Dead Centre

by Andy McNab

  He wasn’t convinced, but did as he was told.

  ‘Just think of the cash, and the war stories you’ll be able to tell next time you’re round the fire.’

  I looked through the triangle of blue mesh as I waited for him to sort himself out. I felt my breath against the material, making me hotter and more claustrophobic by the minute. The previous owners deserved a whole lot more than fifty dollars for having to wear this shit.

  I knelt and rolled up my jeans so just my socks would be visible if the hem of the burqa rode up.

  ‘Do the same, mate. Roll them right up so they don’t fall down when we start moving.’

  Stooping burqas don’t get a second glance. They meant age, infirmity or illness. No one would want anything to do with a couple of old birds like us.

  I slid the AK under my right arm, the butt nice and tight in the pit, the barrel down my side, the magazine cupped in my hand. The metal was so hot it seared my skin.

  I turned and started towards the sea. ‘Remember, mate, we’re old women. We walk slow – bend over a little. Never put your head up.’

  He looked like a blue pepper-pot. The top of it nodded away at me.

  ‘Is your mobile off?’

  His hand fiddled around beneath the material. ‘Yes, it is, Mr Nick.’

  ‘Right. If anything goes wrong, do exactly what I say, when I say it. You sure you know the way to the jail?’

  The top of the pepper-pot nodded again.

  ‘OK. We’ll go back and walk along the beach. It’s less exposed. And it’ll get the bottom of these things nice and dusty. Then we’ll move into the town. If anything happens and we get split up, we meet back at the skiff.’

  Even under the burqa I could tell he still wasn’t too impressed. And a lot less gung-ho now he didn’t have a weapon.

  ‘Awaale, I’m not going to do anything to put us in danger. I’m here to rescue them, not get into a fight. I’ll just be looking to see how I can get them out. You take me there, and maybe I won’t need you until we leave. Maybe I can do everything myself – but I won’t know until you get me there and I see where and how they’re being held. You’ll do that for me, yeah?’

  The top of the pepper-pot nodded once more. I turned towards the beach. ‘OK, let’s go, then.’

  The heat really was unbearable under this thing.

  21

  WE PASSED SKIFF after skiff along the shore line. Some bobbed up and down in the waves. Others had been dragged up onto the sand. In the distance, cargo ships and yachts were silhouetted against the horizon.

  I moved closer to Awaale. ‘Is one of those the Maria Feodorovna?’

  The top of the pepper-pot swivelled. His breath rasped as he laboured to speak. It was like a sauna inside these things.

  ‘The white one, on the far left.’

  ‘What happens now? They just sit there?’

  ‘AS – they will sell them to pirates. They offered it back to Erasto. But why would he want it? He can go and steal another one. They’ll stay here until someone buys them.’

  ‘Will they?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So they stay there until they rot?’

  Awaale didn’t need to answer. He waved an arm. We’d come to an area of rusting hulks and the remnants of boats that had broken up in storms and washed ashore.

  Awaale went to move on but I held him. ‘Where is the jail from here?’

  ‘We stay on the beach for a while. But then we must go into the town. I’ll take you, Mr Nick, and then we leave and you work out how to free them, yes?’

  ‘Yes. Just as I said – and, yes, you will be paid if you help me get them back to the airport.’

  He turned, no doubt relieved.

  ‘One more thing, mate. Why did Erasto want to know who killed Nadif? Why did it matter to him? It’s not as if you lads worry too much about that shit, is it?’

  His voice dropped. ‘Nadif was his brother, Mr Nick. He was family. Erasto will find who killed his brother, and then he will kill him.’

  22

  DUNG FIRES SPILT a sweet, almost herbal smell from the chimneys as we made our way into the town. The main drag was about twenty metres wide. People were already out and about. They’d want to get their business done before the sun was at its fiercest. After midday, they’d bin it until last light – which would just leave the mad dogs and Englishmen to go about their business uninterrupted, with any luck.

  Like everybody else, we kept in the shade. All the women were covered up, in one way or another. Most of them carried large empty plastic containers. On the way home they’d be full of water for the day’s washing and cooking.

  I caught a glimpse of some al-Shabab hard men in tribal dish-dashes and shemaghs down a side road. Long, wild beards on top; bare feet and sandals beneath. They carried AKs or RPGs. I stooped even further and kept on shuffling.

  I thought about the old guy at the house. Fuck knew what he thought about Awaale coming to knock on his door to ask for a couple of burqas. I hoped they weren’t distinctive in any way. I didn’t want one of their mates to come rattling over for a chat.

  This looked like the newer part of town. It would have been built at the same time as the Soviets were installing a missile facility at the port of Berbera in the 1970s and transforming Somalia’s 17,000 armed forces into some of the strongest on the continent.

  The bottom metre or so of the palm trees had been given a lick of white paint a few years ago. They were all bent away from the sea. The monsoon winds would have done their best to flatten them each year. I could have done with a bit of a breeze today, although I didn’t want our burqas to do a Marilyn Monroe.

  The same photocopied A4 flyer seemed to be pinned to every door and fence. I kept my speed down, but didn’t move so slowly that I drew attention to myself. I bent forward, concentrating on the AK. I gripped it hard against me to stop the steel mag slipping out of my hand. I was sweating so much under this thing the skull band must be soaked on the outside. The mesh slit was a nightmare to look through. Even so, I could see this place was totally different from Mog. There was no grime, no burning tyres. But in other ways, it was scarier. Everyone looked anxious and uneasy.

  On the other side of the road, four more AS sat in old armchairs under an acacia. They were smoking, and had a kettle boiling away on a little fire. All of them had AKs resting across their thighs. Two had canvas chest harnesses stuffed with mags. The other two had belts of 7.62 short slung over their shoulders, Mexican-bandit style. I couldn’t see any machine-guns, just AKs.

  All of them wore traditional cotton dish-dashes down to their knees and matching baggy trousers beneath them. They all had black and white checked shemaghs round their necks and multicoloured skull-caps. Their watches glinted in the sun.

  They laughed and shouted to each other.

  Awaale coughed just behind me. It was a flat cough, one I’d heard many times this morning as he tried to control his breathing. I knew the feeling. He had little or no control of the situation, and no weapon to react with if everything went to ratshit. I switched off in these situations. I was going to walk down the road; I wasn’t going to turn back. I was committed. There was nothing to worry about because there was nothing I could do about it.

  We came level with the AS. They were just five metres away, on the other side of the road. My eyes flicked to the side; I wasn’t going to turn my head. A couple of them glanced across at us, then away. One, darker-skinned and taller than the rest, perhaps a Pakistani, looked over, took two or three seconds to register what we were, and got back to the banter.

  Two technicals came down the road towards us. One had a heavy gun mounted on the back. The other was weapons-free. Dark brown- or grey-cottoned legs and sandals dangled over the sides. I looked straight ahead and kept on walking. The wagons drove past and dust and shit swirled through the mesh of my visor. Behind me, Awaale had a coughing fit.

  I steered us left at the first available turning.

  23

/>   IT WAS AN alleyway a couple of metres wide. Awaale shuffled alongside me, clutching one of the flyers. His head was inches from mine.

  ‘Mr Nick, they’re not in the jail.’ He lifted the sheet of paper. ‘This is not good, Mr Nick. We must hurry.’

  I followed him across the road. He passed the four fighters and carried on down another alleyway. Two small boys were coming the other way, each leading an old man with a big grey beard and skull-cap, bent over much more than we were, their faces creased with age. As they got nearer, I realized the boys weren’t looking after the men, it was the other way round. The kids’ eyes were milky, clouded by what looked like cataracts. They could have been sorted out for a couple of dollars elsewhere – or for nothing if Somalia hadn’t been too dangerous for the NGOs and MONGOs to pour into. As for the happy-clappy hospital ships, I’d have liked to see what happened if they’d parked up and offered Jesus along with a couple of plasters.

  We stepped into the burning sun so they could pass us in the shade. The boys were well into the Wahhabi way of things. They didn’t even acknowledge us. I kept looking down into the dust, where we belonged.

  When they’d gone, I moved nearer to Awaale again. ‘What the fuck is happening? What does that bit of paper say?’

  ‘I’ll translate it for you, but not now. They could be moved any minute. You need to see them while you still can.’

  He shuffled on and I followed. Babies cried in the buildings either side of us. We reached the end of the alley and emerged into what was clearly the older part of town. Plaster over stone or brick, the buildings looked like the colonial, Italian area of Mogadishu, but on a smaller scale. They had seen better days, but looked habitable. Most had first-floor balconies. Many boasted parapets; they looked like small medieval forts.

  We were in a square, in the middle of which stood an octagonal obelisk that resembled a small lighthouse. Each face was painted alternately black and white.

  A gaggle of kids dressed like miniature al-Shabab, but so far without weapons, ran into a building to our left. Facing us, the other side of the obelisk, was the largest of the buildings. It might once have been the town hall, years ago, when the Italians ran the place and there was law and order. The sun bounced off the ocean a couple of hundred metres down the avenue to its right. I could see what looked like old harbour walls.

  Awaale paused for a moment. ‘You see the red gates, Mr Nick?’

  I followed his gaze to the left of the town hall. Solid metal at the bottom, vertical bars at the top, they were set into a low, once-whitewashed wall, topped with a security fence. Behind it was a single-storey colonial building that might have been a coach-house.

  ‘They’re in there, Mr Nick.’

  ‘That’s what the paper says?’

  ‘They’re being put on display. AS – the fighters, the mullahs – they live in the big building. It is now the Islamic Sharia Court. Not a good place.’

  A gang of kids had stopped just to the right of the gates. Some were so deformed they were almost unable to function; some were being dragged about by the others. They were peering through the bars as I approached. I didn’t know if Awaale was behind me or not. It didn’t matter.

  A couple of bodies moved around inside the compound: AS, armed and smoking. They picked up their wooden chairs and shifted them to a new vantage-point now the sun had moved. The kids shouted angrily, pointing down into the dead ground the other side of the wall. Locals lined up on both sides to get a better view.

  To the right of the kids, close to the wall, a row of holes had been dug. The spoil was piled up alongside them. Arc lights had been mounted on the court-house walls. The wiring hung loosely from windows at the top of the building.

  Five Somalis, three men and two women, were in the compound. But all eyes were on the three white prisoners.

  24

  TRACY, BB AND Stefan were huddled in the shade of the wall to our left. They looked exactly as they had in the video. Tracy was wearing the same hijab. It was grimy and covered with dust. She lay on her side, Stefan in her arms. She stroked his hair, trying to comfort him. His eyes were closed. His legs were raw and red with the insect bites.

  The three Somali men were in rags. Two lay down; one sat back against the wall. Their faces were blank; the abuse from the kids no longer registered.

  BB sat on the far side of them. He also had his arse in the sand, his back to the wall. Elbows on his knees, his head rested on his hands.

  The two Somali women were stuck in the corner, on their own, squatting on their haunches. One of them was crying. Her head jerked with every sob. The other, sobbed-out, simply looked down at the ground.

  I moved along the wall to get closer to them. I was soon only a couple of metres away from Tracy. I could hear her singing gently to Stefan. ‘Three Blind Mice’. He still had his eyes closed. She sensed somebody above her. Maybe she’d become aware of my shadow on the sand. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Help us … please … help us …’

  Her tears carved tracks through the layers of sand and dust on her face. Her lips were cracked and baked, but she was still beautiful. ‘Please … help my son …’ She reached up towards me.

  All I could do was look. I turned my head towards BB. Was he in any condition to fight his way out?

  He looked at Tracy as he heard her begging, then stared straight at my blue mesh.

  The kids found something new to howl about.

  He stayed completely focused. ‘Why don’t you shut the fuck up?’ he said to them. ‘And what are you looking at, you fucking bitch?’

  Tracy struggled to her feet. Her hands gripped the bars less than a foot away from my face.

  ‘Please help us … my baby … my son …’

  I didn’t want to look at her directly. We were too close. She might see my white skin through the mesh. As I looked away I could see why the kids had gone noisy again. Ant and Dec were being dragged out of the building to be put on display with the rest of them.

  Both had just a day or so of stubble, and were in much better condition than the others. That said, they’d still had a good kicking. Ant had cut and swollen lips. Dec had a black eye.

  Their AS escorts pushed them hard into the dust. The kids laughed, then screamed like banshees. The older locals were silent. I had the feeling they’d seen it all before.

  Tracy’s hands reached through the bars to try and grab me. I jerked back. She missed me by a couple of inches, then turned her attention to Awaale.

  ‘Please help my son … please …’

  She collapsed sobbing as the truth dawned. We weren’t going to help. Nobody was. Her hands slid back through the bars.

  The two AS hard men had had enough. They got to their feet and shouted at the kids to fuck off. Then they headed our way. They grabbed Tracy and flung her back onto the ground. Stefan was curled up in his own little world. It was like he’d pulled the duvet over his head and was praying the monsters would go away.

  BB couldn’t seem to decide whether he hated the AS or the audience more, so he turned on both of us. ‘Yeah, go on, fuck off! Cunts …’

  One of the AS lads picked up a handful of sand and stones and hurled it at us.

  We got the message. We moved away. The kids ran off to join the others going into the madrasah, dragging their deformed mates with them. Hundreds of years before the Christian West switched on to the possibility, Muslims had figured out the world was round. They also knew the distance to the moon, and that the earth moved around the sun. Islamic schools were set up to teach mathematics, astronomy and philosophy as well as the Koran. I somehow doubted that this particular school was keeping up the good work. Judging by their performance a few minutes ago, they’d had the Koran drummed into them word for word, and been taught the hard-line AS interpretation of the text. Their generation of Somalis would know nothing else.

  Awaale followed me past the court-house and down towards the harbour. Once I got there I’d turn left, back t
o the skiff. I needed to gather my thoughts.

  It had all the makings of a weapons-grade gang-fuck, but at least BB sounded up for a fight.

  25

  THE SKIFF WAS still where we’d hidden it. There were no new footprints coming towards it or going away. The surf had washed away the drag marks.

  I’d moved out of the bunker and far enough into the scrub so we wouldn’t be connected with the boat if it was found. Awaale and I were sixty or seventy metres away from the cache, but still close enough to the shore to see anybody coming up the beach towards us.

  I took off my burqa and draped it between two spiky bushes to create some shade. I wasn’t talking. My throat was dry. My body needed food and sleep. But all that still had to wait.

  Awaale followed my lead. He whipped his burqa off and made a shelter next to mine. I stretched out in the sand. Within seconds my clothes were riddled with thorns and bits of brush. Awaale joined me. His shirt was soon covered in shit as well. He panted for breath as he reached for his cigarettes. The packet was soaked through. He stared at it in disgust and tossed it to one side.

  I dug the Solar Monkey out of my day sack, opened the clamlike device to expose the photovoltaic cells and pushed it out into the sunlight. Awaale watched. He was attempting to reconcile himself with having to go without nicotine as well as water. I wiped my eyes, trying to avoid filling them with sand. It was fucking miserable.

  ‘Check my adaptors. See if you can charge your phone up as well.’

  I lobbed him the bag of jacks that had come with the thing. Mottled with sand, my hand looked like I had some kind of skin condition.

  ‘Awaale, why are so many kids here malformed? They’re everywhere – the lads near yesterday’s dust-up, and now the ones outside the madrasah today. What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘I will tell you what’s wrong with them, Mr Nick. They are diseased – they have a disease that comes from your world.’ His face clouded. ‘We have no government. Our coastline is unprotected. Most importantly for your people, it is unmonitored.’ He waved towards the beach, to where the surf came crashing onto the sand. ‘It looks like a holiday brochure. But the water is polluted. It has become the dumping ground for your toxic waste. Of course there will be no successful prosecutions of your big companies for this. So our children are born … the way you see them. You, the West, have done that.’