Crossbones

16

ON THE DAY OF MALIK’S LUNCH APPOINTMENT WITH MA-GABADEH, Dajaal is indisposed, so he sends Qasiir in his place to drive. In addition, Qasiir has taken on the responsibility of setting up a special security detail before coming to fetch Malik. He has no doubt that Ma-Gabadeh will take his own precautionary measures. It is to this end that Qasiir has selected four of his trusted sidekicks, former lieutenants of his, who are prepared to remain inconspicuous and not to provoke a fight with Ma-Gabadeh’s guard unit. They will situate themselves in the vicinity of the restaurant where Malik has rented a private alcove. Discreetly armed, they are to hang around and to report on any usual movements. One of them is to be stationed at the entrance to the alcove. The big challenge has been to keep Gumaad ignorant of the security detachment, given that he arranged the meeting.

Loosely translated, Ma-Gabadeh means “the fearless one.” Gumaad has described Ma-Gabadeh as a major underwriter of a handful of daring piratical expeditions out of Xarardheere, hometown of both Gumaad and Ma-Gabadeh. In addition to sponsoring these “privateers,” Ma-Gabadeh is allegedly bankrolling a string of activities in which his men collaborate with a Shabaab unit charged with bringing Yemeni and Pakistani operatives into Somalia by boat. It is rumored that the pirates bring the foreign jihadis into the Somali peninsula, and in exchange receive weapons and protection in the coastal areas under Shabaab control. It is all shady stuff. Gumaad has made it sound as if it will be a scoop, Malik’s first, since Ma-Gabadeh has agreed to talk on tape.

Malik is not coping well on his own, with Jeebleh gone and Dajaal sick. He misses the certainty of these two men, one or the other always by his side and willing to answer his questions, challenge his decisions, or offer advice. Granted, Qasiir and Gumaad know things he doesn’t about Somalia, having lived here all their lives. But he knows many things about Somalia of which they have no idea, because he has sought the information and obtained and read it, and he cannot take eiither of them as seriously as he would Jeebleh or Dajaal. But he has coped with worse situations before.

With Qasiir at the wheel, Gumaad is in a feisty mood. Unprompted, he says, “We’ll singe the hairs off their heads if they come.”

“Who are we talking about?” Malik asks.

“Who else, the Ethiopians of course, and their lackeys, the so-called Federal Government,” he replies. “We’ll teach the Ethiopians a lesson the Eritreans haven’t taught them, when they invade.”

Qasiir looks from Malik to Gumaad. “In times of war, you need to act grown up. There is talk and there is war. It is high time you tell the difference between the two.”

“And I’ll tell you what,” Gumaad says.

“What?”

“TheSheikh has assured me that I’ll be appointed to the position of spokesman of the Courts the moment the first bullet is shot by either party.”

Qasiir roars with derisory laughter. “Get away. You can’t be serious. How can anyone appoint you to the position when you have little English, do not speak any other European language, and have only a couple of short articles to your name?”

“I’ll make you eat your words one day.”

“We’ve had enough of your fibbing.”

Malik pleads, “Please. Let peace reign.”

To Malik’s relief, Gumaad desists from saying anything offensive or provocative from then on; Qasiir’s behavior becomes agreeable, too. Malik, who doesn’t see himself as a peacemaker, is relieved that so far his intercession has worked well.

As they approach their destination, Malik asks Gumaad to put Ma-Gabadeh in his civil war context, since nothing in Somalia makes sense until one places it in the “before,” “after,” and “during” of that frame of reference.

Gumaad obliges. “Ma-Gabadeh was a junior clerk in the Accountancy Department of the Ministry of Fisheries,” he says.

“He was no junior clerk and you know it,” Qasiir says. “He was a peon who worked his way by dint of coercion up to the rank of head janitor, and was eventually assigned an office. But he was no clerk. The fellow doesn’t know how to read or write.”

Dreading the thought of getting bogged down over whether Ma-Gabadeh was a junior clerk or head janitor, Malik urges Gumaad, “Please continue.”

“Anyhow,” Gumaad says, “he was at the desk managing the Somali-owned, Italian-funded SHIFCO — an acronym for Somali High-seas International Fishing Company — charged with exploiting Somalia’s marine resources. SHIFCO, set up by the last central government, owned a dozen trawlers. A couple of them are still operational, although more than half the original number have been lost, several of them confiscated by Kenya and other countries for nonpayment of dues, others because of lack of maintenance.”

After the collapse of the country’s state structures, Gumaad goes on to explain, Ma-Gabadeh returned to Xarardheere, where he built a business partnership with an Italian fishing firm with whom he had dealt before in his Ministry of Fisheries capacity. He issued a backdated license to the Italian firm, a license that was to be valid for three years. Then he relocated to Mogadiscio and, once there, struck an alliance with StrongmanSouth, who was on the run then. From the proceeds, Ma-Gabadeh established a frozen-food company centered on the fishing business, harvesting lobster and exporting it to Italy.

Following the death of StrongmanSouth, Ma-Gabadeh entered into a more lucrative alliance with StrongmanSouth’s former financier, the man accused of killing the warlord and heading up a breakaway faction. Ma-Gabadeh then fell out with the Italian fishing firm, and to recover the assets in dispute, took two of their ships and crew hostage. He released the ships on payment of large sums of money, with which he funded an armed militia unit based in Xarardheere and specializing in the hijacking of the ships.

During the past few years, Ma-Gabadeh has diversified his business operations, branching out into the importation of qaat from Kenya and the exportation of charcoal from Somalia to the Gulf States. In addition, he runs other moneymaking ventures, many of them illegal. A heavyweight businessman with some fifty gun-mounted Technicals, he has lately thrown in his lot with the Courts, whom he backs with funds, and to whom he offers his thousand-strong armed militia whenever he is called upon to do so.

The car slows down and Qasiir heads into the hotel parking lot. He pulls around to the rear of the hotel and turns to Gumaad. “Since you know Ma-Gabadeh well,” Qasiir says, “please go ahead. Malik and I will join you in a minute in the hotel foyer, as arranged.”

Miffed because he senses Qasiir is making a point of putting him at a distance, Gumaad does as advised, but not without making his feelings known. “He’s a busy man, Ma-Gabadeh is, and he won’t want to be made to wait.”

After he leaves, Qasiir goes over the security arrangements he has put in place and points out where a couple of his men are. He phones his men to make sure they are in their proper positions, then he cuts the engine and they step out together and walk side by side into the hotel, pretending to chat while Qasiir takes the measure of his surroundings, eyes darting this way and that. He nods discreetly to his two men at the entrance to the hotel, as they stride into the foyer.

Inside, there is a market feel to the place. The foyer is spacious and bathed in sunlight, yet it feels cramped, because it is thronged with people standing around and talking loudly, and it is also crowded with furniture that strikes him as belonging to a different period. When Qasiir moves, Malik follows him closely, but he finds he has to pause often to avoid colliding with people. Gumaad is standing with two other men in a huddle near the reception — a one-desk affair manned by three men, two of them in uniform and all of them focusing watchfully on the threesome’s movements.

They join Gumaad and he makes brief introductions, naming them in order of importance. “Here is Ma-Gabadeh. Meet Malik. Malik, meet Fee-Jigan, a journalist.”

Malik takes Ma-Gabadeh’s short-fingered hand, and then his own hand vanishes in its entirety into Fee-Jigan’s long-fingered shake.

Ma-Gabadeh says, “Shall we?”

Qasiir leads the way to the alcove. Following on his heels, Ma-Gabadeh duckwalks and sidesteps to make room for Malik to walk alongside him. He is a short man, balding, mustachioed, boasting a prominent paunch and a chinless face. His arms sway at his sides in rhythm with his hips. Ma-Gabadeh makes an immediate impression on Malik: that he is the type of man who comes to an engagement with a drawn face and leaves it with a smile when he has convinced himself that he has made a killing large enough to warrant the risk involved. Otherwise, what is in it for him to talk to a journalist? Despite the sweet expansive smile, which is probably part of a repertoire he deploys on occasions such as this, Malik finds nothing genial about him.

Fee-Jigan has on a baggy pair of khaki trousers, and his sandals are missing a buckle. Tall and slim, he is a big-eyed man in his mid-thirties, with ears almost as large as saucers. His handshake is firm, his smile charming. Malik is eager not to alienate him unnecessarily, assuming that he is an ally of Ma-Gabadeh’s.

He asks, “Are you a print or radio journalist?”

“I am a recent returnee from Cairo,” Fee-Jigan replies, “where I was a simultaneous interpreter in Arabic and English. Here I am a stringer for several Arabic wire services. I also report and do the occasional feed for Al Jazeera.”

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”

As if to further impress Malik with his importance, he says, “I have the ambition to write a book about Somalia. In fact, I’ve already done the first couple of chapters.”

“But that is wonderful,” Malik says.

Fee-Jigan has the habit of grinning every time his and Malik’s eyes make contact. If there is something that unnerves Malik, it is this: Why does it feel as though he is in the company of a head of state with his retinue, not a mere funder of pirates?

At the entrance to the alcove, Ma-Gabadeh dismisses Gumaad and Qasiir with a wave of his hand. Malik notes the discreetly armed men loitering in the vicinity. In the alcove, the air conditioners are on, and three young men are working the table, the food already laid out, the colorful drinks poured, the large knives sharp as a butcher’s. Ma-Gabadeh ejaculates, “Bismillah,” and, waiting for no further formalities, immediately takes his seat and heaps mountains of rice and mutton on his plate, then takes hold of a knife and begins to slice off mouthfuls of the meat. Time is money to Ma-Gabadeh; it is obvious he doesn’t waste it on eating. Fee-Jigan keeps up with him, and begins eating just as quickly.

A slow eater, Malik lags behind, afraid of boring them.

Ma-Gabadeh teases Malik, “Why was I told that in America you do everything fast, eat standing and on the run, in buses, trains, and offices?”

Embarrassed, Malik gives up eating. The table is cleared forthwith.

Buoyed by the presence of two witnesses, Ma-Gabadeh is true to his sobriquet, fearlessly agreeing for their conversation to be taped, on condition that he receives copies of the interview when it is published. He explains to Malik that he has invited Fee-Jigan to join them to answer some of the questions, as he has done research on the topic. Anyhow, “Two heads are better than one.”

Malik asks, “To what do you owe your success?”

“I am the success.”

Malik is ill prepared for this sort of talk. Not only does he disagree with the intent of the statement, but he finds it smacks of cockiness with a terrible sting in its tail.

“Please explain your meaning,” he says.

“I was born poor in a small hamlet,” Ma-Gabadeh says, “to parents who hadn’t a cent to spare for my education. Luckily, I knew I wanted to make it in the bigger world and had the ambition to match my wish. I started off as a junior clerk, and within a year was promoted to a section head in the Ministry of Fisheries, and within a couple more years I headed a service. I was on the verge of being made a head of department when the civil war erupted. I achieved what I achieved on my own, with little or no help from anyone. Let’s face it: I, too, like many others, contributed to the creation of the crisis and then profited from the turmoil. Turbulence upsets things, sends the dregs to the top. We are enjoying the turmoil and are unfettered by tax laws, a parliament issuing decrees, a dictator passing edicts, a government declaring draconian measures: the ideal situation for growth of capital.”

Malik asks, “Are you different from those born in the same hamlet as you, who were raised in more or less the same poverty?”

“There is no poverty worse than the poverty of many of the coastal areas in the northeast of Somalia,” Ma-Gabadeh says, and then corrects himself. “Except for the places where there are deepwater ports. There are no tarred roads, no developed forms of communication, no transportation by land or even by sea. The region I come from has suffered total neglect, from the days of Italian colonialism onward. Since the collapse of the state, things have become much worse, because of the foreign vessels fishing illegally in our seas. So we have nothing to eat, no fish to fish. Think about it.”

“Where were you when the state collapsed?”

“When the state collapsed, I was in Mogadiscio — a small, honest cog in a state machine, part of a bigger machine. I served my country until the engine of the state of which I was a mere cog ceased to run, because our president had fled in an army tank. Then I went home, depressed.”

“What did you do then?”

“I sent my wife home to Guriceel, her hometown.”

“Where is your wife now, as we speak?”

“She is in the States, an American citizen.”

“And where are your children?”

“They are with her; Americans, too.”

“What did you do after sending your wife home?”

“Jobless for several months, I contacted an Italian I knew and proposed he and I go into the lobster business together. I had at my disposal some of the old files, because I had saved them from the looters who were setting fire to the buildings after emptying them of computers and furniture. To cook up a deal with some of my old mates, I moved to Bosaso and linked up with them. We were fired up to provide employment for people, hired a thousand or so unemployed fishermen. Soon enough we started to export shiploads of lobster and other precious fish to Italy. When we became big enough to set up freezing facilities of our own, I moved my base to Mogadiscio. Not long after, we found that ships flying flags from faraway places — Korea, Japan, Spain, Russia, Yemen, China, Belize, Bermuda, Liberia, and a handful of countries you couldn’t place on a map — were in our seas, plundering our fish and destroying their habitat. Bear in mind that our waters contained huge fishing potential — Somalia has the longest coastline in Africa.”

Fee-Jigan interjects, “It is over thirty-three hundred kilometers long, and there are special features found in and around Ras Hafun, where there used to be an abundance of the largest variety of fish at certain periods of the year.”

Ma-Gabadeh continues. “Anyway, upset by what these illegal fishing vessels were doing, we apprehended a trawler with a dummy registration in Kenya that was fishing inside Somali waters near the town of Garcad. The trawler was fined, the proceeds were shared out among the community of fishermen. After this, the foreign trawlers hired local militiamen, arming them, to protect their illegal fishing. The more numerous and the bigger the vessels, the more destruction they caused. We counted five to seven thousand professional fishermen, and not one of them could make a living. This was a no-win situation, and I quit.”

Malik asks if Ma-Gabadeh has been engaged in funding some of the “piracy” acts taking place off the coast of Somalia.

Ma-Gabadeh replies, “I am an honest businessman, earn my money in an honest way, and spend what I must spend honestly. Granted, I give charitably to honest causes.”

“Would you consider funding the Courts in their fight against the warlords a charitable activity worth funding?” Malik asks.

Fee-Jigan intervenes. “It would be unwise for Ma-Gabadeh to specify the institutions to which he contributes charitably. That is between him and his Creator.”

Malik tries again. “What are your links to the pirates?”

Ma-Gabadeh replies, “I’ve said I am an honest man, I make honest money, and spend the honest money I make on honest causes. I have no links with the pirates.”

“Nor with Shabaab?”

“Nor with Shabaab.”

“Nor have you ever funded Shabaab?”

As if on cue, Ma-Gabadeh’s mobile phone rings. He glances at it, then, turning, trains an angry stare on Fee-Jigan, who for his part is stagily looking away, fingers nonchalantly drumming on the table, his humming audible. Malik can’t make sense of the goings-on, especially because Ma-Gabadeh behaves as though he is at once miffed, shocked, and disappointed. As if weighing his options, Ma-Gabadeh hands over his mobile phone to Malik and says, as if Fee-Jigan is not there, “Look at what this hapless fool, Fee-Jigan, is doing.” He shakes his head in disapproval. “I hate his sort. Filthy cowards.”

Malik turns to look at Fee-Jigan, who still acts as if he doesn’t know what Ma-Gabadeh is on about. This in turn makes Ma-Gabadeh still more irate. He explains to Malik, “When he and I met in the hotel foyer before your arrival, Fee-Jigan suggested he would ring me on his mobile phone if you put an embarrassing question to me, so I might justifiably terminate our conversation and say that I was called away to attend an emergency business meeting. I told him to do no such thing and to make sure that he did not make a fool of us. Yet here he is and he has done precisely that — turned us into a laughingstock.”

Fee-Jigan fidgets and, remorseful, narrows his eyes in sorry concentration. He lowers his head and then the rest of his body, as if going on his knees in apology. His voice almost a whisper, he says, “My phone was in my pocket and it must have dialed itself.”

Ma-Gabadeh says, “You are a fool and a liar.”

The tape recorder is on, registering every word.

Ma-Gabadeh then asks Fee-Jigan, “Tell it all on tape, you dishonest, filthy dog, if you do not want me to have my men slit your throat. Confess it on tape. Speak, and speak loud!”

“It’s my fault,” Fee-Jigan says. “Everything.”

“Go on and tell him what I told you before we came here.”

Fee-Jigan says, with abject humility, “You said that if you were displeased with a question the journalist put to you, you would exercise your right to refuse to answer, or might take the option of answering it on condition he rephrase his question.”

Ma-Gabadeh turns to Malik. “You see, Malik, how very difficult it is to stay honest in a world that is becoming more dishonest by the second and in which those whom you trust continue to let you down. What do you suggest we do about the world? You are better educated and wiser than I am. What do you suggest we do about people’s dishonesty?”

Ma-Gabadeh gathers his things, rises to his feet, calls his bodyguards on the phone, and tells them to have the car waiting in the rear of the hotel. Departing, Ma-Gabadeh says, “You’ll hear from me.”

Malik is not certain to whom Ma-Gabadeh’s parting words are addressed, or what to make of them. They could be interpreted, if they are addressed to Malik, as meaning, “I’ll get in touch with you.” Equally, they could be communicating a warning—“I’ll be gunning for you from here on,” if Fee-Jigan is their intended recipient. But what if Ma-Gabadeh is intending to warn Malik off, since he is the one who is asking sensitive questions about funding Shabaab, the very question that precipitated the set-to between Fee-Jigan and Ma-Gabadeh?

When he is gone, Malik sends a brief text to Qasiir: “All well.”

Then Fee-Jigan leans forward, his hand outstretched as if in friendship, almost touching Malik’s wrist. Maybe the man wishes to clear his name, Malik thinks.

Fee-Jigan says, “I am sure that was a piece of theater unlike any you’ve seen in your wanderings as a foreign correspondent. Not too bad, was it?”

“Frankly, I am still confused by it,” Malik says. “Maybe you can enlighten me?”

Fee-Jigan is in no haste to get up. He says, “I deny categorically that the idea of bringing the interview to an end by dialing Ma-Gabadeh’s number was mine. It was he who suggested it. I regret that I agreed.”

If Malik does not counter Fee-Jigan’s claim right away, it is because he remembers an Arabic proverb: that for the strong to impose their will on the weak, they must provoke them until they take an inadvisable course of action that will destroy them. Fee-Jigan, in other words, is in no position to call Ma-Gabadeh a liar.

Fee-Jigan continues, “Now to act as if he was innocent and I was the guilty party, and then to threaten me? I find that hard to take.”

Malik is inclined to believe Fee-Jigan, but he says only, “Let’s go get a cup of something.”

The teahouse they find themselves in is a bit of a letdown after the hotel dining room and the private alcove. The waiters are scruffy, their white shirts stained with food and string holding up their trousers. The clients whom they are serving are no different from the folks one runs into in the street outside. Malik, cynical, thinks that maybe democracy has dawned here at last, after all. The men, pretentiously pious, wear lavish beards. They hush as Fee-Jigan and Malik go past them, looking for a free table. When they resume talking, they speak textbook Arabic, not the dialects native speakers would use. One of them is so pleased with his mastery of the language that he throws tongue-twisting gauntlets at them, like a teenager showing off.

As the waiter departs to get them the tea they have ordered, Malik cuts to the chase. He asks, “Does Ma-Gabadeh fund pirates?”

“In truth, the nexus between the pirates and Shabaab is hard to prove and much more difficult to discount,” Fee-Jigan says. “Even so, I’ve heard it said by an associate of his that if there is a link in an expanding chain connecting the pirates to Shabaab, and Shabaab to the foreign jihadis, then Ma-Gabadeh is that link, because he has had extensive associations with all three groups. Moreover, he has been described as someone who has made deals beneficial to the pirates by lending them seed money, and to Shabaab by paying deposits on the weapons they bought from the Bakhaaraha. I know from one of my sources that he has collected tidy sums from the pirates as his percentage, and has paid protection fees to Shabaab. More significantly, he is related by marriage to TheSheikh.”

“And he is wealthy on account of these links?”

Fee-Jigan says, with evident relish, “Ma-Gabadeh, a man from the shit creeks, is now so stinking rich from these illicit transactions that he can afford to bathe in tubs filled with the most expensive French perfume.”

Malik asks, “What about Gumaad?”

“What about him?”

“What is his game?” Malik says.

“He is no journalist, I can tell you that.”

“Precisely,” Malik says. “So what’s his game?”

“Rumor has it he has been lately recruited into the intelligence services of the Courts,” Fee-Jigan says, “and we journalists do not trust him at all.”

To Malik’s surprise, Gumaad is again in the back of the car when Qasiir picks him up, but Qasiir merely says, “Belts, please,” as usual, as he starts the engine and looks in the rearview mirror. Gumaad inquires how the interview has gone, but Malik is economical with his comments. He says simply that Fee-Jigan is the most interesting journalist he has met since his arrival — a clear putdown of Gumaad.

Clearly galled, Gumaad requests that Qasiir stop the car, then announces he won’t be going with them back to the apartment. “I must help draft a communiqué to be released in the name of TheSheikh, in response to the imminent Ethiopian takeover of two Somali border towns.”

Malik ascribes Gumaad’s statement to similar self-important claims he has heard from him before. He is not sure when he will share with Qasiir, Dajaal, and Jeebleh Fee-Jigan’s contention that Gumaad has been drafted into the Courts’ intelligence services. He says only, “Good-bye and good luck,” and waves Gumaad on.

Qasiir drives on and Malik looks out on the world outside, wondering if everyone on the road is in a greater rush today because they know something the two of them don’t. Of course, he has heard about the Ethiopians invading and occupying Belet-Weyne, and all the news agencies are agreed that before long, the border town will fall. But how imminent is the real, final invasion of the country?

Malik asks, “What’s the latest news?”

“My men on the security detail noted the curious presence of an explosives expert coming in and out of the hotel where you were conducting the interview,” Qasiir says, “and we were rather worried. We wondered what he would be doing in the hotel.”

“So what did you do?” Malik wants to know.

“I rang Grandpa for advice.”

“What did he advise?”

“That we double the number of men on the beat,” Qasiir says, “and that I change my parking position every so often; if need be, drive around and then come back.”

It comes as a shock to Malik to imagine that he might become the victim of an assassination attempt when he has not published an article since he arrived in Somalia.

He asks, “The name of this explosives man?”

“His given name is Cabdul Xaqq,” Qasiir says, “but it is possible that he has pseudonyms to which he answers. Even Grandpa can’t be certain of this.”

“What makes his presence curious?”

“Because he is seldom seen in public,” Qasiir says. “His job is to put together roadside devices and analyze their performance. I can’t understand why he was there, that’s all.”

“He did nothing to worry you, though?”

Qasiir says, “The entire country is on edge. Rationally, you would assume his plate would be full with matters of national importance, considering what is happening, but these are not normal men and you can trust them to behave abnormally. That was why we took the precautions we did.”

Malik wonders whether the fact that his presence in the country rates a top explosives expert is a good or a bad thing. If he is a marked man, then it is high time he wrote something worth dying for. “How is your grandfather?” he asks.

Qasiir replies, “He is feeling a little better.”

“Well enough to consult a doctor?” Malik asks.

“He doesn’t bother with doctors usually.”

“You can take him to visit Bile,” Malik says. “Remember, he was a medic.”

“Grandpa won’t hear of it.”

At the apartment, Malik takes the envelope with the money for the security detail and hands it to Qasiir, so that Qasiir can dole it out. He checks to make sure he has his tape recorder, then he waves good-bye and says, “Thank you, Qasiir. You’ve been very professional. And please give my best to your grandpa. I hope he feels better soon.”