Dead Centre

by Andy McNab

  I sparked it up. Anna took a while to answer.

  ‘Nicholas? Where are you?’

  ‘On a boat. I’ve just left Mogadishu. I think we’ve found them.’

  ‘Wait – when did you get to Mogadishu?’

  I explained everything. I couldn’t really tell what she thought about it. ‘Jules thinks they’re in Merca. So does my Somali friend. I’ve got nothing else to go on. So that’s where we’re heading.’

  Then it became very clear what she thought. She was angry. ‘Nicholas, AS, they’re dangerous. Even al-Qaeda won’t deal with them. They’d get taken hostage too. They don’t bargain. They don’t negotiate. Why didn’t Jules warn you?’

  ‘He did. But I don’t have a choice, Anna. I made a promise.’

  ‘What promise?’

  ‘To a mate.’

  Her tone changed. If I’d had a mother who cared, she would probably have sounded like Anna. ‘Nicholas, I’m worried sick. Please think again.’

  ‘What would you do?’ There was a pause. I heard gunfire in the background. We both knew that was the answer. ‘You OK up there?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. It’s just anti-aircraft fire trying to hit the French bombers.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Mistrata. We got a lift on one of the casualty ships from Benghazi. Gaddafi’s navy is attacking the port. The US Sixth Fleet are firing on them. The French are bombing from the air and the rebels are fighting street to street. It will be a long battle. But, Nicholas … Please, please, please be careful. You need to stay alive. You really do.’

  ‘What for? For you?’

  There was a pause. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, in that case, you’ve got to stay alive as well, for me. Deal?’

  ‘I need a call from you every day, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Promise me? Every day?’

  ‘Yes, I promise. Every day.’

  Awaale had curled up below the bench. He really was the eternal optimist. He was never going to get comfortable down there as we bounced through the water.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ I had to shout over the wind and the roar of the engine.

  ‘The sea … it makes me very sick.’

  ‘Sick? You’re supposed to be a pirate!’

  Awaale gave a groan.

  ‘Get up, mate. You’re going to feel a whole lot better sitting up.’

  He wasn’t listening. ‘These people – Tracy and the child. They’re not your friends, are they? You’ve been sent to take them home.’

  ‘It’s a bit of both, mate.’

  I left him to his misery and tried not to think about sleep and food: I needed both. But they were going to have to wait. To my half-right, in the distance, I saw ribbons of light.

  The iPhone told me it was four thirty – about another hour and thirty before the sun came up. I wanted to get there in time to check that it was Merca and be able to get away, if it wasn’t, under darkness.

  18

  Tuesday, 22 March

  THE PLACE WAS crawling with lights. There were thousands of the things – not just the ribbon of cooking fires and lanterns I’d been expecting.

  I kept the skiff as close to the shore as I could. As we were thrown about by the surf the adhan for Fajr prayers, the first of the day, kicked out from mosques all over town. I checked behind left, to the east. A thin ribbon of light was starting to stretch across the horizon.

  The engine howled as the propeller momentarily left the water. Awaale was now sitting on the mid-ship bench, a hand either side of him, gripping it tight. He still wasn’t enjoying this one bit.

  ‘Is this Merca, Awaale? Is Merca this big?’ I leant forward, keeping one hand on the tiller. ‘You sure this is it?’

  ‘Yes, this is it. I’m sure.’

  I checked my iPhone. I still had three bars of signal. It was a quarter to five. About the time I’d expected to be here.

  I pushed the tiller sideways as we bounced over the surf line. The skiff slewed and powered back the way we’d come.

  Awaale spun round. ‘Back to Mogadishu? That would be much better, Mr Nick. This is a very dangerous place.’

  I raised my free hand. ‘Watch and learn, mate. You lads need skills if you’re going to go up against Lucky Justice. Otherwise, you’re all going to end up dead. That’s an end to the parties and women, and al-Shabab will come straight in and take over the city. That wouldn’t be good, would it? You’ve got to learn a few tactics.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘You’re going to teach me?’

  ‘As much as I can. But tell me this. Why don’t you team up with Lucky to fight al-Shabab?’

  He looked at me like I was mad. ‘No way. We must kill Lucky first.’

  ‘It’s up to you, mate. Sometimes you’ve got to look at the big picture. You’ve got to think about the way you’re doing things. That beach we’ve just turned away from is in the middle of the town, isn’t it? So what would have happened if we’d just landed and wandered round looking for them?’

  We’d now cleared the surf and were paralleling the white line of breakers. The lights of Merca were over my left shoulder as we headed north.

  ‘You would fight and you would get your friends out.’

  ‘No, I would lose. I have no idea what’s in there. Do you?’

  ‘Yes. There are guys from Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi.’

  ‘Exactly. And they’ve all got weapons. I’d be dead, and the three I’ve come for would still be prisoners. So I’m not going to do that. I’m going to use my head. First, I make sure that this thing is hidden up so we can escape.’

  He thought about it, then nodded.

  ‘The next thing is to find them. Do you know where they’re being held? You’ve been to this town.’

  He looked at me again like I was mad. ‘They’ll be with all the other prisoners. The thieves. The adulterers. The cheats.’

  ‘So there’s a jail?’

  He nodded. ‘The Russians built it. Before I was born.’

  The lights of the town were about a kilometre behind us. A light grey arch was growing out of the sea to our right. The sun itself wouldn’t be far behind.

  I could just make out the shapes of vessels parked further out on the swell, maybe five or six of them. Dozens of skiffs lined the beach, pulled up away from the water line.

  I swung the tiller to take us in. Beyond the skiffs I could make out a procession of scrub-covered dunes, punctuated from time to time by small, dried-up wadis. We could drag the skiff up there and hide it in the dead ground. If it wasn’t there when we got back, or had been compromised, I’d lift a technical or another skiff. Fuck it – I’d worry about that later. I had plenty to do first.

  The propeller guard scraped along the bottom. I tilted up the 150 as the bow dug into the sand.

  I slung the AK over my shoulder, jumped out and splashed water at Awaale. ‘Come on, mate. Get out and push.’

  He clambered out reluctantly. The skiff moved easily up the sand, like a sled. The wadi we pulled it into looked like a golfcourse bunker.

  Awaale collapsed alongside it. Like mine, his Timberlands and the bottom of his jeans were wet with seawater and crusted with sand.

  ‘What are you going to do now, Mr Nick?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. First I want to confirm they’re in that jail. Then I’ll work out how to get them out. Maybe I’ll do a deal.’

  His head shook. ‘It won’t work. Sharia law, that’s all that matters here. They have the freedom to do what they want. The Pakistani guys? As far as they’re concerned, even the Taliban aren’t true Wahhabis.’

  I knew those guys. They were hard-core. They made the Taliban look like kindergarten teachers.

  ‘What are you – Sunni?’

  ‘Everyone is. Even in this town they are. But al-Shabab are here. So they’re all Wahhabis.’

  I made sure my day sack was fastened and the magazine clipped into the AK. ‘OK, let’s go.’

  Awaale stayed put,
his hands up in front of him like he was begging for food. ‘Mr Nick, please, I do not want to go. We will be killed. Even I will be noticed. I don’t belong here. Look …’ He kept pointing to his lack of facial hair. ‘I’ll stay and look after the boat.’

  I took two quick paces and stood over him. ‘We – that’s you and me – are going in there, one way or another. I need your help. You put my friends in the shit, so you’re going to help get them out. Listen, Awaale, I like you, but don’t fucking push it, mate.’

  I stopped. This wasn’t going to help. It might piss him off so much he stitched me up with al-Shabab or dropped me in it by running away. Or it might make him too frightened to function. Neither was going to help me.

  ‘OK, Awaale, listen. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you twenty-five thousand US if you help me get the three of them to Mog airport. That’s all you need to do. Just help me and do what I ask.’

  Now I had his attention. His expression changed immediately.

  ‘Fifty.’

  ‘No. I said twenty-five. That’s a lot of cash to send to your dad, isn’t it? More than you’d ever earn back there in McDonald’s – and more than the cut you get from Erasto.’

  ‘Thirty-five.’

  ‘I’ve told you. Twenty-five. Take it or leave it. I’m going in, mate, and you’re going to be with me, one way or another. Decision time.’

  I still had the iPhone in my hand. I started to dial Frank.

  It rang just once. I hit the speaker-phone and jumped in before Frank could say anything.

  ‘I need you to guarantee twenty-five thousand dollars for some assistance. I’ve got a guy here. I need his help. Explain how it would be paid. He’s listening.’

  Frank didn’t even take a breath. ‘Twenty-five thousand US, guaranteed. It will be flown into Mogadishu airport in time for the hostage exchange. Now, are we done?’

  I took it off speaker-phone and brought it back to my ear. ‘Yes, we are. I’ll call you when I have anything.’

  I closed down the iPhone and tucked it back into my day sack. ‘You ready?’

  He stood up. ‘I would have come with you anyway, Mr Nick. I just needed you to know how dangerous it is.’

  ‘Do you want to pray before we go? We’ve got a couple of minutes before sun-up.’

  He thought about it and nodded. He turned towards Mogadishu. Qibla was north in this part of the world.

  Awaale stood in his Western gear and bling and raised his hands up to his shoulders, feet slightly apart, in preparation for takbiratul ihram. He mumbled away gently to himself. Maybe he did it every day, in between the beer and the girls, or maybe he was just getting a quick one in to hedge his bets.

  ‘Allahu-akbar.’

  God is great.

  Maybe. But so was the AK on my shoulder, and I knew which one I trusted more.

  19

  MY TIMBERLANDS SANK into the sand. Awaale was slowly catching up.

  ‘Why are you scared, Awaale?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘That’s good. We have work to do. A lot of work.’

  He took a couple of quicker steps to draw level with me. I kept my eyes on the way ahead. I was a white man on the East African coast. That kind of news would travel like wildfire if I was spotted.

  ‘The man on the cell, Mr Nick?’

  ‘He’s the one who sent me. Like I said, I’m here partly for friendship and partly for work. The mother and the man who’s in there with them – I know them really well.’

  ‘But who is he? On the cell?’

  ‘He’s the father of that child. So that’s how it works. I must help them. And I’m getting paid, like you.’

  ‘The man with them is not the husband?’

  ‘No.’

  With the sun now up I could see more clearly. Four big commercial cargo ships rode at anchor, dwarfing even the largest of the yachts beside them.

  We started moving through scrub. The sand here was mixed with sticky seed pods and bits of twig and stone. As we approached the outskirts of Merca I went into a stoop, using the brush as cover. The town was waking. Cockerels went berserk. Dogs barked. Nearly all the buildings were one-storey concrete or breezeblock structures with tin or flat roofs, arranged on a grid. There was a lot of cobalt blue going on, on the roofs and walls as well as the clothes-lines.

  Long shadows appeared as the sun rose from the sea. The narrow streets would keep the shade for a while longer. Nearly every dwelling had its morning fire burning. Smoke curled from stubby chimneys. High walls sheltered the compounds. Some were crumbling, but so far everything here seemed in much better nick than in Mogadishu. The sand tracks between the houses were compacted by years of foot and vehicle traffic. There wasn’t a scrap of litter in sight.

  Sunrises in this part of Africa are brilliant and come on fast. The eastern sky had turned tangerine above low grey night clouds. The sun burnt the left side of my face. We walked down into an area of dead ground and up the other side. Ahead, a short, open stretch led to the edge of the town. I lay down in the cover of the last of the thorny scrub.

  I kept my eyes screwed up and shaded with my left hand as Awaale collapsed beside me. ‘Over there …’ I indicated our half-right. ‘Third house down, about forty metres. See the clothes-line?’

  He nodded.

  ‘We need the burqas. The blue ones.’

  Awaale’s head jerked round. He squinted in the sun. ‘Steal them?’

  ‘What else? Go into town and buy a couple?’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘It’s no drama, mate. Just put the fucking thing on and walk like an old woman.’

  ‘Do you know what happens to people who steal, under Sharia law?’

  I managed not to laugh. ‘Mate, if we get caught, having your hand chopped off is the last thing you’ll need to worry about. Go and get them, there’s a good lad. We need to get ourselves to that jail.’

  He didn’t budge.

  ‘We must pay for them.’

  ‘You can’t start talking to anyone. It’ll compromise us. Just go and get them.’

  ‘No, Mr Nick. Women who do not wear hijab in al-Shabab areas are not allowed to leave their homes. No part of their body can be seen in public. Jalaabiibs and burqas cost at least fifteen dollars. If these women don’t wear them, they’ll be punished. They stoned a thirteen-year-old girl for this, even though she was not right.’ He tapped his temple with a finger. ‘She was walking in the main square. They stoned her to death. If these women don’t cover up, they can look for their head in the sand. We cannot just steal them, Mr Nick. We have to pay for them. These people cannot afford to buy these things.’

  I rolled over onto my side and dug in my American tourist pouch for the fold of goodwill cash. ‘Here’s fifty. I don’t care how you give it to them, but be quick. Shove it under the door or some shit. I don’t care. Let’s just get these fucking things on and get moving.’

  In the mid-distance, heading away from us down one of the wider streets, I could see three men patrolling, with black and white shemaghs and wild beards.

  I grabbed Awaale’s ankle. ‘Make sure they’re big ones.’

  20

  I WATCHED HIM set off across the open ground. As he approached the building, chickens bomb-burst out from behind a wall. He walked past a big cone of dried ox-dung cakes. It kept their ovens burning. I wasn’t sure what it did for the food. He knocked on the door.

  For a long time nothing happened. A woman would never appear at the threshold. Maybe the men and children were out. He knocked again. An old guy in a grey dish-dash finally appeared. His grey hair was as long as his beard. Awaale gestured at the clothesline. The old man stared at him for a long time before answering. There was more chat and the old guy kept stroking his beard. Awaale kept nodding away, reached into his jeans pocket and handed him the cash. The old man took it, turned back into the house and closed the door behind him. He reappeared in the back yard seconds later and took two burqas off the line.

  The s
ky was now dazzlingly blue, with not even a hint of cloud. The sand around me was already almost too hot to touch. The sun burnt through my long-sleeved sweatshirt and onto the back of my neck. I felt like I was stuck in a toaster.

  Awaale came back with the two blue burqas. Hijabs wouldn’t have worked for us. They’d have left our faces uncovered. I waited for him to get to within a couple of metres of where I was lying. ‘Pass me, keep walking. Don’t look down. Just carry on down into the dip where we can’t be seen.’

  He did as he was told. My sweat-soaked clothes were soon caked in sand as I slithered back and followed him. Even the AK was covered with the stuff, from the perspiration on my hands.

  Awaale had our purchases over his shoulder. I took off my day sack and boots. My socks would have to stay on. ‘Get your rings and watch off. Have nothing on your hands or your wrist. Old women don’t wear that shit.’

  He started licking his rings and pulling them off. Women’s hands in this neck of the woods are every bit as work-worn as men’s, sometimes even more so, but round here they wouldn’t wear decadent jewellery. I thought about how they must feel under their burqas in this heat. Hard-line Islam was alien to most Somali women, especially those in rural areas who worked the land or herded goats, sheep and cattle under the scorching sun. Wearing this shit must make their already difficult lives almost unbearable. And they had to slave away for longer to pay for the fucking things.

  My Timberlands went into the day sack. ‘What did you say to the old guy?’

  He tucked the bling into his pockets. ‘I said I needed them because my wife and her mother were waiting in my boat, and we had to visit my wife’s sister in town. I told him she is ill and we needed to go to her immediately. I had no time to run around the town.’

  I hung the day sack over my chest like a city tourist and we pulled the burqas over our heads.

  ‘Shoes as well, mate. Shove them in your belt. Get your feet covered in sand and shit.’