Crossbones

21

AHL HEADS FOR HIS ROOM TO MAKE SURE THAT HIS PERSONAL effects, including his cash and passports, are safely locked away before going off to Guri-Maroodi, the village where groups of young men congregate — would-be illegal migrants bracing for a sea trip to Yemen and then Europe. He puts the key in the door, but the lock won’t engage. The TV in the room is blaring, but he doesn’t recall turning it on before going down earlier. He pulls the key out and inserts it a second time, and a third. Still, it won’t turn. He is about to go down to the reception desk to ask for help when the door opens a crack. He sees that a young man with a familiar face — the TV programmer — is in the room.

Ahl asks, “What are you doing in my room?”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he asks himself if one can say “my room” when one has only temporary access to it.

“I am programming the TV. For you.”

“With the door locked?”

“Does it matter whether the door is or isn’t locked when I am in the room, programming your TV?” the young fellow says with incorrigible cheekiness.

Ahl stares in silence at the young man — the door open, the key in the clutch of his hand, his eyes washing over his suitcase and shoulder bag, uncertain if they are where he left them. Do they seem a little disorderly, as if someone has tampered with them? Ahl recalls opening the computer bag before he went down to breakfast. But did he leave the bag unlocked? No point asking the young man anything. People out here are jittery, their tetchiness priming them to jump to the wrong conclusions.

He says to the young man, “Get out!”

Alone in the room, the door securely latched from the inside, he unplugs the TV. The sealed envelopes with Taxliil’s photograph and the cash are still in the computer bag — there is no time to make sure that nothing else is missing. He decides to carry these valuables on his person, unable to think of a better way of keeping them safe. He wears the cash belt and carries the laptop with him. But for the sake of form, he locks his suitcase, in which there is nothing but his dirty clothes.

Back outside, his eyes clap on a pack of young crows with feathers so shiny they look as if they’ve been dipped in black oil. Some strut around, as if daring him to chase them; others take off as he approaches, then alight on the tree branches and descend to the patch of garden. They make a racket, clucking and pecking at one another.

Ahl goes to reception to complain about the TV programmer. An unfamiliar middle-aged man who is missing one eye is at the front desk. He hesitates, not sure if he wants to discuss his grievance with this man, whom he assumes doesn’t work here.

“Where is the manager?” Ahl asks.

“What do you want?” the one-eyed man demands.

“I’d like to submit a complaint about the young man who has made a habit of locking my room from the inside, and rummaging in my stuff. He claims he’s the TV programmer,” Ahl says.

The one-eyed man scratches his stubbled chin. He says, “I am afraid we do not have a TV programmer in our employ. We fired the last one who worked here three days ago precisely because he was found routing about in a guest’s room.”

“But he was in my room just now,” Ahl says.

“He has no business being in your room.”

Ahl asks, “How does he gain access unless he has a master key, or collects one from reception? I chased him out a few minutes ago.”

“He has no business being in your room, or collecting a master key from here,” the one-eyed man insists. “I’ll report him to the management. Action will be taken against him soon.”

“Please do that,” Ahl says, although he doesn’t believe for a moment that the man will take any such action.

A car horn honks, and the outside gate opens to admit a battered jalopy. Fidno is at the wheel. Ahl wonders whether it makes sense for him to carry all his cash and his computer with him when Fidno evidently thinks the village they are driving to rates no better than the bucket of bolts he is driving rather than his usual posh car. But what else can he do? He puts his faith in his good fortune, trusting that all will be well for now. Maybe he will check out of the hotel at the first opportunity and move in with Xalan and Warsame, if the offer still stands.

Barely has Ahl clambered into the four-wheel wreck, placed his laptop at his feet, and put on the seat belt when Fidno squeals out of the gate and steps on the gas, as if eager to be clear of the place. Within half a kilometer they are in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, where the huts are built of coarse matting reinforced here and there with zinc, or from packing material bearing the names of its manufacturers, although they are moving too fast for Ahl to make out the letters. The doors to the dwellings, which are improvised out of cloth, blow in the wind. Everything about these huts and the lean-tos that serve as their kitchens has an air of the temporary about it. The residents are those displaced by the fighting in the south of the country. They have come to Bosaso because there is peace here.

Fidno climbs through the gears in quick succession, the clunker rattling so loudly that neither man talks, not even when Fidno nearly runs over a couple of pedestrians loitering in the center of the road. At the last second, they scatter, and Fidno roars on, like a race-car driver participating in an autocross relay through an uninhabited countryside. The ride is as disagreeable as mounting a bad-tempered young male camel that spits, kicks, and foams furiously at the mouth.

Straining to be heard over the ruckus, Ahl asks, “Why the rush? Are we late?”

“Our man is restless,” Fidno says. “We may not find him still there if we delay.”

“What’s his name?”

Fidno responds irritably, “If you really must know, he is known by his nickname, Magac-Laawe. A no-name man.”

“Have you spoken to No-Name yourself, then?”

“I’ve spoken to his henchman.”

Ahl wishes Malik were here, Malik who knows how to deal with this specimen of humanity, the dirt no one dare clean up, in a land with no laws, in a country where brute force earns high dividends. If warlords have deputies, and presidents their vice presidents, then it follows that, in a world in which coercion is the norm, a human trafficker must have underlings as well.

“What have you told No-Name about me?”

“That you are my friend.”

What does that make him? Ahl wonders. An associate of a known criminal? Is this what children do to you, knowingly or unwittingly, make you into an accomplice of outlaws? He prays that Fidno does not run afoul of the authorities while they are together, especially not with so much cash and his laptop on him, in this beat-up vehicle on the way to Guri-Maroodi, a hot spot with few equals in notoriety, even within Puntland.

“What else did you tell him?”

“That you are looking for your runaway nephew.”

“My nephew — why nephew? He is my son.”

“Makes no difference. Nephew, son, stepson!”

Of course it does make a difference; but Ahl says nothing.

Fidno says, “I was worried that No-Name might think you would become too emotional, irrational, or hard to please if things do not go the way you want them to. ‘My son’ is different from ‘my nephew.’ I don’t know if this makes sense to you, but that is what I thought. I did it for your sake. To make things happen.”

Again, Ahl thinks that he is not suited for this kind of assignment the way Malik is, having interviewed Afghani drug lords as well as Pakistani Taliban warlords. It requires a familiarity with the criminal mind that is beyond his experience. Ahl worries that once he’s endorsed a lie, he will be open to telling more, and there will be no end to it.

He says, “I’ll set No-Name right on this. A lie does not run off my tongue easily, and I’ll have to beware of what I say all the time.”

“Do what suits you,” Fidno concedes.

They go through a drab-looking hamlet that boasts of only a few low shops built of stone, atop a wood foundation, the zinc roofing painted in different colors, mainly blue. Billboards advertise cigarettes, soda, milk, and other products, Ahl guesses more for decoration than because they are actually available. They have slowed to a snail’s pace, and Ahl can see people in clusters of three and four, with their curious eyes trained on the jalopy. He can even hear them: they are speaking a babble of Swahili, Oromo, Tigrinya, broken Yemeni Arabic, and Somali. A microcosm of the Horn, a cosmopolitan misery marked with unforgiving poverty.

Minibuses ply the road to Bosaso, and young men and women walk along the road, hitching a ride or footing it; almost everyone here is young, and there are more men than women.

“I could hear Amharic, Swahili, and Tigrinya as we passed,” Ahl says. “How on earth do they all get here?”

“The Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Somalis from the south of the country walk for several days to get here,” Fidno responds. “Some of the Kenyans and the Tanzanians arrive by plane or by boat. But only a few make it to Yemen. The owners of the fishing boats have been known to throw three-quarters of their passengers overboard before they make it ashore to avoid the possible confiscation of their boats.”

There is a group of young men gathered around a pickup with the back open. A woman has set up a stall close by selling qaat. Ahl sees one of the youths carrying a bundle and a number of his mates following, some clearly asking him to give them a share.

“Tell me how you described Taxliil,” says Ahl.

Fidno says, “A bright young fellow with excellent language skills, impeccable manners, assigned to welcome foreign Shabaab recruits here to join the insurgency in Somalia.”

“In what capacity does No-Name enter the scene?”

“It makes business sense for the boat owners not to return empty after transporting the migrants to the shores of Yemen,” Fidno explains. Ahl considers how this works to the advantage of several groups operating outside the law. Likewise, it makes sense for the pirates and the religionists to work together, not only for profit but also for mutual security.

They have reached the outskirts of the village. As they continue south, the landscape turns desolate, burned. Then there is a sudden change in the wind, which picks up and brings along with it a cooler breeze from the sea. The vegetation is sparse, much of it of the thorny sort, with a few trees to provide shade to humans and fodder for camels. A young boy, shirtless and in a sarong, with a chewing stick in his mouth, looks lost as his camels chomp away at one of the treetops. Ahl says, “There is a world of difference between the young Somali nomad looking after his beasts and the migrants wanting to cross the sea, isn’t there?”

“Do you suppose the young nomad is content because he knows no better life?” asks Fidno.

“I would imagine that many of the migrants, being city born and city bred, are unhappy with their lot and eager to seek adventure elsewhere,” Ahl observes. “Perhaps because they’ve seen too much TV and believe that life elsewhere is more comfortable.”

“What about your son? He had the possibility of a successful future ahead of him. Do you know what made him leave Minneapolis to return to this desolate place?”

“I wish I knew,” Ahl mumbles.

They enter another enclave. The sea breeze is now stronger as they pass men sitting around or lying in the scanty shade of the trees, chewing qaat.

“Who are they?” asks Ahl, pointing out a group of young migrants, half lying and half sitting, as if they are too tired even to sit all the way up.

“Migrants exhausted from waiting.”

“What are they waiting for?”

But Fidno does not answer Ahl’s question. “We’re here,” he says instead, and he turns in and stops at a metal gate guarded by armed men in khaki uniforms. A young man with large eyes and a thin, half-trimmed mustache comes forward. Fidno waves his hand in greeting, and the youth acknowledges him with a broad smile.

One side of the gate opens, and the young man steps out, just as another youth with a small head and wearing huge spectacles emerges from the gatehouse and stands by a second barrier that needs to be removed manually. The first young man approaches the car to check out Ahl.

“We’re expected,” Fidno says.

The gate opens, and Fidno drives in.

The grounds on which the villa is built are extensive and surrounded in all directions by a high fence. The house itself, set far back, is two stories high, with French windows and a glassed-in balcony large enough for a sumptuous party. The sea is visible behind the house. An awning extends almost to the gates, providing shade as they drive in. Fidno parks, and Ahl picks up his laptop and follows him toward the pair of uniformed young men who wait in front of the awning. The entire structure looks new and well made; the railing on the upper story is shiny with fresh paint. The loud humming of a heavy-duty generator comes from the back.

There is order here, the order of a corrupt autocrat imposed through coercion, Ahl thinks. One of the uniformed men leads them up to the house, his pace measured. He knocks on the door in a rhythmic knock, presumably a code. The door opens. Fidno and Ahl enter; the uniformed youth stays behind, bowing.

“Welcome, AhlulKhair. I am your host.”

The voice Ahl hears has something magisterial about it: distant, assertive. He identifies it as belonging to a little, lean man of advanced years sitting in what looks like a child’s high chair, with a full, graying beard and penetrating eyes. How very odd that such a small man, almost a midget, can produce such a commanding voice, Ahl thinks. He can’t be more than four feet tall. He reminds Ahl of pictures he has seen of Emperor Haile Selassie, and because of this, he somehow expects a Chihuahua to be imperiously perched on No-Name’s lap. Ahl wonders if No-Name is a cripple.

“How have things been?” he says to Ahl, in a tone of surprising familiarity.

“Everything has been good so far,” Ahl says, although this is not what he feels inside.

“What about you, Fidno?” No-Name asks, his voice sounding a notch more authoritative, its timbre more full-bodied.

Fidno says, “Everything is according to plan.”

“Excellent.”

“How have you been yourself?” Fidno asks.

No-Name appears a little offended. He says to Fidno, “Give us a few minutes, will you? You may join the others outside. You know your way around here.”

The caller of tunes, No-Name expects to be obeyed, and Fidno takes his leave. “Thank you for seeing my friend,” he says.

“We’ll see you later.” Ahl notes the royal we.

When Fidno opens the door to leave, the hall is awash in the intense brightness of the midday sun. And once again Ahl wonders if he is doing the right thing, liaising with criminals.

As Ahl approaches, No-Name frowns, like someone used to wearing spectacles. It’s plain he’s not accustomed to anyone doing anything without his say-so. The closer Ahl gets to the high chair No-Name is sitting in, the weirder it all looks. Almost hilarious.

No-Name says, “Please sit.”

But there is nowhere to sit, save a lounge area at the other end of the hall, furnished with an ottoman and a plush carpet dotted with cushions propped up against the walls. Is this where No-Name chews qaat with his pals? Does an emperor have pals?

What a day and what humiliation! Ahl crouches down, knees creaking, wondering if children have any notion what troubles one goes through for them.

With a trace of a grin around his lips, No-Name says, “Tell me everything about your nephew.”

“My son, actually.”

“I am sure Fidno described him as your nephew,” No-Name says.

“That may be so, but he is my son.”

“That changes my perspective on things.”

“I am not his father. His mother is my wife. But I raised him.”

No-Name takes all this in. His right foot shakes as though it has its own mind.

“What else did Fidno get wrong, before we move on?”

Ahl shrugs his shoulders in a search-me gesture.

“Tell me about your son, all that I need to know.”

Ahl tells him.

“Have you a photo of the runaway youth?”

Ahl produces it.

“What’s his date and place of birth?”

Ahl tells him.

“What are his mother’s and your full three names?”

Ahl supplies him with these, wondering how No-Name can possibly remember such details without taking notes or having a secretary do so. Is he being made a fool of, or does No-Name already know where and who Taxliil is?

“What is the name of the imam at the mosque in Minnesota who recruited him?”

Ahl answers the question fully, with details.

“Do you know the names of his fellow jihadis?”

Ahl shakes his head.

“He didn’t know the twenty other recruits from Minnesota and nearby?”

Ahl says, “I don’t know; we don’t know.”

“How do we reach you if we wish to do so?” No-Name asks, and Ahl provides him with a host of phone numbers.

“How long have you been here?”

Ahl tells him.

“When do you leave?”

Ahl shrugs. “It all depends on my success.”

“Or lack of it,” No-Name says. Then, “Fidno has mentioned that Malik, a journalist, is in Mogadiscio.”

“What about Malik?”

“Is he likely to come here?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I’d like to meet him.”

“He hasn’t said he will come and visit here, but I will make sure to introduce you to him if he does.”

“I look forward to that.”

Ahl finds himself sitting uncomfortably forward, supporting his body on his knees, like a devotee at an ashram.

He says, “If I may ask a question, please?”

“Go ahead.”

A current of worry goes through his body, lodging for a moment or so in his heart, then in his head. One indiscreet question from him might jeopardize everything. Nonetheless, he asks it. “Why did you agree to see me?”

No-Name presses his forehead and winces, as if thinking of the reasons or sharing them with Ahl is causing him pain. His eyes closed, he says, “One, because I am doing Fidno, my pal, a favor.”

“That’s very good of you.”

“Two, because sometime in the past few days someone spoke three names in my presence — I cannot recall in what context. But Taxliil’s name was one of them, and the name stuck, as I have never known anyone else with it. So when Fidno came to me, I agreed to step in and to assist. I’ll do all I am able to help you find Taxliil.”

As if on cue, a mobile phone rings in another room. No-Name shifts in his high chair in a manner that suggests to Ahl that their conversation is at an end. The uniformed young man enters from the back, and offers Ahl a hand to help him straighten up. Then he leads him out to where Fidno is waiting in the jalopy.

Fidno takes off in the direction of Bosaso, driving even faster than before and appearing agitated. He wants to hear Ahl’s impression of No-Name. Ahl thinks that extortionists, like whores attempting to collect up front the fee for services not yet rendered, and then to render them speedily, are prone to presenting their bills much too fast.

“I don’t know what answer to give,” he says.

Fidno says, “No-Name has extensive connections among top people in Puntland and beyond — insurgents, pirates, the lot.”

Ahl feels a little reassured by this, but he is not at all certain that he is any closer to locating Taxliil than before. Partners in crime: Fidno, No-Name, and all their associates! Then he adds, “Let’s say I am more optimistic than before.”

“All will work out well, you’ll see.”

Ahl senses that Fidno is now softening him for a hit; he can’t wait to hear it.

Fidno says, “Please ring Malik and let him know.”

“Don’t worry. I will. Later.”

“Now, please. Ring him now.”

“What do I tell him?”

“Ask him if he’ll see me, when and where.”

“I’ll call him later.”

Fidno’s voice takes on a threatening tone. “Please call him. Now.”

Ahl opens his window to a blast of wind and sand. The land they are driving through is more desolate than he remembers from the journey down. The truth is, he has been hesitant to call Malik since they disagreed about the wisdom of his interviewing TheSheikh, with Ahl insisting that family trumps career. Given the choice, Ahl would prefer to make the call in the privacy of his hotel room, alone, but he feels he has no choice but to telephone Malik now.

He dials and lets it ring. The line is busy and he disconnects, promising Fidno that he’ll try again shortly. Then he switches on the car radio, and they catch the tail end of a news bulletin. There has been fierce fighting between the Ethiopian occupying army and the insurgents, with high civilian casualties. He tries again, and this time Malik answers on the fourth ring. Ahl puts him on speakerphone so that Fidno can hear the exchange. He tells his brother about the meeting with No-Name and assures him that it has made him feel optimistic. Then he asks, “Have you thought when you might have time to meet up with Fidno? You could interview him here in Puntland. If you are unable to fly out here, he is willing to come down to Mogadiscio.”

But Malik is in no mood at the moment. He’s just learned about the death of yet another journalist, thanks to yet another roadside bomb. “Why don’t we speak later in the evening,” he says, “and we’ll figure it out then? Looks like he’ll have to come to Mogadiscio, as I won’t be able to come to Puntland.”

“Good.”

“I’m delighted things are working out.”

“But tell me about yourself, Malik,” Ahl says anxiously. “Are you hurt or anything?”

“Just shocked, traumatized — out of sync.”

They agree to talk more in the evening, and say good-bye.

After he hangs up, there is silence for long enough that Ahl assumes Fidno isn’t going to speak. But just then Fidno says, “It’ll give me joy to go to Mogadiscio. Because I am so eager, maybe I’ll take the first available flight. But I won’t book it until I hear from you. And there is a small possibility I’ll want to bring along a friend to the interview.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of a friend going with you.”

“We’ll talk, you and I,” Fidno promises. “There is time yet.”

Ahl stares at Fidno in anger and mistrust. Of course, Malik will be upset at this development. But Malik is family, and he will do what is best for Taxliil in the end. Or, at least, Ahl hopes he will.

At the hotel, Ahl alights, bones aching, eyes smarting from the day’s heat and exhaustion. He is about to bid Fidno farewell when a young woman, demurely dressed, head covered, face veiled, but only cursorily, comes out of the reception. She makes a beeline for Fidno, whispers to him, and stands to the side, waiting.

Fidno says, “If you have a moment, let me introduce you to Wiila.” I believe you met her on your flight. And then you’ll remember we saw her together at the qaat stall, with Warsame.”

Tired, but thinking it too impolite to walk away, Ahl takes the hand Wiila is holding out for him to shake. But even decked out in traditional garb, her bearing takes him back to the nightclub in Djibouti, when the prostitute tried to chat him up. Wiila has the same knowingness. And, given that she is a friend to Fidno, Ahl decides to be wary.

Ahl says, “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance. As Fidno said the other day, some of us make the world smaller than it is in reality.”

But when he makes as if to leave, Fidno grips his hand. “Come and buy us some coffee, some tea. We’re your guests. Where are your manners?”

Aware that it won’t do the business of locating Taxliil any good to decline, yet conscious, too, that he will be courting unnecessary danger by putting too much trust in them, Ahl opts for a middle way: cooperation and vigilance.

They sit in the gazebo. Fidno and Ahl order coffee, Wiila a soft drink. While they are waiting for their order, Wiila explains why she was tearful on the day she and Ahl met. “My younger brother had been killed by Shabaab earlier that day. I am still mourning him.”

Ahl recalls that brief encounter and wonders why Fidno has the look of someone who has unearthed a gem to present to him.

He asks, “What do I have to do with any of this?”

“You don’t.”

Fidno nods his head in Wiila’s direction, dismissing her. Ahl catches the slightest trace of a smile that makes her lips twitch and her eyes brighten slightly, like someone who has fulfilled her part of a contract and is now free. She gets to her feet, bows her head a little to both men, and with her soft drink untouched, she walks away.

“What game are you playing?” Ahl asks Fidno when she is gone.

Fidno says, “This is simple as home cooking, labor intensive but worth it, worth every pound in the mortar, every grain of salt.”

Ahl presumes he is being duped the moment Fidno resorts to fancy words. But still, the man has him in a corner. So he lets himself sound only mildly annoyed when he asks, “Where are you going with all this?”

Fidno says, “My intention isn’t to involve you. But I want to bring in Malik. Dangerous, yes, but worth the effort.”

Ahl’s voice strains under the weight of his worry. He says, “Do you want him to talk to Wiila?”

Fidno can’t help putting on airs, like a student straining to be more clever than his mentor. “There is her older brother, Muusa Ibraahim, a former pirate, who worked with me. I’d like Malik to interview him. Muusa comes as part of a package. Malik will have spoken to a funder of piracy, and he has agreed to speak to me — I, being all things to pirates and piracy, Muusa is the real article, and he has a lot to say about Shabaab.”

This has been a day of emotional chaos, in which Ahl’s hope of locating Taxliil has been raised, then jeopardized unless he caters to Fidno’s extortionate greed. When will it all end?

“I’ll talk to Malik later today,” he says.

Then Fidno brings out his mobile phone, turns it on, and searches for a number, which Ahl presumes to be Muusa Ibraahim’s. Ahl takes down the number as Fidno dictates it.

The day’s business done, as if he and Ahl are jolly companions deep in their cups, Fidno says, with a mischievous grin spreading down to his chin, “Wiila has told me that she won’t be averse to be of service to you, if you are in the mood to be entertained in this dreadful hotel. Say the word and I’ll send her over.”

Ahl is at a loss for the appropriate response, but then it comes to him. He says, “I had no idea you were into pimping, too.”

Fidno doesn’t take offense. He says, “Just checking. Just offering. These are tempting times, and I know family men who won’t say no to Wiila.”

And then Ahl is up and off, and Fidno, for once, settles their bill.