Scorpion Deception

CHAPTER THIRTY

Bakaara Market,

Mogadishu, Somalia

“Will you come?” Ghedi asked her, tucking a belawa knife in the waist of his ma’awis.

“How do you know it’s her?” Sandrine asked. She was in her tent, getting ready for what had to be the most dangerous thing she had ever done. Shadows from passersby flickered past on the canvas siding from the blazing sunlight outside. “What do you know of this boy?”

“This boy. He is Labaan. Of Buur Hakuba. I know this place. It is not far from Baidoa.”

“But he is not of your clan. Turn around,” she ordered.

He complied. She fished inside a pair of Bensimon sneakers she kept inside her carry-on next to the cot and pulled out a thick wad of five hundred shilling bills. About 100,000 Somali shillings; sixty U.S. dollars. Plus three fifty-dollar bills. Total $210 U.S. It would have to be enough. It was all she had. She turned Ghedi back around and sat on the bunk so she could look levelly into his eyes.

“What makes him think it’s your sister? Did he know her?”

“He says her name. Amina. Six years old. This is right name, age. He say Al-Shabaab is bringing her to Mogadishu from Baidoa to be in the House of Flowers,” using the name for the children’s brothel. “Right time when she disappear. It must be Amina.”

“And how does this boy know of the House of Flowers? Does he work there?” she asked, going outside the tent. The camp was crowded, dusty and trash strewn. The heat was intense and she could smell the open ditch used as a public toilet. The South African, Van Zyl, was waiting near the road with a white Toyota SUV with the UNHCR decal painted on the side.

“His brother is oday,” Ghedi said, using the Somali word for elder or boss.

“You mean his brother is a maquereau for children,” she said, a pimp, covering her head with a hijab, both for the sun and to appear less threatening to Somali men. “How can you trust this boy?”

“I don’t trust,” Ghedi said, touching the handle of his belawa knife. “I trust you, isuroon.”

“If it is your sister, Amina, there’s no guarantee we can get her out. All I can offer is money-not very much. If they say no, we might have to leave her.”

“If Amina is in this place, I will not leave her. Better to die,” he said, looking up at her.

She nodded. His mind was made up. If she didn’t come, it was almost certain they would kill him. As they reached the road, she stopped for a moment at a roadside stall, where two women were selling kashaato, squares of white coconut candy, one of them waving her hand to brush away the flies.

“For the children,” she said, paying the women, who counted out forty pieces of candy into a big plastic bag.

“This is a bloody stupid idea,” Van Zyl growled, getting into the SUV. She noticed he was wearing a pistol in a holster on his hip. “Have you any idea how dangerous this is?”

“You don’t need come, mzungu,” Ghedi said to Van Zyl, climbing in. “Isuroon and I, we can do this.”

“Don’t get your broekies in a knot, kid,” Van Zyl said, starting the SUV. And to Sandrine: “He’s worse than you, this one.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Which way?”

“Bakaara Market. Then I show,” Ghedi said.

“Christ,” Van Zyl breathed. “Bakaara’s the worst shit hole in this whole godforsaken arsehole of the universe.”

Sandrine looked at him.

“So I should leave his sister there to be a whore, where the best she can hope for is to get AIDS and die? Is that the best idea you’ve got, Monsieur Van Zyl?” she said.

“I said I’d take you,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “It’s all going to hell here anyway. We’re losing what little funding we have. Bloody Americans. This thing with Iran. And now the Israelis.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The news on the BBC world service, luv. Looks like the Americans and the Iranians are about to have at it. Now it seems the Israelis have ordered a partial mobilization too. The whole bloody Middle East is about to explode. No one’s paying piss-all attention to Africa.”

For some reason, she and Ghedi looked at each other as if they had both thought of the American at the same instant. Nick, his real name was. Not David. He’d told her that in Nairobi like it was a gift. She didn’t know why she thought he was involved in whatever was happening with the Americans and Iran, but there it was. The boy Ghedi sensed it too. He took her hand.

They sat there as Van Zyl drove through the hot dusty streets packed with battered trucks and cars, cinder-block houses pockmarked with bullet holes and jagged tears in the concrete from earlier fighting. Traffic slowed as they approached the Bakaara Market, a giant space under plastic tarps filled with men armed to the teeth, women in candy-colored direhs, vendors in stalls selling AK-47s, M-4 carbines, large piles of ammunition and RPGs stacked like fruit, bundles of qat leaves, and prostitutes, women, girls, teenage boys, tugging at male passersby under the watchful eyes of tribesmen with guns.

“Go right,” Ghedi said, pointing toward a street off the square. The street was narrow, full of potholes a foot deep, with laundry hanging on lines strung between the houses and half-naked children playing on the trash-strewn asphalt, broiling in the sun. “Here is the house,” pointing at a three-story concrete house in the middle of the block.

Two bearded men in koofiyud caps holding AK-47s kept guard under ragged umbrellas in front, the door painted sky blue. A line of tin-roofed sheds nestled against the building’s walls. The bearded men chewed qat, cheeks bulging like chipmunks, and watched the street. They paid little attention as Sandrine, Van Zyl, and the boy got out and went inside.

They entered a dark hallway, cooler than outside, and almost immediately a crowd of children, perhaps two dozen, nearly all girls in direhs, ages from six or seven to about fourteen, clustered around them. Two young boys, naked except for drooping underpants, hung back and watched.

“Odkhol, odkhol,” the children cried, tugging at them. Come in, come in.

One of the girls-she couldn’t have been more than eight years old-put her hands on the front of Van Zyl’s trousers, rubbing his crotch and tugging at his zipper, calling something to him.

Van Zyl squirmed and held her off.

“What’s she saying?” he asked Ghedi.

“She saying, ‘Choose me. Come with me,’ ” Ghedi said.

“Do you see her?” Sandrine asked Ghedi.

A Somali man in jeans holding a camel whip came in then, a pistol tucked in his waist. He was young, thin, his hair dyed orange like the color of a soft drink, and cross-eyed in a way that made him look stupid. His other hand was draped around a pretty young girl, about eleven years old, her dark eyes unreadable. He pulled her along with him. There were also two boys with him, about thirteen years old, both carrying AK-47s decorated with seashells and feathers. They were chewing qat, their teeth green. The young girls immediately fell silent.

Then another little girl wandered out and stood there, sucking on her thumb. About six years old with dark almond eyes, wavy hair, and an exquisite, almost perfect cafe au lait face. She was the most beautiful child Sandrine had ever seen.

“It’s her,” Ghedi whispered to Sandrine. He ran up to the girl and looked directly into her eyes. At first she seemed not to recognize him. All of a sudden, she collapsed on the stone floor, put her hands on top of her head and started to scream.

“Eskoot!” the Somali man shouted at the girl. Shut up. She stopped and looked fearfully at the Somali man. Ghedi took the girl’s hand. She held back but didn’t resist. He led her over to Sandrine.

“I have come to-” Sandrine began.

“Stop,” the Somali man said in Arabic, looking at her in his cross-eyed way. Ghedi translated in a whisper. “I know who you are, doctor woman. You must not be here. This is not your place.”

“I’m taking these children with me,” she said.

The Somali man took out his pistol, pointing first at one little girl, then another, then another, ending by pointing at Sandrine. He raised his arm higher and fired a bullet into the wall over her head. Sandrine flinched. The children stood there, watching the two of them, the man and Sandrine.

“These are my property. My sharmutat.” My whores. “I will kill them first,” he said, motioning to the two boys, who flipped the safety levers and pointed the AK-47s at Sandrine and the girls.

Sandrine’s heart pounded. The eyes of the qat-chewing boys were vacant. They’ve killed before, she thought, even at their age, suddenly realizing she might be about to die. She looked desperately at Van Zyl, who just stood there.

“And how if I take them?” she said, scarcely breathing. Ghedi translated. Van Zyl glanced around uneasily, his hand on his holster.

The Somali man blinked rapidly. Somewhere, that qat-addled brain was trying to think, Sandrine thought.

“These are Al-Shabaab property, doctor woman,” the man said. “Al Qaeda’s whores. Understand? Even if I gave them to you, men would come and kill them. They would kill them and you and me before you even get back to Badbaada Camp.”

“Is this so?” Sandrine whispered to Ghedi, leaning her head close to his. He stood there, holding his sister’s hand. It was terrifying to think they knew exactly where she lived and worked. If al Qaeda or Al-Shabaab came shooting in the camp, the havoc would be unbelievable.

“This is true, isuroon,” he whispered.

“And if I take only one. .” she said. The Somali man followed her gaze and understood immediately.

“That one, impossible. Her batuliya is worth much,” he said, making the sign for money. Sandrine understood. He planned to auction her virginity.

The two boys with the AK-47s looked restless. She had to do something, and quickly.

“I have an idea,” she said, and sat down on the stone floor, motioning for the girls to gather around her.

“Ecoutez, mes enfants. .” she began.

None of them moved. She opened the plastic bag of coconut candy and indicated they should pass it around. A few of the older girls looked over at the Somali man, who nodded.

One by one the children gathered around her. As they were doing so, she passed the wad of money to Ghedi and whispered: “Give him the money. Then take your sister and go to the camp. Don’t wait for me and don’t look back.”

She looked around at the girls gathered around her. A few of them started to giggle and eat the candy. She smiled, took a deep breath and started to speak in English.

“I’m going to tell you a story about a little girl named Cinderella. Once there was a man who married, for his second wife, the proudest woman you ever saw. She had two nasty daughters of her own, who were just like her. The good man also had a beautiful young daughter from his first wife, a good sweet girl. Her name was Cinderella.”

As she recited, she saw Ghedi give the Somali man the money. Then she watched as Ghedi and the girl left with Van Zyl, a shiver going up her spine when they were gone and she was there alone with the child prostitutes and the Somalis with guns, all of them listening rapt to her story, though they could barely understand a word.

If she ever got back to camp, they would have to leave Mogadishu, she thought. Al-Shabaab and al Qaeda weren’t going to let this go. They would get back to Dadaab somehow. She and Ghedi and the little girl, Amina. And then what? What was she to do with them? They couldn’t live forever in Dadaab.

An odd thought. The American, Nick, would find her there, if he survived his war, she thought.