“And call me John.”
“Of course—”
But Wells was already making his first call. Before he went anywhere, he needed a fixer.
“
“Jeffrey Gettleman, please.” Gettleman was the bureau chief. Wells had never met him, but he’d seen the byline for years.
“Who’s this?”
“I have information about the aid workers, the kidnappings.”
“He’s not in. I can have him call you.”
“Trust me, he’ll want it now. If you can give me his mobile.”
A pause, then the numbers. Wells dialed.
“This is Jeffrey.”
“Mr. Gettleman. You don’t know me, but my name’s John Wells.” Wells had thought about using a fake name but decided not to start with a lie. He might need Gettleman later. “I just landed in Nairobi and I’m reaching out because I’ve been hired to investigate the kidnapping.”
“Hired by whom?”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“That was quick.”
“A small one. I need a fixer.”
“You called me for a recommendation, Mr. Wells? Like I’m Zagat’s?”
“Good enough for
“Tell me who hired you, I’ll hook you up with the best guy in town. He’s connected everywhere. Smart. He can give you all the background you need on the camps. And the political situation, which is complicated.”
“Nothing free with you guys. Always trading.”
“You called me.”
Wells couldn’t argue the point. “You can’t use this, not yet, but Gwen Murphy’s family brought me in.”
“From the U.S.?”
“Yes.”
“Have they gotten a ransom demand?”
“No. The fixer, please.”
“His name’s Wilfred Wumbugu. I’ll text you his number. Will I see you at the press conference tonight?”
“Anything’s possible.” Wells hung up, thinking,
—
But first the permits. He called Wilfred, explained what he needed.
“It’s not possible. Since the kidnapping, there’s no access. Essential aid workers with existing permits only. No exceptions.”
“I’ll pay. Whatever it costs.”
“We talk in person. At Simmers. Thirty minutes.”
“Simmers.”
“Your driver will know.”
They were closing—slowly—on downtown Nairobi. To the northwest, office towers marked the central business district. Kenya remained desperately poor, but after decades of stagnation, its economy was reviving. New apartment buildings and office parks rose along the highway. Billboards advertised low-fare airlines connecting Nairobi with the rest of East Africa. And the traffic was horrendous, as the new middle class jammed dilapidated roads. Despite his frustration, Wells almost had to smile. Back in Montana, Evan probably imagined him with pistol in hand, cracking skulls. Instead he was stuck in traffic on his way to get a permit. The thrilling life of the secret operative.
Though Wells didn’t doubt the skull-cracking would come.
—
Simmers was a restaurant and dance hall under a big tent in the midst of the office towers, smoky, almost shabby, with plastic chairs and tables and a barbecue grill. A cantina, really. Wells liked it immediately. A man at a corner table caught Wells’s eye, waved him over.
“I’m Wilfred.” He was a slim man in a crisp white shirt and wire-rimmed glasses. Back home Wells would have pegged him as a Web designer.
“How’d you guess it was me?” Wells was the only white person in the place.
Wilfred waved over a waiter. “You want something?”
“A Coke.”
“Not a Tusker? The national beer.”
“I try not to drink before noon.”
“In here, time doesn’t matter. Simmers never closes. Open twenty-four hours. We call them day-and-night clubs.”
“Coke.”
“Two Cokes,” Wilfred said to the waiter. “Now tell me again what you want.”
Wells did.
“You understand, these camps, all of eastern Kenya, it’s dangerous now. Because of Shabaab. You know about them?”
“Yes.” Al-Shabaab was a radical Muslim group that controlled much of Somalia and enforced strict sharia law in its territory. Women wore burqas. Thieves faced amputation. But the group also had a criminal side, smuggling sugar into Kenya and protecting the pirates who kidnapped sailors off the coast. The United States and United Nations had tried to destroy Shabaab for years. Lately they’d made progress. United Nations peacekeepers had pushed Shabaab’s guerrillas out of Mogadishu, the Somali capital. And Kenya had briefly sent troops into Somalia from the west. Still, Shabaab remained a threat. The Kenyan government had publicly announced that the group was the prime suspect in the kidnapping.
“But doesn’t the government or the UN try to screen Shabaab out of the refugee camps?”
“Wait until you see them. A half-million people. Almost ten percent of the population of Somalia. And you think they tell the truth about who they are? Oh, yes, I’m Shabaab, I shot three peacekeepers. They know the story to tell to get in. The UN doesn’t even try to screen them anymore.”
“Everyone gets in?”
“They call the policy prima facie. You’re Somali, you get across the border, you’re an automatic refugee. In the United States you would call them illegal aliens. But here CNN runs pictures of starving babies, so they’re refugees. If you’re a Kenyan living in Kenya you don’t get free food and shelter, but if you’re a Somali you do.”
Wells saw what Gettleman meant about the complexity of the political situation. He hadn’t considered how the Kenyans viewed the refugees. “Would that anger extend to the aid workers? Could a Kenyan gang have kidnapped them?”
“Possible. It wouldn’t be political. Just for money. But I don’t know how they would get paid without getting caught. In Somalia it’s much easier. There’s a whole setup.”
“So you think it’s Shabaab.”
“That’s the most likely. And the police say so. Though in Kenya the police say lots of things.”
“Why I need to go up there myself. Today.”
“You can’t hide up there, mzungu”—the not-entirely-friendly Swahili term for a white person. “Everyone will know you’re American.”
“I’m not so sure,” Wells said in Arabic.
“Arabic?”
“Get me the permits or I’ll find a fixer who can,” Wells said, still in Arabic.
Wilfred looked at Wells’s coiled hands and broad shoulders. For the first time he seemed to understand who Wells was,
Wells handed Wilfred a packet of hundreds from his backpack. “This enough to start?”
