“You don’t need to, and it’s not something you can learn by reading. Just go home and talk to Astrid Süss, an intelligence analyst for us, and she’ll know who to talk to. Impossible things have been done before. You’ll need to collect and drop off documents, actually transport them physically. We can’t have any email exchanges that can be traced. And you’ll probably need to find a few names whose signatures you can fake.”
“But never my own?”
“You’ll never have to use your own name. I can’t tell anyone else about this. Absolutely no one can know.”
They looked at each other, Stark more puzzled than Grip. “I’m going to Stockholm, and where are you going now?”
“A short trip to Kenya.”
“In order to?”
“I need to scan someone’s passport, and maybe arrange some photos. Things you might need.”
“So who is it?”
“You’ll recognize her, but keep it to yourself.”
“Oh, her,” Stark smiled. “What has she done?”
“She hasn’t done anything. This is more about me and my own carelessness, and I have to tidy up afterward.”
Stark shot a glance at the computer screen. “I’ll say, you certainly have been cleaning,” he said, looking back at Grip again. “Be careful.”
“We’re just rescuing an innocent person.”
“If that’s what you choose to call it, then fine.”
51
Using the bundles of hundred-dollar bills that remained in the war chest, Grip was already in Mombasa that evening. After a night at a downtown hotel, he turned off both his regular and his negotiator phones and headed back to the airport.
ZAR AIR, read the big faded letters at the end of the hangar. Behind the open gate sat some of the airline’s nimble little twin-engine planes and, farther down, the door to an unassuming office. Grip walked in and asked some basic questions. Sure, most things were possible, even when crossing borders. Lamu Island—Djibouti, one-way? Grip asked about the price for passengers, and also the cost for unaccompanied cargo. The pilot in charge of ground services that day, without even lowering his voice, told him the high-end prices. But as it happened, they already had a flight going to Lamu Island that afternoon, a group with four other passengers. That would make the trip more affordable. Grip had enough for a one-way ticket with the group but not enough to hire Zar Air to fly him back.
The plane followed the coast all the way from Mombasa. In the cabin, four businessmen with something to celebrate kept refilling their plastic glasses, which were too small for the task, from a bottle of whiskey, while Grip mostly looked out the window. It was a bumpy ride through afternoon showers, and by way of apology, the pilot made a pass over Lamu’s historic district before they landed. Preparing for the trip, Grip had Googled the satellite images, but it was something else to gaze down from just a few hundred meters up, over the tropical maze of pools, lush gardens, and white coral-stone houses. The view mingled with his thoughts about why he was there. He thought about what he had to do and where Ayanna was now, amid the beauty of the place.
They landed at the small airport on the other side of the channel. There, he got a taxi and then caught the ferry that took him to the island, in the pleasant twilight breeze. They passed Lamu’s port, mostly filled with small boats, some with their old-fashioned sails reefed for the night. Grip closed his eyes during the crossing, the wind and waves at the bow giving him a few moments of peace. Not until several days later would he be able to indulge his senses again, when the sky opened up in a nocturnal downpour.
As he stepped off the ferry, he was met by police officers checking IDs and passports. One of them asked to inspect Grip’s bag. He ran his hand through the change of clothing and waved him through. If the police had gone through Grip’s pockets instead, they would have found a jackknife, three new cell phones, and several SIM cards with cash balances. Grip lingered at the dock and watched the same security checks carried out on people heading back across the strait. Given the grumbling and comments among the passengers, this was not routine. Someone had recently decided to keep a close eye on Lamu’s comings and goings.
Grip had no idea where Ayanna was staying, as he’d specifically told her not to mention the name of her new place over the phone. Once he got to Lamu, he assumed that she’d be keeping a low profile, staying at one of the guesthouses in the narrow streets of the historic district. For himself, he found a small, secluded hotel on the outskirts, probably intended for honeymooners, its bungalows scattered around a garden with privacy hedges, under the shade of acacias. Grip went to bed without contacting Ayanna. He wanted to have something concrete to tell her, and he wanted to put a few things in place first.
Sure enough, everyone sat in twos at the breakfast tables: all the talkative newlyweds, and a few middle-aged couples hoping to rekindle what they’d lost over the years. Grip finished his juice and started walking toward the city. Lamu drew much of its charm from being nearly car-free. There were paths, stairways, and cobblestone alleys, and mules not just for tourists but for items too heavy or awkward to carry on foot. In a town without cars, the squares remained intimate, and talks in a crowd weren’t lost in the traffic noise. The public spaces felt almost transparent—a surprise could arrive only as fast as someone could walk, or maybe run. Nuances and moods could be sensed quickly, and conversations were easily overheard, more than what the person beside you was saying.
Grip walked around for a few hours. From drinking coffee while eavesdropping at a few strategic sites and making small talk in the quiet crowds, he got a sense of life in Lamu at its various levels. There were the tourists, who, outside of their hotels, often seemed restless—there wasn’t much to do on the island. Then there were the rich newcomers who didn’t want to be taken for tourists yet who never stayed in Lamu for long; and also there were the caretakers and maintenance types hovering around them, trying to skim off the cream. Finally, there were the locals, mostly recognizable by their patient gazes. The white faces on the street seemed more worried about the latest Somali terrorist raid across the border, while the islanders gossiped and asked each other about the man recently found dead in his own swimming pool. There were soldiers, the uniformed police, and the badly disguised undercover cops, in identical sunglasses, who insisted on wearing jackets in the heat.
Grip headed up to Hansson and Delmar’s spacious villa and walked along the high wall, the one Ayanna had been standing behind when she’d called him the day before. A young policeman stood at his post outside the gate, and Grip passed by with a friendly nod. At the reception desk for the bungalow where Ayanna had stayed, Grip didn’t need to ask many questions to grasp that everyone was talking about the police crackdown the night before, when the hotel had been searched. On her door hung a poster with a few paragraphs of print. Ayanna was being sought as more than just a witness. Fortunately, Grip was given several versions of what she looked like. The civilian police, who were dozing at the reception desk when he arrived, said she definitely had short hair. They didn’t even seem certain of her name.
Not until afternoon, once Grip felt he knew his way around the old city, did he pick up one of the new phones he’d loaded with a prepaid card. Given who might find a way to listen in, he didn’t want to give away his plans too easily.
“Hello?” said Ayanna, picking up on the first ring.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“You are . . .”
“Just listen. I want you to go for a walk. Start by going to the Riyadh Mosque, then head down toward the water and follow the beach path in the direction of the harbor. While you’re in the neighborhood, stop to buy fruit in the marketplace and look around in a couple of gift shops before returning to where you are now.”
“Right this minute?”
“Yes. Dress like a tourist trying to avoid the sun.”
Grip spotted her before she noticed him, on her way to the mosque. Sun hat and sunglasses, and lightweight baggy pants—s
he could have been anyone, among the afternoon’s tourists out for a stroll. But at this time of day, not many wanted to visit the mosque. There weren’t a lot of people out in the neighborhood, but Grip wanted to sift the sand to find the hidden stones. He found a spot with a view of the open plaza in front of the Riyadh Mosque, and he positioned himself in the shade of a colonnade opposite it. Only a few people were walking around, and when Ayanna emerged from one of the streets, she became a natural focal point. She moved carefully, her step a little nervous. And although he wanted just the opposite, the fox who was trailing her was easy to spot. She’d already passed the mosque when he came out from the same street, but then the man stopped in front of the plaza, as if the sunlight or the view might cause him pain. Grip found his restraint reassuring. Although the man was apparently following her, he displayed the self-conscious posturing that said he was doing something he shouldn’t. Who was he working for? And was he alone?
As Ayanna headed toward the street that led to the boardwalk, the man at the corner started walking and crossed the plaza to catch up.
As they followed the route to the beach, zigzagging down to the neighborhood by the port, Grip saw no sign that the man had a partner. He kept his distance, not wanting to give himself away to Ayanna, only to keep track of where she was, without being too concerned about the details of what she was doing.
Grip had hired a messenger boy earlier in the day, an extra pair of eyes that no one would notice. He’d bought his loyalty with a little money up front, and the promise of much more later, from a kid who wasn’t yet a teenager. Grip had carefully interviewed a few others, but Abdu seemed the smartest, and also his uncle in the village of Matondoni, less than ten kilometers up the coast on the west side of the island, had a few boats that the boy said he’d be happy to rent out.
When Ayanna, having bought some fruit as they’d agreed, went into a souvenir shop carrying her plastic bags, Grip sent a glance and a nod through the crowd. Ayanna’s tail lazily kept his distance from the store, while the boy, cool and smiling at the challenge, made straight for his destination. The boy quickly left the shop again, empty-handed, and a small package wrapped in newsprint now sat with the fruit in one of Ayanna’s bags. She had no idea it was there.
She’d come back out and was heading into an alleyway when Grip saw a signal between two people—her tail was no longer alone. A new guy wearing a striped shirt had joined. Grip wasn’t sure he could stay out of sight of both at the same time, but he decided to take the risk and see where Ayanna went. He needed to know where she was staying and get a clear sense of her surroundings.
Winding along the streets and alleyways, Grip sometimes hung back, letting the men and Ayanna out of his sight, and looked at his paper map. He’d scouted out some possible addresses ahead of time, trying to make an educated guess, while Ayanna’s tail behaved as if he already knew where she was heading. Sometimes he had to wait for a while, watching through the gap between a stone wall and a whitewashed building. There was always some obstacle, or people in the crowd blocking his view—there, wasn’t that her going by?
Finally, in the honey-colored afternoon light, he saw the baggy cotton pants climb the steps up to Baytil Ajaib, a guesthouse with a plain entrance, and ten minutes later, the man in the striped shirt followed. Grip pulled himself away.
Three hours later, Abdu found him sitting in a restaurant. Grip had already learned that Baytil Ajaib was newly renovated and built around a courtyard: open stairways, nooks and crannies, palm trees in big pots, and odd-shaped rooms and suites. It was far from the cheapest place on the island, although it still marketed itself as a guesthouse. The boy could tell from his reconnaissance that the striped shirt stuck near to Baytil, waiting on the ledges above or just outside the entrance in the streets nearby. Ayanna couldn’t possibly leave without her tail seeing her.
“Go get some food,” Grip said to the boy, “but be back in an hour.” He went out, and Grip picked up the last of the new phones. The first he’d burned when he’d called Ayanna on her regular phone and told her to go for her walk; the second she’d brought back with her from the harbor in her bag of fruit. Now there were two phones that had never been used, and never would be used for anything except a few days of staying in contact with each other. An isolated network, one nearly impossible to locate and listen in on, against the roar of all other telephones—even with the resources of a great world power.
“Yes.” She sounded calmer when she answered this time, following the handwritten instructions enclosed in the package, setting the rules for using the phone. She would mostly just listen, keeping to yes-and-no answers. Grip described what he’d seen and heard during the day, and told her that the police were looking for her but didn’t seem to know any details.
“I want to get out of here,” she said, just as Grip was about to tell her that she was being tailed. He was silent, and he heard from her breathing that she was trying to regain control.
“We’ll both get out of here, but there are a few things we need to organize first.” She said nothing. “I need your passport, but you won’t have to go for a walk again.”
“Is someone following me?”
Perhaps Grip was silent a little too long. He sat looking at his messenger boy’s quick sketch of the inside of Baytil Ajaib. Instead of answering, he said: “Is it correct that you’re on the third floor?”
“Yes.”
“When you come out of your room onto the balcony, there’s a palm tree in a big pot, set on a ledge a little to the right.”
“Sure.”
“It’s there, believe me. Find a reason to go to reception, ask them anything, but push your passport into the loose bark in the pot on your way there.” Ayanna was quiet again. Grip looked around; no one could hear him. “I know,” he began. “I wouldn’t let go of my passport if I were you. A citizen of Ukraine, with your skin color. Without a passport . . . in Africa, you’re nobody.” He listened to her exhale. “But you must.”
“I have nothing to hold over you,” she said. A view of life as an exchange of debts.
“No, nothing,” Grip said. “But I don’t even have enough money to get myself out of here, and you have Fredrik Hansson’s keys. Which are the keys to more than just the house he shared with Delmar.”
He heard her breathe again.
“Make sure your passport is there half an hour from now. This is the only ship that’s going to sail.” Grip remembered the man in the striped shirt: “And put it there on the way down to reception, not on your way back up to your room.”
She didn’t answer, and Grip hung up. Like the negotiator, he knew when the other party had no alternative.
Shortly before midnight, Abdu walked up and gave him the passport. Back in his own hotel, Grip borrowed the scanner and attached digital copies of its pages to an email draft, along with an enlarged image of Ayanna’s passport photo, using an anonymous email account. Simon Stark had the password to the same account, and now—without an email ever being sent—he had access to the information. Grip changed the SIM card in the phone he hadn’t reserved for Ayanna and made a call.
Stark was in place in Sweden, and, with Astrid Süss’s help, he’d started the immigration wheels turning.
“Things are looking good,” he said, “but now that the passport has been scanned, I need thirty-six hours.”
“And I need to get out of here,” Grip said.
“Immigration still says thirty-six hours.”
“Then the information has to show up in every database that allows entry into Europe.”
“Someone has promised me that it’s possible.”
Grip checked some other formalities and was about to hang up when Stark said, “By the way, you remember Philippa Ekman, our tipster from MovCon? She called me earlier tonight, didn’t know I was in Sweden. She said a big C-17 transport plane had landed in Djibouti. An American plane, but they unloaded it on the French side. A massive amount of equipment, enough for a small war, s
he said. Tight-lipped types wearing uniforms without a national insignia.”
“Completely anonymous?”
“Not entirely. One of them swore in Skåne dialect when he dropped something, and the helicopters they rolled out of the aircraft had black emblems that looked like a cat’s paw. Do you know anything?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I’d say, it seems that Swedish Special Operations has landed in Djibouti.”
“Seems like it. Did you run into them in Afghanistan?”
“Now and again. If you want, I can ask Philippa to keep us informed if she finds anything, and I’ll put a note in our email account.”
“Good thinking. Do it, and if you can pin down the time for any action, that would be great.”
“I guess it’s not you they’re getting out of there, huh?”
“If only.”
Ayanna had to take another walk in the morning, and just like the day before, the same tails followed her, while Grip watched from a distance and considered the possibilities. Why didn’t they arrest her, and what were they waiting for? Were they corrupt policemen? Kenyan security? Some other country’s agents or money-hungry jihadists? Or maybe they just had something against Khalid Delmar—no doubt many people did. Grip had a feeling he recognized the man in the striped shirt. Wasn’t he one of the men who forced Fredrik Hansson into a uniform on the stone floor, in the house by the livestock port? Fuck knows what Hansson had confessed to, talked about, or tried to negotiate when Grip wasn’t there.
Regardless of their reasons, they were in the way.
Grip made Ayanna take a short stroll after lunch, to test out a few theories. In fact, there were only two men. In equal shifts, they changed positions, one of them staying at or near the hotel and the other picking up the chase if Ayanna went out. The man watching the hotel would call the other, who’d take over following her. When she was walking around town, one tail was enough, but whenever she headed toward the outskirts, one tail would call the other, so there’d be two. That was the key: realizing that they were waiting for Ayanna to go to the storage shed. Probably they knew about it but didn’t know where it was. Once she’d shown them the way, they’d make themselves known to her; or rather, something in the way they moved told Grip that Ayanna wouldn’t get a chance to defend herself the moment she put her key in the lock.
After the Monsoon Page 31