Behind the drums, the wizard smiled. His truest friend. Waaberi would be his lieutenant, now and forever.
Waaberi squatted, looked under the pickup. “Here, wasn’t it?” He waved the others over. “He’s gone.”
“It’s not possible.” Samatar knelt beside Waaberi. “Damn him. I wanted his shoes.”
“See the blood. Someone took his body already.”
The wizard stood from behind the oil drums. “I did, my brothers. I took my body.” They turned to him, and he saw awe in their eyes. And fear. “I took it and gave it back to myself.”
War and famine had killed most of Mogadishu’s birds. Not the gulls. They went to the sea when the streets exploded. One was circling over the street. It offered its ugly cry, caw-caw, caw-caw. It circled down, landed on the drum beside the wizard. Caw-caw! Caw-caw!
One by one, the other boys came to him, touched his wounds like disciples. Samatar hung back. “You were lucky. Nothing more.” He looked at the others. “He was lucky. Sometimes people are lucky.” His voice trembled. “Or a djinn.”
The wizard didn’t argue. He looked at Waaberi, sure Waaberi would know what to do. “If you don’t believe, then go,” Waaberi said. “Leave us.” He lifted his rifle. The others followed. And Samatar ran.
—
From then on, the men on that patrol called Gutaale Little Wizard. A month later, he and the others left Mogadishu for Lower Juba, the region in southwestern Somalia where he’d grown up. Only a line on a map split Lower Juba from Garissa and Ijara districts in Kenya. The region had two distinct climates. Near the coast, breezes from the Indian Ocean brought humidity and heavy seasonal rains. Creeks fed mangrove forests and swamps filled with giant black centipedes and snakes like the green mamba. The centipedes were ugly but harmless. The mamba was a skinny, beautiful creature whose fangs held venom that paralyzed in minutes and killed in hours. The swamps couldn’t be farmed or ranched, and almost no one lived in them. Luckily, they didn’t go on forever. Around forty kilometers inland, the ocean lost its influence. The wet breezes ended, and the creeks and swamps vanished.
But the dry region was only slightly more hospitable. Farming was nearly impossible, and even the deepest wells couldn’t be trusted. Even before the drought and war, the region had been sparsely settled, with a handful of villages scattered across thousands of square miles. Now most of its inhabitants had fled for Dadaab. The rest had clustered into the few villages with reliable water. Little Wizard and his men faced no resistance when they moved into an abandoned village called Bora. At first they survived by smuggling sugar into Kenya. Kenyans loved sugar, but the Kenyan government taxed it heavily, creating an opening for smugglers. Wealthy Somalis bought sugar by the ton in Dubai and shipped it to Mogadishu and Kismaayo. From there, militias trucked it across Somalia and into Kenya. Crossing was easy. For long stretches, the border wasn’t even fenced. The Kenyan police rarely operated in the area. If they had to approach Somalia—if, say, a light plane crashed near the border and they were ordered to recover the pilot’s body—they traveled in packs of a dozen or more officers from their headquarters on the coast. Otherwise, they avoided traveling within thirty kilometers of Somalia. They knew the militias outgunned them, and they feared being kidnapped.
Little Wizard used his sugar-smuggling profits to build a small but potent militia. On missions, his soldiers wore white T-shirts and kerchiefs to hide their faces. Villagers called them the White Men. Besides smuggling, they survived by charging aid convoys to pass through the region and collecting protection money from villages.
The White Men had about sixty-five soldiers. They could have had more. Every day, hungry men and boys trudged across the north part of Lower Juba on their way to the refugee centers in Kenya. More than a few had tried to join. But Little Wizard preferred a small force. His men could break camp in hours. They could live for months on food and water that a larger force would exhaust in weeks. Still, they had the firepower they needed to block humanitarian convoys and extract what Wizard called a toll, five percent of the food the trucks carried.
Little Wizard sometimes wondered whether the people sending the food understood that militias like his took most of it. Only a little reached the refugee camps in Bay Region. Even there the armed men who lived in the camps took most of the rest. Did these foreigners know that their plastic sacks of grain and sugar fed—literally—the war and the soldiers who fought it? If they knew, why did they keep sending the trucks?
—
When the Kenyan army invaded Somalia, Little Wizard knew he’d been wise to keep his force small. The Kenyans said they’d come for al-Shabaab, but they didn’t care that groups like his didn’t support Shabaab. Because Somalia had no central government, villages banded together to defend themselves. Some paid taxes to Shabaab. Others formed self-defense groups to keep raiders at bay. Villages too weak or too poor to protect themselves were overrun.
Shabaab flourished in the chaos, becoming the strongest and largest of the militias. But Shabaab didn’t truly govern Somalia any more than anyone else. Outside its base towns, it had only provisional control. It lacked the firepower to stamp out groups like the White Men. And Little Wizard wanted nothing to do with Shabaab. He was Muslim, but not like them. As far as he was concerned, a man’s prayers were his own business. The Shabaab fighters were fanatics who would have stoned Wizard to death as a heretic for his name alone.
But the Kenyans seemed to think that any armed group in Somalia was an ally of Shaabab. And they had tanks and planes, weapons the Somali irregulars couldn’t match. Little Wizard didn’t try to face the Kenyans. He ordered his men to pick up and melt south into the swamps, letting the soldiers roll past, into Shabaab’s heartland. As far as he was concerned, every Shabaab fighter the Kenyans killed was one fewer for him to worry about.
The Kenyans had pulled out of Somalia a couple months before, after killing hundreds of Shabaab fighters. Shabaab still had plenty of men in other regions, but it basically no longer existed in Lower Juba. Wizard relaxed, figuring he’d escaped his biggest threat.
He knew now he’d made a mistake. Three weeks before, Awaale, the leader of a militia called the Dita Boys, asked him to meet. Little Wizard didn’t want to go. He had nothing to say to Awaale. As far as he was concerned, the Dita Boys were undisciplined at best, vicious killers at worst.
On the surface, the Ditas and the White Men had a lot in common. Both would trash wells of villages that refused to pay protection. And, yes, the White Men killed villagers who fought them. But Little Wizard had strict rules for his men. A year before, he’d caught a new recruit raping a six-year-old girl. Wizard and Waaberi tied the rapist to a tree and beat him until his face looked like a melon that a truck had run over. Then Wizard ordered his men to come round.
“This is what we do to men who fuck children.” Wizard pulled the knife strapped to his calf, a weapon made for murder with a black plastic handle and serrated blade. He sliced off the rapist’s clothes and took the man’s limp, blood-spattered penis in his left hand as he raised the knife with his right.
“Please,” the rapist said, the words barely audible through his split lips. “Anything else.”
“Your choice.” Wizard plunged the knife into the man’s stomach. The man’s shoulders lifted in shock. For a moment, before the pain took over, his eyes widened and he raised his ruined face. Then he grunted, tried to scream. Wizard pulled the 9-millimeter pistol he carried in place of an AK, put it to the man’s head, pulled the trigger. The man’s brains moistened the tree behind him.
Wizard turned, faced his men.
“I have told you before. This one didn’t understand. We don’t rape. We don’t steal. We take what we need, what I say we need, and no more. We are soldiers. We are an army. You want to be a beast, fight for someone else. Not for Wizard.”
He pulled the knife from the rapist’s belly, sliced open the rope, left the corpse on the ground with its guts hanging out. There were no more rapes.
—
The Dita Boys were different. Little Wizard knew what they did to refugees they caught crossing their territory. Especially women. He wished he could turn down the meeting. But he had to know what Awaale wanted. They agreed to meet in neutral territory, a watering hole on the edge of a village called Buscbusc, the strongest town left in all of Lower Juba. It had a sixty-man self-defense force. The militias left it alone.
Little Wizard arrived two hours early with fifteen of his best men. They convoyed in two pickup trucks with .50-caliber machine guns mounted in their beds and two armored Range Rovers. The armed pickups, called “technicals,” were the most common fighting vehicle in Somalia. The Rovers were more unusual, stolen from a UN lot in Mogadishu. They were Wizard’s only indulgence. He’d spent $180,000 on them, half his profits of the last two years. They had run-flat tires, bulletproof windows, thick steel plates in the doors. They’d stop anything up to a machine gun round, maybe even a rocket-propelled grenade if it didn’t hit a window. Wizard was unduly proud of them. When they needed repair, he brought in parts from Kenya. Being chosen to ride in a Rover was a mark of pride among the White Men.
The watering hole at Buscbusc consisted of four deep wells surrounded by a rock wall to keep animals or children from wandering in. Little Wizard put the pickups against the east wall, where their machine guns would have a clear field of fire. He put one Rover at the break in the wall that served as the watering hole’s vehicle entrance. He stayed in the other Rover, next to the second well. He expected Awaale to bring more than fifteen men and he wanted to be ready.
The meeting was supposed to happen at eleven a.m. The Dita Boys arrived at noon, their pickup trucks blasting rap. When he heard them coming, Wizard stepped out of the Rover and stuffed a wad of miraa leaves—the stimulant that many Somali men chewed—in his mouth. His bodyguard, Ali, followed.
The faintly sour taste of the miraa filled Wizard’s mouth. He felt the leaves lift him, sharpen his focus. His men hid their faces behind their white kerchiefs and tucked in their white T-shirts. Every boy who joined him got three kerchiefs and three T-shirts and had to be sure at least one was always perfectly clean. Wizard was the only fighter not in white. He wore a black shirt and black pants and no kerchief. The White Men might not be the biggest militia in Somalia, but they were the coolest. They didn’t need Pit Bull or T-Pain to prove it.
The Dita pickups rolled up. Wizard counted eight, five with .50-calibers. Forty men, maybe more. Ali put a hand on his shoulder. Wizard brushed it off. He didn’t fear these men. He walked to the Rover that blocked the gap in the wall, jumped on its hood. The diesel engine vibrated underneath his shoes. Three of his men tried to stand beside him. He waved them back, and they got low behind the hood, covering him with their AKs. Good.
His enemy had the numbers but not the tactical advantage. The Ditas were stupid, and they had stupidly lined their pickup trucks along the wall rather than clustering around the Rover. They were piling out of the trucks, but only the ones nearby had a clear shot. Wizard was less exposed than he seemed. But only a little, and not for long. He would have to control the moment.
“Awaale!”
Awaale stepped out of the nearest pickup. He was tall and broad and wore camouflage fatigues with the sleeves rolled up to show his big arms. The Dita Boys liked camo, but only a few had full uniforms. The rest made do with pants or T-shirts in mismatched patterns. Wizard had given his militia simple white shirts precisely to avoid this problem. Awaale’s uniform had four silver stars on the shoulders. With his thick gold necklace and mirrored sunglasses, he could have passed for an old-school African dictator.
“You scared of me, Awaale.” Wizard rested his hand on his 9-millimeter. Awaale raised his palms to the sky: What, me worry? Both playing to the fighters around them.
“You not scared, why you bring so many men?”
“Because I have so many. Don’t know even what to do with them. And all them want to see you. The famous Little Chicken. Cluck cluck.”
Wizard edged his pistol halfway from his holster. “Say it again.”
He found himself looking at a forest of AKs. Awaale tapped his chest, his big arms glistening. “I say what I like.”
“You called this parley. I came. You not scared—” Wizard pointed at the Rover. “We take a drive and talk, you and me only. Otherwise, let’s get to it. Three seconds to choose.”
“No need to count.” Awaale raised his hands, gave Wizard two big thumbs-up. “Show me your fine Rover.”
—
Wizard jumped off the Rover as Awaale stepped away from his men. They slid inside the SUV, Wizard driving.
“Nice,” Awaale said. “Still smells new-like.” He took a wad of miraa from his pocket. Wizard touched his arm. “Not inside. Leather seats and all that.”
“Serious.”
“Serious.”
“I like this vehicle, Wizard. You know I do. But it just a car.”
Wizard ignored this heresy. He drove west, toward the border, on a dirt path that even the most optimistic mapmaker wouldn’t have called a road. Both men still wore their sunglasses. One of Awaale’s technicals trailed them. Wizard waited for Awaale to speak.
“You know we got to talk,” Awaale finally said.
“Talk, then.” Wizard hated the way Awaale said “you know” with every sentence.
“Shabaab, you know they’re gone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Juba open. Me and you come together, it’s ours to take.”
Awaale slipped off his glasses. Wizard followed. Down to it now.
“Plenty much room,” Wizard said. “We do our business, you do yours.”
“What I’m telling you, you know it can’t be that way no more. With you, without you, I’m taking over. Bring your men in, you can be my number-one commander.”
“You mean I give you my men and you tell me what to do?”
“I mean you my big lieutenant.”
“Too much miraa, Awaale. Make you crazy.”
“How many men you have? Sixty? Seventy? I have two hundred, and more every day.”
Awaale was lying. He didn’t have but 140 fighters, and they weren’t nearly as good as Wizard’s. But Wizard knew better than to argue. Arguing showed weakness. He contented himself with saying, “One of my men is worth five of yours.”
“Two hundred. It’s true. I got backing now.”
“From who.”
“People in Eastleigh. They see this chance. You don’t believe me, come to my camp, count my men yourself.”
Wizard stopped the Rover. “I come to your camp, I’ll leave a hole in your head.”
Awaale slipped on his sunglasses. “Then nothing else to say.”
They didn’t speak on the way back. Wizard wondered if Awaale might try to ambush him and his men when they returned. But he found that during the drive, Ali had moved the other Rover and the technicals outside the watering hole, making an attack impossible. Smart man. Wizard stopped the Rover beside Ali.
“Out.”
“You won’t drive me back to my men? Thought you were a wizard. No one touch you. Your men may believe that nonsense, but I don’t, and I see you don’t either.”
“Out. Now.”
Awaale offered Wizard a mock salute. “See you soon, Wizard.”
—
Back at camp, Wizard told his men to be ready, that Awaale could attack at any time. But he knew that in Awaale’s position, he’d wait. He’d add more fighters while letting the White Men exhaust themselves with overnight watches.
That night Wizard ordered a feast. He told his men the meal was a reward for their hard work. In fact, he wanted an excuse to slaughter the camp’s animals. The herd wasn’t much, a few bad-tempered goats and a dozen stringy hens. But if the White Men had to flee, they would leave the animals behind, and Wizard didn’t plan to let the Dita Boys have them. A handful of younger boys protested. Wizard realized too late that they liked taking care of the goats and espec
ially the chickens. He let them keep three hens and two goats. He wondered if he should put off the culling entirely, but reversing the order would seem strange to his men.
So they ate well that night, too well, and it was with a full belly that Wizard called Waaberi into his hut for a meeting. From the footlocker by his bed, he unearthed the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue he had bought after his first successful smuggling run. Muslims weren’t supposed to drink, but Wizard didn’t much care. He poured them both a glass. Not too much. They needed clear heads tonight. Somewhere in the vast emptiness to the west, a hyena howled. A few seconds later, another answered. Then a third. The hyenas roamed all over East Africa, and they weren’t afraid of war. They liked it. War left them meals.
“Take a drink and I tell you about the meet,” Wizard said. He handed Waaberi a glass. Waaberi sipped carefully and listened. He knew his place. He didn’t interrupt.
“You told him no,” he said when Wizard finished.
“Of course no. Wants our men. We link with him, won’t be a month before he slit my throat, and yours, too. You know he don’t want a wizard around.”
“You think he told true, about having two hundred? No brag?”
“I think. He had swagger, like he only needs one leg to walk. Told me to come by his camp if I didn’t believe.”
“Must have happened sudden or we would have heard.”
“Said he getting money from Eastleigh. Someone fronting cash to pay new boys, give them guns, feed them. Even so, we can hold off two hundred. Those Dita Boys can’t fight.”
“But in three months, what if he have three hundred, four hundred?”
“What I’m thinking too, Waaberi. Plenty boys out there.”
“So we bring in new boys, too.”
“Could be.” Wizard had enough extra weapons for another fifty men, and he could buy more. But recruiting might be tricky. Awaale’s camp was closer to the main refugee routes, and Wizard guessed he was paying bonuses to anyone who joined. Plus adding men too fast had its own risks. Wizard knew the names of every one of his fighters. Every one of them had heard his story, seen his scars up close. They believed in him. He didn’t want to risk that bond for a bunch of half-trained boys who might run if the Ditas attacked. “We can add ten or fifteen quick, but after that I don’t know.”
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