before he got the good news. The driver slumped motionless against the steering wheel.
I gave it one more burst in case any of his mates were still inside. Fuel must have been leaking from a ruptured tank. The tracer ignited it. The whole area was suddenly a riot of yellow and orange. Lucky’s infantry turned and fired back from the flickering shadows.
Instead of standing back in case they were needed, Awaale’s second technical rumbled forwards and kept right on going. The only area that didn’t get raked with fire was the ground beneath the gunner’s feet.
I kept my fire to the right, taking on any hint of enemy movement. There was shit on down there but no one cared. Both sides fired like gangsters, side on, with their AKs in the air. I stopped and let them get on with it. My nose filled with the stink of cordite. The barrel was smoking hot.
I clambered down and waved at the driver and his sidekick. ‘Let’s go, lads. Chop-chop.’ I clapped my hands. We had to move on. I had a meeting to go to.
I climbed into the cab. My two new recruits hauled themselves onto the flatbed.
We thundered down the hill. It was well past time to get the fuck out of there and get on with my day job. We closed on the killing zone. I drove past the doorway where I’d gripped Awaale. I made a left turn at the junction, slow and wide enough to make sure the gun had enough play to point where it was most needed. I thrust my hand out of the window and gesticulated wildly. ‘That way, mate. That way.’ I doubted he’d hit anything, but at least he wouldn’t be aiming at me.
We spotted his crew almost immediately. They were dragging three bodies from behind a wall. They shared the cigarettes they’d lifted from the dead men’s pockets and loaded Lucky’s weapons onto the unarmed technical.
Awaale was nowhere to be seen. I started flapping. If I lost my English speaker, I was fucked. I picked up the handset. ‘Awaale. Where are you, mate? We’re back at the junction. Where are you?’
Silence.
‘Awaale?’
Then I heard my own voice coming from the burnt-out shell of a building.
11
He clambered out of what had once been a window. He was a very happy boy. ‘We killed some, Mr Nick, and the others turned and ran. No Lucky Justice, but this is still a good day. We’ll do this again. And again. Lucky’s crew will get the message. The general’s crew are back in town.’
He thrust up his bloodstained palm, inviting me to give him a high-five through the window. I fucking hated high-fives.
‘You’re right, Awaale. If Lucky’s still alive, you can see why he was given the name. Now, can we go and see my friends? I really need to know they’re safe.’
His boys were busy mutilating the bodies with knives, rocks, and then a burst of AK for good measure. The corpses were left behind; they were the message Awaale was talking about.
I slipped into the back of Awaale’s technical. Awaale wiped his hands clean on his trousers and resumed his place in front. Music blared from every cab. AK rounds stitched another message into the sky. Every mobile within reach sparked up, in case anyone hadn’t already heard the news.
As the lead wagon joined the celebration, green tracer snaked from the muzzle of its 12.7. The gunner lost control as they bounced back through the potholes and pummelled the buildings four hundred metres away.
Awaale didn’t seem to mind. ‘Mr Nick, that was good, yes? We kicked the ass, oh, yes indeed.’ He pulled the Marlboro pack from his sweat-soaked shirt and offered me one. When I shook my head he slapped the driver gleefully on the shoulder. He laughed, and his white teeth gleamed.
Everybody had had a great night out. Well, apart from the lad whose body now lay on the flatbed behind us. There was a curious innocence to their violence. There was no anger. They seemed to bear no hatred towards Lucky’s crew. Killing and maiming wasn’t an outrageous act to them. It was what they did. It was all they knew. They had no boundaries. And that was what made them so dangerous.
I leant forward. ‘You did really well, Awaale. I think your father will be very proud of you.’
‘I know. I know he will be.’
He pulled out his mobile, hit the speed dial and was soon waffling away. He sounded as excited as a child. I didn’t need to be a Somali speaker to understand the facial expressions and the boom-boom-boom. There were nods of agreement from the driver, and I twice heard my name.
Awaale turned to me with the world’s biggest grin and handed me the phone. ‘It’s my father, speak to him.’
‘What’s his name?’
He looked puzzled. ‘Awaale, of course.’
Of course.
To start with, I could just hear a female voice announcing that the Northwest flight from Chicago had been delayed. Minneapolis was eight hours behind. It must have been about midday there.
‘Hello, Mr Nick. My son tells me that you have helped him to do great deeds today. You’ve made me a very proud father.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re there to buy back your loved ones, yes?’
‘Yes. I’m hoping your son will be able to help me. Maybe you can too. One of them is the wife of a dead warrior. One of them is a small boy, a little boy. I know you’re a brave man, a famous man here in this city. Will you be able to help me?’
The Tannoy came to his rescue. The Jet Blue from LaGuardia had landed.
‘Mr Nick, I have to go. My passenger has arrived. Please tell my son I love him.’
He rang off. I passed the phone to Awaale. ‘Your father says he loves you.’
‘I know. I love him too. He’s a great man.’
It was smiles all round in the front of the cab as we drove past the Olympic Hotel. The streets came alive with movement and light. Everybody had a weapon. It was like we’d just come back from a carnival, all on a high, and we were the three winning floats.
12
We were soon passing the airport. The same guards sat on the wall and smoked under the hand-painted sign. They didn’t even look up as our convoy drove by. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil was the secret of survival round here.
Only the shells of once-great buildings remained each side of the boulevard. In this part of town, even the trees were fucked. Maybe this was what the Italian Riviera would have looked like if it had been carpet-bombed in the Second World War. This had to be the old city, where the Italians and other ex-pats had hung out on the beach in their all-in-one bathing suits in the 1920s. Now there wasn’t even a dog to be seen. It was a ghost town.
We bounced over mortar craters and potholes, slaloming to avoid big lumps of concrete picked out by our headlamps. They provided the only source of light in this part of town.
Awaale started gobbing off on his mobile again. I wasn’t sure how anyone would hear anything that was being said. The driver waffled away. The music blared. Awaale closed down and shouted, ‘Nearly there, Mr Nick.’
We bumped over what was left of the central reservation, down a side road and into a large square with an empty concrete plinth at its centre. It would once have borne a statue of a Somali puppet dictator or an Italian general with a hat full of plumes. Bodies were silhouetted against the flames of a fire beside it.
As we got closer, I saw we were inside a compound of sorts. Stacks of tyres filled the missing doors and windows of a large colonial building. There was movement inside.
