Fractured: International Hostage Thriller

by Clàr NÕ Chonghaile

  “Where’s Ahmed?” I asked.

  He had been standing with my mother when the bullets started flying. Another shake of the head from the white man. I chanced another look around the side of the pickup.

  They were coming. It was Burhan and the four others, all armed, all walking toward the pickup. They had almost reached the Sedan now. We had seconds to live and I couldn’t think of anything to do. I crouched lower, pulling my mother with me. I cradled her head in my chest and whispered, “I am sorry, so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  Edward looked at the two Somalis beside him and nodded. I could feel the three men tense. Edward hoisted his gun, squared his feet.

  “You have to get to the other car with her. We’ll try to hold them off. Get to the car and drive away from here.”

  “Peter Maguire!”

  It was Burhan. He sounded cheerful.

  “Why don’t you surrender? Come out and we’ll see what we can work out. Otherwise, this is going to end very badly for all of you.”

  My mother clutched my robe. “Don’t.”

  It was the tone she used to favour when she caught me cursing as a teen, or when I came back drunk from those early, almost-innocent parties when the world seemed to be waiting for us to make it spin faster, or better, or longer.

  There was a heavy thump above us. I looked up and saw Ahmed leap over the side of the truck and push the dead man’s body from the gun. It all happened so quickly.

  Edward shouted, “Get down! Now!”

  I fell on top of my mother, feeling her softness give way. Ahmed was screaming and shooting, angry bullets and sharp bellows. Edward and the two Somalis were shooting too. There was screaming and smoke, and the smell of my mother’s hair under my face. Then it all stopped, in an instant, as though I had imagined the whole interlude. I put my hands on the tailboard and pulled myself up.

  The sun was sinking towards the horizon, pouring its limpid, golden light over the road, which stretched empty behind us. Ahmed stood at the gun, one dark intense eye open, staring wildly through the blood that covered his face. His other eye was gone. He was gone. I could feel my mother’s hand in mine, and behind her I heard Edward panting.

  The bodies of the Al-Shabaab fighters lay like discarded dolls in the middle of the road, all strangely bent limbs and loose scarfs. Abdi stood above Burhan, who was trying to crawl back to his truck. Abdi’s back was to us and in the fading light, he was all shadow. He let the injured man crawl past the first body, then a second, following him slowly, haltingly. Burhan’s legs left long streaks of blood on the tarmac. Abdi stepped around them.

  He had time now. He was in control. For the first time since I had met this teenager, no one was calling the shots. Burhan faltered, his head fell onto his outstretched arm, his legs lay still. I thought he had gone but after a few seconds, he started his pained, pointless crawl again. Slowly, Abdi bent towards him. He kneeled at his side, like a mother checking on a slumbering child.

  That’s when I saw the knife in Abdi’s hand. It caught the slanted rays of the sun and stung my eyes. Abdi bent lower. He seemed to be whispering in Burhan’s ear. Burhan had stopped moving now. He drew his outstretched right arm back towards his body. I couldn’t see if he was answering Abdi. The teenager grabbed a handful of the prone man’s hair, pulled back his head and the knife flashed once. Abdi dropped Burhan’s head. He stayed kneeling there, rocking gently in the dusk, his head bowed. He looked like he was praying but the sunset wind brought snatches of his words to me: names. He was reciting a list of names.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ABDI

  It is night. Everything we did today has disappeared in this darkness. If there is no light, then no one can see us. No one can see what we did. We are driving through the streets of Mogadishu, heading for the AMISOM base. There are no cars. We could be the only people alive in this ghost city, if it were not for the noises. There is gunfire coming from the north, where Al-Shabaab hold the pasta factory, but it is faint and infrequent, a Mogadishu lullaby.

  Two AMISOM Casspirs met us as we entered at the western edge of the city and since then, I have felt safer. But I know this feeling is only temporary. I have killed an Al-Shabaab commander, a foreign mujahideen and they will find me. If my death felt like my shadow before today, a black shape fluttering at the edge of my field of vision, now I am certain that I am unlikely to see out this year, maybe even this month. I know this as a fact that does not really concern me.

  I am sitting inside the first armoured car, squashed between two very large Ugandan soldiers. They have not spoken to me since I leapt from the bed of the pickup, slipping on Ahmed’s blood, and climbed into their moving safe house. In here, it is green, a soft green like the inside of a wave. I can peek out the small windows at postcard-sized fragments of Mogadishu as we fly by, but there is not much to see now in the dark. So I relive the day that this darkness has so discreetly, and so kindly, hidden away.

  We sped from the place of killing just minutes after I slit Burhan’s throat. I felt no pity as I sat in the back of the truck, looking at the bodies on the road. Without life, we are nothing more than piles of rags, good for nothing. I looked up and the vultures were already circling. They too know that what we do is always the same. They know they must just bide their time. In the end, someone always dies.

  Maybe it is true that eventually compassion dries up. I have almost nothing left now for anyone. I did feel a flicker of pity for Ahmed, whose body lay crumpled in the corner of the truck. I could not see his face but there was something sad about his outstretched hand, reaching towards the tailgate. That hand was the hand of everyone I had ever known and lost. All their hands were reaching out, trying to touch something, trying to hold on. But I did not really know Ahmed either. Yes, he saved us, and he sacrificed himself to do it, but maybe he had his reasons. I can imagine reaching a point where letting go would be easier. I am almost there. And maybe it is less letting go than realising that there is less and less to hold on to. I will shed no tears for Ahmed. I have no tears left for such deaths, be they mundane, heroic or futile. In the end, they are all futile.

  As we sped away from the bodies, away from the vultures, chasing the fading light to Mogadishu, I knew I was not empty of all feeling. Rage was building inside me. My anger had been unleashed, and was jumping and barking like one of those foamy-mouthed dogs we used to see in my neighbourhood. I feel it even now, and I do not know if I can tame it again. I don’t think I want to. It may be the only thing keeping me alive.

  It felt good to kill the foreigner. It felt right and it felt just. But perhaps, more important than all this, is what I didn’t feel. I wasn’t disgusted, or remorseful, or afraid. I could do that again. And again. I feel closer to Nadif now, although what motivates me is so different from what motivated him.

  But is it really? Did he join them because he believed what they said, or because he hated the white and Ethiopian foreigners and wanted our country to be free? Whatever that means.

  Maybe he joined them to avenge our father’s death. Or perhaps it was a bit of all of that. And maybe even something else, less pure. He was just a teenager after all. Just like me, and I know what it felt like when I picked up his AK-47. I know now what it feels like to kill a man, to watch his blood pour onto the dust, to reduce a man to a pile of bones and flesh, to leave him for the vultures. I felt like a god. I felt invincible. I felt pleasure, yes, great pleasure. It was like the first time I scored a goal on that dusty football pitch near the mango tree. Nadif and his friends ran over to me, clapped me on the back, nearly knocking me over, hurting me, and yet I felt so proud to finally be one of the big boys. Killing may turn a boy into a man, but it may be the boy inside who drives the desire. I don’t know yet.

  As I catch glimpses of my humbled home city through the small windows of this steel car-giant, I find it hard to believe that this place of nightmares can be saved by anyone, much less these stone-faced soldiers beside me, who speak to each other in S
wahili, a language I still find hard to understand. The lights of the pickup behind us, like mini-moons, shine on piles of rubbish that have been on the streets for as long as I can remember.

  As we turn a corner, raising dust because to drive slowly is to court disaster, the lights spotlight an alleyway and I see a headless robe disappearing through a doorway. I see the feet clearly in the camera flash of lights, and the dirty white of the robe, but nothing else. This unreal night has made my city real to me. Before, it was a place of love, of home, of friends, of faces I knew in the street, even as we ran from the approaching gunfire, faces that winked a warning as the technicals of Al-Shabaab roared up. This night-time city of faceless ghosts running soundlessly between the buildings is now more true. Maybe I had to lose everything to see the Mogadishu that other people see, the Mogadishu that Nadif used to show me on the Internet when we were still allowed that tiny window on the world.

  We pass through AMISOM roadblocks quickly, despite the unusual presence of the battered pickup in the middle of our convoy. We are important. Or at least the white people huddled in the Casspir at the back are important. Maybe that is why I am in the first vehicle. If there is a roadside bomb, this Casspir, or the pickup, will surely get hit. Peter Maguire and his mother and that other white man will have time to swerve. It is as it should be, or at least as it has always been.

  “Do you speak English?”

  One of the Ugandan soldiers turns to me. I see big eyes, bloodshot with exhaustion.

  “A little, yes.”

  “Why did you leave Al-Shabaab? Why did you save the mzungu?”

  This Swahili word I know. Why did I save the white man?

  “I was not Al-Shabaab. I am nothing. I am just a Somali. I don’t know why I saved the white man. What does that mean? We were all there.”

  I am tired and I do not want to answer his questions. To find the answers, I need to lift many stones in my mind and I am afraid of the scorpions that might be hiding there.

  Why did I help that man escape? It is true that I didn’t like what Al-Shabaab were planning. I did not like Burhan and his killer’s eyes. I did not want to be part of reducing a man to less than a goat to be slaughtered when he has no way to defend himself. And yes, I liked listening to the prisoner talk. Maybe I even liked him, if such a feeling is possible between two people from different worlds. Maybe what I liked most was that he was a man who was free to make choices, and still made mistakes. He was humble, he accepted his faults without feeling the need to promise to get better. I liked the world he showed me. I liked its greyness. I did not want this grey to be reduced to our black and white. There were many reasons that man should not have died here, and maybe I liked all of them. Or maybe it was because of Nadif. Or my mother. Or my father. You see, I too can live in the grey. I would like to always live in the grey, in a world where there are no absolutes, nothing to fight for, nothing to kill for, nothing to preach for. One of my father’s favourite Somali proverbs was: A madman does not lack wisdom. I like a world that can keep both those ideas together, a world where nothing is as it seems, and there is room for everyone to be mad and wise at the same time.

  Sitting in the Casspir, banging my head on the ceiling as we bumped through Mogadishu, I realised the truth was probably something simpler, something purer. I think I did it for me. To save myself. In that compound, under that acacia tree, I was losing myself. When I heard my mother had died, I was ready to die too. If I had done nothing, I would have stayed with Yusuf out of apathy, out of not having anything else to do. And bit by bit, I would have drifted closer to Al-Shabaab, and I know I would not have had the willpower to stop that descent once it started. I could see that happening, as unstoppable as the waves that are washing up now on the beach that I know lies just beyond the broken streets. I sit in the green, inside my steel wave, still being carried along, but at least this is a sea of my choosing.

  We arrive at the AMISOM base beside the airport. I have never been inside the base before. Four years ago, I stood outside these gates with Nadif and watched the soldiers at the entrance. They had just arrived and we were awed by their guns, and their helmets, and their flak jackets, and their organisation. Until then, guns had meant chaos, a sudden shot ringing out at the market, signaling the start of a battle. Shots followed always by breathless running, flip flops slapping the dirt, single shoes abandoned in the middle of suddenly silent streets.

  I asked Nadif, “Why are they dressed in so many clothes and heavy things? It is too hot for all that.”

  Nadif, who, like me, was wearing a T-shirt and frayed shorts, laughed. He was nearly sixteen and I worshipped him. Our father had been killed the year before and Nadif had become even more to me. I thought he knew everything, although the cynicism and anger that was to take over later was already building.

  We stood among a group of teenagers and children, watching the foreign soldiers who seemed so big and well-fed compared to us. Some of them were placing sandbags around the edges of the camp.

  “They are dressed like that, little brother, because this place is dangerous.”

  Nadif laughed long and loud, and thumped me on the shoulder, and said it was time to go home. I wish I had listened more to that laugh. I thought that laugh was part of the world. I didn’t know it would run out.

  The base looked different now. It was as though it had grown down into the dust and soil, had put down roots. It no longer looked temporary. We drove to a yard around the back of the first group of buildings.

  “You can get out now,” the soldier said.

  Behind me the two Somalis, who had come with the white man, crept out. Their guns had been taken, their eyes darted like small sparrows pecking the dry ground. I knew that look – as soon as they could they would disappear into the night that forgave all.

  My legs hurt and I was afraid for a moment that I might fall. I leant against the side of the Casspir. I was shaking too. Or rather, my blood was shaking, deep inside my veins, skittish blood-dogs running around my body. I wanted to sleep and my head fell forward. I had never felt so tired but I knew I could not sleep now because a decision had to be made. I had no interest in looking around.

  A hand touched my arm. It was the prisoner. Dust covered his face and his thin beard. I realised I must look the same after speeding to Mogadishu in the pickup. I wiped my face. My hand came back white. We were both white in the dark night.

  “Abdi, are you all right?”

  I nodded. His hand was still on my arm. It made me uncomfortable and I edged away. He let his arm fall but his eyes clung to my face. As if he hoped to ignore the thousands of miles between us, the worlds that separated us. But I could see them. For a few days they had disappeared, but there was no ignoring them now. Our time together was over. There was nothing to say. So I did not say anything.

  “They are going to need to question us. But don’t be afraid. I am here. I will tell them what you did. They will believe me.”

  He spoke with the confidence of a man who expected certain things from life. It almost made me smile. His certainty had returned. That was one of the deepest trenches between us.

  I understood what he was trying to say. They would not believe me, a Somali teenager with the blood of the man he had killed drying on his shirt.

  “I do not want to answer any questions. I want to leave. If you want to do something for me, you will get them to release me. I need to go.”

  I surprised myself by mimicking his firm tone. I surprised myself with the words. But as I said them, they became stone, they became the only possible reality.

  “You are just a boy, Abdi. If they let you go, you will not be safe. The others may be looking for you. Better to stay here, in safety. I can look out for you here.”

  “How? You are going to stay here?”

  He looked away.

  “No, you are going to go home as fast as you can, to your white girlfriend, to your world. You have a life to return to. I have to make a life. I cannot do that her
e on this base. If you want to thank me, get them to release me. That’s all I want.”

  I spoke slowly so that he would understand. I felt angry but I did not want to show it. It was not his fault, and yet it was. His fault and everyone else who came here to play whatever game they were playing in our country. I wanted to be rid of them all.

  He left me then, walking slowly towards his mother who was talking urgently to a Ugandan with many stripes on his shoulder. I think the prisoner wanted to say something else, but I am glad he did not. What is there to say? Our paths crossed, we walked a little of the road together, but now it is time to return to our separate tracks. Exhausted, I slumped to the ground and put my head on my knees.

  Someone tapped me again. It was the white woman. She was bending over me and when I did not move, she lowered herself onto the ground beside me, grunting a little. She must have been a least fifty, but she looked much younger than the fifty-year-old women in my neighbourhood. Life is fast and hard here, and it does not tread lightly across a woman’s face.

  “My name is Nina Walters. I am the mother of the man you saved. I wanted to thank you. You are a brave man and I…”

  Her voice trailed off. I said nothing. I did not know what she wanted from me. Did she want to shake my hand? Did she want me to tell her why? Why did everyone assume there was a reason? What kind of lives did these people live that allowed them to think there was always a reason?

  I stared at her. If I had done nothing, this woman would have been reading the prisoner’s letter now. I had spared this woman those tears. I allowed myself a moment of pride. The prisoner would have a chance now to make his apology in person. I had given them time. I had done that.

  When the white woman put her hand on mine, on top of my knee, this time I did not pull away. I looked at her hand. It was so white, with blue raised veins and light brown spots. I had never seen a white hand so close. Even when I cared for the prisoner, I kept my distance. I did not touch him then and afterwards, during our flight, it was dark and we were just shadows. I stared at this hand, but saw another. This hand was my mother’s hand on mine. Warm and soft.