The Night Ranger

29

LOWER JUBA REGION

The convoy emerged from the last of the scrub and the White Men fell silent.

Even from five hundred meters away, the technicals loomed over the empty plain. They were Toyota Hilux pickups, crew cabs with wide tires and roll bars, built to be indestructible on the world’s worst roads. The White Men drove them, too. But each of the Dita Hiluxes carried a machine gun, its long steel barrel poking over the top of the cab. Three men stood in each pickup, one to aim and shoot, one to handle the ammunition, and one in reserve.

If Wizard had commanded the Ditas he would have turned around half the Hiluxes so that the guns could shoot out the open bed of the pickups for maximum visibility and flexibility. But the Ditas didn’t seem worried. Wizard couldn’t hear them, but their hands told the tale, loose and relaxed. Awaale stood in the center, a head taller than most of his men.

Wizard wasn’t surprised. In truth, this meeting would have been suicide for the White Men if not for the drone. Even with it he would need every bit of magic in the world. He slipped the Range Rover behind his pickups to give it a few extra seconds of cover if the Ditas opened up. When the Ditas opened up.

The hostages had been silent during the drive. Now Gwen leaned forward.

“Be careful,” she said.

Just then Wizard knew he would never see her again, whatever happened in the next few minutes. He’d be gone, or she would. He missed her already, her and her magic, the magic of her blond hair and blue eyes, the magic she’d won just by being born in America. In his pocket he found a plastic bag that held a sheaf of miraa. The bag was mostly empty, the miraa growing stale. He had nothing else to give her. Nothing else she could possibly want. He handed it to her. She seemed to understand as well as he did.

“You tell everyone at home about Wizard.”

“You know it.”

He popped his sunglasses back on, stepped out of the Rover. His men leaned against their pickups, their sad naked Hiluxes. Their feet sank into the mud as they snuck glimpses at the technicals.

Wizard faced his soldiers one final time. “What I told you before, it’s still true. You acting like these Ditas got tanks. Look over there.”

One by one, the White Men lifted their heads.

“You see tanks? I don’t see no tanks. I see technicals. And I see a bunch of boys never could be White Men. Stupid boys. Weak boys. We the ones with the secret. This all gonna look different soon. So different.” He turned to the Donkeys. “You know what you supposed to do, when you supposed to do it.”

“When you wave,” Donkey Junior said.

“Right. Keep it tight and keep coming. Everyone else, when the shooting start, remember, it the Ditas gonna be scared. Not us. They not expecting this. Done and done.”

“Done and done,” his men said without enthusiasm. Wizard knew that if the bomb didn’t hit quickly, many of them would lose their courage and run. Without further delay he took off his pistol and held it high where Awaale could see and handed it to Donkey Junior. “You ready to give this back to me,” Wizard said.

He started the long walk toward Awaale. The sun stared into his eyes, but he stared straight back, wouldn’t blink even as his eyes sprouted tears behind his sunglasses.

Awaale was taller than Wizard remembered. He stood with arms folded across his chest like he was posing for a statue of himself. Leader of the Dita Boys, Savior of the Somali Nation. He wore a pistol on his hip and the shiniest mirrored sunglasses Wizard had ever seen. He had a new gold bracelet, too, thick and shiny. His men stood close, their AKs trained on Wizard, their lips full of miraa.

“Awaale.” Wizard extended a hand. Awaale looked at it like it was made of dung. “Shake my hand, Awaale. Man to man.”

Back at camp, the American had told him to touch Awaale, nod while he did. Then the people watching with the drone will know they have the right target, he said. They can see that from the drone, Wizard said. They can see that. They can see everything.

Awaale’s lips formed the briefest of smiles, as if to underscore the meaninglessness of the shake to his soldiers. We’re making peace with a man who’s already dead, the smile said. He extended his big right arm. Wizard clasped Awaale’s hand in both of his and nodded to the sky.

“So these you new boys,” Wizard said. “They good for anything but eating?”

“You find out soon enough. You got the wazungu in your Rover?”

“Yes.”

“You tell them they coming with me?”

“Two conditions first.”

Awaale shook his head. All around them men snapped off safeties.

Showy fool. You think you in control, but you backwards as ever. Death up there in the sky, coming for you.

“Just hear me before you say no,” Wizard said.

“Quickly, then.”

“First, you take men of mine who want to come with you.”

“Soldiers leaving you, Wizard? White Men quitting you?”

“Traitors begging to join your rabble. I don’t want them anyway.”

“How many?”

“Twenty, twenty-five maybe.”

Awaale hesitated. Then he seemed to see that Wizard was giving him a cheap way to build his force and that he could always shoot the ones he didn’t like. He grinned. Wizard knew he’d taken the bait. “All right. I show your men mercy, even though they stupid enough to let you lead them.” His smile broadened. “But not you, Little Chicken. I won’t have you.”

“You think I gonna play your slave. Second, you give everyone else one day to break camp, leave the province. We never fight again. You win. Just let us live.”

“You giving up.”

Wizard nodded like it hurt him too much to say yes.

“Say it, then.”

“Yeah. We giving up. I giving up.”

“And I get all you vehicles. You be walking out of this province.”

“Take the pickups.”

“Think I want them pickups? The Rovers.”

“No.”

“Come to me begging for your life and then say no. All balls and no brains, Little Chicken, only you no balls, either.”

“All right.”

“All right, what?”

“All right, you get the Rovers, too. We walk back to camp, take our stuff, leave.”

“Go to Dadaab with the rest of the women.”

Wizard shrugged.

“You know what, Wizard? I in a good mood this morning, now that you roaches not bothering me no more. Gonna let you live. Can’t take anything, though. Can’t go back to camp. Soon as you leave this field you gone to Kenya.”

For a moment, Wizard wondered whether Awaale might mean to keep his word, let him live. Then Awaale looked over his shoulder and nodded at one of his men and Wizard knew he was lying. He and the White Men who didn’t defect would die within the hour.

“Thank you, Awaale. Thank you.” The words stuck in Wizard’s throat. Even knowing they were a lie, he could barely force them out. “I tell my men who want to come to you, split from the rest of us, walk over.”

“No tricks. Or we shoot all everyone.”

“I swear, no tricks. You too much for me.”

“And the wazungu?”

“Told you. In the Rover. You going to hurt them? Sell them to Shabaab?”

“No business of yours, Chicken. They mine now. Like them Rovers.”

“I tell you they much much trouble.”

“Maybe for you.” Awaale patted Wizard on the cheek. “What happened to that magic, Wizard?”

Wizard was thankful he’d left his weapon with Donkey Junior. He had the desperate urge to put it to the big man’s chest, squeeze the trigger. He knew the drone would do its work so soon. Still his fingers itched for the pistol. A bomb was too sudden, too quick. Wizard wanted Awaale to know that Wizard had killed him.

“Go on,” Awaale said. “Wasted too much time. Send me my wazungu.”

Wizard turned, walked back across the field. “Everyone who want to go with Awaale, his no-teeth Ditas, walk now,” he yelled.

Men stepped forward, until two dozen walked across the field toward him, heads down in defeat. The Donkeys led the way. If Awaale had known the White Men, he might have wondered why Wizard’s most loyal soldiers were defecting en masse. For his part, Wizard screamed abuse at his men.

“Traitors! Wizard protected you, looked out for you, now you quit me! Awaale gon’ shoot all you fools!”

Step. Step. Step. Mud caked the bottom of his pants. He wondered if even now Awaale was getting ready to open fire. He didn’t look back. Nothing to do but play the role of the defeated commander. He hoped the Americans would wait long enough to let his men get close but still drop the bomb while they were outside the blast area. He trudged through the mud, shoulders slumped.

Halfway across the field when he passed the first of his men. Of course, it was brave, stupid Donkey Junior. “Junior,” Wizard said quietly.

“Wizard. It okay?”

“Keep walking.”

Then Wizard heard the sound he’d been waiting for, the whistle that meant the drone had let loose its magic egg—

He turned and grabbed Junior and pulled him down and—