After the Monsoon

by Robert Karjel

  “I’ll call someone on watch to show you the way.”

  12

  Grip had managed to get to bed before midnight but soon woke up again, freezing. Several times, he wrestled with the hotel’s air-conditioning controls, increasingly annoyed. Finally, as the clock by his bed turned to four, he gave up and took a sleeping pill. Most of the morning disappeared in its haze. The rest of the day, he kept to himself. Read the report and the personnel files, pondered, planned, called Mickels and then a few others. Made sure both suits that had been lying in his suitcase got pressed. Easily arranged, at the Kempinski.

  The hotel stood alone on a peninsula north of downtown. Its palm groves and lush gardens were enclosed by sand-colored walls, which cut straight lines through the barren landscape. On the inside was abundance, for a select few; on the outside, patches of stubby grass and plastic bottles spinning in the sea breeze. But there was no barbed wire, and no shards of glass poking up, not like on the walls in the wealthy residential neighborhoods. Someone had been thoughtful. The impression was meant to be inviting; people were meant to see an oasis. And for those who knew exactly which credit card to flash, it truly was a place out of One Thousand and One Nights.

  Opinions differed as to whether it was a sheikh or the Chinese who owned this twenty-first-century take on a fairy-tale palace. Did it matter? What mattered was that the Swiss hoteliers pulling the strings behind the scenes knew exactly whom to hire. The local middle-class daughters worked the reception desk, smiling shyly and adorably, having wasted years studying languages at foreign universities so they could serve Germans wanting to park closer to the main door and Chinese wanting massage appointments at the spa. The Filipino maids managed to do the impossible, keeping every horizontal surface free from dust without being visible themselves, and making sure not to miss all the nooks and arabesques. This was fabulous Islamic architecture, the Alhambra reimagined: geometric patterns covered the tiles and lanterns, while the colonnades and ornately carved wooden panels created a kind of labyrinth. It was rare to have an unobstructed view, and generally many things were not to be fully seen but only imagined at the Kempinski.

  There was a French pâtisserie, and in the evenings, the Egyptian singers in the Lebanese dance bands, who smiled down from the posters, did their best imitations of Umm Kulthum at one of the hotel bars. Everyone was supposed to feel at home, yet at the same time get a whiff of something foreign, even exotic. Like the fact that the outdoor pool was chilled. This was one of the first things the hotel told its guests, so they’d understand that the hotel had thought of everything.

  That afternoon, Grip slowly swam laps, cutting through the fog that lingered from the previous night. The pool was lined in deep blue mosaics, and its chilled water felt pleasant in the shimmering heat. He showered in his room and put on his freshly pressed linen suit. The tie seemed like overkill, but he had that dinner to go to. Earlier in the day, he’d arranged for a rental car, and at lunch, Mickels had stopped by with entry cards for both the port and the French base. Now, he could move around.

  Grip left the car in the shade of some containers on the dock and walked the last hundred meters to the warship’s gangway. He’d said he wanted to meet the MovCon unit at five o’clock; now it was quarter past. They were soldiers, so they were sitting where they’d been told to, looking at the clock.

  The group was waiting in a small mess hall for the ship’s crew. It looked like the common room of a dorm, with its shelves of battered DVDs, game consoles, and computer games. Five pairs of soldiers’ eyes told him he was late. Grip wanted them to start off feeling they had an advantage.

  “Hi,” he said. He took a chair and sat down, as they’d already formed a U around him. Grip pushed autopilot, letting his mouth babble on about his assignment and his investigative mandate. He spewed nonsense while he looked them in the eyes, the whole circle, again and again. All between twenty and thirty. Sleeves carefully rolled up on their uniforms, with just the right amount of wear. They all dressed in khakis, definitely not navy blue. Grip knew their personnel files by now, and every single one had a background in the army. His own linen suit was out of place. His mouth ran on, something about combatant status and international accords, a few heads nodding in agreement, as if they followed the nonsense point by point. Four men and one woman. A pair of tattooed forearms, a mustache, two with beards—probably a look the veterans brought home from Afghanistan. Three met his gaze, one looked around at the walls, the last stared down at the floor in front of him.

  “. . . therefore, I’ll be around for a few days asking some questions.” Nobody reacted, not the slightest movement. “So, when did you get the idea of heading off to the shooting range?” Grip looked at the person sitting directly in front of him.

  “The lieutenant told us.”

  “Lieutenant Slunga?”

  “Yes, the day before, around lunchtime last Saturday,” one of the beards answered. It was Fritzell, the biggest of the bunch, who no doubt lifted dumbbells when he had an extra hour or two.

  “And what time did you go?”

  “At three.” This was Fredrik Hansson, the sergeant who’d had to take over command. “I booked the shooting range and went to pick up ammunition. Did anyone have objections?” Hansson answered his own question. Laid-back style, expensive watch. “Most of us probably did.”

  “Most, probably?”

  “Well, I was against it,” said Hansson, “and I told Slunga the minute he came up with the damn idea.”

  “But he insisted?”

  “Yes.” Hansson shrugged.

  Grip let it go. “So the point was to do a little bonding between you and the locals.” Grip smiled. “You needed that?”

  Silence.

  Hansson looked at Jondelius, the other beard, who leaned forward and replied, “I think the Djiboutians had been pushing him, saying they wanted to shoot.”

  “And Slunga caved in to the pressure, just like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the Djiboutians, what did they do, the day after the shooting?”

  “The next day, only two showed up—Mr. Nazir, the foreman, and his nephew,” answered Philippa Ekman, the only woman in the room, speaking up without a look from Hansson. “Where the others went, who knows?”

  “And that means more work for you, delivering supplies to the Sveaborg before she casts off again?”

  “It’s okay. Mr. Nazir hired six new people today.”

  “I see.”

  Philippa Ekman nodded. The mood among those in the room remained total self-confidence. It was in their body language, and in that “bring-it-on” look in their eyes.

  “Just for my own information,” Grip continued, “many of you have worked together before? On missions?”

  “Yes, of course,” someone answered. Another nodded, and the one gazing at the floor raised his head.

  “Where, for instance?”

  “The Balkans, I guess everybody started off there,” replied Jondelius, the second beard. “I met Philippa for the first time in Kosovo.”

  “What about you?” Grip said, turning his gaze to Radovanović, who’d looked up from the floor.

  “Me . . . ?” He shifted in his seat. “Well, before this, twice in Afghanistan.”

  Milan Radovanović’s personnel file said his parents were Bosnian Serbs who’d come to Sweden when he was five.

  “Afghanistan, of course,” said Jondelius. That got them started, pointing at each other, talking about who served together when, names flying with locations and units: Mazar-e Sharif, Sheberghan, OMLT, FS-17, Marmal. All of them had served there, one of the beards doing the most tours, it seemed. Someone laughed: “We’ve done everything: drivers, grunts, vehicle mechanics—you name it.”

  “And now you do MovCon.” Grip got a thumbs-up from one member of this traveling circus. Fritzell, the muscular one, smiled broadly behind his beard.

  “You like to dig into things?” Grip asked, looking at him.

  �
��I like to dig into things,” he replied, with the indulgent gaze of a bouncer looking at a drunk trying to get past him.

  Philippa Ekman snorted at the comment. She wore her long blond hair up and sat with her legs wide apart like the others.

  “And in Africa?” Grip continued.

  “This is a first for me,” said Jondelius. Radovanović nodded.

  “Me and Hansson were in Chad together,” said Ekman.

  “Yeah, I’ve done my fair share around here,” continued Fredrik Hansson, the new leader. “Chad, Sudan, a few other little missions.”

  “Always MovCon?”

  “Something like that. My thing is logistics.”

  Grip nodded. “And now you’re here. There aren’t many of you, and I hear there’s a lot to do. How do you divide the work?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, mornings, evenings, nights, how do you arrange your shifts?”

  “We work as needed.”

  “Around the clock?”

  “Not always, but it happens.”

  “And the Djiboutians?”

  “During the day. But really, they only get things done in the morning.”

  “Why?”

  There was silence.

  “I said, why?” Grip saw Hansson look at Fritzell, so instead he went to Radovanović. “Why, Radovanović?”

  The soldier fiddled and twisted his index finger nervously.

  “Too hot in the afternoon sun?”

  The staff sergeant struggled for words.

  “The real reason,” Grip went on, “is because at lunchtime, the khat stalls open in town. After one o’clock, nearly everyone is chewing, and by two, they’re no longer useful . . . right?”

  “Something like that,” said Hansson, to break the deadlock.

  “Then I understand better. And another thing I was wondering, since you’ve been out on so many missions. How often have you taken the locals to a firing fest at a shooting range? And I don’t mean when you were training some ex-Talibans to be police officers in Afghanistan. I mean people who have jobs on the base that have nothing to do with weapons. Do you have a single example? Chad, Liberia, Kosovo?”

  Silence again.

  “Anything?”

  “It was the lieutenant . . .”

  “I know, Slunga told you to. And not just that you were going to shoot with them, but that you’d do it in the afternoon, when the entire gang was high. You’ve said it yourselves, right?” Grip leaned forward, looking at Hansson, Fritzell, and Ekman. “The idea was so goddamn stupid that the lieutenant couldn’t have done it alone. No way in hell it was five against one, and he won just because he was a lieutenant. Never, not with this crew. You need to work on your story, it’s too polished.”

  This hit home. But Grip had more. “Was he a good shot, by the way?” He’d turned to Radovanović, who looked down at the floor again. “Hello? How well did he shoot?”

  “Huh, who?” asked Radovanović, looking up.

  “Abdoul Ghermat, was he a good shot?”

  “When?”

  “C’mon, you stood next to each other on the shooting range. I’ve seen the sketches. It was you who instructed him—was he a good shot?”

  “I don’t know, the idea was just that they’d give it a try. We taped over the targets as they went.” Radovanović tore a little sliver off his cuticle.

  “But did he hit the target at least?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess? It was only three days ago. Did he hit the cardboard soldiers or not?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And then he shot Slunga?”

  Radovanović didn’t know what to say.

  “Let it go,” said Fredrik Hansson at last. “I was standing in the back as well, when the others walked up to the targets. The shot, when it happened, fuck, it wasn’t something you were expecting. Whether he aimed before or not . . .” Hansson shrugged. “In any case, it was Abdoul Ghermat who fired the shot.”

  Radovanović nodded. Saved by Hansson.

  “Ghermat,” mumbled Grip. He glanced at the clock and stood up. “I’m sure you also took a lot of photos with your phones. That goes along with doing something so goddamn stupid.” No one denied it. “Exactly. And I want to see pictures, enough pictures so I can see the faces of everyone there. Email them to me. I want them by ten tonight.” Still no one said anything, and Grip tossed some business cards on a table, nodded, and left.

  The next time Grip stopped, he was out on deck. Alone in the late dusk, he looked out over the water and the lights on the other side of the harbor. Behind him, the ship’s funnel whirred, towering behind him.

  Already he’d found the weak link.

  The whole MovCon unit stayed at the Sheraton, with the other Swedes and foreigners who didn’t serve aboard the ships. They’d go back to their rooms now, on the same hallway. They’d have a few beers, trying to come up with a new strategy, because the pig wouldn’t just go away. What photos had they taken last Sunday, and which would they send? Some would be for, and some against. They didn’t agree, only pretended to, and pretty clumsily when Grip was in the room. Grip knew an inbred group when he saw one. Those smug little smiles, from spending way too much time together and playing entirely by their own rules. They were a world apart.

  Grip would be surprised if there weren’t something in his in-box before ten. They understood that much. It remained to be seen how useful the images would be. The really interesting part would come at ten thirty, when Grip figured he’d still be at the dinner aboard the ship, with the captain.

  He picked up the phone and covered his other ear to mask the noise from the chimney. Waited for someone to answer.

  When Grip met Mickels at the Kempinski earlier that day, Mickels had given him the business card of a French colonel. He’d explained that Colonel Frères was responsible for the security of all European military personnel stationed in Djibouti, and he knew that Grip was there. Apparently, he wanted Grip to contact him.

  Grip had called the Frenchman as soon as Mickels left. The colonel, who was well-informed and totally self-assured, brought up the difficulty of doing this kind of investigation alone. He suggested using a couple of his own military police. Not for the long term, but if there was some specific errand . . . Grip had gotten a phone number. “Just give my name, they’ll know it.”

  So Grip had started making arrangements. The concierge at the Kempinski recommended a small but well-run hotel on the outskirts of town. There, he booked two rooms. Then he called the French military police. A phone call, a name dropped. “Ah, Colonel Frères, no problem. When do you want them? . . . Well, two men plus two would be good enough . . . No, no, we won’t tell anyone about it.” Mickels and all other Swedes would be kept out of this.

  All set.

  Now the French were waiting for his signal. Two men in uniform would go into the Sheraton and knock on the door; two plainclothesmen would take over and stay a few days at the hotel that Grip had booked.

  The ringtone stopped. Grip pressed his hand harder against his ear to shut out the noise from the ship.

  “Oui?”

  “Yes, it’s me—the Swede. Milan Radovanović is the one.”

  “Milan . . .” repeated the voice. He’d already given them all the names and photos. A brief pause on the line. Perhaps the French military police officer was writing something down. “Still half past ten?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Good, then.”

  Grip hung up.

  13

  They’d set up a small bar in one corner of the captain’s spacious cabin. The ice rattled as a junior officer wielded a cocktail shaker. Daiquiris and martinis were it. The officers wore all-white uniforms, and even their shoes were white. Only their ties broke the rule—black stripes beneath their jackets. There were a few civilians too, visiting from the Swedish embassy in Addis Ababa, apparently the nearest Swedish legation in the Horn of Africa.

  The first officer
ran interference as usual, overseeing political correctness between the sliced goat cheese hors d’oeuvres. He explained to the diplomats, and eventually to Grip, that liquor was rarely served on board—never at sea, only in port and on special occasions like tonight. So that they’d feel privileged. He rambled on about the keys to the liquor cabinet, some sort of complex system. The professional drinkers from the foreign office nodded politely, reminding Grip of the many times he’d observed the king getting lectured at a corporate event on some piece of trivia. The captain himself didn’t contribute much to the buzz, not until dinnertime, when he invited his guests to take their seats in such a loud voice that everyone winced.

  The captain’s table was set for ten: pressed linen tablecloths without the slightest ripple, heavy sterling-silver cutlery, and crystal. It was as if the captain had been waiting offstage, and now he came out, turned and gestured. Handwritten place cards—with the only woman at the table, one of the diplomats, of course seated on his right. He began his monologue as soon as they sat down, while the guests’ eyes wandered around the room, pausing at the framed foreign flag or the broken tip of an oar mounted on a plaque. There were many stories to tell, and the cabin provided props for well-rehearsed snippets and harmless anecdotes.

  A male chef came in to present the menu, describing at length what had been sautéed and reduced in the dishes that awaited. Otherwise, the waitstaff was entirely female, made up of a couple of nurses and some of the kitchen’s off-duty personnel, wearing white uniforms that were simpler but just as sharp as those worn by the officers they served.

  It was a nostalgic kind of theater, one that hadn’t changed in decades.

  Everyone already knew which appetizers would be served, since this was the week before Midsummer: cheese, butter, and herring. For the sake of argument, they debated which schnapps would go best. On a tray stood a few fogged-up bottles—Skåne, Östergötland, OP—“Take this one . . . no, not on your life . . . sure . . . fill it up.” The dock outside the porthole had disappeared in the darkness. They sang a Swedish drinking song, and most took sips, except for the chief engineer, who knocked his back in a single gulp. After another song and a couple pieces of herring, most of the glasses were empty. People gazed at the icy bottles, but despite the captain’s asking, the first officer’s glare made them think twice, and no one took him up on the offer.