The Night Ranger

couldn’t be sure. He looked away, saw a glint in the wall. A metal ring. A chain hung from it.

He clamped down on the acid rising in his throat and checked the rest of the hut. Three more empty rings in the walls. The other hostages, gone. Why had Scott been killed and left? Had he fought the kidnappers? Was his death a message to James Thompson? Wells wished he had a forensic team helping him. Instead he had a headlamp and Wilfred. Who called to him now, urgently.

“John.”

Wells stepped outside. The sun hit him, and before he could stop himself his stomach clenched viciously. Bile coursed through his throat and into his mouth, and he vomited a thin brown muck that the dirt swallowed instantly.

He groped in his pack for a bottle of water. He gulped until his cheeks were full, swished, spat. And again. Rinse and repeat. Anything to hide the angry sour taste. He poured a second bottle over his face and hands, hoping the lukewarm liquid would wash away the stink. As he tilted up his head, he couldn’t help but see the vultures dirtying the sky. Death and its minions were everywhere in this camp.

“Listen,” Wilfred said.

In the distance, to the north: The hive-of-bees buzz of a dirt bike engine revving high. And a second, meshing with the first.

“Coming this way,” Wilfred said. “If we had the Cruiser—”

“We don’t.”

“What then?”

“We kill them.”

“Mzungu. That some sickness. Don’t even know them, what they want—”

“We kill them. Unless you’d rather they kill us.”

10

SOUTHWESTERN SOMALIA

After the man in the black T-shirt made his three-word speech—You’re mine now—Gwen and Hailey and Owen were led into the Range Rover and blindfolded and driven through the silent African night. Gwen felt like she was in a plane that had suddenly spiraled into a dive. She was terrified, but also helpless, and that helplessness distanced her from the insanity that her reality had become. She felt almost as if she were starring in a movie of her life: Taken 2: Africa. Or would that be Taken 2 Africa? Anyway, she wished someone could tell her whether it would have a Lifetime-style happy ending or be more of a downer.

It had been a downer for Scott, for sure. She didn’t want to believe he’d been in on the kidnapping. Maybe he’d had another reason to ask about Suggs. Maybe he was confused, or scared to have a gun pointed at him.

But he hadn’t sounded scared to Gwen. He’d sounded pissed.

Then he’d died.

Gwen had never seen anyone die before. She’d hardly been to any funerals even. Her parents and grandparents were still alive. Two of her mom’s friends had died of cancer, which seemed nasty. You looked bad, then you looked better and everybody got excited and took you out to dinner. Then it came back and your hair fell out and you went into the hospital and turned yellow and died. That was two funerals. And one of her high school classmates had died in a drunk-driving accident. So Gwen wasn’t unfamiliar with the concept of mortality. But she had always had a difficult time believing that death would ever come to her or her immediate family. Especially not since her sister pulled through that car accident. Death was something that happened to other people. People who weren’t as lucky or beautiful or American as she was.

She wanted to believe Scott would be waiting at the next hut. But she couldn’t escape the reality of what she’d seen, the You shot me shock in Scott’s eyes before they glazed over like a shower door closing. No, Scott wouldn’t be apologizing. He had seen his plan, whatever it was, going bad, and he had lost his temper and spouted off. Just like he had a hundred times at frat parties and football games and wherever else he thought he was cool enough to get away with being a jerk. Which was everywhere. Only this time he hadn’t gotten a beer poured over his head. He hadn’t gotten into a slappy sloppy fight that stopped before anybody got hurt. He’d gotten himself killed. He’d learned the hard way that in Africa death wasn’t shy around the young. It didn’t just hang out at nursing homes. It slipped the bouncer a twenty and came to dance at the club.

Yep, Scott was finally the tough guy he’d always pretended to be. Part of Gwen wanted to congratulate him. And ask, by the way, what have you gotten us into? But he wouldn’t be around to answer that question either.

—

They drove awhile. At least an hour. At one point, a prop plane passed overhead. The Range Rover abruptly stopped. They waited in silence for several minutes, then drove on. No explanation.

When they stopped again, Gwen heard men nearby. Her door opened. She was shouldered out of the truck and guided along a rough path. She was still blindfolded and cuffed, and once she stumbled and nearly fell, but a firm hand held her. The path flattened. For a few seconds, Gwen caught the rank odor of raw sewage. Then the stink was gone. Not much later she felt a squeeze on her shoulder. She stopped walking and someone uncuffed her hands and lifted off her blindfold. She found herself with Hailey and Owen in the center of a bush settlement, fifteen or twenty mud-brick huts. No lights. If the place had a generator, it wasn’t running.

Wizard and another man led them to a hut nearby, shined a flashlight inside. Three blankets lay on the ground, along with two pairs of sweat suits. No chains or handcuffs.

“A guard will be outside,” Wizard said. “You need the toilet, you tell him. You go one at a time. You two”—he waved the flashlight at Gwen and Hailey—“wear those”—he pointed at the sweat suits—“when you’re outside. My men are Muslim, and some will be happier if you stay covered. As for food, whatever we eat you’ll eat.”

“We’re not locked in?” Owen said.

“This is Somalia. Believe me, you’re safer with me than anywhere else. We’ll protect you.”

Like you protected Scott, Gwen wanted to say. But she couldn’t see any upside in making this man mad.

“Sir?” Hailey said. “Mr. Wizard? Can we ask you one more question?”

“If it’s not trouble.”

“Are you from the Shabaab?”

Wizard said something to the man with him and they both laughed. “You would like me to be Shabaab? You would feel better?”

“I meant no disrespect.”

“I’m not al-Shabaab. I took you for money. I want to get it and send you back where you belong. But I could sell you to them if you wish. Lots of people want to meet you. Maybe you see all of Somalia. Would you like that?”

“No, sir.”

“Tomorrow morning we take pictures. And email addresses and phone numbers to reach your families.” He handed Owen the flashlight, closed the door, a tin sheet with a half-dozen holes punched for air. They sat in silence as his footsteps faded.

Hailey spoke first. “It makes sense now, the last place.”

Gwen couldn’t see how anything made sense. She lay down and closed her eyes and exhaled softly, all the sadness in the world in that puff of air. Hailey seemed to understand. She took Gwen’s hand in her own. Her palm was warm and sweaty and sweet.

“How do you mean?” Owen said.

“I mean, the Joker’s mask, getting chained up, it felt like overkill. You know, the hoods were awful. But why didn’t they just beat us? It was all this other stuff instead. Like they knew they couldn’t hurt us physically, so they were looking for other ways to scare us. They knew they were going to set us free and they wanted to impress us.”

Gwen hadn’t felt that way at the time, but she saw the truth of what Hailey said. “Scott wanted us to have a crazy story to tell when we got back to Dadaab,” she said.