City of Saints & Thieves

by Natalie C. Anderson

  Well, you’re only going to get them into trouble.

  • • •

  Before you even ask, Boyboy is not my friend.

  He’s my business partner. Big difference. He’s from Congo too, so I don’t have to explain certain things to him that I’d rather not talk about, like where my family is, or why I don’t really sleep, or why men in uniforms make me twitch. Sometimes he comes over to my roof and we share a smoke and watch the sun disappear into the smog that caresses the city. That’s it. Boyboy has his party boys, and I have Kiki. You probably think that’s sad or something, but I’m not sad.

  Besides, I don’t have a lot of time for making friends. I have things to do.

  • • •

  We use a florist’s van to get there. Ketchup is driving, and Bug Eye keeps yelling at him to slow down and watch the road. It’s two in the morning and cops are just as likely to shake us down for cash as care that we’re running red lights, but still, better that no one remembers seeing a van full of kids dressed in black and obviously not florists. The closer we get, the more ready I am to be out and working. Ketchup’s constant prattle makes me nervous. He laughs his hyena laugh and says gross stuff about the twilight girls on the street corners we pass.

  In the back, Boyboy and I are quiet, getting ready. I attach my earpiece and make sure the Bluetooth is connecting to my phone.

  “Let’s see how the camera is feeding,” Boyboy says.

  I look at him, aiming the micro-camera embedded in the earpiece. His face pops up on his laptop screen. “Good.” He watches himself pat his hair into place as he asks, “Mic check? Say something.”

  I whisper, “Boyboy got no fashion sense,” and the little earpiece relays my words to my phone, and then to Boyboy’s computer, where I hear myself echo.

  He flips me off seamlessly, between the adjustments he’s making to his equipment. “Can you hear me okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “You’re clear.”

  “You have to keep your phone close to the earpiece. When you had it in your pocket on that last job, the connection was bad. Where are you putting it?”

  I tuck my phone into my sports bra and wave my hands—ta-da.

  “Cute.”

  “Secure.”

  “Put this one in your pocket,” he says, and hands me a tiny USB adapter. “It’s the key to the treasure box and I don’t want it getting lost in your cleavage.”

  “Ha.” My chest is barely larger than my eleven-year-old sister’s. But I do as he asks.

  Boyboy is crazy good with tech stuff. He always has been, ever since I’ve known him. He told me when he was little the bigger boys would beat him up and call him a fairy, so he spent a lot of time in his room, taking phones and computers apart, putting them back together. His latest trick is hacking ATMs so they spit out crisp thousand-shilling notes.

  He won’t join the Goondas, but he’ll work with me. He does his IT genius thing when I need him, and in exchange I lift fancy gadgets for him—computers, phones, the occasional designer handbag—whatever he needs. He says he’s the best hacker in East Africa, and from what I’ve seen, he’s telling the truth.

  He’d better be. He’s about to break us into the most fortified home in the Ring.

  • • •

  The Ring is where you live if you can afford it. Lush, hilly, and green, it sits above Sangui City, peering down its nose at the rest of us. The houses squat on neatly clipped lawns behind fences and flame trees and barbed wire and dogs and ex-military guards with AK-47s. Fleets of Mercedes descend into the city in the mornings carrying the Big Men to work. We call these guys the WaBenzi: the tribe of the Mercedes-Benz. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, hail from all over the world, but speak a common language: money. When they return to their mansions in the Ring in the evening, they complain about traffic, drink imported scotch, and fall asleep early on soft cotton sheets. Their wives oversee small armies of servants and get delicate headaches when the African sun is too hot. Their kids play tennis. Their dogs have therapists.

  At this time of night, the Ring is quiet except for frogs and insects. It’s rained up here, and the mist is thick. The eerily familiar tree-lined streets we drive are empty. The florist van doesn’t look too out of place. Maybe we have just come from a banquet. A power wedding.

  I look out the window. We pass a break in the houses and trees, and I catch a glimpse of the dark Indian Ocean. Sangui: city-state on a hill, port to the world, and a fine bloody place to do business. You do the dirty work down there in town, and the Ring is where you retreat.

  I should know. I’ve seen it all up close. I may live down in the dirt now, but once upon a time, a fortress in the Ring was my home.

  • • •

  Rule 4: Choose your target carefully.

  Thief

  Kauzi

  Thegi

  Voleur

  Mwizi

  Thief

  It’s a magic word. Full of power.

  Just saying it out loud on the street can get somebody killed. I’ve seen it happen. The police are worthless, so folks are disposed to make their own swift justice. And believe me, no one feels sorry for the thief when the dust settles and blood soaks into the ground. Better be sure no one’s raising a finger at you.

  So listen up. Choose carefully. Choose the right target. Most of the time that means the easy target. If you’re pickpocketing, go for the drunks and people having arguments on their mobiles. If you’re robbing a house, make sure it’s the one where they hide the key on the doorjamb. You want to go for bank accounts? Try the old rich lady. Odds are her password is her dog’s name.

  There are plenty to choose from. No sense in making it hard on yourself.

  But for every rule, there is an exception.

  Roland Greyhill’s home isn’t a natural target. His gates are locked and his guard is up. The man makes his living dealing with warlords and armies and vast amounts of cash. He knows he’s got enemies. He’s spent years watching his back. He trusts no one. There is nothing easy about him.

  But make no mistake: Difficult or not, tonight he is the right target.

  • • •

  We’re getting close. I swallow the jangling feeling in my throat and roll down my window a little. The air is wet and smells like jasmine.

  Boyboy is quiet beside me. I know he wants to ask how I’m feeling. Everyone else has been going over the plan all day, but I’ve been thinking about it for years. I’m not sure I would even know how to explain how I feel right now. Like I swallowed a hive of bees? Is that an emotion?

  But Boyboy knows better than to ask me dumb questions.

  When we’re two houses away, Ketchup turns the lights off and rolls to a stop.

  “We’re here, Mr. Omoko,” Bug Eye says into his phone.

  The mansion takes up twice the space of any other home on the street. Over the high wall, only the red tile roof is visible. What we can’t see are half a dozen dudes with AK-47s and two German shepherds prowling the grounds. But we know they’re there.

  Everyone looks up at the house, dead silent. Even Ketchup.

  Bug Eye rubs his hands together. “You ready, Tiny Girl?”

  I touch the earpiece. It’s secure. I pop my shoulders and twist my back. It takes everything not to shout, I’m here. I’m doing this. This is my house.

  “I’m ready,” I say, and slip out of the van.

  FOUR

  Rule 5: You have to have a plan.

  Have a damn good plan. It should be simple. Detail it out. Commit it to memory. You need to know it backward and forward so you don’t freeze up when you’re standing there with Goondas breathing down your neck, looking up at that house you’re about to rob.

  My plan has three parts: Dirt. Money. Blood.

  It’s a good plan.

  Tonight we start
with dirt.

  I have thought long and hard about this plan, looked at all the angles. I’ve been careful. I’ve tried to think of everything.

  But here’s the thing you have to remember about plans: Three-quarters of the way in, it all just may blow up in your face. Equipment breaks. Maids wake up. Dogs bark. The true mark of a good thief is having the stones to keep your cool and jua kali that thing back together.

  That’s right. You’ve gotta be ready to improvise.

  • • •

  Boyboy kicks things off. As I’m slinking toward the mansion with Ketchup at my heels, he hacks into the security system. He turns off the electric perimeter fence and disables the security booth’s camera feeds. Then he reroutes the feeds to his computer so he has eyes all over the Greyhills’ lawn. Next he kills the first-floor window alarms. He figures that he can keep everything offline for about three minutes before security fixes things. By that time I’ll be inside, and he’ll have the interior cameras on a loop, so anyone who’s looking will just see a nice empty house. Power outages are common enough in the rainy season. Security will probably chalk this one up to good old nature. The only thing I have to do is hurry.

  Ketchup and I pull a wooden ladder out of the bushes, where a gardener on payroll who works down the street stashed it this afternoon. Then I climb right up the wall, under the shadows of the jacaranda trees that line the street. Easy peasy. At the top I listen for the hum of electricity coming through the razor wire. It’s quiet, but I still touch it first with my pinky finger just in case.

  “Don’t you trust me?” Boyboy chides through the earpiece.

  I stay quiet and concentrate on lifting myself over.

  When I was a kid, I took gymnastics lessons for a couple of years until Mama said we weren’t going to take charity anymore. I’m not sure if that’s what did it, or if it’s because I’m small or what, but doing something like climbing over razor wire on top of a fifteen-foot-high wall is just easy for me. Some people are good at computer stuff. Some are good singers. I’m good at being a thief.

  I lower myself down the wall and let go, landing with a small thump in the bushes. Crouched behind dripping palm branches, I wait until I hear the van start and drive off. Bug Eye, Ketchup, and Boyboy will stay far enough away that they won’t attract attention.

  Boyboy’s voice whispers, “Okay, the dogs are on the other side, but you got some dudes heading your way.”

  I hear footsteps swishing in the wet grass, and soon two guards amble by on their rounds. I sink into the dark. I level my breath, tensing to slide back into the foliage if they come near, but they walk on, oblivious. Once they’ve rounded the corner, I scan the yard and dart to the house. I have two minutes left for the next part.

  The window over the generator is open a crack, as expected, but covered with iron bars. It’s going to be tight, for sure. Good thing I had only a sweet bun for dinner.

  I climb up on the generator and put my head to the bars, measuring. Ear to ear, my head just barely goes through. But it’s enough. If I can get my head in, the rest of me will fit.

  I don’t mess around; I probably only have about ninety seconds left. I push the window the rest of the way open, get a leg in and then my hips. I breathe out and slide my chest through the cold metal bars, feel a moment of claustrophobia like always, then my head is through and I’m in.

  After landing softly on the floor, I take a second to look around. I’m at the corner of the hall. Ahead I see the sitting room, and catch a hint of turquoise light from the pool outside. It’s like a dream, being back here after all this time. I take a steadying breath and creep forward. No one should be here. Mr. and Mrs. Greyhill are in Dubai. The kids are away at boarding school in a cold, neutral country. The servants are asleep in their cottages at the end of the yard.

  It’s just me and the ghosts.

  Boyboy’s voice crackles through the earpiece. “Hurry, T; you’ve only got forty-five seconds. And that guard almost caught you with your butt hanging out the window.”

  I want to tell him to shut up, but resist the urge and keep moving. At the end of the hall, I glance around the corner. The sitting room is empty and still. The security control panel I’m aiming for is attached to the wall ahead. When I reach it, the panel’s screen shows I have thirty-two seconds before the next round of laser scanners sweep the house. If they hit me, a silent alarm will go off immediately. It goes to the guards, who will notify an expensive but highly effective security company staffed with ex–covert ops guys from South Africa. They’ll arrive within minutes. They don’t turn people over to the police, who will let you go for the right price. They take you in a helicopter out over the ocean. What do they do with you? Let’s just say it’s a long swim back.

  Thirty seconds.

  I look at the screen, hoping the camera is feeding properly. “Well? Can you see it?”

  “Yeah. Tilt your head up. Okay.” There’s a pause while I presume Boyboy is doing something productive, and it’s all I can do to not shout at him to hurry. He has to disable the lasers, but he can’t hack into this system; it’s on a closed circuit. Instead he’s going to walk me through shutting it down.

  In twenty-five seconds.

  “It’s a TX-400. New model,” Boyboy says, after what feels like an eternity. He starts rattling instructions. “Press Alarm on the screen. Now Code. Four, eight, four. Copy. Program . . .”

  Boyboy leads me though the sequence, strings of numbers and buttons to push that he whispers in my ear. They sound almost like the prayers I used to fall asleep to when Mama would drag me to church. It’s soothing, in a way. Still, my fingers are shaky, willing the process to go faster. Four seconds. He gives me a last series of numbers, and I punch them in. The timer stops. One second to go.

  I let out my breath.

  “All clear,” he says.

  I’m already moving. This way. Grand staircase. Up and then down the hall and to the left. I don’t even have to try to be quiet. The plush carpet muffles my feet. I slink down the halls, listening hard. For a second I think there’s a noise and I freeze. Through the earpiece I hear the clicking of Boyboy’s fingers on his keypad. I pull it away from my ear and continue listening. After a few seconds of stillness, I put the earpiece back in and creep on.

  The hallway walls are covered in photographs of the Greyhills. You can’t help but notice, first of all, that he’s white, she’s Kenyan, and the kids between them are a perfect mix. A boy my age and a girl about Kiki’s. The second thing you notice is the wealth that practically drips off them. Mrs. Greyhill comes from a family of real estate moguls, and Mr. Greyhill’s mining wealth doesn’t hurt. They are posed on boats in pressed coral button-downs. Smiling from Land Cruisers on luxury safaris in the Serengeti. Gold watches, pearls, diamonds on wrists and ears. They are a poster family for what the coastal city is—a mix of colors and nationalities—and what it wants to be: rich.

  But I’ve seen it all before. I have no time for them.

  I am hunting.

  I turn a corner and the dark is absolute. The air is cool and dry, processed. I’m getting closer. There are no more pictures on these walls, just dark wood panels. The farther I go, the more static I can hear through the earpiece. I hope the van isn’t too far away. One more turn, spiraling into the dead heart of the mansion.

  And I’m there.

  I stare at the heavy ebony door, my chest rising and falling. I try to slow my breath. My palms itch with sweat. I’m so close. I’ve been waiting for this moment practically my entire life. It feels like a thousand ants are crawling up and down my skin.

  My hands tremble as I try the doorknob, which I know will be locked. No matter. I pull two bobby pins out of my hair and twist them into shape. Once I’m working, my hands stop shaking. I bite the plastic end off one pin so it makes a nice pick and bend the other into a hook. Then I slide in the hooked end and feel fo
r tension. When it feels right, I insert my pick. I take the earpiece out again and hold it in my teeth so I can listen for the delicate sound of tumblers catching without being distracted. As expected, it takes less than a minute for the lock to yield.

  I put the earpiece back on and glance down the hallway again. For a second I think I see the darkness waver and I squint.

  “Get moving, Tiny,” Bug Eye says, his voice slightly startling in my ear. He must be looking over Boyboy’s shoulder at his computer.

  I blink, but the darkness stays still. No one is there, I tell myself. Go in. You’re stalling.

  Once inside, I lock the door behind me. If it was dark in the hall, it’s an ink pot in here. It could be high noon outside, but you’d never know. It feels like cheating, but I’m going to have to turn on a light. I double-check the door lock and flip the light switch, blinking into the sudden brightness.

  The room is smaller than I remember it. A leather couch and two chairs sit in front of a fireplace. The couch is new, green instead of tan. I guess they couldn’t get the bloodstains out of the old one. A buffalo head and trio of tribal masks hang over the mantel. They seem to watch me as I move. On the far side of the room a desk the size of a small rhinoceros sprawls in front of flanking bookshelves. Between them, a golden-hilted sword hangs from the wall, mounted on red silk. It looks like it came from the hip of a sheikh, and it’s placed just above where Mr. G’s head would be if he were sitting at the desk. As I pad forward, I realize the placement is not accidental. Cross me at your own risk, the sword says to whoever is sitting in the chair opposite.

  “In the desk,” Ketchup says. I can hear him, but his words cut in and out.

  “I know,” I say.

  “In the drawer.”

  “Shut up,” Bug Eye tells Ketchup.

  The Goonda brothers and Boyboy go quiet, but I can feel their energy. I slide behind the desk and sink into the chair. It smells of leather and tobacco. Like money. For a moment, I feel the power that Mr. G must feel every day. I stare at the sofa, and for a moment, I almost see her there, watching me.