescue."

"Here's what I want to know," said Kas. "How did Sor know you had a phone?"

"Everyone has a phone."

"So why did he wait until now to take it from you?"

The question hung in the air, unanswerable.

Jake was expecting the van to start up again, but it did not. Soft footsteps trod close outside. Then there came a quiet hissing sound.

"Gas!" cried Kas. "They're going to gas us!"

Jake sniffed the air. At first all he could smell was the sickly chicken reek of artificial flavorings, but then he thought he detected a whiff of ethanol.

"It's not gas," he whispered. "It's paint. They're spray-painting the van."

They sat in the darkness and listened. Judging by the noises outside, the outlaws were doing more than just repainting the van. They were also changing the license plates and taking the amplifier off the roof. It was some time before the clattering of tools outside gave way to the quieter whirring of grasshoppers far out in the bush.

"How would you prefer to die?" asked Kas. "I mean, if you were given the choice."

"Kas, you're thirteen. You shouldn't be thinking about that sort of thing."

"All right, I'll narrow it down a bit."

"This isn't helping, Kas."

"Drowning or burning?"

"Kas!"

"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it."

"Fine. Drowning."

"Everyone says drowning." Kas sounded calmer now than she had all night, as if thinking about death were a comfort to her. "If I die and you survive, can you delete my Facebook account for me? My password is sultana5."

Jake lay down on the floor of the van and cradled his head in the crook of his arm. "No one's going to die, Kas."

"You say that, but you don't know. A girl at my school died of typhoid this term, and her Facebook page is still up. It's untidy."