The Night Ranger

15

BAKAFI

Wells wasn’t sure that he’d been formally arrested, much less what charges he faced or what rights he had. Not that it mattered. Most Americans thought of police officers as honest and reliable, and cops generally repaid that trust. Anne would take a bullet before she took a bribe. But in Kenya, like many places where Wells plied his trade, the police were best avoided at all costs.

The cuff squeezing his wrist was a simple mechanism, a few links of chain connecting two adjustable steel rings. A trained thief could pop a handcuff with a paper clip in seconds. But if there were any paper clips in this room, Wells couldn’t reach them. He spent a few unpleasant minutes squeezing his thumb against his palm and sliding his wrist against the steel to see if he could slip his hand through, but the cop had cuffed him tight and he was no escape artist. He chafed his skin until it bled, but the cuff stayed in place.

Next he went for brute force. Wells faced the wall and wrapped his left hand high around the chain and twisted his right hand so it, too, held the links. He raised his foot to the wall and shoved his boot against it and tugged until the muscles in his arms felt like Silly Putty. But the metal plate holding the chain to the wall didn’t give a fraction of an inch.

The only item within arm’s reach was a stack of paper on the desk. Though the cop had taken Wells’s phones, he’d missed the lighter that Julia had given Wells. But even if Wells managed to start a fire, he’d still be stuck to the wall. At best, the cops would douse the flames and beat him up for causing trouble. At worst, they’d leave the station and let him roast, a mzungu barbecue. Even so, the lighter might come in handy. Wells extracted it from the front right pocket of his jeans and slid it into his back pocket, where he could reach it even with his hands cuffed behind him.

—

Two hours passed. Wells found himself fighting an ache that slashed across his back to his hips. His body had been wounded by bullets and batons, fists and feet. Aside from lots of Advil, Wells dealt with the damage by ignoring it. But tonight his muscles and joints and bones all sang the same sad song, You’re too old for this nonsense. The clock on the wall magnified his discomfort, seeming to measure not seconds but weeks with each tick. As if whole worlds were dying while he sat in this room. The relativity of arrest.

Finally, the back door opened. The cop walked out, looked Wells over. His eyes were bloodshot and his belly slipped from his shirt over his jeans.

“You work at Dadaab,” the cop said.

“I’m an aid worker.” Using a loose definition of aid. “May I ask your name, sir?” A little deference never hurt.

“Mark.” Though the cop’s Anglo-Kenyan patois made the name sound like Maahk. “What you doing here?”

“Wilfred and I drove to see the place where the volunteers were taken.”

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous? Shabaab kidnapping wazungu.”

Suddenly, Mark the cop was his best friend. “We thought we’d be okay. Wilfred had a pistol. But he tripped and it went off, hit him in the thigh. I bandaged him up, brought him back. I’d seen the infirmary when we drove though.” The story didn’t make much sense. Not that Mark cared, Wells thought. He had his own lies to keep straight.

Mark pretended to smile. “Tomorrow we talk to Mr. Wumbugu, sort this out. Let you go to Dadaab, where you belong. You don’t bother with Bakafi anymore. Of course, we keep the evidence.”

“Of course.” A scheme occurred to Wells. He’d need to be careful setting the hook. Not too much at once. “I see why you have to investigate. We come to the hospital, my driver’s been shot, I have nineteen, twenty thousand dollars.”

“Twenty thousand?”

“Whatever I was carrying.”

The cop stepped close. Wells could have reached out with his free left hand, throttled him. But Wells would still be locked to the wall.

“You said twenty thousand. You carrying five thousand.”

“I don’t know. Whatever I had.”

The cop squeezed Wells’s handcuffed arm, like a manager sending a pitcher to the showers, a friendly warning. “Big mistake to lie to police. Even for a mzungu. Where is it, the rest?”

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

The cop stepped away, reached under his desk, came up with a black metal tube the size of a flashlight. He pushed a button on the side and the cylinder quadrupled in length. An expandable baton. American cops loved them, and apparently they weren’t alone.

The cop stood before Wells. He raised his right hand high, waggled the baton like a tour guide, brought it down on Wells’s left biceps.

“Come on,” Wells said. As an answer Mark raised the baton again.

“In the Cruiser. In the Cruiser, okay?”

The cop laid the baton against the desk where Wells couldn’t reach it, then walked out the front door. Ten minutes later, he returned, carrying the Mossberg and the Glock. Wells didn’t know where the Makarov had gone.

“These in your car. No money. What kind of aid worker you are?”

“You said yourself, it’s dangerous.”

“Where’s the money?”

“It’s in a trap compartment in the back, hard to find.”

“You show me.”

“You promise to let me go tomorrow.”

“Yes. But this a secret, between you and me. Not—” He pointed at the back door.

Just as Wells had hoped. The cop didn’t want to share this new windfall with anyone. Not even his partner.

“We go get the money, come back. Try to run, I shoot you. Understand?” Wells nodded. Mark unlocked him, cuffed his hands behind his back, marched him out the door and into the night. Only the hoteli, the police station, and the infirmary had generators. The rest of Bakafi was dark, families huddled for the night. The Cruiser was parked where Wells had left it outside the infirmary. Not a great spot for his purposes. He’d have to disable Mark fast, before the guy shouted for help.

At the Cruiser, Wells expected Mark to uncuff him. Instead the cop swung the back gate open. The bulb inside threw dim light on the toolbox and two-by-fours and plastic jerricans in the back compartment. “Where is it?”

“Easier for me to show you.”

“You think I’m stupid? Keep them handcuffs on, tell me where.” He leaned forward, legs spread, and reached inside. With his arms free, Wells would have had plenty of options. Now he was down to one.

“Right there, next to the toolbox—”

Wells sidestepped until he was directly behind the cop. He leaned slightly forward and pulled his arms off his back for balance. He swung his right leg back, then drove it forward, like a field-goal kicker, aiming for a spot just below Mark’s butt. He swung through and felt the soft center of Mark’s crotch collapse beneath his boot. Mark moaned, a sound that under other circumstances could have been mistaken for ecstasy. His knees buckled and he sagged against a jerrican.

Wells turned so that his back was to the Cruiser. He tucked his hands into the waistband of Mark’s jeans and slung him to the ground. The cop was panting now like a dog that had run too long, his tongue looping meaningless circles over his lips. He would be frozen for a minute or more. With his cuffed hands, Wells grabbed a fuel jerrican, flipped it on its side, edged his fingers around the cap, and twisted. Gasoline slopped out. Wells steered the can so the fuel sloshed onto Mark’s shirt.

When Mark was soaked, Wells flipped the jerrican upright. Mark feebly edged his arm toward the pistol holstered at his waist. Wells pulled the lighter from his back pocket. He squatted on Mark’s chest, facing Mark’s legs, so the cop was looking at his back. Wells splayed his own legs, stamped his boots down on Mark’s forearms. The cop’s breath came fast. He smelled like a charcoal grill about to be lit. Wells lifted his cuffed hands. The lighter was simple and plastic, the Kenyan equivalent of a Bic. Wells flicked its flint. “Do as I say or burn. Understand?”

“Yes.”

A light popped on inside the infirmary. The doctor yelled, “Jambo!”

“Tell him, no jambo. Keep him inside.”

Mark coughed, shouted back in Swahili. His voice was halting, but whatever he said seemed to work. The light flicked off.

“Where are the handcuff keys?”

“Right pocket.”

Wells lifted his boot from Mark’s right forearm. “Get them. Slowly.” Mark inched his right hand forward, plucked the keys from his pocket. “Uncuff me.”

“Man—”

Again Wells flicked the flint.

“Okay.” Mark reached his hand higher until it was behind Wells, a dangerous moment. If Mark went for the lighter, Wells had already decided that he would toss it aside. He wasn’t setting this man on fire. He just had to hope Mark wouldn’t take the chance.

The key scraped into the hole with the faint click of metal on metal. Then Mark turned the key, and the steel bracelet came loose from Wells’s wrist. Freedom. Wells lifted his right elbow, reversed it into the cop’s temple, getting his shoulder into the strike. The elbow was underrated as a weapon. Wells couldn’t see what he’d done, but he felt the shiver of contact run up his arm. Mark’s head snapped sideways and a tiny wheeze escaped his throat. Wells grabbed Mark’s pistol, rolled forward into the dirt. He came up and turned around, the pistol in his right hand in case Mark tried to come back at him. But the cop stayed flat on his back. He twisted sideways and vomited a stew of beer and rice.

Wells grabbed the handcuff key, unlocked the left cuff so the handcuffs came free. He tucked Mark’s pistol into the back of his waistband. Mark tried to sit, but Wells flipped him onto his stomach, put a knee in his back, cuffed him tight.

“You no aid worker.”

“You’re not much of a cop.”

He pulled Mark up as someone shouted from down the road. Wells saw a man outside the hoteli. Time to go. Wells grabbed the pistol by the butt and swung it against Mark’s head. The cop went limp.

The man from the hoteli was walking toward him now. Wells wondered if he had time to go back to the police station, get his guns and his phones. He decided he had no choice. He could make do with Mark’s Makarov, proof that fate had a sense of humor. But without the phones he’d have no way to reach Shafer or anyone else. He grabbed the Cruiser’s keys from Mark’s pocket and threw his unconscious body in the back of the Cruiser. He slammed the gate shut, ran for the driver’s door. Two more men had come out from the hoteli now and were walking up the road. Wells drove to the police station. Inside, the front room was empty. He shoved the phones in his pockets, scooped up the shotgun. As he did, the handle of the back door twisted. He pointed the Mossberg at the anticorruption poster, fired. The devil’s thunder echoed off the concrete walls and the poster turned into confetti. So much for a quiet exit. Wells ran outside, fired the Glock wildly at the police pickup truck outside the station. The front left tire burst open. He wasn’t sure how much other damage he’d done, but the tire alone ought to buy him a few minutes.

He slid back in the Cruiser and rolled off. A dozen men stood in the road. Wells clicked on his brights, hunched low in his seat, floored the gas. The Cruiser’s engine roared. It accelerated madly down the street, bouncing over ruts like an ATV on steroids. Wells saw two bullet holes appear in the windshield and then the hoteli flashed past and he was clear of Bakafi.

He wasn’t expecting a warm welcome if he came through town again.