you like some Kotiko? Try it, soldier. It is made from palm trees. Very strong. I have many more bottles. Get yourself a glass from the cabinet.’
Ben glanced at the bottle and visualised himself smashing it over the edge of the table and slitting Khosa’s throat with the jagged end. ‘It’s a little early in the day for me,’ he lied.
Khosa shrugged, took another gulp, and refilled the glass once more. ‘As I was saying,’ he resumed, ‘there is much I can learn from a man of your experience. You see, I believe strongly in education. Education is something lacking here in my country, and this is very sad. There is no end to learning, not even for the wisest or strongest leader. This is why I read. Military strategists tell us, “The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.”’
Ben recognised the quotation from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Khosa loved to show off his erudition. First it had been history and Greek mythology. Now it was ancient military tactical wisdom from the fifth century bc.
‘So you’re preparing for battle, are you?’ Ben asked.
Khosa smiled, his facial scars crinkling like horror-movie latex. ‘Oh yes. A very big battle. I have been waiting for it a long time.’
‘And it seems to me that Sun Tzu isn’t the only Chinese military expert you’ve been taking advice from lately. Used to be it was the Russians who did most of the arms trading in Africa.’
‘You are referring to the shipment you inspected this morning. I trust everything was to your satisfaction?’
‘It’s not the goods that trouble me,’ Ben said. ‘It’s their recipient, and what he plans to do with them.’
‘The Chinese are a worthwhile ally,’ Khosa said. ‘They despise us even more than we despise them. But this is acceptable. In business there is no room for friendship. I give to the yellow men what they need. In return, they will help me to achieve my goals. It is – how do you say? – a square deal. One that has suited me well. But things are soon about to change. Thanks to this, I will not need the Chinese for much longer.’
Khosa dipped his fingers into the bulging pocket of his dressing gown and took out his precious diamond. Its uncut faces caught the light from the window and reflected it into Khosa’s face, casting a diaphanous glow over his nightmare features. Dozens of millions of dollars’ worth of gemstone. Maybe hundreds of millions, for all Ben knew. And Khosa was carrying it around in his pocket as though it was a handful of change. He weighed the enormous glittering rock on his outstretched palm, gazing at it for a moment in rapt admiration.
Ben found it hard to take his own eyes off the thing. It was as big as the Chinese hand grenades he’d inspected that morning. And in its own way, it was infinitely more deadly. Ben had as little knowledge of its history or origin as he had of its value. He only knew that people had already died for it. And the dying wasn’t over yet.
‘It is not by chance that this diamond has come to me,’ Khosa said, still gazing at it. ‘To possess it was my destiny, all along. I have always known that, one day, it would find me. Now nothing will stand in my way. I will build the greatest army in all of Africa and avenge the wrong that was done to me by my brother.’
Ben was surprised by the mention of a brother. It seemed strange that a man like this could have anything as normal as a family. That would imply that he’d been born of a human mother, and had a childhood, and once been something other than a murdering lunatic.
‘Nothing like fraternal love,’ he said to Khosa. ‘So what did he do to piss you off so much? Build a bigger tinpot militia than yours? Pin more gold medals out of a Christmas cracker on his chest? Slaughter and kidnap more people than you? That must have been tough on the ego.’
Khosa’s face darkened. For a moment, Ben thought he’d pushed him too far, and that the African was about to explode in rage, rip the .44 Magnum from its holster and start blasting. Instead, Khosa drained the last of his Kotiko, then frowned at the empty bottle. He heaved his large frame up out of the sofa. Ben thought he looked a touch unsteady from the effects of the alcohol. He watched him walk over to the drinks cabinet, bend down and take another bottle from the cupboard. Khosa twisted out the stopper as he carried the bottle back to the sofa, then threw himself heavily back down and helped himself to another brimming glass of the stuff.
It looked as though Khosa was content to extend his liquid breakfast into a liquid lunch. Nothing had been said about food – not that Ben would have eaten a bite at this man’s table, if he’d been dying of hunger.
‘My brother’s name is Louis,’ Khosa said. ‘We were close once, but he became my enemy. Louis is governor of Luhaka. Do you know Luhaka, soldier?’
‘Not intimately,’ Ben replied. ‘It’s a province that straddles the Congo River a few hundred miles from the capital. Some way north and east of here, I’d say, wherever here is.’
Khosa nodded. ‘A little more than one hundred kilometres to the north-east of us. Very good, soldier. You have an impressive knowledge of my country. But you do not know its people as well I do, or its rulers. My brother lives like a pig in his palace in Kambale, doing as he pleases. While his people starve he plays tennis in his country club, protected by armed guards. He is a terrible man.’
The tone was all confiding now, but Ben refused to let himself be drawn in. ‘Obviously not a common family trait,’ he said. ‘Considering how well you turned out.’
‘I know you think I am bad, soldier, and that you hate me very much.’
‘Where did you get that idea?’
‘But I am the nice one of the two brothers,’ Khosa said, with his scarred face distorted into a wide grin as though he found the idea highly amusing. Then the grin dropped and he looked extremely serious again. ‘My men love me, soldier. One day, all the people of this country will love me as well. This is what Louis wants for himself, but you cannot put a gun to the head of your people and expect them to love you. It does not work that way.’
This, from the same man who not so very long ago had been shooting his own men at random while in a tantrum of rage and inspiring their love for him by terrorising them with threats of dismemberment. The benevolent dictator at work.
Khosa drank down another half-glass of Kotiko. He went on, ‘Do you know how Louis tried to strengthen his people’s love for him?’ The palm liquor was beginning to tell on him now, his voice slurring a little.
‘Apart from massacring them, you mean,’ Ben said.
‘He launched a campaign against witchcraft across all of Luhaka. First he ordered his doctors to produce a strong drink made from special herbs. He said that if a normal person drank this potion, it would have no effect on them. But if it was drunk by a person with sorcerer’s powers, it would make them sick and dizzy. My brother forced many hundreds of people to drink the potion. He would not drink it himself, because it would have made anybody sick. When the people became ill, they were accused of witchcraft and thrown into prison. My brother ordered them to be burned alive. This is how wicked and corrupt he is. You see? It is as I say: a very terrible man.’
Ben stared at Khosa and wondered whether he’d ever met anybody
