“A town, anything.”
“Never been to Somalia. Never been and never will. What else?”
Wells wondered if the other women might have more information. Or maybe the shopkeeper who bought the smuggled sugar. But before he could say anything else, the back door of the hoteli popped open and a man came out with a pistol loose in his hand, a dumb sideways grip.
“Police.”
The guy wore a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. But Wells had seen firsthand that Kenyan cops didn’t always wear uniforms. Anyway, the pistol was real enough. Wells had left his weapons in the Cruiser. He thought about disarming the guy. Then heard a second man approaching from behind, the back corner of the hoteli. This one held an AK.
Wells raised his hands. “These real police?” he murmured to Julia.
She ignored him, walked to the man in the jeans, kissed him full on the mouth. He looped his left hand around her ass, squeezed through the dress. When he let go, she walked inside without as much as a wave to Wells. “I thought we were friends,” he said.
“Hands on the wall,” the guy in jeans said.
Wells did as he was told. He wondered if James Thompson had come to and convinced the Kenyan police to arrest him. But Thompson didn’t know where he was. More likely the cops had simply heard he was at the hoteli, decided to check him out.
“I’m sorry, sir. Is something wrong?”
“Name.”
“John Wells. I have the right permits, if you’re wondering.” Though Wells had a feeling those papers wouldn’t do much good here.
“Did you leave your driver Mr. Wilfred Wumbugu at the King Fahad Infirmary?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us what happened to him.”
“He shot himself. An accident. I taped him up to stop the bleeding and brought him in.”
The officer stepped close, raised his arm. A moment later, the pistol crashed into Wells’s ribs. A silver spur of pain ran up his right side. His knees buckled. He steadied himself, controlled his breathing.
“The truth this time.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
This time Wells relaxed as the pistol hit, twisted away a fraction. Still the cop made solid contact and Wells felt his ribs waggle under the blow.
“The clinic doctor says that Mr. Wumbugu couldn’t have shot himself. Admit you shot him.”
The accusation didn’t make sense. If Wells had shot Wilfred, why would he take him to the hospital? Or pay the doctor fifteen thousand—
Then Wells thought of the naked greed that had flashed through the doctor’s eyes when Wells pulled out his roll of cash. The doctor had told the cops about the money, and they were shaking him down. He couldn’t even blame them. To them, he was another foolish mzungu carrying more cash than he or anyone needed. Fine. They wanted money, they could have it. As long as they’d let him go.
“I’m sure we can work this out. What does Wilfred say?”
“Doctor say that Mr. Wumbugu can’t talk. He in too much pain. Meantime, we gon’ hold you.”
Wells couldn’t lose the night to these two. He wondered if he should tell them what had really happened this afternoon at the camp. But the Kenyan police were invested in the story that Shabaab was behind the kidnapping. The cops would accuse him of lying, lock him up until someone senior told them what to do.
Wells chanced a quick look over his shoulder. He thought he could take the pistol off the cop behind him. But the other had him covered with the AK.
The cop leaned close enough for Wells to smell the Tusker on his breath. He ran his hands up Wells’s legs, around his waist. The money was in the right front pocket of Wells’s jeans, so if the cop wanted it now he would have to get intimate—
“What’s this?”
“Money.”
“How much?”
“Funny question for a felony investigation, isn’t it?” Wells braced himself for another smack, but the cop was too focused on the money to notice.
“Take it out, give it to me.”
Wells handed it over.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
The steel cuffs snapped tight around his wrists.
—
The men in front of the hoteli chattered to him in Swahili as the cops frog-marched him along. Wells guessed they weren’t wishing him luck. Fortunately, the Land Cruiser still had half a tank of gas and two five-gallon jerricans in the back. Wilfred had insisted on the extra fuel, and Wells was glad for it now. If he could get to the Toyota, he could get a long way from here. But first he had to shuck these cops. He didn’t want to kill them, either. They were in the way and corrupt, but those weren’t capital crimes.
The station’s main room had two steel desks back-to-back and tatty maps of the region taped over concrete walls. An anticorruption poster featured a smiling female officer in a fresh blue uniform:
The cops marched Wells to a corner and cuffed his right arm to a chain dangling from the wall. He had two pieces of furniture: a scuffed wooden stool for sitting, and a plastic bucket for a toilet. Wells realized that his mouth was dry, his belly empty. He hadn’t eaten since he’d thrown up this afternoon. The hyenas and the firefight seemed to belong to another world. The cop with the AK disappeared through a door at the back of the room. The other parked himself at a desk and counted the money he’d taken, taking his time, snapping off each bill, smoothing it flat against the desktop. Either he didn’t care that Wells was watching this blatant theft, or he wanted Wells to see.
Finally, he tucked it into a plastic bag.
“Evidence.”
“Take it,” Wells said. “I don’t care.”
The cop reached under his desk and came up with two big bottles of Tusker. He popped the tops and flicked them at Wells and walked into the back room, humming to himself, leaving Wells alone, locked in a corner, staring at the clock mounted high on the wall above the torn poster. Every tick mocked his uselessness.
14
LOWER JUBA REGION,
SOUTHWESTERN SOMALIA
Little Wizard wondered what hidden devils these wazungu had brought to his camp.
In his mind the plan had seemed simple enough. Hide them away, arrange a ransom. Use his half brother Bahdoon as a go-between to contact their families. Wizard didn’t want to email the pictures himself. Lower Juba had only a few Internet connections, and he knew the Americans could track these things. Bahdoon lived in Eastleigh, the giant Somali slum in Nairobi. He got by as a small-time miraa dealer. Wizard imagined he’d be glad to make a thousand dollars passing along a few messages. Wizard had decided to ask for one million for each hostage. Waaberi, his lieutenant, had suggested five million dollars, but Wizard didn’t want to be greedy.
The ransom wouldn’t take long to arrange. Once he and the Americans agreed on a price, he would tell them to deliver the money to Abukar, his old clan leader in Mogadishu, a tall man, thin as a stick, with one eye and three wives. Wizard had never been part of a kidnapping before, but he knew how they worked. Everyone in Somalia knew. The payment came in cash, bundles of twenty- and hundred-dollar bills. Sometimes the wazungu brought the
