They waved them forward.
Ufuk got back into the Toyota and they drove through, toward the fenced off area.
“Cigarettes?” Jess said.
“How easy do you think it is to find cigarettes more than two months after Nomad?”
“What now, then?”
“Now we wait for Ain Salah. I mentioned his name to the guard.”
“You what?”
“How else was I to make him know we were here?”
“We could have asked around.”
“It wasn’t just the cigarettes that got us in. It was his name.”
“You took a big risk.”
“That worked. What else could I do? Where else do we go? We need this place.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why is it so important we get in here?”
“Important to me? What about Hector? Raffa? Should we hide in the desert after getting here? Ain Salah is your friend, Jessica. This was your plan.”
Their eyes locked for a few seconds in silence, but then Ufuk pointed out the window.
A car approached from the south, a cloud of dust following behind as it raced toward them, almost skidding on the road. It stopped nearby and a young man levered himself out and ran their way. Two of the uniformed men hailed him and he went over to them.
After a brief conversation, the young man pressed something into the hands of one of the men. Jess couldn’t tell what it was, but it had the desired effect, because the young man approached them and leaned in. He had skin the color of milky coffee and a thick beard flecked with white.
“Ufuk?” he said.
“Ain Salah?”
The younger man nodded. “We don’t have much time. Follow me please. Into the city. There we can speak.” He reached in, took Jess’s hand and squeezed. His damp fingers trembled. He nodded to Giovanni, his tentative smile broadening, his eyes watery behind thick black-framed glasses. The thickest frames Jess had ever seen.
“Good to see you, Ain Salah,” she said.
“And all of you. I look forward to spending time together, when circumstances allow it.” He nodded again, this time almost to himself, then left for his own car.
They drove fast to keep up, through streets that were a swarming souk of Bedouin and Berber faces wrapped in burnouses and shemagh scarves. A ceaseless cacophony of blaring car horns and desperate voices could be heard. Roads of dust and sand. Cars and trucks wove between each other, dodging weary-faced men on ancient bicycles and whining mopeds. Slender figures wrapped in coats and blankets lined the balconies of apartment buildings above half-empty shops. Yet Persian rugs still hung from windows—were still offered for sale—and from old speakers that hung beneath one of the balconies, traditional music played.
Life went on here.
On the shuttered doors of a shop that had once sold communications technology, there were garishly painted mobile telephone designs. In Arabic lettering there was something painted across the screens. Jess asked Massarra what it meant.
“The shop says it offers a service which will turn a mobile telephone into a radio receiver and transmitter,” she said.
Men dressed in long white gowns over their pants, similar to ones Jess saw in Kandahar. Yet instead of sandals, they wore heavy boots, and instead of a light jacket, there were thick wool coats and faces covered by scarves and even goggles.
Jess saw more dressed in military fatigues with the same bright green armbands with Arabic script. They carried Kalashnikov assault rifles. The first were on foot, but more appeared, weaving through the city in the backs of Toyota pickups, roving packs of wolves. They pulled into a gated enclosure, and Ain Salah got out of his car and came over.
This time he appeared to avoid Jess’s gaze.
“There are encampments within the basin,” he said. “You are permitted to head to one at the southwest. You must not enter any of the other encampments without permission. For now, come and eat with me.”
“What is this place?” Giovanni asked.
“This is where I work. There is no need to be concerned. You’re my guests. You are permitted to accompany me for a short time.”
“What about the town itself?”
“There are several, in fact. Al-Jawf is the central town, but there are smaller villages within the basin. There are markets for bartering. The Zuwayya request a commission for everything, also come to collect a contribution from each shelter in the encampments.”
“What about food, water, and fuel?”
“All rationed, but provided if the community contribution is met.”
“And what is your work?”
Ain Salah paused to collect his thoughts. “I communicate with the outside world. I scan radio channels and locate other sources of communication. Now come and eat.”
They ate a small meal in a quiet room, undisturbed by anyone else other than Ain Salah, a room where all doors remained closed and where their meal was taken in a terse silence. Ain Salah left them as they ate, explaining there was work he was required to finish, but returned with a second man to accompany them to the encampment. His companion was stocky and muscular, and had the bearing of a soldier.
He turned cold eyes on them.
Ain Salah’s mood had shifted, Jess noticed. He said nothing as they left, careful in every movement he made. They drove south, past the main Kufra Airport—mostly deserted—then through more irrigation fields that stretched into the hazy distance.
A sudden and intense feeling of hope filled Jess’s chest. She almost wanted to dismiss it, but it was nice to see something that wasn’t destroyed. Something inside her warned against allowing hope, reminded her of what had taken place in Sanctuary Europe. She could rely only on herself, and on Giovanni, Raffa, and Hector. Ufuk sat quietly, observing the town as it swept past.
She wondered again what their mysterious billionaire was really thinking.
Above, through the clouds, Jess vaguely made out an aircraft passing overhead. The growl of turboprop. They approached the outskirts of a shanty town built from tents and a chaos of scavenged materials, the rusted walls of containers and myriad corrugated steel, garishly colored sheets of tarpaulin, and old, wooden loading pallets.
When she stepped from the car, her boots sank into a shallow dune of gray ash, which the wind then tossed up into her face.
Ain Salah and his stone-faced companion escorted them through the camp. In places, planks of wood had been laid out to make a walkway between the many hundreds of ramshackle shelters. Within that city of canvas and steel and warped wood, they walked past stacks of yellow barrels marked as oil or fuel, and tables on which sat half-assembled shreds of technology Jess didn’t recognize. Random hunks of metal from which the dull light seeped, rather than glinted. Heavy crates sat outside each tent, stacked one on top of the other, next to shelving with covered food, or racks with skinned meat. Lamps were rigged on tall poles, power lines running between them and off to some generator somewhere. Between the poles and the tents, on hastily tied lines, clothes had been hung out with the hope they might dry despite the cold. A makeshift volleyball court had been rigged from wire strung between stacked barrels.
As they passed, the faces that stared at them, through narrow and suspicious eyes, all reflected the same tired, haunted facade. All of them wore thick blanket-like clothing that swaddled them completely, and most carried weapons, or had them laid to the ground beside them as they sat and waited for whatever life had left for them.
Ain Salah stopped by a tent, as soiled and anonymous as all the rest, and squatted down next to a man huddled in a blanket. They spoke quietly, then Ain Salah rested a hand on the man’s shoulder and turned back to them.
“This is Salem. He’ll introduce you to the way this camp works and where you may set up your own shelters. His English is very good. I wish you well.”
Giovanni stepped forward to speak, but almost instantly the stocky man roused and moved in front of him, his muscles tensed. Ain Salah placed a hand on his a
rm and spoke quietly, with an obvious edge of tension carrying in his voice. “I have much work to do. I do not think I will have the time to speak to you again. I wish you well.”
The two men turned and walked back to their vehicle, Ain Salah hunched low and away from the stockier man.
Salem watched their car drive away, then turned back to Jess and the small group. “Be careful what you think about the Zuwayya. This is their place, and there is not much more out there worth leaving for.” He eyed them and sighed. “Welcome, I suppose. I will take you now to where you can get set up.”
He led them through the camp, through yet more cautious scrutiny, to a clear area on the periphery. “I should warn you that some try to enter the camp by cover of night, either to steal or to stay. Newcomers here are always to be camped on the edge. That’s our rule and we make no apologies. It is your responsibility to ensure your own, and therefore the camp’s, safety. Do you understand?”
“What do they do with the people who try to enter and are refused?”
Salem didn’t answer. He kept walking.
“Salem?”
“This country has been in a constant state of war. Tobruk Government or National Salvation Government, Libyan Dawn or Daesh, Tuareg militants and Benghazi Revolutionaries. Take your pick. Most have drowned at the coast. Only the desert will survive, as it always has, and this small part of it has always belonged to the Zuwayya.”
He walked on in silence and it was a while before he spoke again.
“The most important thing to remember is that there is a contribution. There is a tent in the center of the camp. You must provide something—usually something salvaged from journeys into the desert if they will grant you a permit to do so—or put yourself forward for work in Al-Jawf itself. You should know also that weapons are forbidden inside the perimeter unless permitted by the Zuwayya. Those entitled wear a green armband.”
“Were those power lines on the way in?” Giovanni asked.
“No power, except by generators, and these are reserved for those who have need of them.”
“And what work do you do?” Jess asked, trying to strike a more conversational tone.
Salem made no attempt to hide his contempt. “People here have no interest in making friends with you. They do not trust newcomers nor do they have any love for people like you. I suggest you keep your questions to yourself and work as we do for the good of the community. That’s the only the answer you need.”
“What do you mean, people like us?” Giovanni said.
“Westerners. Capitalists who, were it not for the oil, would have had little interest in this country or its people, but who flock here now to survive. We welcome you, of course, because Allah demands we offer our hospitality, but you will work as we do to benefit the people here.”
He turned and shuffled away.
Chapter 7
Al-Jawf, Libya
When they awoke the next morning, Jess went into town with Giovanni and Massarra in one of the pickups.
She’d expected a warmer welcome from Ain-Salah, but imagined he had his reasons, and she couldn’t really complain. Where they’d been forced to drive swiftly through Al-Jawf when they had first met Ain Salah and his curt minder, Jess was now able to take a little time to observe the area as it unfolded around them.
They drove north, away from the southwest camp where they had pitched their tents. Al-Jawf itself was a schizophrenic marriage of old and new, the hastily rebuilt or never finished, and the makeshift. In many places work continued as laborers toiled to build and repair, or sat, legs dangled over high concrete joists.
It was not just one town, but instead a collection of tossed-together settlements that had bloomed and spread from the center as the strange, geometric irrigation plots had been built. A single road led from Al Tallab, around which the first of the south camps had been clustered, past an ocean of more conventional arable land to the west, and then through hexagonal plots of a place named Western Gurayaat. Beyond those lay more such plots in the neighborhood of Al Zurq, then fields of wide, circular leas: alien places that barely seemed as though they belonged here, like a handful of huge, verdant coins tossed thoughtlessly into the desert. Massarra explained it all as they drove—their Al-Jawf tour guide—and Jess was amazed at how much she knew about these people.
Not far from the tarmacked road, dozens of trucks idled in the sand, heavily laden, piled high and covered with padded rigging. Around them people milled, sharing conversation and food, perhaps illicitly trading without the knowledge of the Zuwayya—out here, where they might not be seen and be forced to pay the contributions Salem had spoken about.
On the outskirts of the town, past low sandstone walls haphazardly thrown together, was a rusted corrugated shantytown of shacks with roofs woven from fronds of palms. Goats tethered to open doors where narrowed-eyed men in keffiyeh watched their pickup as it passed. Closer into the center, past the University neighborhood, they made their way through a chaos of heaving streets thick with people wrapped in many-layered wool beneath which was what might have been more traditional, regional attire. Among them, Jess caught rare glimpses of clothing in a more western style, those who wore it moving among the locals cautiously. In faces she saw not just north African Muslims, the Berber and Bedouin, but also what might have been Arabs and Europeans, as well as the darker skin of western, central, and southern Africa.
The buildings were low, two-storied blocks, some topped by domed roofs, many with rusted satellite dishes. Doorways and walls were painted in once-bright colors, with Arabic script now faded and peeling. People loitered on steps and beneath balconies, smoking and conversing, watching Giovanni maneuver the pickup between motorbikes and dusty old hatchbacks.
“We need to find the market,” he said as he twisted between two parked trucks.
“I’m going to take a walk,” Jess said. “Better we split up. There are likely several markets, from what Salem said.”
“We need to keep in pairs.”
“I can take care of myself. We’ll cover more ground if we split up. You find one of the markets. Find someone who knows what work we can offer in return for supplies. We’ll go into the desert and salvage if we have to.”
“What are you going to do?” he said, as he pulled the pickup into a parking area framed by curious faces and stopped.
“I want to get a feel for the place. See who is here. We can meet back here in two hours.”
Massarra interrupted: “Giovanni is right. We don’t know what this place is like and very possibly it is dangerous. So the sooner we know what we are dealing with, the safer we will be. Better we split up, yes, and take more of the town in the time we have. However, I am used to working alone in places like this. I suggest the two of you remain together.” She took out the pistol and checked it.
“You shouldn’t have that here,” Giovanni said.
“They shouldn’t have me here,” she replied. “We meet back here in two hours. You two keep to the north and west, I’ll explore the eastern part of the town. Agreed?”
Jess gave Giovanni a look, but nodded and Massarra slipped out of the pick-up.
It took some time to find the market, and eventually Jess figured the only sure way was to ask. It might have marked her out as Western, but she suspected what little of the skin on her face could be seen achieved that, perhaps even the way she and Giovanni held themselves. They drew looks as they walked anyway, so there seemed little purpose in not asking and possibly wasting what little time they had.
An elderly man with wild white hair and small eyes directed Giovanni, with enthusiastic gestures and words neither she nor he understood, but it was sufficiently clear that they found it after a little more searching. In truth, there were so many people and motorbikes gathered outside, Jess guessed it was the right place as they approached. For most of the time, she remained quiet, even though Giovanni made attempts at conversation. Frustration at his insistence he accompany her rose in the way of a thick kn
ot in her chest and she didn’t trust herself to respond kindly, so she kept quiet.
They had no currency to trade within the markets, nothing yet to barter or offer in exchange for whatever might be laid out on the tables set in long rows through the low, wide building. Yet Jess went in because she wanted to see what was there. Curiosity drove her, as well as a need to become familiar with this bizarre place.
In the narrow spaces between the tables there was bedlam, a heaving cacophony of people pressed close to each other as they scrutinized and haggled, bargaining to secure what they needed with what meager offerings they had to trade. Tensions simmered, the quick desperation in the voices of those bartering too hard, knowing what little they had was likely not enough.
Behind the tables, erected in haste rather than with any presence at permanence, stood traders dressed in clothing that marked them as native to North Africa. What few Westerners there were, Europeans she suspected, were bartering their gold and silver rather than selling goods, feeding the burgeoning Al-Jawf economy.
On the tables themselves, an emporium of the strange and sometimes inexplicable, laid an abundant variety of wares for trade, an endless yard sale on a grand scale. Salvaged technology of wildly varying types, most of which she didn’t recognize. What appeared to her to be machine and automotive parts, sat beside old hand tools and worn or broken garden implements. Kitchen utensils and gas cookers, sculptures and ornaments, old clothes and shoes, blankets and fabrics and what might have been bedding. There were even books and magazines.
She was jostled as she watched, and eventually found herself feeling closed in and needing to leave. Sweat gathered on her face and down her back and, after getting back outside, she was glad of the fresh air.
“You okay?” Giovanni said as he caught up to her.
“Fine,” she said, without looking at him.
Instead, she stood and took in the area around the market, where even more people waited or walked by, or sat on steps in conversation. Some watched her; others appeared to pay no interest.
Resistance (Nomad Book 3) Page 17
