Free Borderline by Liza Marklund Page A

Frenchman (I had stopped using his name: I was trying to dehumanize him, distance myself) replied,
c’est vrai
, he didn’t like our situation.
    The short man shouted something we didn’t understand at the guards. When he turned round I saw a large knife, curved like a scimitar, hanging from a strap across his back: a machete.
    Fear, which had settled like a lump in my stomach, exploded with a force I had never experienced before. All the guards were armed, so it wasn’t the half-metre blade itself that had provoked my reaction, but something else about the short man, something in the way he moved, or his ice-cold voice. He must be Kiongozi Ujumla.
    Two of the guards came into the hut. It was dark and cramped and they trod on us. They went over to the Frenchman, picked him up by the feet and shoulders and carried him to the door. The German woman screamed when the tall one put his foot on her stomach and almost lost his balance on her soft bulk. They carried him out through the doorway and, for the first time, the view through the opening was clear. Fresh air swirled through the hole, and I breathed deeply, blinking up at the light. The sky was red and yellow and ochre, incredibly beautiful.
    They stood the Frenchman on the ground immediately in front of the doorway, and his feet were quickly covered with the billowing dust. The opening was so low that we could only see up to his shoulders, even though we were lying on the ground. The short man went and stood in front of the Frenchman in the twilight.
    ‘No like?’ he asked again.
    The Frenchman started to tremble, either from fear or the effort of having to stand upright after lying down for so long. His feet and hands were still bound with cable ties, and he was visibly swaying. ‘This is a crime against international law,’ he began once more, in a shaky voice. ‘What you’re doing is a breach of international rules and regulations.’
    The leader and general stood with his legs apart and folded his arms over his chest. ‘You say?’
    Catherine, who was lying to my left, pressed closer to me.
    ‘I am a French member of the European Parliament, the EU,’ the Frenchman said, ‘and I demand that you release me at once from this situation.’
    ‘EU? Work for EU?’ The short man smiled a broad but stiff smile. ‘You hear?’ he said, turning towards us. ‘Work for EU!’
    With an agility that was surprising, considering his bulk, the short man reached back with his arms and, with a sweeping gesture, swung the machete down in a wide arc to the left side of the Frenchman’s groin.
    Catherine screamed and hid her face in my armpit. I wished I’d had the sense to hide my face in an armpit, but I looked on wide-eyed as the Frenchman collapsed, like a sawn-off pine-tree, letting out a wheezing sound as the air went out of him.
    It was rapidly getting dark outside.

Chapter 5
    Annika was standing by the window in the living room, staring up at the concrete sky. She was empty inside, just a shell, fumbling for some sort of reality. Part of her still thought the whole thing was a terrible misunderstanding, a communications breakdown in Africa. Soon Thomas would call her mobile, annoyed that his flight hadn’t taken off on time. Another part of her was worrying about little things, such as the fact that she would be alone with Jimmy Halenius again. And what would she say to Thomas’s mother? Who would write about the dead mother in Axelsberg?
    Jimmy Halenius was on his way. Perhaps her anxiety could be traced back to the photograph that had been taken outside the Järnet restaurant a few years ago. She had gone for dinner with the under-secretary of state to pump him for information, and as they were leaving the restaurant a paparazzo had snapped a picture as Halenius was demonstrating to Annika the Spanish way of air-kissing. When Bosse from the rival evening paper had confronted her with it, she had been scared. She knew what could happen once the media had got its