A boy of six or so ran from a cluster of huts south of the fence. He ducked through a hole in the wire and ran to them, his arms outstretched like wings.
“De plane, boss, de plane,” he yelled when he got close.
“Our very own Tattoo,” Wells said.
“I don’t know who taught him that, but he does it whenever a plane comes in,” Moss said. “Hey, Freddy,” she yelled.
“Hey, hot mama.” The boy wore a blue T-shirt imprinted with the words San Diego Yacht Club. He ran to Wells and said, “My name is Prince Charles, what is your name? My name is Prince Charles, de plane, boss, de plane—” The speech was delivered so fast it was almost a rap. He gave Wells a desperate grin that reminded Wells of the puppies at the North Conway animal shelter, the ones that still believed in human kindness. “Fifty shillings, boss.”
“No fifty shillings, Freddy.”
“Ten shillings, boss.”
“Go on. Back to San Diego.” Wells was surprised to see Moss dig into her pocket, hand the boy a coin. She said something in Swahili. The boy ran off with his arms spread. Moss nodded at the huts. “Have to give him something or whoever’s watching over there will take a stick to him when he gets back.”
“What about when five kids show up? Or five hundred?”
“I know. Solve one problem, create dependency and a bigger one. You have a better solution?”
“My first instinct would be to beat the stuffing out of whoever’s hurting that boy.”
“Then you leave, and he gets paid back tenfold.”
Wells had no good answer. They watched as the plane came in low and slow, a stubby-winged four-seat Cessna 172, the Toyota Corolla of aviation. Simple, cheap, reliable.
“So how’s this going to work, John? You tell Jimmy you want his phone and the truth? And he confesses everything because you’ve asked the question just so.”
“That would be the elegant alternative.”
“I sense you’re not the elegant type. You want to tell me, then?”
“Better if you don’t know.”
The Cessna touched down, bumped over the potholed runway, taxied to a halt fifty feet away. The passenger door swung open. Thompson stepped down, his laptop bag strung over his shoulder. He closed the door, walked toward them. His face was tight and angry. “Let’s go,” he said. “Get this over with.”
—
Wells sat in the back of the Land Cruiser and poured himself a mug of coffee.
“I get one?” Thompson said. “Been up since four.” Wells poured another mug and handed it forward. Thompson took a long swallow. “Hits the spot. Best thing about this country, the coffee.” He drank again. “You use something artificial as a sweetener, John?”
“Just sugar.”
“Because it has kind of a funny aftertaste.”
“I’m not getting that.”
“Strange. Guess I’m tired.” Thompson licked his lips, drank for the third time. “I feel, I don’t feel—” He looked over his shoulder at Wells. “You.”
Thompson’s mouth hung open. His eyes drooped closed. His head hung down and his body slumped forward, deadweight against his seat belt. The mug tipped from his nerveless hands and coffee rushed onto his khakis.
Moss pulled over. “What in the name of all that’s holy just happened?”
“Your Irish comes out when you’re stressed.”
“This was your plan? Tell me you didn’t poison him.”
“He’ll be fine. Sleep twelve hours, maybe a little more, wake up with a headache.” Unless he drank too much. Then he might die.
“What is it?”
“Rohypnol.” Wells had packed the pills in his bag of tricks from New Hampshire. He’d ground up twelve, mixed them into the thermos. Coffee and milk masked their bitter taste. “It’s a sedative, like Valium. Puts you to sleep. Just faster.”
“Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, John. You carry that stuff around? Isn’t that the date-rape drug?”
“I don’t plan to rape him. Though you’re welcome to.”
“I thought you were going to talk to him.”
“I am, eventually.” Wells lowered the window, dumped out the thermos. “Let’s go.”
“I hope to God you’re right about this.” Moss slipped the Land Cruiser back into gear and they drove in silence for a while. “What are you going to tell him when he wakes up?”
“By then we should know more.”
“But if you don’t.”
“That he passed out suddenly, that we have no idea why. What’s he going to do, ask for a tox screen at the MSF hospital?”
“He’ll know you’re lying.”
“He won’t be able to prove it, and he can’t touch me anyway. If Shabaab really does have these kids deep in Somalia, there’s not much I can do. I’ll switch passports and disappear. And if something else is going on, if he’s involved somehow, I’ll be the least of his problems.”
“I can’t see you as the least of anyone’s problems.”
—
Wells and Wilfred carried Thompson inside Gwen’s trailer. He was bigger than Wells had realized, two hundred pounds of deadweight. They laid him on his back on Gwen’s bed.
“What happened?” Wilfred said.
“Tell you later.”
“You hit him with mzungu magic.” Wilfred mimed beating drums. “A curse from the ancestral spirits.”
“A curse from Roche.” Wells put two fingers to Thompson’s carotid, picked up a slow, steady pulse, fifty beats a minute. He rummaged through Thompson’s windbreaker, found his passport and international phone. In his pants, a wallet and a local phone. Wells recognized the number taped to the back. This was the legitimate phone.
Wells couldn’t believe Thompson had left the third phone in Nairobi. He’d want it close by. In the laptop bag, he found a computer and a half-dozen Cadbury wrappers. So far the only secret he’d discovered was Thompson’s sweet tooth.
He patted Thompson’s legs down. The man didn’t stir. Wells had the unsettling feeling that he was robbing a corpse. He found nothing. He double-checked the windbreaker—
And finally found a tiny Samsung handset zippered into an inside compartment just above the waistband. No number taped to the back. Wells booted it up, but it demanded a four-digit password. Wells tried 1-1-1-1. No good. Hopefully, Moss would have some ideas. Wells pocketed the phone, turned Thompson on his side so that if he threw up he wouldn’t choke on his vomit.
“Watch him,” Wells told Wilfred. “Call me if he wakes up.”
“And if he stops breathing?”
“Call me then, too.”
Back in Moss’s office, Wells booted up Thompson’s laptop. It was password-protected and the obvious choices failed. The NSA could break it, but Wells couldn’t. He switched on the phone. It demanded a combination, four digits. Wells tried 1-2-3-4, then 4-3-2-1. No good.
“What’s his social?”
“His what?”
“The last four digits of his Social Security number.”
“How would I know?”
“It’s got to be on a record somewhere,” Wells said. She reached for her laptop, but he put a hand on her shoulder. “Forget it. Let’s try his birthday first. Egomaniacs love to use their birthdays for passwords.”
“That’s March 19, I think.” Moss flipped through an old-fashioned planner. “Yes.”
Wells keyed in 0-3-1-9 and the phone unlocked. He scrolled through the menus until he found the phone’s number. It was almost the same as the number Thompson gave Wells, but two digits were transposed. If Wells asked, Thompson could say he’d made a legitimate mistake.
The call registry showed that Thompson had used the phone sparingly, making just a handful of calls to three numbers in the last week, all with Kenyan prefixes. Most calls ran less than
two minutes. In the hours after Wells demanded that Thompson come back to Dadaab, Thompson made several late-night calls, none of which were answered.
“Recognize these? Suggs, anyone?”
“No.”
“Let’s call them.”
Moss reached for her phone.
“Use Skype so they can’t trace the call,” Wells said.
Moss pulled up Skype on her laptop. Her first call went to a voice mail without a greeting. So did the second. The third rang three times before it went to voice mail. A man offered a greeting in Swahili and then said in English, “Joka-joka-joka call back-back-back.”
“Is Joka-joka-joka Kenyan slang?”
“Not that I know of. What he says in the Swahili part of the greeting is standard, leave a message and I’ll call back.”
“Is that Suggs?”
“Not sure. Let me hear it again.” She redialed. This time the call went straight to voice mail. “I’m about ninety-five percent sure it’s not Suggs.” She redialed one more time. This time a man answered. He said something, laughed, hung up.
“What’d he say?” Wells said.
“I don’t know. He was speaking Somali. Not Swahili.”
“But the voice mail message was Swahili?”
“Yes.”
“So either the greeting is intentionally misleading or the phone has been taken by someone who speaks Somali.”
“Correct.”
Wells tried to come up with a happy explanation for that particular fact pattern. He couldn’t. He called Shafer. “I got Thompson’s third phone.”
“Want to tell me how?”
“I roofied him and took it.”
“You what-ted him?”
“You heard me. I gave him a cup of coffee with some special sweetener.”
“This is why I love you, John. You’re insane. You’re telling me you drugged James Thompson so you could steal his phone.”
“We both know I’ve done worse.”
“He’s going to want your head when he wakes up.”
“That’s why I’d like you to run the number, Ellis. And three more. All Kenyan country codes, but they’re either in Kenya or Somalia.”
“It’s almost midnight here, John. But I’ll try. Give them to me.”
Wells did. “Names would be nice, but what I really need is an approximate location for the receiving handsets. Anything new on your end?”
“The level of interest here is extreme.”
“Because of the press conference.”
“Because they’re oh so pretty. Because of the wall-to-wall coverage on every network. This thing’s picking up speed. We could wind up invading Somalia.”
“Hard to imagine.”
“Not really. The Kenyans want it. They think we can solve their problem with Shabaab once and for all. Then they’ll say Somalia’s been pacified, close the camps, send the refugees home. They’re talking to the White House.”
Now Wells understood why the Kenyan police weren’t trying to find the volunteers. “But Duto—”
“Would rather you find them yourself. Even better, tell me where they are so he can send in a SOG team, play the hero. A nice liftoff for his campaign. He’s watching. You want help from us or Fort Meade, I can’t hide it from him.”
“Including these phone numbers I just passed along.”
“If it turns out some Somali gang has your friends, you might be glad for the help.”
“Doubtful.”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I hear.” Shafer hung up.
—
“The United States government can track those phones?” Moss said. “Even if they were inside Kenya the whole time?”
“In a country like this, one where we more or less don’t care about the diplomatic consequences if we get caught, we have tracking software on every mobile network. Manufacturers install it or we sneak it in later. Don’t ask me how it works, because I don’t know. But it does work. I can tell you firsthand. Hopefully, they’ll have something for us before Sleeping Beauty wakes up.”
“But if Jimmy and Suggs faked this kidnapping, why did Jimmy make such a fuss that first day when the reporter from Houston said she was going to write? Wouldn’t he have wanted the media to know?”
“I think he did. He knew she was going to write something even if he told her not to. He figures he holds a press conference, raises a few million bucks, and then in a couple weeks gives everyone the good news. The hostages escaped. Or WorldCares paid the ransom. Or, best of all, the kidnappers heard his appeal to their humanity and let these poor aid workers go. The publicity will be huge. He’ll sell a million copies of his book. The hostages will probably all get paid too, books and movies and who knows what else. Best part is that once the volunteers get home, it’s not like the Kenyan police will keep looking for the kidnappers. Everyone will be happy to drop it. Like you said yesterday, there’s not even an insurance company to care.”
“But he didn’t understand how big this would get, and how soon,” Moss said.
“I think that’s right. He figured he could control it, but now it’s running away from him. Maybe that’s why a Somali answered that phone call we just made. Maybe Suggs decided he wants more money, so he’s moving the hostages someplace where Thompson can’t get them so easily. Like Somalia.”
Moss looked unconvinced. “Suggs is Kenyan, and Kenyans prefer this side of the border. So are you going to hit Jimmy with this theory that has absolutely no factual support?”
“Not just yet. For now I’m leaving your boss to you. I decided after you told me to forget the camps that I should see the kidnapping site for myself. Meantime, NSA will run the numbers. With any luck between us we’ll come up with enough to put some heat on James by the time he wakes up.”
“And if you don’t?”
“I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it. Meantime, I do have one more favor.”
“You never quit, do you?”
“I don’t think Martin’s car can handle these roads. Can I borrow a Land Cruiser, preferably one without WorldCares’s name on the side? No offense.”
“None taken. I might have another present for you, too—” Moss led Wells to a closet beside Thompson’s office. Inside, a padlocked case held a Glock .40-caliber pistol and a 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun with a matte blue barrel, a mean-looking weapon. Boxes of ammunition were heaped on the floor.
“Aid workers aren’t supposed to need guns. But Jimmy wanted them.”
“Sure you don’t mind giving them up?”
“I never liked them.”
Wells didn’t like shotguns much either. They were overkill up close, useless at a distance. They were heavy, clumsy, and hard to hide. But for sheer intimidation, they couldn’t be matched. A Mossberg could stop a riot. Wells pulled it from the case, checked to be sure it wasn’t loaded, then put his nose to the barrel. It smelled of oil, not powder. It had been fired only a few times. The Glock was similarly new. Anne would be pleased. Wells tucked the pistol into his waistband and reached for the ammunition boxes.
—
Thirty minutes later, the WorldCares gates swung open. Wilfred was driving, Wells beside him. Wells had insisted Martin stay and watch Thompson. An excuse. Martin had a wife and three kids. Wells didn’t want to subject him to the risks they were about to take.
The camp stretched for miles, with only an occasional acacia tree to break the monotony. Women wearing long black abbayas clustered around a pumping station, pails in hand. A group of kids waved. But after the Land Cruiser passed, one grabbed a clump of dirt and flung it at the SUV. It hit the rear window, leaving a red-brown smear.
A GSU checkpoint marked the intersection of the camp track and the road that connected Dadaab with Ijara District. “To Dadaab?” an officer said.
“No. South.” Following
the path of Suggs and the volunteers.
“I don’t advise anyone to go that way. The situation is unstable.”
“Then we’ll fit in fine.”
—
Even with the Cruiser’s four-wheel drive and big tires, Wilfred rarely got out of second gear. The land seemed set on rewind, endless miles of scrub and red dirt. Twice they passed flocks of sheep and goats watched over by armed herders. About an hour out of Dadaab, Wilfred made his way around a caravan of five camels, the tall humped beasts loaded with sacks of grain and charcoal.
After ninety bone-jarring minutes, the Cruiser reached Bakafi. Wells’s map showed it as the only village of any size on the road. Though size was relative. A handful of stores sold food and charcoal. A green-domed mosque marked the middle of town, followed by a police outpost and a school whose red paint had faded to a weak pink in the sun. Barefoot kids shouted as they passed.
Near the south end of town, a sign in English and Arabic marked a plain white building as “King Fahad Muslim Infirmary. Gift from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Even in this flyspeck town, the Saudis spread charity and Islamist teachings. A hundred meters farther down, a tall concrete building stood alone. Four men stood outside, smoking. The place was painted a striking canary yellow. A torn plastic banner hanging from the roof proclaimed: “Broadway Hoteli/Best in the District/Live Premier League Football/Tusker TOO!”
“A hotel? Here?”
Wilfred pulled over. “‘Hoteli’ is our word for a restaurant. Serves fried potatoes, mutton, all those things. A whole meal one hundred fifty, two hundred shillings. Usually it’s okay, but when they use the grease too long—” He rubbed his stomach.
“And this one serves beer? In a Muslim town?”
“Bakafi must not be all Muslim. Kenyan and Somali, Christian and Muslim. So the alcohol is okay.”
The place was the Kenyan equivalent of a Montana roadhouse, Wells thought, a way to keep drinking and trouble outside the middle of town, but close enough for the police to step in if a fight got out of control. Past the hoteli Wells saw a man on a motorbike. He fit the Somali stereotype, small head, coffee-colored skin. He held a cell phone at arm’s length, like he was taking a picture with it. A picture of the Toyota, maybe. The motorcycle between his legs was a dirt bike, stubby tires and thick shocks. As they moved closer, the guy tucked away the phone, kicked the bike into gear, rode south.
The Night Ranger Page 14