“Pretty grainy stuff,” Jim said, moving some controls on the screen with his mouse. “Shouldn’t take too long . . .”
They left him to his work. In the hallway, Pearson asked Sydney if she’d spoken with Carillo.
“Not today.”
“Then you’ll be glad to hear that he found his wife.”
He left, walking in the opposite direction, and she turned to Griffin, asking, “How is it that Pearson’s always one up on us?”
“He and McNiel. Thick as thieves, those two.”
He was just about to ask if she wanted to get some coffee when Jim called out to them. “Got a partial plate you might be able to work with. It’s the best I can do.” He handed Sydney a printout of the photo. “Unfortunately, with the angle of the car, that first number and first letter are hard to make out. But judging from the style of Impala, it looks like the year might be mid-2000s, 2005, maybe? That should at least narrow your plate down at the DMV, if it was an original license. And not stolen.”
“Better than what we had,” Griffin said. “Thanks.”
“We can run the partial plate number,” Sydney told him, then asked the tech if she could borrow a computer to log into.
“Patrick’s not here. Use his.”
She entered her password into the computer, then brought up the program to run the partial. It returned several possible hits, and she scanned the vehicle makes, eliminating anything that wasn’t a Chevrolet. That left two. One ended up showing the title salvaged to a junkyard—which didn’t necessarily rule it out. The second vehicle belonged to a woman named Mary Smith. The third was registered to a man named Salim.
A name, however, meant little. They’d need to verify beyond that to confirm anything. A little checking, however, and they had the information: a traffic ticket issued to Salim, showing that the car was indeed the same color as the one they were looking for. It raised the possibility that Salim was the driver.
“I think we have him,” Griffin said.
“I’ll call Pearson.”
48
Tex attempted to stretch out in the cramped airline seat, well into the flight to Kenya, wishing his cover as a reporter allowed him to sit in first class, which happened to be full. Not that he was complaining. The much smaller commuter plane they’d have to take to get from Nairobi to Garissa wouldn’t be nearly as accommodating to someone his size. And here at least he had an empty seat to his right. He was hoping to catch a nap now that they’d passed the area of turbulence, but saw Eve walking in his direction from first class.
“All the way in the back?” she said, sitting next to him.
“Not like there was a lot of choice. There was this or the bulkhead. More leg room there, but this one puts me about fifteen rows from Mother Goose.”
She glanced in that direction, saw a woman standing, trying to calm her infant and quiet a toddler at the same time. “I’ll take the baby over Micah at the moment. He snores. Loudly.”
“He’s actually asleep?”
“He doesn’t like flying. One sleeping pill and two drinks, he was out before we took off.”
“Nice.”
“At least it gives us a moment to talk,” Eve said. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this whole trip.”
“Ya think? They’re sending you into a friggin’ war zone.”
“Refugee camp.”
“Same thing, these days,” Tex said. “What with the insurgents raiding and pillaging anything that’s not tied down. Every dime that boss of yours is giving to his charity is probably being used to buy arms.”
“I know you’re probably right, but Micah means well.”
“Throwing money at organizations who can’t control it is as irresponsible as letting the people they’re alleging to help starve to death. It’s like throwing water on an oil fire.”
“We’re going to have to agree to disagree. As much as I know that A.D.E. has their fingers in a few pies—”
“A few?” Tex thought of the facts and figures he’d seen in the DVD. If they somehow managed to find the books in Dadaab that linked the A.D.E. funds to the issuing of false identification—and aiding the influx of war criminals and terrorists into the country as a result—it was still just a small part of the problem. “What about all the money being laundered by these so-called charities?”
“Very big pies, then. Pies they shouldn’t be involved with. Even so, some of that money is going to the sources it’s supposed to go to.”
“Let’s pretend that A.D.E. is doing what they claim to be doing, and all that money of Micah’s is going to the charities in question. Do you have any idea what those organizations are doing with that money?”
“Bringing refugees to America. Trust me. He and I have walked through the areas where they’re living.”
“See, that’s where all the bleeding hearts get it wrong,” Tex said. “That money the U.S. is allegedly granting to A.D.E. lines the pockets of politicians and warlords who use it to keep the civil unrest going as they fight over controlling interests in drug and human trafficking, as well as guns and weapons smuggling. And that’s not even counting the money that’s laundered. Like your marked bills that ended up with that weapons cache. I’ll lay even odds Micah’s money is right there in the thick of things.”
“At least some of it makes its way to the people.”
“For Micah’s sake, I hope you’re right,” he said, and decided to leave it at that. CIA or not, it was clear she had no idea the true extent of the corruption and chaos the civil unrest had caused, and it was getting worse every day.
Not that he needed to convince her. In a few hours she was going to see it firsthand.
When their commuter plane landed at Garissa the following morning, Tex, Eve, Donovan, and Lisette stepped onto the tarmac into sweltering heat and were met by the guide that A.D.E. had hired. Hussein, a tall black man wearing a blue plaid shirt and khaki pants, smiled at Micah, holding out his hand. “Welcome, Mr. Micah. We are very glad to have you here.”
“Thank you. It’s very exciting to see where our efforts are actually having an impact.”
Tex refrained from rolling his eyes, and wondered how Eve was able to maintain her upbeat persona whenever she was around the guy.
“And you must be the beautiful Eve Sanders,” Hussein said, smiling. “But who are these other people with you?”
“Reporters.”
“So many of you?” he said. “No matter. You should know that the roads are closed. Too many bandits. Not safe. We’ll be flying over.”
And so he hustled them into a waiting plane. When they arrived at the Dadaab airstrip, Hussein walked them over to the waiting SUV to drive the remainder of the way to Dadaab.
The driver, however, seemed to question the number of passengers. “My itinerary shows four. Miss Sanders, Mr. Micah, and two reporters from the International Journal for World Peace. Mr. Archer and Ms. Perrault. No third reporter.”
Tex leaned forward, read the clipboard. “They made a mistake.”
The man looked at him, his gaze narrowing. “We’ll have to come back for you three. Miss Sanders and Mr. Micah will be with me.”
When one of the guides started to reach for Donovan’s bags, he stopped him. “Cameras,” he said. “I need them.”
He shrugged, then grabbed the other bags. Once the vehicle was loaded, Tex followed Eve and Micah.
The man blocked his way. “Reporters in next trip.”
Tex dug into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. “Make an exception?”
“You may ride in the backseat with Miss Sanders.”
“Perfect.”
Eve walked up to Tex once the driver turned toward the vehicle. “Why’d you do that?”
“Call it intuition, but I’m not liking the odds. Anyone that hung up on seating for such a short trek makes me nervous.”
The dirt road seemed to stretch endlessly into the desert, its surface marred with potholes and loose gravel, but it wasn’t altogethe
r too bad, thanks to the four-wheel-drive vehicle.
The photographs Tex had seen in preparation for the mission didn’t do justice to the reality. Though the civil war raged on the other side of the Somali Kenyan border, the road they traveled on held a feeling of utter desolation. A vast wasteland dotted with carcasses of cattle with bleached white leather stretched over bare bones amidst the gray shrubs and the skeleton limbs of trees stabbing at the sky beneath a relentless sun. And all around them the wind stirred up the red dirt until it swirled in the air like smoke from a bomb.
Nearing the camp, the horizon seemed to be a moving mass of color as refugees on the outskirts, mostly women and children, gravitated toward some central location.
“New refugees arriving to get registered,” Hussein told them. “They walk through the desert, their children dying from malnutrition, those that they haven’t buried on the side of the road on their journey here. They come, thinking they will get help, and yet there are children dying of malnutrition right inside the very camp that is supposed to help them.”
They drove past fresh mounds in the dirt. Graves, Tex realized, on seeing a group of women and children standing around one that had not been filled in. A gaunt man kneeled in the fresh-turned earth, crying atop a very small shrouded body. Too small, and Tex put his arm around Eve as she caught her breath, turning her head into his shoulder, not wanting to look as the man lowered his child into the grave.
They drove on for minutes, and Tex started to realize that the sheer size of the camps was greater than he’d imagined. He had grown up in a town of fifty thousand and an area that covered about the same square miles as the refugee camps. Except here the tents were packed so close together, it held close to a half million people. As they approached in their vehicle, he saw that wire fencing separated the camps from the outside world. On the inside, children played soccer, seemingly oblivious to the armed uniformed guards who patrolled the scrubland on the perimeter beneath a brutal sun.
The compound where the UN workers and other NGO volunteers were housed was a short drive from the main camps, surrounded by a triple razor wire fence. A fleet of white UN vehicles were parked beyond a gate that was opened by an armed guard. Brick huts topped with corrugated iron roofs filled the compound, where very few people currently resided. Many of the nonessential personnel had been pulled out due to the rising hostilities of the sleeper al-Shabab terrorists inside and outside the camps. Hussein walked them to the office, then said he’d be sending a car in the morning to pick them up and drive them to the camps. He left, and they stepped from blazing heat to blissful semicool air-conditioning, where they were assigned a “movement pass”—a badge worn on their clothes that let the guards know they were allowed to move throughout the compound.
Micah was eager to get started. “We should film the grave of the child,” he said. “Very moving.”
The grave was too fresh in Tex’s mind, and he bit back a reply, as Eve mentioned that perhaps they should meet some of the residents and talk to them first.
Tex looked at his watch, worried about the separation. He didn’t like that Donovan and Lisette were left behind. In fact, he had a very bad feeling about the way the entire trip had been set up. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
49
Donovan admitted to being surprised when the vehicle actually returned for them. He and Lisette had discussed the possibility that Eve and Micah’s employer had some ulterior motive. But then the car came along and transported them to Dadaab without mishap, and he put the feeling aside. The following morning, once they checked in at the office using their guise as reporters, they entered the reception tent where incoming refugees were being screened. He found it hard to stand meekly by as women who were nothing more than skin and bones carried in skeletal children with large eyes and distended stomachs. The walking dead, Donovan thought. Eerily quiet, whether because strangers had entered or because the children lacked even the strength to cry, he didn’t know. He looked around, saw a man wearing a UN shirt walking toward them, his attention fixed on a clipboard. Donovan hoped the man spoke English, and asked where those who hoped to resettle in America would register.
The man stared at him for several seconds, and Donovan repeated the question in French, hoping he might understand that language.
“I understood you the first time. And the second,” he responded in English. “I am just trying to decide the best way to answer a question that hardly has an answer, unless one is willing to pay.”
“How much?” Donovan asked, reaching into his pocket.
The doctor laughed. “Not you. The person seeking resettlement. Unless the refugee is lucky enough to fall into the class that the United States and other countries have granted asylum—such as the Bantu, for instance—then one might live his whole life in this camp. We are on our third generation in the twenty-some-odd years the camp has been here. They come in, more than a thousand a day. They are essentially a people without a country, because once they are here, they are not allowed to leave. Like the movie your Tom Hanks made based on the Iranian refugee who lived in the Paris airport for seventeen years. Mehran Nasseri. This is their airport.”
Lisette took another look around, asking, “You said something about people willing to pay?”
“I did. There are those who have managed to earn or steal or be given money who will circumvent the system in place, moving to the head of the line, as you would say. That would not be here. I have heard rumors only of where it might be, where one could obtain legitimate identification. There is a thriving black market within the confines of one of the other camps. I could direct you there, but I wouldn’t recommend it, as it isn’t safe. Especially for a woman.”
“Where would that be?” Donovan asked.
He gave them directions. “But the camps are very large and the distance between them vast. You would need to drive.”
“Could one hire a driver?”
“If you have money, yes. But it is, as I said, dangerous.”
He spoke in sharp guttural tones to a boy of about ten who was sitting on a bench near the tent’s entrance. The boy nodded and ran out. “He will fetch Ali. You can trust him.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not sure you will think so once you get there.”
Donovan and Lisette walked out, moving off to one side, away from the long line of mostly women and children who waited their turns to be seen by the doctors. Many sat in the dirt, their clothes and skin coated with red dust.
Donovan and Lisette informed Tex of where they were going. By the time they returned, the boy who had left was bringing with him a man dressed in gray pants and an orange shirt, his feet and plastic sandals the same color as the dirt.
The man, Ali, smiled at them and said in broken English, “You hire my truck?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “You pay?”
Donovan held up several bills and the man’s eyes widened.
“This way. This way.”
They followed Ali past one of the few brick buildings, to where a rusted white pickup was parked. A late-model Datsun, which put it circa 1980s.
It was as the doctor said, a long drive through the camp past corrugated shanties and tents that lined either side of the dirt roads. The driver was an expert at dodging pedestrians or navigating obstacles, honking every few seconds at a goat herder urging his livestock across an intersection or women rolling jerry cans filled with water through the dust as chickens scurried past. Then they arrived at what looked like a marketplace, where a group of men sat around on logs chewing what Donovan assumed was khat.
“There,” Ali said. A few cinder-block buildings with tin roofs came into view and he slowed the vehicle, pointing. “There. The place you ask for is the second one. You be careful.”
Donovan saw several men milling about the front of the buildings. They looked up, their dark gazes watching the trio. “You’ll wait?” Donovan asked.
&n
bsp; The man seemed to think about it.
“I’ll double the pay.”
“If you hurry. Dangerous.”
Donovan and Lisette exited the vehicle, walked toward the building and the men who seemed to be following their every move.
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” she said.
“Probably not. But apparently the evidence we need to shut down A.D.E. is here.”
They walked into the building, stepping past several men who stared at them as they entered. The structure was stuffy and dim. A man in a blue plaid shirt and gray slacks sat at a desk. He looked up, said something in Somali.
“Do you speak English?” Donovan asked.
He pursed his lips as though thinking about it, got up, opened a door and called out to someone. An older man walked in, a white skull cap covering his gray hair, his beard dyed red with henna. He wore all white with no trace of red dust, as though he never stepped foot outside. Donovan asked him if he spoke English.
He nodded but didn’t answer.
“We’re looking for a book of names.”
The man’s gaze flicked to the desk toward a ledger, then back, as he said, “No books. No names.”
“We’ll pay.”
“No books. No names.” He turned and left, closing the door behind him.
Donovan glanced at Lisette, who raised her brows, whispering, “Money talks.”
Donovan reserved enough cash to pay their driver, and held up several bills. The man at the desk glanced back at the door his partner had left through, then handed the ledger to Donovan. He opened it, saw names and dates, realizing what he needed was in the middle of the book. The time period between when Yusuf had escaped from prison and when he was suspected of leaving the country. Four pages. Donovan tore them from the book, handed it back to the man along with the money. He folded the pages, stuffed them in his boot and said, “Almost too easy. Let’s go.”
They stepped out the door, only to find their driver and the white truck gone and the three men who’d been loitering out front all holding very large knives as though Donovan and Lisette were turkeys to be carved.
The Black List Page 23