Dead Centre

‘Yes. There are guys from Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi.’

‘Exactly. And they’ve all got weapons. I’d be dead, and the three I’ve come for would still be prisoners. So I’m not going to do that. I’m going to use my head. First, I make sure that this thing is hidden up so we can escape.’

He thought about it, then nodded.

‘The next thing is to find them. Do you know where they’re being held? You’ve been to this town.’

He looked at me again like I was mad. ‘They’ll be with all the other prisoners. The thieves. The adulterers. The cheats.’

‘So there’s a jail?’

He nodded. ‘The Russians built it. Before I was born.’

The lights of the town were about a kilometre behind us. A light grey arch was growing out of the sea to our right. The sun itself wouldn’t be far behind.

I could just make out the shapes of vessels parked further out on the swell, maybe five or six of them. Dozens of skiffs lined the beach, pulled up away from the water line.

I swung the tiller to take us in. Beyond the skiffs I could make out a procession of scrub-covered dunes, punctuated from time to time by small, dried-up wadis. We could drag the skiff up there and hide it in the dead ground. If it wasn’t there when we got back, or had been compromised, I’d lift a technical or another skiff. Fuck it — I’d worry about that later. I had plenty to do first.

The propeller guard scraped along the bottom. I tilted up the 150 as the bow dug into the sand.

I slung the AK over my shoulder, jumped out and splashed water at Awaale. ‘Come on, mate. Get out and push.’

He clambered out reluctantly. The skiff moved easily up the sand, like a sled. The wadi we pulled it into looked like a golfcourse bunker.

Awaale collapsed alongside it. Like mine, his Timberlands and the bottom of his jeans were wet with seawater and crusted with sand.

‘What are you going to do now, Mr Nick?’

‘I don’t know yet. First I want to confirm they’re in that jail. Then I’ll work out how to get them out. Maybe I’ll do a deal.’

His head shook. ‘It won’t work. Sharia law, that’s all that matters here. They have the freedom to do what they want. The Pakistani guys? As far as they’re concerned, even the Taliban aren’t true Wahhabis.’

I knew those guys. They were hard-core. They made the Taliban look like kindergarten teachers.

‘What are you — Sunni?’

‘Everyone is. Even in this town they are. But al-Shabab are here. So they’re all Wahhabis.’

I made sure my day sack was fastened and the magazine clipped into the AK. ‘OK, let’s go.’

Awaale stayed put, his hands up in front of him like he was begging for food. ‘Mr Nick, please, I do not want to go. We will be killed. Even I will be noticed. I don’t belong here. Look …’ He kept pointing to his lack of facial hair. ‘I’ll stay and look after the boat.’

I took two quick paces and stood over him. ‘We — that’s you and me — are going in there, one way or another. I need your help. You put my friends in the shit, so you’re going to help get them out. Listen, Awaale, I like you, but don’t fucking push it, mate.’

I stopped. This wasn’t going to help. It might piss him off so much he stitched me up with al-Shabab or dropped me in it by running away. Or it might make him too frightened to function. Neither was going to help me.

‘OK, Awaale, listen. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you twenty-five thousand US if you help me get the three of them to Mog airport. That’s all you need to do. Just help me and do what I ask.’

Now I had his attention. His expression changed immediately.

‘Fifty.’

‘No. I said twenty-five. That’s a lot of cash to send to your dad, isn’t it? More than you’d ever earn back there in McDonald’s — and more than the cut you get from Erasto.’

‘Thirty-five.’

‘I’ve told you. Twenty-five. Take it or leave it. I’m going in, mate, and you’re going to be with me, one way or another. Decision time.’

I still had the iPhone in my hand. I started to dial Frank.

It rang just once. I hit the speaker-phone and jumped in before Frank could say anything.

‘I need you to guarantee twenty-five thousand dollars for some assistance. I’ve got a guy here. I need his help. Explain how it would be paid. He’s listening.’

Frank didn’t even take a breath. ‘Twenty-five thousand US, guaranteed. It will be flown into Mogadishu airport in time for the hostage exchange. Now, are we done?’

I took it off speaker-phone and brought it back to my ear. ‘Yes, we are. I’ll call you when I have anything.’

I closed down the iPhone and tucked it back into my day sack. ‘You ready?’

He stood up. ‘I would have come with you anyway, Mr Nick. I just needed you to know how dangerous it is.’

‘Do you want to pray before we go? We’ve got a couple of minutes before sun-up.’

He thought about it and nodded. He turned towards Mogadishu. Qibla was north in this part of the world.

Awaale stood in his Western gear and bling and raised his hands up to his shoulders, feet slightly apart, in preparation for takbiratul ihram. He mumbled away gently to himself. Maybe he did it every day, in between the beer and the girls, or maybe he was just getting a quick one in to hedge his bets.

‘Allahu-akbar.’

God is great.

Maybe. But so was the AK on my shoulder, and I knew which one I trusted more.

19

My Timberlands sank into the sand. Awaale was slowly catching up.

‘Why are you scared, Awaale?’

‘I’m not.’

‘That’s good. We have work to do. A lot of work.’

He took a couple of quicker steps to draw level with me. I kept my eyes on the way ahead. I was a white man on the East African coast. That kind of news would travel like wildfire if I was spotted.

‘The man on the cell, Mr Nick?’

‘He’s the one who sent me. Like I said, I’m here partly for friendship and partly for work. The mother and the man who’s in there with them — I know them really well.’

‘But who is he? On the cell?’

‘He’s the father of that child. So that’s how it works. I must help them. And I’m getting paid, like you.’

‘The man with them is not the husband?’

‘No.’

With the sun now up I could see more clearly. Four big commercial cargo ships rode at anchor, dwarfing even the largest of the yachts beside them.

We started moving through scrub. The sand here was mixed with sticky seed pods and bits of twig and stone. As we approached the outskirts of Merca I went into a stoop, using the brush as cover. The town was waking. Cockerels went berserk. Dogs barked. Nearly all the buildings were one-storey concrete or breezeblock structures with tin or flat roofs, arranged on a grid. There was a lot of cobalt blue going on, on the roofs and walls as well as the clothes-lines.

Long shadows appeared as the sun rose from the sea. The narrow streets would keep the shade for a while longer. Nearly every dwelling had its morning fire burning. Smoke curled from stubby chimneys. High walls sheltered