Djibouti

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THEY WERE IN XAVIER'S Toyota, feeling their way south through the African quarter.

"Idris say to go down past the circle by Avenue Thirteen and it becomes rue des Issas. We keep straight ahead…all right, we on rue des Issas now and we keep goin till we come to Avenue Twenty-six." Now they were looking into the narrow side streets they crept past, sightseers taking in the native quarter: streets full of junk and rubble, chunks of cement worn from walls to lie where they fell. Laundry hung from clotheslines above the decay.

"It's a slum," Dara said. "Maybe the worst slum in the civilized world."

"How you know it is?"

"How could you make it slummier?"

"Some in India bug your eyes out. But their slums don't seem as busted up and put back together, old boards and strips of corrugation from someplace else. There's what looks like a mosque I've seen in this quarter, made of old strips of tin they painted blue. They pray five times a day and make four hundred fifty dollars a year. How come Allah don't listen and give 'em a raise?"

"Or a kick in the ass. Why do they live here, with the rats and the roaches?"

"It's they-all's home."

"They could leave."

"Go where?"

"Those two guys under their umbrellas," Dara said, "what are they talking about?"

"What khat's selling for today."

"I could do an entire documentary," Dara said, "on the African quarter. You know it? Shoot the European section for contrast, an area somewhat less depressing."

"Show the Foreign Legion in their short pants."

"The Eritrean girls," Dara said, "dainty hookers making a few bucks a day."

"If that," Xavier said. "Cover the nightlife you want some contrast."

"I'd have to do another project first," Dara said, "like Eskimos."

"Take your time. Djibouti's always gonna be here."

Xavier said, "We turn left on Avenue Twenty-six, go down a few blocks…Look for a place to get a beverage has Arab writing all over it, the front open…Hey, and there's Idris raisin a glass to us."

"He doesn't look worried," Dara said.

"No, 'cause he has you now." IDRIS HAD TO HUG Dara and tell her she was a lifesaver for coming. "But we don't want to stand here talking, police driving by. Harry spoke to the chief of police and promised him a reward from the reward we get and the chief said okay, they let us finish our business. We didn't tell the police where we're hiding the two Qaedas, I don't want them following us." Idris said, "What I want to ask you first, do you know Jama Raisuli's real name and where he's from in America?"

Xavier thought she might tell him "Sean Connery" the way she gave him a glance. But then shook her head and asked Idris, "Why?"

"Let's go away from here," Idris said, "and I'll tell you."

Xavier followed Dara and Idris, sometimes single file, into the heart of the African quarter, winding through streets of litter and crumbling walls. No different than it was thirty years ago once Djibouti gained its independence. Who needs fresh cement on the walls when you got fresh khat to graze on? They sat talking to each other with jabs of words. Man sitting under an awning made from his wife's old hajab. The man said to them in half-assed English, "What you doing here?" Got no answer but didn't give a shit. They turned a corner and were in front of a home from colonial times, its stucco peeling, a house of rooms with high ceilings, three floors of them, tall shutters hanging on the windows, rickety shutters once a shade of blue.

"Here," Idris said, getting out his keys to unlock the door.

Light filtered through the shutters. Two Somalis sat with their tea and AKs on a formal dining table repainted green. Idris took them past the Somalis and up an aged staircase from another time, telling them, "We kept the Qaedas tied up in separate rooms. They behaved so we let them share a room during the day, so they can talk, think of a way of escaping. I ask them, 'What do you want to be handcuffed to, a chair or the cot?' We let them talk and smoke. I gave them a glass of wine and Harry had a fit. Not the kind you imagine but a Harry fit. He becomes cold and talks to me in a superior way, as though I'm only an assistant. I would never work for him."

Idris reached the top of the stairs where a Somali stood with his AK. Idris turned to Dara and Xavier a few steps below saying, "Harry wants to sell Jama for nothing less than twenty-five million."

Dara said, "Harry's a gambler?"

"I don't know him well enough. We play cards, he doesn't care if he loses. Harry dreams of being known by important people in the world."

"Stuck in Djibouti," Dara said.

"Harry will tell them we want twenty-five million for Jama-why not-and include Qasim, a notorious al Qaeda, throw him in as part of the deal. Harry says he'll wait until they stop laughing in their cultured way and tell them, 'Once you pay the reward, we will give you Jama Raisuli's real name, an American-born black now a traitor.'"

"He has a passport?" Dara said.

"I believe still on Aphrodite."

"You're sure Jama doesn't have it?"

"Harry searched him. We tell the Rewards people they can have the terrorists, reveal to the world how they have cracked open al Qaeda. Harry has it all in his head, what they say and what he says in return."

"I can hear him," Dara said. "But does he have Jama's real name?"

"Qasim," Idris said, "is the only one knows what it is, but won't tell Harry until he's sure he can walk away from here. Qasim has been causing terror I believe most of his life."

"What's the problem?" Dara said.

"Harry wants to get the name from Qasim and still turn him in, with Jama. But Qasim wants to be sure he's free and then telephone Harry and give him the name. He swears by Allah any promise he has made in his life he has kept. Harry's trying to think of a way he can work it."

"Follow him," Dara said. "He makes the phone call, bring him back."

"Harry's thinking of something like that. But who brings Qasim back? Harry doesn't trust the Somalis."

Dara said, "Is he here?"

Idris motioned them up the few steps to the second floor saying, "He went out for a stroll, Harry says so he can think with a clear head, without all these Somalis about."

"Do you trust him?" Dara said.

"Of course not. But what can he do? He has to get Jama's name before he can go to the embassy and work his scheme."

Dara said, "And you want me to talk him out of it."

She glanced down the hall, the light dim, but recognized Jama coming along handcuffed, a Somali, apparently unarmed, close behind him. The Somali unlocked the first door they came to-three on each side of the hallway-pushed Jama inside and stepped in the room with him.

"You see him?" Idris said. "That was Jama."

"I've talked to him before," Dara said. "Why don't I look in and say hi?"

Idris said, "You want to go in their room?"

"With Xavier," Dara said. THE SOMALI'S NAME WAS Datuk Hossa.

Jama sat in a chair made of stout wood with arms and a padded seat of cracked leather. He let Datuk cuff his right hand to the edge of the springs beneath the pad. He said, "Datuk, I am in your debt."

The Somali looked in his face for a moment before turning to Qasim on the cot, his shoulders sagging, his feet on the floor, his right hand cuffed to springs beneath the thin mattress. The Somali was at the door now, leaving. He looked back as Jama said, "Allah will bless you."

Jama watched him go out and waited until he heard the key turn in the lock.

"He'll do it for six hundred dollars."

"Out of fear," Qasim said.

"Scared to death of al Qaeda," Jama said. "I told him it's good to look scared. I'm holding a piece at your head as we walk out."

"How do you have a gun?"

"Datuk has a semiautomatic holds eight loads. I told him that would be lovely, part of the show. Else why would they let us out? The other boys act suspicious, I told him give 'em each a C-note, you still get six hundred. They're in it with you then, you and your associates."

Qasim said, "But we don't have money to give them. He wants to see it, doesn't he?"

"I told him it's hidden. If I show it too soon, I'm afraid one of the others might grab it and cut him out. Or you get in a fight over it and somebody gets shot. I said Allah told me not to show the money until we're free."

Qasim said, "You trust Datuk?"

Jama said, "He's the one can open doors."

In the same moment he straightened and looked toward the door, the sound of a key turning in the lock. THEY CAME IN THE room, Xavier's gaze holding on Jama, Dara asking the terrorists how they were doing. She said to Jama, "I hear your price has been raised to twenty-five million. Did you know that?"

Xavier watched him with his beard and long hair, no kinks in it, sitting there like he was making up his mind.

He said to Dara, "You think I'm worth it?"

Dara said, "Ari the Sheikh does."

Xavier said, "I can't see this street kid goin for as much as the higher-ups. Somebody's made a name for himself like Ayman al Zawahiri."

"You're right," Dara said. "Mullah Omar's big, but he's only worth ten million. And I believe Baitullah Mehsud."

"Baitullah's gone to heaven," Xavier said, "taken out by Hellfire missile in Pakistan. Had CIA's name on it."

"What about the guy," Dara said, "who planned the suicide run on the USS Cole? I can't think of his name."

"If I may," Jama said, "Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al Quso, but he's worth only five mil."

"Thank you," Dara said and looked at Xavier. "I guess bin Laden and Zawahiri are the only ones going for twenty-five."

"Unless this boy qualifies," Xavier said.

Dara thought about it. "What's he done?"

Xavier shook his head. "Nothin I know of."

"Harry's a sly one," Dara said. "He must have a scheme to up this guy's price. Get as much as he can and move to London."

Jama said, "That's where he's going? You're right, I detect a love of Blighty in the man's speech. What about the other one, Idris? Where's he going with his dough?"

"He's leaning toward Paris," Dara said.

Jama, nodding his head, said, "They happen to be gone when I leave here, I'll know where to find them." A FEW MINUTES LATER in the hall Dara said, "He was telling us he plans to escape. Confident about it. Isn't that what he was saying?"

"I thought you'd ask how he thinks he's gonna do it," Xavier said. "All you told him was 'Yeah, right.'"

"He'll never find those guys," Dara said.

"Yeah, but he's thinkin about it."