The Janson Option

by Paul Garrison

  “What do you suppose the Italian wants from Maxammed?”

  “Horning in for a cut of the ransom, I’d guess. All the more reason to get her out of there as soon as we can.”

  * * *

  TEARS FILLED ISSE’S EYES. He gagged. Then he vomited for the third time. The latex condom packed with PETN powder flew from his mouth and fell in the sand. The Arab who had assembled the bomb flinched. The detonator was TATP, which was aptly nicknamed “Mother of Satan,” and it didn’t take much of a shock to trigger it.

  Mullah Abdullah al-Amriki picked up the condom and rinsed it off with a water bottle. He shook his head. Isse hung his. He had disappointed the cleric.

  “We know it is possible, Inshallah. Drug mules do it with cocaine. Try again!”

  “I just gotta catch my breath.”

  Abdullah al-Amriki thumped his chest with his fist, the gesture made famous by his YouTube sermons. “Of course it’s hard. It would be easier with balloons. Your throat is rejecting the filth associated with the condom. Were Somalia not so poor we could use balloons, but there is no money for children’s toys. So we must rely on haram condom. This time I believe you will succeed with Allah’s will,” he said, rapping his chest again. “Go on, now. Try it again.”

  Amriki’s al-Shabaab fighters who were watching crowded closer around the poly-tarp shelter. They were a grab bag of Arabs, Somalis, Europeans, and even a couple of Somali-American dudes from Maine. Isse heard one snicker. If the cleric heard, he did not take notice, saying again, “Try harder, my brother. There is much at stake.”

  Isse stared at the bulging condom and tried to collect his spirits. Sealed with a knot, it looked like a white hot dog. Except for the bulge of the AAA battery, miniaturized radio receiver, and blasting cap that formed the detonator.

  “Deep-throat it, man,” said the snickering dude.

  Isse stared at him. PETN is not a drug, is it, dude? PETN is pentaerythritol tetranitrate. One condom load, if he could get the thing down his throat, was four hundred grams. The Underwear Bomber had less than eighty in his crotch. Four hundred grams of pentaerythritol tetranitrate, dude, will blow a 747 out of the sky and drop a million pounds of wreckage on a city.

  The snickering dude looked away.

  Like he knew he didn’t have the balls to make a belly bomb.

  Behind the al-Shabaab spectators stood ten silent fighters led by the cleric’s new ally, the one they called the Italian—the awesome ghost every Somali talked about, even back in Minneapolis—who Salah Hassan joked was an equal-opportunity assassin.

  The Italian was a small man with eyes black as oil, much shorter than his guard. He and his fighters, whom he called dervishes, all wore flak vests and hid their faces under black-and-white kaffiyehs. Even here in Amriki’s camp, all you saw were their eyes. And they never spoke, which was really cool. In a weird way, the Italian’s dervishes gave Isse courage, more than the cleric. Named in honor of the Muslim fighters who had defended Somalia against Italian and English invaders, these guys were serious. Dervishes oozed belief. Like they knew it took blood to change the world. Starting with your own.

  “Water,” Isse said.

  The bearded mullah handed him the bottle. Isse wet his throat. Then he threw back his head and pretended that the condom was a long slug of a Piña Colada Slurpee. For a terrible ten seconds he could not breathe. Then, slowly, finally, it was inside him.

  “Down the hatch,” called the dude from Maine, raising a fist in heartfelt congratulations. The others cheered. Allah Akbar. God is good. God is great.

  “Well done, my brother,” said Amriki.

  Isse glanced at the shrouded Italian and his silent guard. They were nodding with respect. This, thought Isse, is belief. This is what I came home for. This is righteous.

  “Drone!” cried the lookout, who was wearing a headset to amplify sounds from the sky.

  A hundred fighters scattered into the trees that lined the riverbed.

  Mullah Abdullah al-Amriki took Isse’s arm and hurried him toward the underground command shelter. “This way, my brother,” he said with a smile. “You are too valuable to be Hellfired.”

  “So are you, Mullah Abdullah al-Amriki,” shouted the Italian, running alongside and gesturing for one of his dervishes to take off his flak vest. The fighter complied instantly and helped the cleric into it.

  The drones circled. In the deep shelter, Isse slapped at flies and cringed from the spiders and inch-long ants crawling out of the timber ceiling. A fighter screamed in pain and the men around him stomped the floor to kill the scorpion. They huddled for an hour until the drones disappeared. Finally it was safe to venture out.

  “Keep the vest,” the Italian told Amriki. “In case, God forbid, they return.”

  An imam called for prayer. Everyone knelt. After prayer, the fighters circled around Mullah Amriki and begged him to preach.

  “A word with you, Isse,” said the Italian. “If you would.”

  “Sure.” Even the righteous Italian spoke to him with respect.

  Isse followed him away from the crowd. The dervish bodyguards trailed them. The Italian spoke perfect English with a funny bit of accent that Isse’s ear caught as Arab of some sort, not Somali. He could have been raised in an Arab city, but he was very small for a Somali. And certainly the skin around his eyes looked lighter than that of most Somalis.

  “You are a brave young man.”

  “God is great,” said Isse. “If I have any bravery, God has given it to me.”

  “All the more reason to spend it frugally.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “God gave you courage to be an intelligent, mobile bomb. You should not waste the gift that you are.”

  Isse felt a little confused. He fell back on slogans. “An infidel airline jet packed with infidel passengers would not be a waste. Would it?”

  Even as he spoke, the educated side of him, his high school and college courses—even the suburban American side and TV and movies—all argued in his ear that slogans were the last refuge of idiots. But he spoke them anyway. He had a right to. He was giving up his whole life to be an intelligent, mobile bomb.

  The Italian did not agree. “It would be a terrible waste. You could serve God better with a more significant target.”

  “Like what?”

  The Italian lifted a light-skinned hand from his robe and raised it for silence. “Wait. Let us listen. Mullah Abdullah al-Amriki preaches.”

  Isse had first heard Amriki on YouTube. He was a fiery speaker and a righteous rapper, and this morning in the heat of the dry riverbank he was at his best, calling believers, damning infidels, promising that heaven held endless rewards for young men who died exalting God’s poor, condemning the rich, and fighting the disbelievers.

  “The beloved brothers of al-Shabaab will free our Muslim Somalia of the enemies of Allah by severing the ever-present hand of the unbelieving kuffar.”

  Isse was as mesmerized as he had been that first time. When his kuffar Christian girlfriend said, “This guy’s rapping the same shit as Jesus, except Jesus wasn’t into killing,” he had walked away from her and never looked back.

  They had miked Amriki on YouTube so when he thumped his chest it thundered in the speakers. Here in the hot riverbed he was acoustic, which didn’t stop him one bit. He just thumped harder. “Allah!” He thumped. “Akbar.” Thump. “God!” Thump.

  A blinding flash, brighter than the merciless sun, exploded from Mullah Abdullah al-Amriki’s chest. A thunderous explosion threw the men nearest to him to the sand and tore Amriki’s body into chunks of bone and flesh that went flying through the air.

  “Drone!”

  “Hellfire!”

  Everyone ran for the trees. Except the Italian. He took Isse’s arm firmly in his hand, and his dervishes closed ranks around him.

  “It’s a drone,” Isse shouted in terror. “Take cover.”

  “It’s over,” said the Italian. “Come with me.”

 
THIRTY-TWO

  Ahmed’s business model was making him rich: On-time delivery, which was no small thing with half of Mogadishu stoned on khat; fair prices, or at least lower than his competitors’; and payment in American dollars. No exceptions. Let his customers wheelbarrow a million Somali shillings to the money changers for a C-note.

  They had no choice. Ahmed had what they needed. But he kept it light, backslapping complainers with a joke. “What do you expect, man, I’m from a dollar country.” Dollars were easy to hide. He could make his deliveries and collections with a driver and only one bodyguard.

  They were taking a shortcut off the Via Roma, and had just parked in a bullet-pocked alley when two Arabs in red kaffiyehs and sunglasses came at them from either side. Ahmed couldn’t believe how fast it happened. One second he was sitting safe in the backseat counting the take. The next, his bodyguard and driver were handcuffed to each other and the steering wheel, their guns had disappeared into the Arabs’ robes, and he was gaping at a goddamned bullpup assault rifle in his face.

  “Take the dough, man. Here it is. Just don’t hurt nobody.”

  “Ahmed,” said the guy with the bullpup, “you’re a real disappointment.”

  “What? Who—”

  “You owe me for airfare.”

  “Paul! Hey, man, where’d you come from?”

  Paul removed his shades and Ahmed immediately wished he hadn’t. The security consultant was angry—like, really angry. But the scary thing was the distance in Paul’s eyes that said he was about to stomp him like a roach.

  “I’ve been meaning to get in touch.”

  “Bullshit. You’ve gone into business and you’re screwing me.”

  Ahmed looked to the other “Arab,” hoping the woman Jess was under the kaffiyeh. But if she was, she wasn’t saying. Nor was she offering hope.

  “What can I do to make it up?” Ahmed asked.

  “Tell your driver and bodyguard to stop looking at each other like they’re going to make a move, because if they do it will be their last.”

  Ahmed spoke urgently in Somali, “Don’t fuck with this guy, he’ll kill us all. I’m not kidding. Don’t try anything. I can deal with him, I think.”

  He turned back to Paul. “OK, they won’t do anything.”

  “You can try to make up for screwing me by telling me the truth.”

  “I will, man. Anything you want.”

  “Not ‘anything.’ The truth. You told me you had pirate contacts.”

  “My cousin Saakin, yeah.”

  “What did you learn from him?”

  “I didn’t really get into that, yet. I just said hi.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “Hey, it’s Somalia. You gotta take things slow, man. You don’t just—”

  “You son of a bitch!” It was Jess behind the other kaffiyeh. She sounded bitter, poised on a razor’s edge of violence. “We paid you to help us free a woman who’s been kidnapped, and you’re hanging out selling dope.”

  “Hey, I’m not selling dope.”

  “Don’t fuck with me.”

  “I’m not! Really, I’m not.”

  “Yeah? What are you selling?”

  “Soap.”

  “What? What soap?”

  “Optimum. Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine. The car washes are nuts for this one kind of soap.”

  “What are you talking about? What car washes? The guys with buckets?”

  “There’s a car wash on every block. Thousands. They heard about this soap on the Internet. Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine.” He whirled around and pulled a 128-ounce plastic jug of blue liquid from the back. “I cornered the market. If they want Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine, they have to buy it from me.”

  “Soap?” Jess looked at Paul.

  “It’s the no-rinse feature. Water costs a ton in Mogadishu. I’m saving them a fortune.”

  “How’d you corner the market?” Paul asked him.

  “I went down to the docks. There was a container coming off a dhow. I bought it out from under the guy who had ordered it. Cost me double. Worth every penny.”

  “Where’d you get the money to corner the market?”

  “Skyped my folks for the dough.”

  * * *

  JANSON LOOKED AT Kincaid. All he could see under her kaffiyeh were her gray-green eyes, but he guessed that she, too, was trying to conceal a dumbfounded smile.

  “You’re not making this up, are you, Ahmed?”

  “Why make it up?”

  “Delivering soap could be a great front for dealing.”

  Ahmed said, “Are you crazy? They’ve got gangs dealing. Freaked-out kids with AKs. I’m not into that shit. Besides, there’s tons of money to be made here. Sure, it takes guts, a lot of guts, to stay in this place. My parents are saying I must have gone crazy. But I’ll prove them wrong once everything is set.”

  “They believed enough to send you the money.”

  “They’re cool. Funny thing is, my mother wants to come back, but my old man’s still afraid, so I’m going to make it so he can. How’d you find me?”

  Kincaid said, “You’re not exactly invisible in an orange SUV.”

  Janson asked, “Where is Isse?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ahmed, I’m in a difficult position with Isse. I brought him over here. You told Hassan that Isse’s trying to hook up with al-Amriki, the mullah. If he does, I am responsible if he gets hurt.”

  “If you didn’t help him get here, he’d go anyway.”

  Janson leaned closer. “What’s your best guess? Did he hook up with Amriki?”

  “Listen, Paul. You don’t understand. I didn’t understand till after we got here. But I think Isse had this fantasy all along about hooking up with al-Shabaab or even al-Amriki. Maybe you kind of fed it, telling him he could check out Amriki’s people—not your fault, I know you told him to stay away from Amriki himself. But Isse’s more nuts than I thought on this whole Islamist thing. On and on about Americans dissing Muslims.”

  “Where’s Amriki?”

  “They say in the street he’s dead. A drone got him, yesterday.”

  Janson had heard the same. None of the officials he had asked would confirm or deny a drone strike, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. Neither had there been confirmation from the remnants of al-Shabaab.

  “Is Isse dead too?”

  “No idea, man.”

  “Do you have any cell numbers for him?”

  “Yeah, one.”

  “Call him. Now.”

  Ahmed brought up the number and pressed the phone to his ear. “It’s ringing.”

  “Tip it so I can hear,” said Janson.

  It rang twelve times and suddenly Isse said, “Ahmed?”

  “Yeah, man. How—Shit. He hung up.”

  “Call him back.”

  Ahmed tried. Isse didn’t answer. Ahmed hung up and a second later the phone rang. “It’s him—Hey, you there?”

  “Sorry, the call got dropped. Do you hear me now?”

  “Somali cell phone,” Ahmed joked. “Two cans and a string. Works OK until a rat eats the string. How you doing, man?”

  Janson heard “I’m OK. What’s up?”

  He gestured for the phone. Ahmed shrugged and handed it to him. As Janson slipped it under his head-wrap to put it to his ear, the call was dropped. “Hello? Hello?”

  “It’s the graphene cloth,” said Kincaid. “Blocking the signal. Hold on a second—Ahmed, tell those two in front to turn around and close their eyes tight or I’ll shoot them.”

  Ahmed translated. His bodyguard and driver faced front and squeezed their eyes shut. Kincaid said, “Go.”

  Janson shook off the folds of his kaffiyeh. The bulletproof nanofabric did a beautiful job of dissipating heat, but this was the first time he had tried it with a mobile phone. He punched Redial. When Isse answered, Janson said, “Isse, it’s Paul.”

  There followed a short silence. Then Isse said, “Hello, Paul. Wher
e’d you come from?”

  “I was just talking with Ahmed. We were hoping you were OK. We’d heard that Mullah Amriki might have been killed and we were hoping you were all right.”

  “I’m OK. Did you say that Mullah Amriki was killed?”

  “There’s no confirmation.” Janson gestured Kincaid closer to the phone. Eyes locked on the two in front, she leaned in to listen as Janson asked, “Did you happen to make contact?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I chickened out. I mean, he was way out in the bush and I started thinking that even if I did manage to find him I’d get killed by the AMISOM.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Just kind of hanging out. Absorbing the scene. I’m thinking I might start a blog about coming back to Somalia.”

  Ahmed rolled his eyes and pantomimed a baby sucking its thumb.

  Janson asked, “Can we get together?”

  “I really don’t feel up to it right now.”

  “You could be very helpful to me. And especially helpful for the lady who was kidnapped.”

  “I’m not feeling too well. Something I ate. Can I get back to you?”

  “I’ll be on this number. Or the numbers I put in your phone. But you can get me direct on this one. So later today?”

  “Or tomorrow.”

  “Isse, we’re under the gun here. We need your help.”

  “I promise. Don’t worry, you’ll hear from me. Loud and clear.”

  Before Janson could couch another question, the line went dead. “Afraid I’ll have to keep your phone,” he told Ahmed.

  “I got plenty.”

  “What’s going on with Isse?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He sounds like something’s going on with him. Any idea what that would be?”

  Janson watched Ahmed’s face. The Somali-American was thinking hard on it and Janson had to admit that he looked baffled.

  “I don’t know, Paul. I mean, like I told you, I think Isse had a plan in mind before you came along. And I think it blew his mind that al-Shabaab had their asses kicked out of Mogadishu.”

  Janson looked at Kincaid.

  She said, “The kid’s playing a game with you. I heard it in his voice. He’s acting like he knows something we don’t.”