The Outlaw Read Online Free

mines that they—" She broke off quickly when she saw her father's expression.
    "Any more rants from you, Kirsty, and I will ground you for a month, is that clear?"
    "Yes, Dad," said Kas, but she rolled her eyes as she turned away.
    They soon found their names on the seating plan. Jake had Kas on one side of him and his mum on the other. Mr. Knight was farther up the table, with the mine directors. Jake held his phone under the table, uploaded the gold banquet video to Facebook, and tweeted a link to it with the simple caption
Nice.
    A shadow fell across the table. A large uniformed man was taking his place opposite Jake.
    "Do you know who that is?" said Jake's mum in a sibilant whisper. "It's
Haut Commissaire
François Beogo, commissioner of police for the whole country."
    The commissioner made a gun shape with his hand and grinned at Kas. "Your necklace or your life," he hissed in English.
    "I'll keep the necklace," said Kas. "Life is overrated."
    "Kirsty, don't be morbid," said Mrs. Knight. "Commissioner, you don't have to speak English. Jake and Kirsty speak fluent French."
    Kas snorted. "Or in Jake's case, fluent French with a Yorkshire accent."
    "Hey!" said Jake, and the commissioner laughed.
    "I am sure you both speak excellent French," he said, "but let us speak in English tonight. I need the practice."
    The appetizer arrived—a seafood platter of Atlantic salmon, whitebait, meaty shrimp, and lemon segments. Mrs. Knight turned to the man on her right and began to tell him about the agony and ecstasy of beekeeping, leaving Jake and Kirsty free to talk to the police commissioner. With his twinkling eyes and ready laugh, he was a very likeable man.
    "Tell me, Jake," said Commissioner Beogo, "what do you think of our country?"
    "I like it," said Jake. "Reggae everywhere you go, guavas and watermelons everywhere you look, table football on every street corner. It's the best country in the world."
    "Or at least in the top twenty," said Kas.
    "I wish I could see our country through your eyes," said Beogo, "but my job keeps me focused on the dark underbelly of society. The underground gangs, the drug runners, the warlords. It warps your outlook, Jake."
    "Is there a lot of crime?"
    "So much, it would make your hair stand on end. I could tell you true crime stories that would make your skeleton wobble like
sagabo.
"
    Jake laughed at the image.
Sagabo
was a local dish, a maize dumpling that quivered when you lifted it to your mouth. "Go on, then," he said. "Let's hear a few."
    The main course arrived—a quarter duck so tender that it fell off the bone. As he ate, the police commissioner told stories about Burkina Faso's most notorious highwaymen, bandits, and outlaws. Jake and Kas listened agog, and they kept saying "cool" until they realized how much it annoyed him.
    "Outlaws are a long way from being cool," snapped Beogo. "Outlaws are thieves and murderers, and there is not a speck of cool in any of them. Just last month an ambulance belonging to the Aribinda Hospital of Hope was hijacked in the bush by two highwaymen. An ambulance, I tell you, taking a sick old woman to the hospital!"
    "What happened?" asked Jake.
    "They drove the ambulance across the border into Mali and sold it as a cattle truck."
    "What about the old woman?"
    "We found her bones in a termite mound by the side of the road, ten miles out of Aribinda."
    "Eeuw," said Kas. "So what do you do if you catch an outlaw?"
    "If he is lucky," said Beogo, "we try him in a court of law."
    "And if he is unlucky?"
    The police commissioner held up his gold knife and drew it theatrically across his own throat.
    "Are there outlaws here in Ouagadougou?" Kas wanted to know.
    "Not many. Most of them operate in the desert, a couple hundred miles north of here."
    "Dad has done some biking up there," said Jake. "It sounds amazing."
    "It is beautiful," agreed the police commissioner, "but dangerous. My people say that the deserts of the north are a battlefield for