by Tom Young
“Sorry, Sophia,” Parson said. “What did you say?”
“Carolyn Stewart gets here tomorrow,” Gold said. “She wants to go right into Somalia.”
Tomorrow? Parson rotated his Scotch glass between his fingers. The ice had started to cool the liquor, and the glass began to sweat with condensation. Why did the actress have to get into the country so soon?
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Parson asked. “I mean, especially after what happened today. This is practically a combat zone.”
“I called her from my room and filled her in on what happened. She’s still bound and determined to go,” Gold said, “and the UN did grant her access to its operations in Somalia.”
“Yeah, but nobody granted her access to my airplane.”
Gold shrugged. “That’s between you and World Relief Airlift,” she said.
At least Gold understood the prerogative of a pilot-in-command. Parson appreciated that. Some other UN types, with no military experience, might have considered him just a well-trained taxi driver. He’d have set them straight in half a second.
“You say she’s shooting a documentary?” Parson asked. “She’s not just dropping in for a photo op?”
“She is,” Gold said. “She’s produced docs before, and I think she’s pretty serious. She took a break from her acting career to get an MFA in documentary film from Stanford.”
Parson put down his glass, laced his fingers together, and thought about that for a moment. At least it sounded better than taking a break from acting to go into rehab.
“All right, fine with me,” Parson said finally. “As long as she understands what she’s getting into.”
Gold kept glancing toward the television over the bar. Parson wondered what had caught her attention, so he turned to look.
The set was turned to BBC World News. The screen showed a wide shot of the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. In the foreground, Somalis in colorful but ragged sarongs walked through an opening in a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. In the background, rows of white tents extended through the camera’s entire depth of focus.
The Sheraton’s bartender saw that the broadcast interested his patrons, so he picked up a remote and turned up the volume. An anchor spoke with a crisp British accent:
Months ago, Kenya’s interior minister ordered the closure of all refugee camps in the country, and Somalis have begun streaming home to an uncertain fate. Conditions in their nation have not stabilized much since these refugees left. Some have stayed away for more than two decades. An international relief effort may help Somalia prepare for the influx of returnees.
The screen changed to a shot of the World Relief Airlift DC-3 on the ramp at Djibouti.
“Hey, we’re famous,” Geedi said.
However, an al-Shabaab leader says acceptance of Western aid is haraam, or religiously forbidden. Gutaale Yasin, known by his followers as the Sheikh, warns that Somali returnees must swear allegiance to his Islamic government. Yasin vows to enforce sharia law across all of Somalia. He appears to have risen to leadership in the power vacuum that followed the 2014 U.S. air strike that killed al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Godane.
The broadcast cut to video of a man standing atop a pickup with a crew-served machine gun mounted in the bed. Crates of ammunition surrounded the weapon, and the Sheikh stood with his foot on one of the crates. He looked stockier than most Somalis; apparently he ate better than most of them. The terrorist did not quite grin, but his lips parted enough to reveal gold in his front teeth. He wore a collared blue shirt and brown trousers like an everyday shopkeeper. The men behind him wore an assortment of militaria: Camo fatigues of American, British, Russian, and German origin. Tactical vests, holsters, slings, and web gear. Some of the fighters were not men, but boys. Three or four looked to be in their early teens.
None smiled. All brandished AKs, M16s, or sawed-off shotguns. A couple of them also waved machetes.
“Wonder if that’s who shot at us today,” Parson said.
Geedi shifted in his chair. His face took on an expression of undiluted disgust. That surprised Parson; he had never seen the young flight mechanic show that kind of emotion. Geedi pointed at the screen, eyes flinted with anger.
“That is why my people starve,” he said.
6.
The dhow pitched and rolled as it chugged through the ink-black Gulf of Aden. Hussein leaned against the gunwale, miserably seasick, clutching his AK-47. Though he had often dreamed of joining a band of pirates—badaadinta badah, or “saviors of the sea,” as they called themselves—Hussein had never before taken a boat ride. And he vowed to Allah that after this mission, he would never take another.
Tonight’s voyage had nothing to do with piracy. Though this dhow and its crew had likely preyed on many infidel ships, now the vessel served as a taxi. Hussein and his fellow soldiers of God had proved themselves well enough to embark on a special project. They would strike at a high-ranking kafir in Djibouti, a den of infidelity on Somalia’s border. The al-Shabaab fighters would infiltrate by sea, carry out the attack, and escape the same way they’d arrived.
Yesterday’s attempt to down an airplane had failed, but the Sheikh said it did not matter; the missile firing was merely a demonstration. However, weeks of planning had gone into the operation at hand. For many days, the Sheikh and Abdullahi had been preparing Hussein and the other boys for the roles each fighter would play.
Abdullahi sat in the vessel’s prow, talking with some of the older men. He led this mission; the Sheikh remained on land. Starlight silhouetted Abdullahi, his AK across his shoulders. Overhead, the clear night glistened black and silver.
Hussein recalled that the sky had looked this way the night his father died. He did not know how many years had passed since then; he knew only that it seemed long ago, when he was little. And that it happened during the Burburki, or “the Destruction,” as Somalis called their civil war.
Drought had forced Hussein and his dad to move from a rural section of Bay province to Mogadishu. Until then, Hussein’s father, a grain farmer, had managed to scratch a living from the unforgiving Somali soil. Even after disease had taken Hussein’s mother and sister, his widowed dad toiled on in the fields. But when the sorghum withered and died, Father sought refuge with relatives in the capital. Hussein and his dad lived with extended family in a two-room cinder-block hovel near the Bakaara Market. In a shop constructed of discarded tin and burlap, his father sold canned goods, knives, pens, jars, and whatever else he could scrounge.
Some days, Hussein and his cousins ate. Some days, they didn’t. When they did eat, the meal might consist of bony scraps of fish and a handful of rice. A round of spongy lahoh bread, perhaps. Shredded camel meat on rare occasions.
Nearly every day, booms and pops sounded in the distance. One night, as Hussein and his dad were closing the shop, the booms sounded closer and closer. Shouts and screams echoed in the darkness. The fighting ebbed and flowed like a tide through Hussein’s new neighborhood, and on that night the blood tide reached a high mark.
Hussein and his father ran for home. The streets swarmed with running figures—some unarmed and fleeing, others carrying weapons and firing every which way. Muzzle flashes illuminated corners and alleyways. Hussein sprinted through the darkness to keep up with his father. Odors marked their progress along the street: Rotting garbage. A whiff of gunpowder. Charcoal. A days-old corpse.
A band of armed men appeared at an intersection, and Hussein and his father darted down a side street. Bad choice. A chain-link fence strung across the street created a dead end.
They turned to retrace their steps, but three gunmen blocked their escape. The men wore an assortment of camouflage clothing, with patterned kerchiefs over their faces. All three dripped with belts and pouches of ammunition. Bullets seemed the only thing plentiful in Somalia.
“Yaa tahay?” one of them
demanded. What clan are you?
Hussein’s father stood with his palms outstretched, gaping at the men as if he didn’t understand the question.
“Yaa tahay?” a gunman repeated.
“We are of the Rahanweyn,” Hussein’s father answered, truthfully. “From Bay.”
Wrong answer.
One of the men fired a burst on full automatic. Four rounds slammed into Hussein’s father. The flashes lit up the alley. The scene remained in Hussein’s mind like a series of nightmare images: His father wide-eyed as the rounds struck. A leering shooter. Expended cartridges in the air. Spatters of blood.
Hussein turned and ran toward the fence. He climbed the chain-link like a cat and flung himself over the top. Barbed wire cut his hand. Gunfire ripped behind him but no bullets struck him. Hussein ran as hard as he could. He hid inside an overturned, burned car.
He stifled his sobs to keep silent. Ran his hands over his limbs to see where he was hurt. He bled only from the gouge on his palm. The blood on his face and chest had come from his father.
Hussein cowered all night inside the burned-out vehicle. Most of the time, he looked up at the dusting of stars overhead. He did not know how far away the stars were or why they looked different on different evenings; he had never attended school. He passed that awful night in a befogged state, trying to get his mind around his new existence: He had just become a blood-spattered orphan. In Somalia, that meant his life would end badly and soon unless he kept his wits and built his strength.
A change in the tone of the dhow’s engine brought Hussein back to the present. The diesel grumbled down to idle, and the vessel slowed. The rocking motion grew worse, and once more Hussein leaned over the side and vomited. One of the crewmen laughed at him, and Hussein glared.
From the dhow’s oil-slicked deck, crewmen lowered a motorized skiff. On the back of the skiff, an outboard engine bore letters that meant nothing to Hussein: Y-A-M-A-H-A. Someone threw a rope ladder from the deck down into the skiff, and Abdullahi barked, “Into the boat.”
Five al-Shabaab fighters clambered down the ladder, and Hussein followed, his AK slung across his back. Abdullahi boarded last. The skiff pitched and rocked even more than the dhow. Hussein heaved, but nothing remained in his stomach.
“Weakling,” one of the other boys muttered.
Hussein flung himself on the boy and began pounding with his fists. The boy kicked back, tried to strike Hussein in the groin. Hussein started to draw his machete. No one had called him weak when he hacked that kafir to death the other day.
“Enough!” Abdullahi shouted. “Save your strength for killing infidels. If any of you cause more trouble, I will feed you to the sharks.”
Hussein believed him. Al-Shabaab showed no mercy to its enemies and found little for its own members. Hussein took a seat in the skiff. Seawater sloshed at his feet, making him even more uncomfortable. Abdullahi started the outboard. Crewmen aboard the dhow pulled up the rope ladder, and the skiff motored away from its mother ship.
The lights of Djibouti glowed along the shore. Wealthy infidels with their whores and their alcohol. A bad clan always out to rob and enslave the believers. They would soon know God’s wrath.
“Remember your instructions,” Abdullahi yelled over the clatter of the engine. “This is an important operation. If you have any questions, ask them now. Tomorrow there will be no time. And on the beach, you must stay quiet.”
Hussein had no questions. Because he could shoot with accuracy, he would carry out a particular task. There would be a car, he was told. When the time comes, shoot at the car in a special way. Pick one spot, as we have described to you. Concentrate your fire on that one spot. Keep firing and reloading until Abdullahi tells you to stop.
7.
Carolyn Stewart arrived in Djibouti on an Air France flight from New York via Paris. She came down the air stairs by herself. That gave Parson a good first impression; he’d expected an entourage.
The actress wore Dior sunglasses and an Orvis shirt with the sleeves secured by roll-up tabs. In contrast with the four-hundred-dollar eyewear, she’d tied her red hair back with a rubber band. Stewart carried a khaki-colored backpack by one strap over her shoulder. Gold and Parson greeted her in the terminal. Parson carried no illicit weapon today. They’d had to go through airport security to meet their guest at the gate.
“Ms. Stewart,” Gold called out.
Stewart turned, and Parson thought he saw a hint of annoyance. An instinct brought on by years of harassment by paparazzi, he guessed. The actress’s expression softened when she saw no photographers.
“Are you Ms. Gold?” Stewart asked.
“Yes, ma’am, and this is my partner, Colonel Parson.”
Stewart shifted the bag on her shoulder, extended her arm. Gold shook her hand.
“Please, call me Carolyn,” Stewart said. She turned to shake hands with Parson. “Nice to meet you, Colonel.”
Parson noticed her cold-cream complexion and hint of perfume. “On this mission, it’s just Michael,” he said.
At the baggage carousel, Stewart picked up one piece of luggage—a rolling duffel bag with shoulder straps. Parson took it from her and carried it to the Land Rover. The actress sat in the front passenger seat while Gold drove, with Parson in the back.
“How was the flight?” Gold asked.
“Not too bad,” Stewart said. “I bought two first-class tickets so nobody in the next seat would wake me up, and I popped an Ambien when we took off. Slept most of the way.”
“Well,” Parson said, “that’s one way to fight jet lag.”
Stewart dug a Nikon camera from her backpack and snapped photos.
“I never can get used to sights like that,” the actress said as she took a shot of roadside hovels.
“It gets a lot worse where you’re going,” Parson said. He thought to himself: You’re gonna think that Ambien sleep has put you in a very bad dream.
“Oh, I know. I think the worst place I’ve seen is Darfur. Went there a few years ago with George Clooney.”
“Oh, yeah?” Parson said. “What’s he like?”
“Perfect gentleman. Very committed.”
Parson nodded. He really didn’t care what George Clooney was like; Parson was just making conversation. Sometimes these A-listers and their causes seemed like just a lot of grandstanding. But, he conceded, if they used their star power to bring this stuff to people’s attention, that was better than throwing tantrums in nightclubs and wrecking Alfa Romeos.
“We understand you’d like to get into Somalia as soon as possible,” Gold said.
“I would,” Stewart said. “In fact, I hope to set up a meeting with the president.”
Oh, hell, Parson thought. Since the missile attack yesterday, his sense of unease had grown. He felt vaguely that Stewart’s visit, however well intentioned, pulled things out of alignment. Stirred up forces best left alone. The Somalis at Baidoa certainly seemed to think so.
Nah, Parson told himself. You’re getting superstitious, like the old-time sailors who got caught in storms and blamed it on the stranger who’d booked passage. He chided himself for getting spooked. Just because the bad guys put a shot across your bow—literally—didn’t mean you had to lose your nerve. He had seen worse.
“Glad to have you with us,” Parson lied. “But the World Relief Airlift operations center in London runs the show. Everything depends on where the cargo needs to fly.”
He really meant: All right, lady, you’re cute and all, and it’s kinda cool hanging out with a movie star. But I’m not your taxi driver, and I won’t waste WRA money flying you around in an empty airplane. Diplomacy, never Parson’s strong suit, came with effort.
“Oh, I realize that,” Stewart said. “Moving that food is a lot more important than anything I’m doing. In fact, I’d like to shoot some video of you while I’m here. I’m
making a documentary.”
“Yeah, we heard,” Parson said. “I was surprised you didn’t have a film crew with you.”
“Well, it usually makes my life easier to have a real cinematographer do the shooting, and a sound man, too. But when you deal with people who aren’t used to media, like the Somalis, the smaller your footprint, the better. You make a more authentic picture that way.”
“Sounds like you’ve put some thought into it,” Parson said. “Sophia told me you took a break from acting to learn about making documentaries.”
“I did,” Stewart said. “Master’s program at Stanford. After I finished my undergrad degree, I planned to go into TV news. Then the acting career took off. After a while I realized I had the freedom to go do other things, too. I really appreciate you letting me fly with you. I understand you have a vintage airplane, and that will add some great visuals.”
Parson wasn’t sure he liked that idea. A famous actress taking pictures of his airplane? Let’s just paint a big arrow on the DC-3 that reads AIM HERE, he thought. Maybe they won’t miss next time.
He almost wished one of those old radial engines would break down hard, so he and the crew could drink in the bar until Carolyn Stewart decided to go the hell away. Then he thought, No, publicity would probably boost donations to WRA. With more money, the organization could buy more airplanes and do more good.
So quit complaining, Parson told himself. This mission—just like a military mission—has its risks and its rewards. You volunteered for it.
A loud boom stopped Parson’s thoughts.
Black smoke boiled upward from something on the road up ahead. The car in front of their Land Rover—maybe fifty yards away—slid to a stop. Gold slammed on the brakes.
“Ambush,” she said.
No panic in her voice; she didn’t even shout. Just stated a fact.
“Oh my God,” Stewart said.
“Get down,” Parson told Stewart. She didn’t move fast enough for him. He reached over the seat, grabbed her by the back of her shirt collar, and pushed her down below the dashboard.
