Those in Peril

by Smith, Wilbur

  ‘We have to dump this vehicle. Every man, woman and child in Puntland will be looking for it. We will requisition another. Then we must find the right clothing to be able to blend in to the local populace. You and Daliyah are the only ones suitably dressed.’ While they were talking Hazel and Cayla came from behind the truck to join them. They listened for a while to the Arabic conversation, until at last Hazel lost patience.

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘We need other transport. Tariq and I are plotting to hijack another truck and then find suitable disguises for you and Cayla in particular.’

  ‘Hijack?’ Hazel asked. ‘That means killing more innocent bystanders?’

  ‘If that’s what it takes,’ Hector agreed.

  ‘Not really humane or discreet. Why don’t you send Tariq and Daliyah into the nearest town to buy a truck and the right gear?’

  ‘Good idea.’ Hector smiled in the moonlight. ‘Just hold on a minute while I rob a bank.’

  ‘You can be rather obtuse at times, Hector Cross.’

  ‘Last one who called me that was my mathematics teacher at high school.’

  ‘He must have been very perceptive. Come with me.’ She led him around the back of the truck and once they were unobserved she began to unbutton her shirt.

  ‘Mrs Bannock, at any other time this would be a splendid idea.’ Unperturbed Hazel untucked the tails of her shirt from her breeches and he stared at the money belt that was strapped around her waist, lying snugly against her flat belly. She ripped open the Velcro fastener and handed him the belt. He shone the flashlight into it, then took out one of the wads of green US banknotes and riffled through it.

  ‘How much have you got here?’ he asked in awed tones.

  ‘About thirty thousand. Sometimes it comes in quite useful.’

  ‘Hazel Bannock, you are a bloody marvel!’

  ‘Oh, at last you’ve noticed. Perhaps you are not quite as obtuse as I suspected,’ she said and he grabbed her and kissed her. ‘And getting smarter all the time.’ Her voice was husky. ‘To be continued later, right?’

  ‘Couldn’t be righter,’ he agreed.

  They drove on, still without switching on the headlights, more cautiously as the daylight strengthened. At last they were running through cultivated fields of dried maize stalks and once they passed a few darkened hovels beside the track. There was no sign of life except the smoke from a cooking fire drifting from a hole in the roof of one of the huts. Shortly after that they crested a rise and saw in the distance ahead of them the lights of a large settlement. Some of the lights appeared to be powered by electricity rather than wood or kerosene which was a sign of at least rudimentary civilization. They stopped and Hector shaded his torch as he examined the map.

  ‘There was only one town that this could possibly be.’ He pointed it out to Tariq on the map. ‘Lascanood. Ask Daliyah if she knows it.’

  ‘I know it. I have been here before with my father. Some of his relatives live here,’ Daliyah confirmed. ‘It’s the biggest town in Nugaal province.’

  ‘How far is it from Ethiopia?’ Hector asked, and she looked embarrassed. She was a simple country girl and the question was beyond her.

  ‘All right. How far is it from your home – could you walk there in a day?’

  ‘In two days, not one.’ She said it with certainty. She had obviously made the journey.

  ‘Do you know if there is a road from this town to Ethiopia?’

  ‘I have heard people say there is a road, but nobody uses it now, not since the troubles with that country.’

  ‘Thank you, Daliyah.’ He turned to Hazel. ‘She knows the town and she says that there is a road from there to the border although I don’t see it marked on this map. Apparently it has fallen into disuse, which suits us just fine.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Hazel asked.

  ‘We find a place to hide out during the day, and I will send Tariq and Daliyah into the town to buy a bus or lorry and the other things we need.’ Hector turned back to Daliyah. ‘Do you know if there is a wadi or some other place close by where we can hide this truck while you and Tariq go into the town?’ She thought for a moment and then nodded.

  ‘I know a place,’ she agreed. She sat beside Tariq, obviously bursting with pride at having been selected by Hector as a guide, and she pointed out the way with an authoritative air. Just before sunrise they turned off the track and drove a short way to a clump of scraggly acacia thornbush. In the centre of it was a water-hole, a shallow depression which was now dry; the baked mud in the bottom of it cracked into rectangular tiles curling up at the edges. The thornbush screened them on all sides.

  ‘This is where my father and I used to camp,’ said Daliyah, pointing out the black ashes of a cooking fire on the edge of the clearing. They all disembarked, Tariq drove the truck under the trees and they cut branches to cover it, concealing it from casual observation. Hazel called Hector aside, while Tariq and Daliyah were preparing to walk into the town.

  ‘Should I give the money to Tariq to buy what we need?’

  ‘Give him a hundred dollars. That’ll be enough for the local-style clothing and food. I’m sick of dry rations.’

  ‘What about transport for us to reach the border?’ Hazel asked. ‘He will need a few thousand, won’t he?’

  ‘No. That’s too much temptation.’

  ‘Don’t you trust him?’

  ‘After the little trick that Uthmann pulled on me, I trust nobody. Tariq can find transport and even haggle a price with the seller, but I will pay over the cash.’ Hector went back to Tariq and gave him the hundred dollars in bills of small denominations. Then Tariq and Daliyah set off in the direction of the town. Daliyah trailed twenty paces behind him, as a good Islamic wife was bound to do. Once they were out of sight the rest of the party settled down to wait under the sparse cover of the thorn trees. Hector set up the satphone and after two or three attempts at last made contact with Paddy O’Quinn.

  ‘Ronnie didn’t make it,’ he told Paddy. ‘They were waiting for him. He put up a good fight, but in the end he bought the farm.’

  ‘I would like to get my hands on that swine Uthmann Waddah,’ Paddy growled. This was no time for sentiment or mourning.

  ‘Join the queue,’ Hector agreed.

  ‘Where are you now, Heck?’

  ‘Coming your way. We’re making progress, Paddy,’ he told him. ‘We’re hiding out near a town called Lascanood. Do you have it on your map?’ There was a short pause while Paddy checked.

  ‘Okay. I have it. Looks as though it’s about seventy or eighty miles beyond the border.’

  ‘Can you see a marked road that would get you from where you are to our vicinity?’ Hector asked.

  ‘Hold on a jiffy. Okay, there is a track indicated by a dotted red line, which is not a good sign. It usually means that the existence of the road is the subject of conjecture rather than hard fact. According to this, it joins the main highway about ten or fifteen miles north of Lascanood.’

  ‘Paddy, start moving in our direction pronto. Do not, I repeat do not call me back. I might be surrounded by the bad boys. I will call you again once we are in the clear this end.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Paddy agreed, and they broke the connection.

  It was two hours before noon when Tariq and Daliyah returned from the town. Once again Daliyah was following him at a discreet distance, balancing an enormous bundle on her head. In the grove of thorns Tariq helped her to lower it to the ground, and they all crowded around to see what Daliyah had brought back with her.

  Firstly and most importantly she had a large bunch of maize cobs and three scrawny chicken carcasses. These went onto the coals immediately. While they grilled, the men removed their Cross Bow uniforms and equipment and from the bundle they selected and donned the typical jihadist dress of baggy pants and black waistcoat over a grubby and wrinkled white shirt. Then they bound loose black turbans around their heads; even on Hector the change was immediate
and convincing. He took Tariq aside and questioned him about what he had discovered in the village.

  ‘It is Friday so there are very many people in the town to attend mosque and to watch the public punishment,’ Tariq told him.

  ‘Of course. I had forgotten what day it is. But that’s not a bad thing. We will be far less noticeable in a large crowd.’

  ‘I overheard a group of men discussing the death of the Sheikh and the fighting in the desert. The new Sheikh is Adam Tippoo Tip and he has placed a bounty of five thousand dollars on our heads.’ Hector grunted. That was an enormous sum of money in this part of the world and he realized that there would be thousands of eyes looking out for them, hoping to earn it.

  While they were talking, Daliyah took Hazel and Cayla behind the truck and showed them how to wear the black full-length abaya and burqa that covered them from head to foot. The wearer was completely veiled and she looked out upon the world through a mesh screen. Daliyah made Hazel and Cayla shed their unmistakably western footwear. Both of them slipped on the leather sandals which she had brought for them. The men were still squatting in a circle engrossed in deep discussion, so once they were fully dressed Daliyah showed them how to paint their hands and feet with red henna. This was in accordance with local custom and it would cover their pale skin. In the circle of men Hector asked Tariq if he had been able to find other transport.

  ‘Yes, I have found a man who will sell us a bus which will seat forty passengers. He says it is in good running condition, but he wants five hundred dollars for it.’

  ‘That’s promising. If he had asked fifty dollars I would worry somewhat. Did he let you see it?’ Tariq shook his head.

  ‘Daliyah knows him and she thinks he is honest. He says his son will bring the bus to town this afternoon. He also has as many AK-47s as we want to buy and much ammo. He is asking fifty dollars each for them. I told him we needed six.’ Tariq grinned. ‘I think he will take three hundred dollars for the bus, and another two hundred for the guns and five hundred rounds of ammo. They are probably not Russian anyway, but locally made.’

  ‘And the barrels skilfully crafted to burst with the first shot and blow the proud new owner’s head off,’ Hector said with a grunt. ‘But we can’t walk around toting state-of-the-art Beretta SC 70/90s, like these.’ He tapped the butt of the rifle that lay across his lap. ‘We will have to bury them as a fallback and abandon them and the Mercedes when we go.’

  While the men were talking Daliyah gave the two women a crash course in correct female behaviour when in the presence of strangers, and Hector summed it up for them when he inspected Hazel and Cayla before they set off for the village.

  ‘Walk at least ten paces behind your male escort. Keep your face covered and your eyes downcast. Don’t speak. Pretend that you just don’t exist.’ He grinned at Cayla. ‘The same way that you always behave, Miss Bannock.’ She lifted the hood of her burqa and stuck her tongue out at him. Hazel marvelled at the relationship the two of them had established in such a short time. It was so obvious that Cayla was already looking on him as a father figure, and at the same time there was a real but easy friendship growing up between them.

  I’ll be damned if he is not going to be able to manage her as nobody else has ever been able to do before, she mused. This man is a creature of many skills and virtues. She watched them both fondly, until Hector turned his attention to her.

  ‘Hazel, not many ladies in this neck of the woods wear gold Patek Philippe watches. Hide it please.’

  ‘You’re wearing a Rolex Submariner,’ she challenged him.

  ‘In this neck of the woods every buck worth his salt sports a genuine-fake Bangladesh-made Rolex selling for twenty-five dollars a pop in the nearest bazaar. Impossible to tell them from the original. As you have remarked, I conform to custom very nicely.’

  When they set off for the town, Tariq took the lead and the other men came close behind him. Hector walked in the middle of the party so as not to draw undue attention to himself. He had used a stick of charcoal to darken his beard, but he still kept the lower half of his face covered. The three women followed them decorously. The outskirts of the village were almost deserted with just a few cur dogs lazing in the shade and naked brown toddlers playing in the rubbish heaps that choked the narrow lanes, but as they approached the centre the crowds coalesced around them until they were jostled and bumped at almost every step. Soon they found themselves being carried along with the throng, and Hector was worried that the women would be separated from him or from each other. He glanced back surreptitiously and was relieved to see that Hazel had made them hold hands to keep them together in a tight bunch. They reached the opening to a deserted side alley and Hector whispered to Tariq to take this route to get them out of the press. But when they tried to leave the stream of humanity their way was immediately blocked by rifle-wielding militia who shouted and pushed them back into the crowd.

  ‘Public punishment in the square in front of the mosque. Everybody must be there to witness it.’

  ‘I did not expect this.’ Hector was appalled when he realized the effect this might have on Hazel and Cayla if they were forced to watch the horror of radical Sharia law in practice. ‘I have to warn them.’ He eased his way back through the throng until he was walking a few paces behind Hazel. He pitched his voice low, and hoped that the babble of Arabic all around them would cover the fact that he was speaking English.

  ‘Don’t look around at me, my love. Nod if you understand me.’ She nodded. ‘We are going to be forced to watch something so horrible that there are no words to describe it. You must be strong. Look after Cayla. She must try not to show any sign of distress. She must not cry out in protest, or in any other way draw attention to herself. Get her to close her eyes or cover her face with her veil, but she must remain still and silent. Do you understand?’ Hazel nodded again but uncertainly. He wanted to hug her or at least squeeze her hand, but he left her and went back to join his men.

  The crowd debouched onto a dusty square in front of a green-painted mosque, by far the grandest edifice in the town. As they entered the square the armed religious guardians separated the men from the women. The men squatted in the front ranks facing the sunbaked open ground in the centre. The women were directed to the very back rows where they knelt and carefully covered their faces. A big jihadist with a potbelly and a curling black beard strutted up and down in front of them and harangued them through a loudhailer. His voice boomed and echoed off the walls so that it was almost unintelligible. The red dust was stirred up by the shuffling sandalled feet, and the heat was trapped by the surrounding buildings. Large bluebottle flies swarmed over everything, crawling on the faces and trying to creep into the mouths and eyes of the crowd. A heavily pregnant woman who was waddling along just ahead of Hector staggered and collapsed in a dead faint. The guardians dragged her to the nearest wall and propped her against it amongst the women. They would not allow her distraught husband to enter the ranks of seated women to go to her succour.

  Assembling the entire population of the town and the surrounding district in the segregated ranks took almost two hours; only then could the administering of punishment begin. At last, accompanied by four lesser clerics, the Mullah emerged from the mosque and took over the loudhailer from the chief jihadist, addressing the spectators in stentorian tones.

  ‘In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful,’ he declaimed, his amplified voice booming around the square. ‘All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger. My brothers in Islam, we are gathered here to witness punishment carried out in the name of Allah and by the power of his holy Sharia laws. Let all the virtuous know of his mercy and justice, and let the wrongdoers beware.’ The first criminal was dragged forward by two jihadists. He was a starveling about eight years of age wearing only a brief loincloth. His limbs were thin as dried maize stalks, and his ribs showed clearly through his dusty skin. He was sobbing and wriggling in the grip of his ga
olers. Tears cut runnels through the dust and dirt that covered his face. The Mullah introduced him to the crowds.

  ‘This miscreant stole a loaf of bread from a stall in the market place. The Koran has instructed us that the penalty for theft is the amputation of the arms.’ The crowd showed their approval with cries of ‘God is Great!’ and ‘There is no other God but God!’

  The Mullah held up his hand to silence them, then continued with his diatribe. ‘Allah, in his wisdom and compassion, has decreed that the punishment of amputation may be mitigated in certain circumstances. After learned debate with my fellows we have decided that in this case the arms shall not be severed entirely.’ He shouted an order to the guardians of the mosque and after some delay one of them drove a four-ton dump-truck into the square. The vehicle was loaded high with quarried grey stones, each one about the size of a baseball. When he saw it the child wailed shrilly and with a loud spluttering sound he soiled his already grubby loincloth. The crowd roared with laughter when they saw the extent of his terror.

  The guards laid the struggling child on his stomach, and two of them pinioned him while a third slipped a rawhide noose over his wrists and pulled both his arms straight out in front of him, stretching him along the ground. The Mullah gave a signal to the driver of the truck and he rolled the vehicle forward slowly towards the boy’s prostrate form. Another jihadist guided the driver with hand signals until the offside front wheel was lined up with the elbows of the child’s outstretched arms, then the driver inched forward.

  The boy’s entire body convulsed and he squealed like a piglet having its throat cut, but the sound of his agony could not blot out the sound of crackling bone as both his arms were crushed under the immense weight of the heavily laden truck’s tyre. The guardians released him, but the child lay racked by convulsions that contorted his entire body. One of the men hoisted him to his feet and shoved him in the direction of a side alley. The child no longer had control of his mutilated arms and they swung loosely at his sides. As he tottered towards the alley the limbs elongated grotesquely as the muscles no longer held together by bone stretched, until the boy’s fingers almost dragged upon the ground.