The Somali Doctrine

by James Grenton

  Jim went into the bathroom to wash his hands, but the door seemed to be half wedged shut. He pushed against it. Something budged. He reached for the light switch, and recoiled.

  Nasir’s body was lying on the floor, his arms and legs at unnatural angles. He was half naked and covered with wounds, as though the killer had gone crazy and stabbed him dozens of times. The floor was sticky with dried-up blood and the mirror was smeared with red. Jim stared at Nasir’s face. A shockwave of revulsion swept over him.

  Nasir’s eye twitched. Jim knelt and touched Nasir’s forehead. His skin was warm. Jim felt a surge of hope. Nasir opened one eye and seemed to focus on Jim’s face. His mouth opened. Jim leaned towards him. He had an eerie sensation of déjà vu, reminding him of when they’d found the man by the side of the road.

  Nasir was trying to speak, but no sound came out. Jim’s optimism disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Nasir’s breathing was shallow and erratic. Jim gently lifted his friend’s head and put it on his lap, covering his trousers in blood. He picked up a towel and pressed it into the gaping knife wounds on Nasir’s chest in a futile attempt at stopping the bleeding.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Jim said, tears in his eyes. ‘I should have killed the man when I had the chance.’

  Nasir shook his head, as though trying to say no. ‘You have to…’

  Jim waited for him to finish, but Nasir said nothing more. His eyes glazed, his mouth let out a final sigh, and his body went limp in Jim’s arms.

  Jim had grown to like Nasir as a friend. The man’s quiet determination and innate sense of justice had been a beacon of hope in an otherwise desolate context. For a few moments, he forgot where he was, holding Nasir’s head and staring at the wall.

  ‘I’ll get the bastards,’ Jim whispered. ‘I’ll make them pay.’

  A noise in the corridor brought Jim back to the present. He gently placed Nasir’s head back on the floor and stood up. He shut the bedroom door and looked around. Whatever had happened, it had been a vicious fight. The intruder must have attacked Nasir while he lay in bed, but Nasir had overpowered and killed him. Which meant that someone else had killed Nasir.

  Jim heard the door open behind him. He spun round, knife ready.

  There, standing in the doorway, was Harry, grinning with satisfaction.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ Harry said. ‘What have we here? A murderer about to escape, eh? Looks like you’re in a lot of trouble, my friend.’ He jabbed a thumb at the two Kenyan cops behind him, who were staring at Jim with expressionless faces. ‘Okay guys, this is the criminal I was telling you about. Interpol’s looking for him. He’s dangerous.’

  The cops entered the room, pistols pointed at Jim. He lowered his knife and placed it on the desk, next to the other one. The cops each grabbed one of Jim’s arms. Neither of them reacted to the body in the bed or the pool of blood coming from the bathroom.

  Harry grinned. Jim tried to lunge for him, but the cops had him in a strong grip. They pushed him face down into the bed.

  ‘Now, now. Let’s not lose our temper,’ Harry said. ‘It’ll only make things worse.’

  Jim was making muffled sounds, fighting for breath as the two cops pushed his face further into the mattress.

  ‘Don’t kill the son of a bitch just yet,’ Harry said.

  They pulled Jim to his feet. He gasped for air. There was a scream. It was Maxine, in the doorway, holding a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

  ‘What’s going on? What are you doing here?’ she said.

  ‘Just arresting your new boyfriend for a double murder.’ Harry grabbed her arm, yanked it behind her back, and pushed her against the wall. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find you? Nairobi’s my back yard.’

  She tried to twist away. He punched her in the kidneys. She crumpled to the floor.

  ‘This time,’ he said, ‘there’ll be no running away.’

  Chapter 29

  23 September 2003

  Nairobi, Kenya

  Harry sat down in the luxury suite of the Stanley Hotel. He sipped a cup of filter coffee and smoked a cigarette, inhaling deeply. Edward was pacing around the room, dressed as always in a neat pinstriped suit. His hair was combed slick back, giving him the look of a vulture with his hooked nose and pointed chin. He was finishing off a phone call, shouting instructions to some unfortunate minion.

  Usually, Harry would have listened to what Edward was saying on the phone, trying to gather bits of information about anything that could benefit him. But today, he was too busy admiring Jenny, Edward’s sexy assistant, who was sitting on a chair in front of him. She was scribbling away on her notepad and trying to ignore Harry’s lecherous stare. He’d been gazing at her wonderfully shaped legs, her short, tight skirt that emphasised her voluptuous hips. He was now considering her full, rounded breasts, imagining what it must be like to cup them in his hands.

  Why did Edward always get the cute ones, even if there were totally useless?

  Although Jenny wasn’t quite as useless as Harry had thought. He’d dug around a bit and found out she’d been quite high up in MainShield before taking the job at Universal Action. She’d been head of recruitment, in charge of sourcing former special forces operatives from the US, the UK, France, but also Chileans who’d served under Pinochet or South Africans who’d worked for the apartheid government. MainShield was now seen as the most professional, and ruthless, mercenary outfit in Africa, better even than the infamous Blackwater.

  Maybe it was in her upbringing, Harry reflected, as he admired her long neck and blonde hair tied into a bun. She’d come from a military family and her father was a keen supporter of Jerry Falwell, the right-wing US Christian extremist.

  Apart from the religious angle, she was exactly his type of woman. But how could he seduce her? Jenny shot Harry a nasty look. She clearly hadn’t figured him out. While there was no fear in her eyes, she was wary.

  There was a knock on the door. George wobbled in, out of breath as always, as though he’d just run a half-marathon. He mopped his sweaty face with a filthy handkerchief he pulled from his pocket and surveyed the room with his beady eyes. Everyone ignored him as he plonked himself on the chair next to the desk.

  Edward finished his call, tossed the phone onto the bed, and sat in the armchair next to Jenny.

  ‘So, Harry,’ he said. ‘What’s the state of play?’

  Harry took a deep breath. ‘The French journo and professor have disappeared.’

  Edward’s face clouded over. Harry’s heart sank.

  ‘But that’s not a problem,’ he added quickly. ‘They don’t know much. I checked myself. They’ll stay low long enough for us to move ahead.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Jenny said.

  Harry didn’t like the argumentative tone of her voice. ‘Because I asked the chief of Paris’s police to track them down. That’s why. He said they were in hiding.’

  ‘Why not track them down yourself?’ George butted in.

  Harry rolled his eyes. Couldn’t George just shut up sometimes?

  ‘Too time consuming,’ he said. ‘The police chief will help. He has to. I know something about him that he doesn’t want made public.’

  Edward smiled. ‘Can you share that little secret with us?’

  ‘He’s very fond of young boys.’

  ‘Marvellous!’

  Edward made a loud, belly laugh, and Harry knew that he had managed to redeem himself. He smiled contently and looked at Jenny, expecting her to share in their amusement, but she glared at him. George made grunting noises like a pig.

  ‘The meeting in Banyuls? How did that go?’ Edward said, grabbing a sandwich from a platter on the table and picking at it.

  ‘Everything’s all set. We just need the money to be paid to MainShield.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Edward scratched his nose. ‘The money.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Harry asked.

  ‘They’ll get their money in the next few days. Just need to get the b
oard to approve it before the meeting starts at 2pm. Speaking of which, everyone’s here. The board, the directors, our man from DFID, the people from MainShield. We’re all set.’ Edward leaned forward. ‘Now, tell me about this Interpol pest? I hear he’s heading for jail.’

  ‘On suspicion of murder. Caught red-handed with a knife covered in blood. Terrible PR for Interpol. The journos are having a field day. Interpol’s been trying to reach me, but I thought I’d make them wait.’

  ‘Why are they calling you?’ Jenny said.

  ‘They want me to call off the press and hand over their man. But I’m not giving him to Interpol. I need to work on him first.’

  Edward patted Harry’s knee. ‘Splendid. We have Interpol by the bollocks. We’ll make them squirm.’ He stood up. ‘Come on. Better not make the board wait.’

  Chapter 30

  Mogadishu, Somalia

  23 September 2003

  The convoy sped through the devastated streets of Mogadishu, swerving round wreckages of bombed-out vehicles and mountains of debris. It came to a halt in what used to be a square, among piles of rubble from destroyed houses. Begging hands milled round the back of the white trucks with their Universal Action logos. The people backed off when they saw that the men in the trucks were not aid workers, but armed militia who pointed their weapons in the air and fired warning shots.

  A man with mirrored sunglasses and full military gear and cap marched over from a nearby house. The crowd parted in front of him. He gazed at them, clearly satisfied by the fear his presence instilled. He lifted his AK 47, fired into the air and laughed. Another man, similarly dressed, jumped out of a truck. They hugged like old friends.

  Abdi studied them from the back of the truck. He’d learnt that the first man was Othman Ali Hassan, one of Somalia’s most powerful and ruthless warlords. He was the one who had captured Abdi and his son. Othman and the three white men had disappeared after the attack and hadn’t been with them on the drive down from Somaliland.

  The other man was his lieutenant, Guleed Omar Awaale, an equally vicious and blood-thirsty individual who cared about nothing except his own perverted sense of status and honour. He had a short black goatee beard and was also in full combats, with an ammunition belt round his waist. Abdi strained to overhear the conversation.

  ‘What now?’ Guleed said.

  ‘We proceed as planned.’

  ‘You sure?’ Guleed narrowed his eyes. ‘Seems risky.’

  ‘That’s the agreement with them.’

  ‘What happens once we win?’

  ‘We share the spoils, as usual,’ Othman said.

  ‘The prisoners?’

  ‘Also as planned.’

  Abdi tensed. He and his son were the only prisoners he’d seen on the convoy. Everyone else in the camp had been massacred, and nobody had been picked up since. He still couldn’t understand why they’d been spared. Maybe the militia were going to carry out a public execution or something as a sign of strength. He was from a different clan to the militia, so it would be perfectly within the realm of reason.

  Guleed waved his hand. The militiamen piled out of the trucks. Three men pulling a cart full of qat leaves came over. The militiamen started dishing them out, chewing and speaking loudly. The sun was going down and the remains of houses and huts cast long shadows. Apart from the militiamen and the qat sellers, the streets around were now deserted.

  Despite the stimulant rush of the qat, the men soon fell asleep, some of them in the trucks, others among the piles of rubble. They were exhausted from the killing and the days of travel. Only a few sentries remained on guard. This area of Mogadishu was their territory.

  Abdi prayed silently for strength. His lips were parched and his joints ached. Thoughts of the camp massacre swept through his mind. Sadness gripped his body like a physical force. Sweat dripped from his forehead.

  After a while, the thoughts subsided, leaving him drained. He took a deep breath and tapped his son’s head to wake him up. Now was the time to escape. In the morning, they’d surely be executed.

  They were sitting in near darkness in the back of the truck. The door was ajar, letting in a sliver of light from the moon. A pile of sleeping militiamen was between them and the door. Abdi and Khalid rose to their feet and crept over them, easing the door further open, and stepped out. Both of them had learnt to walk quietly in the refugee camps, which were often as dangerous as Somalia’s towns and cities, particularly at night.

  Ten metres away, a sentry sat with his back to them. Abdi felt his heart pound in his chest. If they were caught, they’d be tortured and shot. He gripped Khalid’s hand. They walked in the opposite direction, towards some abandoned houses on the edges of the square.

  Khalid coughed. They both froze. The sentry stirred but didn’t look round. Probably too busy chewing qat.

  They climbed over a pile of stones and sat behind the crumbling wall of one of the houses. Although they were now out of sight, danger would be everywhere. The clan warfare that had torn Somalia apart for the past 20 years meant that they’d have to find members of their clan soon for protection, or they’d never survive.

  Abdi looked down at Khalid. Even in the low light of the moon, his son looked exhausted and badly hurt, with bruised cheeks, swollen lips, a crushed nose and falling eyelids. Khalid was about to lie back when Abdi reached out to hold him. His son looked at him questioningly.

  ‘Mines,’ Abdi whispered in his ear. The ruins were most likely mined to prevent enemy militia from hiding here.

  Abdi took Khalid’s hand and led him carefully through the rubble, peering ahead. After what seemed like an eternity, they emerged from the other side of the house into a deserted street and walked along the wall, in the shadows. Abdi had never been to Mogadishu, so he could only pray that he was heading in a direction that would lead to relative safety. They walked for hours, Khalid dragging his feet and stumbling over every rock.

  The scale of devastation was shocking, even for Abdi, who had seen Hargeysa razed to the ground by Somali dictator Siad Barre’s air force in the early nineties. Burned out vehicles and old Soviet tanks were left, abandoned and rusty, in the middle of the road. Occasionally, a stray dog would scamper past them, sniffing for food and eyeing them suspiciously, as though trying to decide whether it should attack them.

  The sun was rising. They hid in the ruins of a large house. Khalid fell asleep immediately. Abdi sat there, leaning against the remains of a wall. What was left of his family was now dead, massacred in the IDP camp. His chances of survival were slim, particularly if the militia found him. Yet he had to find a way out so that he and his son could live in a semi-state of peace. Maybe he should try to reach the Dadaab refugee camps in Eastern Kenya, on the other side of the Somali border. He still had some of his wife’s family there.

  He tried to remember what his wife had looked like. He could hold a picture of her round face and warm brown eyes in his mind for a few seconds. But then it would dissolve and change into the image of her dead body, lying on the floor of their hut, raped and stabbed and discarded like an old rug. He shook his head to free it of the dark thoughts, which clung like cobwebs in the recesses of his mind.

  He heard scuffling to his right. Squinting, he could just about make out a huddle of clothes in the corner. The clothes moved. Abdi froze. A woman stood up and stretched her arms. She shook two other piles of clothes next to her, and a man and a girl sat up slowly.

  The sun was coming up fast. A ray of light fell onto Abdi’s face. The girl saw him and gasped, pointing her finger. The man jumped to his feet and fell onto Abdi before he could react. Within seconds, the man had a knife round Abdi’s throat.

  ‘What do you want?’ the man hissed into his ear.

  Abdi felt a wave of panic and couldn’t speak.

  ‘Who are you?’ the man whispered.

  ‘Abdi Karim Abdul. From Somaliland.’

  ‘What you doing here?’

  ‘Kidnapped by militiamen. Trying to get hom
e.’

  Khalid stirred at their feet.

  ‘And him?’ the man said.

  ‘My son.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Militia hit him.’

  The man’s grip loosened. Maybe he thought a man and his injured son were not such a threat, although you couldn’t trust anybody here. He checked Abdi’s body for concealed weapons, then stepped back.

  Khalid woke up with a start. Abdi hugged him close. The man spoke in hushed tones to the woman, who must have been his wife. He turned back to Abdi.

  ‘Where in Somaliland?’

  ‘Hargeysa, but we were living in a camp near the Ethiopian border. My house in Hargeysa was destroyed during the bombings.’

  ‘We’re also from Somaliland,’ the man said. ‘We escaped here 10 years ago. We are Isaaq.’

  Abdi thanked Allah. They were from the same clan. Their chances of survival had increased ten-fold.

  ‘So are we,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘What’s it like up there?’

  ‘They’ve started rebuilding Hargeysa. Lots of the fighting has stopped. Many of us still live in camps, but life was getting safer. Until the militia attacked.’

  ‘Stay with us,’ the man said. ‘We’ll hide you from the militia. You can help keep guard at night. There’s safety in numbers.’

  ‘Alright,’ Abdi said. ‘It’s a deal.’

  The man introduced himself as Samatar Abukar Bahdoon. He spoke fast, sometimes too fast. His wife, Haweeya, was quiet and unassuming, following her husband’s every comment and nodding at the right places. Their daughter, Sagal, was studying Khalid with interest. She looked several years older. All of them were dressed in rags: old clothes that had probably once been acceptable, but were now all they had left.

  An explosion tore through the air. They threw themselves to the ground, but nothing moved. It was too far away.