money to shore in Mogadishu on boats thick with guns. Sometimes they flew it in on the charter jets that the United Nations ran. Once it arrived, a clan leader took it, and with it the duty of ensuring the hostages would be freed unharmed.
In exchange the leader kept one-third of the money. Of course, everyone involved had to operate on faith. But Wizard trusted Abukar. He’d worked as a middleman before, and anyway, two of Wizard’s cousins still fought for him. After Wizard received his share from Abukar, he would leave the hostages at the border with a phone and a few liters of water. They could figure the rest out themselves. Then he would break his camp, tell his soldiers to head to Dadaab in small groups that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. In a month, everyone would forget the kidnapping and they could come back to Lower Juba. He’d have plenty of money to take on the Dita Boys.
—
Swarming the camp in Kenya had been easy. The men there were amateurs. They’d come running into the open as Wizard’s soldiers crashed down on them from three sides. Not one White Man had been killed or wounded.
But then Wizard found the wazungu. And the devil found him. That stupid white boy spoke to him like he was nothing, nothing at all. Even at the time, Wizard told himself to control his temper. Killing whites caused trouble. But he couldn’t tolerate the boy’s sneer, his disrespect. He gave his pistol its freedom.
The other three came quietly after that. But Wizard knew the Americans would be angry when they learned what had happened. More than angry. They might refuse to pay.
Back in the camp that night, Wizard lay in his cot and traced a finger over the scar in his stomach. He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t sleep. He was awake at dawn when Waaberi came in to tell him that a sentry named Hussein, a runt of a boy, had missed two radio checks. Wizard ordered a search, but his men found nothing, not a body or a scrap of clothing.
“Was the Ditas,” Waaberi said. “Telling us, they know we’re here, can come for us whenever.”
Wizard hated to think that the Ditas had snatched one of his men. He hated even more the possibility that Hussein had defected on his own. Hussein knew how many fighters and weapons the White Men had, what routes their sentries walked, where they’d hidden fighting posts. And he knew about the wazungu. Awaale wouldn’t pass up a chance at that prize. He’d come after the White Men double-quick.
“We going to move the sentries about. And put out the word. Everybody be ready. This serious now.”
“Done.”
“Done and done.” Their lingo for an order given and received.
—
When Waaberi left, Wizard turned to the next step in his plan, calling Bahdoon. But Bahdoon didn’t bite.
“One thousand U.S. to send a few emails and you saying no?”
“You not here. You don’t see. The Kenyans making much much noise on these hostages. Every minute on the radio and TV. GSU in Eastleigh. Patrolling up and down. Asking, anybody know anything. Saying if they catch a man who knows and didn’t tell, they take him and beat him until his legs and arms is broke. Then leave him in Kibera for the poor ones to do in.”
“Words only, man. GSU don’t know nothing. Never heard of the Wizard. You don’t tell them, then they never know. They have no juju on me, Bahdoon.”
“You have such magic, how come you in the desert eating snakes? Get someone else. Leave Bahdoon alone.”
“I tell you what. I give you ten thousand U.S. when the money come. Not one. Ten.”
“How I going to get away with this?”
“You know how. Find a place with nobody watching, make a new account, send the emails, get ten thousand dollars. Double-safe.”
“I do it for fifty.”
“My brother.”
“Americans promising one hundred thousand if somebody help them out, tell them where the hostages are.”
“One hundred thousand shillings?”
“One hundred thousand dollars. You didn’t hear?”
Wizard hadn’t heard. He wondered what else he hadn’t heard. “They lying.”
“I want fifty from you. You asking one million each. Fifty is nothing.”
Wizard didn’t have a choice. Bahdoon was the only one he could trust to do this job, who wouldn’t take the pictures to the Americans and give him up for a reward. “Fifty, then. You rascal.”
“Too easy, Wizard. I should have said one hundred. Send me them snaps.”
So Wizard woke up the wazungu, took their pictures, sent them mobile-to-mobile. Back into his hut, he closed his eyes, tried to catch a few minutes of the sleep he’d missed. Maybe he could dream the devil away.
—
His phone woke him. It was Muhammad, a good soldier and one he trusted. Days before, when Wizard heard where the hostages were, he’d sent Muhammad and three others to watch the road from Dadaab to Ijara for police or anyone who might make trouble. They slept in the bush, hung around Bakafi during the day.
But the road stayed quiet. The Kenyan police had an outpost, but they left it only to drink Tusker and pick up whores at the hoteli. Wizard didn’t know why the Kenyans weren’t looking harder. Whatever the reason, their laziness was one reason he’d decided attacking the camp was a safe bet.
Now someone must have showed up. Muhammad wouldn’t call in daytime otherwise.
“Muhammad.”
“Wizard. A mzungu and his driver come through.”
“American?”
“Don’t know.”
“What kind of car?”
“Cruiser.”
“Just one?”
“Yah. They stop, talk awhile. Now they driving again.”
“Back to Dadaab.”
“No, man. South. Toward the camp.”
“You got pics.”
“Yah.”
“Send them.”
“You want me to watch them?”
Wizard figured the man was driving to the spot where the Americans had first been taken. No way could he find the camp the White Men had hit. It was just four buildings, and hidden in a little valley miles from any road. But if he did find it somehow, he couldn’t be allowed to tell anyone.
“Give them space. Lest they find the camp. Then get them.”
“Kill them?”
“Catch them, kill them, either one.”
“Done and done.”
—
Finally, Bahdoon called with good news. “Cousin. They hit me back. All three. They say, please let them go, don’t hurt them, don’t shoot them, they didn’t do nothing, they good wazungu, came to Africa to help, please please, all that.”
The appeals might have meant more to Wizard if his own mother and father hadn’t been killed by a stray shell fired by African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu when he was ten. “All that. What about paying?”
“They want proof the pictures real. The wazungu got to give you a secret. Like, what they favorite color? What they favorite food to eat?”
“Favorite
“It what they want.”
So Wizard asked the three for a secret and sent the answers to Bahdoon. Next email he’d tell about the one million dollars. He knew he ought to make sure Abukar would take the ransom for him first. But Wizard wasn’t ready
