“You and Martin go talk to the local staff and the guards,” Wells told Wilfred. “Anyone you can find. Ask them about this guy Suggs. Who he knew in the camps, his relationship with the volunteers, if he had money problems—”
“It’s Kenya. Everyone has money problems.”
“Just do it. You hear anything I should know, find me.”
“Yes, great white hunter.”
As Wells walked toward the headquarters, one of the homeliest women he’d ever seen emerged. “Mr. Wells. I’m Moss Laughton.” She led him to her office, a simple square room with white-painted concrete walls, their only decoration maps of Hagadera. She had short hair and black glasses and sat on her couch with her legs folded. She reached out a hand and offered Wells a snaggle-toothed smile.
“Thanks for having us.”
“Jimmy’s orders.”
“People call him Jimmy?” James Thompson didn’t strike Wells as a Jimmy.
“I call him Jimmy. Whenever possible. It irritates him, but he can’t fire me, because he sure doesn’t want to be in Dadaab eleven months a year. Anyway, I’m thinking about quitting, so I do what I like.”
Thirty seconds in and this conversation was shaping up to be as odd as his encounter at Castle House. Wells wondered if Moss was trying to say You’ll get the truth from me if you ask the right questions or if she was simply half crazy from the heat and dust.
“So what do you think happened?” Wells said.
“No idea. Gwen’s family hired you?”
“Yes. I used to work for the CIA.”
“Of course. I remembered your name, but it took me a bit of Googling to figure out why.”
“That’s me.”
“And now you’re here.”
“Now I’m here.”
“Any progress so far?”
Wells shook his head. “Do you remember when they planned the trip? James wasn’t sure.”
“I don’t know exactly, but Gwen mentioned Lamu to me maybe three days before they went. She was nervous, poor thing, but the others convinced her.”
“And off they went in a WorldCares Land Cruiser.”
“Correct.”
“Which had no sat phone.”
She smiled. He saw she was pleased, that he’d passed a test he hadn’t known he was taking. “We have seven Cruisers. Four have phones. Not this one. A coincidence, no doubt. Anyway, off they went. You know the rest.”
“When did you report the kidnapping?”
“To the police? Or the embassy?”
“Either.”
“I didn’t report anything. I think Jasper—”
“The head of security—”
“Yes. He made the call. But it might have been Jimmy himself. In any case, it wasn’t until the next morning. I wanted to do it right away, but Jimmy thought we should wait.”
“Why?”
“He said the Kenyan police were useless and corrupt. He’s right about that. He said that if the kids were okay, we’d hear in the morning and there was no need to panic everyone. If they weren’t, there was nothing anyone could do until the sun came up, and we might as well wait.”
“You didn’t agree.”
“I thought the risks were the other way. Let the cops throw up a roadblock, no harm. See if anybody in Nairobi would pay attention. I thought at the time he was worried about bad publicity. Although he’s turned out to be wrong about that. From what the staff in Houston tell me, this has been pure gold. Millions of dollars in donations. Biggest week in WorldCares history.”
“He didn’t mention that last night.”
“Of course, we’re taking every dime. We have to—”
“Because your insurance company won’t cover this. And the ransom could be several million dollars. That much he did tell me.” Wells realized something else, a connection he wished he’d made before. “No insurance company paying—”
“Means no hostage negotiators on site and no pesky insurance investigation into what happened.”
Moss Laughton was throwing out some big hints. “You don’t trust your boss much.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Does Jasper feel the same?”
“You ought to ask him. Too bad you can’t. He’s in Nairobi with Jimmy.”
“The head of security isn’t here?”
“‘Head of security’ is a fancy way to describe him. Basically he makes the schedules, makes sure we have guards out front. Nobody says it, but we like having one white guy with a gun around. So we call him head of security.”
“Whatever you call him, I’m surprised he’s not here.”
“He doesn’t speak Swahili, so I’m not sure what he’d do.”
“How about the police? They must have come by.”
“The GSU, sure. They poked through the trailer that Gwen and Hailey shared. I think they were more interested in Gwen’s underwear than anything else. If they found anything, they didn’t tell me.”
“Where’s the Land Cruiser?”
“They towed it to their headquarters in Garissa. I doubt there was any forensic evidence to find, but if there was, I can guarantee it’s gone. They’ve talked to everybody here, I wouldn’t call them interviews, more like, tell us what you know or we’ll take you out back, give you a working-over. Truncheon in hand.”
Truncheon. A good Irish word. “Anyone give them anything? Here or in the camps?”
“Not that I know of. They’re not good at sharing, the GSU.”
“Any Americans been here?”
“Four nice men with short haircuts showed up three days ago. Two had business cards saying they were from the embassy. The other two didn’t tell me their names. They wanted to take the laptops that the kids used. I said no, but I did let them do what they wanted to them here.”
So the agency and NSA were doing what they did best, chasing electronic intel. No doubt they had mirrored the hard drives. “What about phones?” Wells said.
“They asked about mobiles too, but I told them the truth, those kids couldn’t be separated from their handsets.”
“They look at anyone else’s computers?”
“Like mine or Jimmy’s? Now, why would they do a thing like that?” She pulled two water bottles from the minifridge beside the couch. “My one luxury. Have to have cold water.”
She passed him one. He drank gratefully. His thirst had come up quietly. The sun here baked out moisture in a way that was almost pleasant. Until it wasn’t.
“So, just to be clear. They didn’t look at your computer, or Jimmy’s.”
“No. Anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered. Jimmy practically chains his laptop to his wrist. Very concerned about computer security, my boss.”
“Any reason in particular?”
“Not that I’d know of.” Moss showed him her crooked teeth again. “I’m trying to stick to the facts here, you see. What I know firsthand.”
“That’s admirable. How about this, then? What did you think of the volunteers? Were they in the way?”
“The truth is that on a daily basis this isn’t rocket science. We provide food, water, basic medical care. The Kenyans police the camps. The refugees govern themselves. We’re not supposed to get involved with their politics. We can advocate for them, but our power is limited. That’s not just WorldCares, by the way. It’s everybody, even the big groups. What I’m saying is reading to the kids like Gwen did, working at the hospital like Hailey, it’s as useful as anything anybody here is doing once you get past the basic provision of services.”
A long not-quite-answer. Wells tried again. “You got along with them?”
“I had a funny moment with Gwen her first day. She came out of her trailer wearing a T-shirt that hardly covered her chest. I told her that wasn’t how we did things here. To her credit,
she was more appropriate after that. Made the effort. Hailey and Owen worked hard, and even Scott. Though I didn’t like him much. Spent his time either insulting or screwing Gwen, from what I could see. Why she put up with it, I don’t know.”
“And how well did you know Suggs?”
“Suggs. Anybody ever tell you about the chairs?”
Wells shook his head.
“No reason they would have. A couple years back, the Kenyan members of parliament decided they needed new seats on which to rest their royal asses. They found these chairs that cost, I think, twenty-five hundred dollars each. The Kenyan parliament has more than two hundred members, so they’d be spending half a million dollars on these chairs. In a country where the average income is about two dollars a day. Naturally, the newspapers found out and made a stink.”
“And the MPs backed off.”
“They went right ahead. What I’m trying to say is that the Kenyans, they’re very friendly people. And they aren’t all crooks. Plenty of them are honest. But, blame it on poverty or loyalty to tribe or whatever you like, the me-first attitude runs deep. Suggs was one of those guys, we paid him well, he helped us, but I never trusted him. He looked like a gangster. That was intentional. He liked everybody to know he could work both sides. I don’t know if he set this up, but I wouldn’t be shocked.”
“But when you talk to staff—”
“If they know, they aren’t telling. And I’ve talked to them all.”
“Did Suggs suggest the Lamu trip to Scott Thompson?”
“Don’t know. But a couple weeks ago, Suggs and Scott Thompson drove off together. They said they were going to another camp to see if they could start deliveries there. It didn’t make sense then and it makes even less now.”
“You think Suggs set him up somehow?”
“I’m telling you what I saw. I can’t guess what it means.”
“Suggs was from Nairobi, right?”
“No, Mwingi, west of here. His family lived in Nairobi.”
“In Eastleigh.”
“No. He wasn’t Somali.”
“But he’d worked at Dadaab awhile.”
“That’s right. He was connected in the camps. But let me tell you something you might not want to hear, Mr. Wells. I don’t care what you’ve done over the years, how tough you think you are, you are not going to be able to go into Hagadera or any of these camps and crack skulls and get answers—” The last five words were delivered in a parody of a tough Mickey Spillane voice. “These people can see you coming a hundred kilometers away. And what will you threaten them with? You can’t send them back to Somalia, you can’t arrest them, you don’t know anything about them, you have no leverage. All you are is another mzungu poking at them.”
“Guess I’ll have to use my charm, then.”
“Good luck with that. And before you ask, I don’t have any great ideas for you. But I thought you should know.”
The warning didn’t come as a surprise, but it was depressing anyway. Wells took another glance around. No photos or personal items of any kind, just the desk, the fridge, and the battered furniture. “Tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I’ve seen prison cells are better decorated than this.”
“Sentiment’s a luxury, as I suspect you understand.”
“How long have you worked for WorldCares?”
“Three years. I was at the Red Cross, but they stopped promoting me and Jimmy came looking, told me he wanted to professionalize WorldCares. He’d gotten dinged for spending too much money on fund-raising and overhead, not enough on projects on the ground. He said he wanted to do a better job.”
“And.”
“And he did. In Haiti and here. The year before I came, WorldCares raised five million dollars and only a million-two hit the ground. Last year it got up to sixteen, seventeen million dollars and maybe six million went to programs. About half in Dadaab. Do the math, we were spending twenty-four percent on programs. Now it’s thirty-seven percent.”
“So that’s good.”
“Yes, but if you look at it the other way, overhead’s gone from four million to ten million in three years. Jimmy makes eight hundred thousand a year, plus benefits. Which are big. He lives rent-free in a nice house in Houston, gets a new Lexus every year, flies first-class. Really, he’s paying himself over a million. Look at the way he lives, you’d think he worked for Exxon. Not a charity serving the poorest people in the world. I mean, he’s a right smart fund-raiser, you saw it in Nairobi. Puts a tear in your eye and a lump in your throat.”
“You’re reaching for your checkbook and your credit card at the same time,” Wells said.
“Exactly. But I always thought the idea was to raise money to do good work. I fear Jimmy has that equation reversed.”
Wells nodded.
“I’ve done all right, too. He started me at three hundred thousand. Now I’m at three-fifty and he’s offered to bump me to four ’cause he’s worried I’m serious about quitting. Which is a lot for these jobs, believe me. Truth is I just put it in the bank anyway. I don’t have kids, I spend eleven months a year here, and you see my fashion sense. But I’m starting to feel like he’s buying me. Which I can’t abide.”
“You’ve told him this.”
“And he tells me fund-raising is part of the game, it takes money to make money. And look, we spend three million dollars a year here, we do some good. My big project for next year, before this happened, was supposed to be getting glasses and dental work to the kids here. Those maybe sound like luxuries, but they’re not. You can’t see, you don’t have much chance in a place like this. Your teeth hurt all the time, it’s misery. That’s the upside of working with a guy like Jimmy. Places like the Red Cross, they’re in love with their own bureaucracies. Anything new takes years to approve. Jimmy lets me do what I want, long as I send back pictures he can use for fund-raising.”
“Were you surprised when he came over for so long?”
Moss sipped her water. “Smart boy. Yes. I thought it was for the reporter from Houston. His hometown paper and he wanted to look hands-on, and if that meant putting in a few weeks here, he would.”
“Now you’re not so sure.”
She shook her head. “I can’t figure it. I know I mentioned the insurance. But the fact is I can’t see Jimmy risking those kids. He may be greedy but I’ve never seen him as a psychopath. And I can’t believe the four of them, or five if you count Suggs, are hiding in a hut somewhere, watching the world go crazy. Maybe Scott would think it was a lark, but not the others. Gwen wouldn’t put her family through that worry for all the money in the world. I’m sure. Beyond that, anything’s possible.”
Anything’s possible. The world’s epitaph. “I come up with anything else—”
“I’m here. Not much to do right now. I wasn’t sure about you, thought you might be a cowboy, but now I see you’re serious, I’m happy to give you the run of the place. You can stay in Hailey and Gwen’s trailer. It’s empty. Not counting the beauty products Gwen left behind.”
“Further proof she was planning to come back.”
Moss laughed, the sound surprisingly sweet. “That is the truth.”
—
The trailer was cluttered with what Wells would always think of as girl stuff, nail files, shampoo bottles, and panties. He assumed the Kenyan police had left the mess. Still, he found himself glad to be in his forties, too old even to imagine being with women so certain that their looks would carry them through life. He poked around halfheartedly, but the search depressed him. He hoped he didn’t find anything too intimate, not just topless photos or love letters, but the private stumblings that everyone had at home, expired vitamins and half-finished doodles and unread Christmas cards.
After a few minutes he felt foolish for his modesty. The girls would trade loss of priv
acy for freedom in a heartbeat. So he stripped the beds and looked under the mattresses. He turned out Gwen’s backpack and the twin chests of drawers and even looked through her magazines, hoping for a scrawled phone number or email address.
By the time he finished, the sun was down and Wells could hear the compound’s electric lights droning outside. He straightened up the place and walked over to Owen and Scott’s trailer to repeat the search. Wilfred intercepted him.
“Bossman. Superbossman. Great mzungu. A guard, Ashon, he told me, two, three weeks ago, he saw Suggs with all these papers, brochures for houses in Johannesburg. Like he wanted to jet”—Wilfred raised his hand like a plane taking off—“out of Kenya.”
“People have fantasies.”
“Suggs hid the papers when Ashon saw them.”
“People don’t always want to share their fantasies. Did Ashon tell the GSU?”
“He tried, but they told him to shut up. Like you, man. They don’t listen. Ashon said Shabaab, Shabaab, Shabaab is all they talk about.”
The fact that Suggs had been checking out real estate didn’t interest Wells nearly as much as the fact that the police didn’t care. They seemed intent on ignoring any lead that didn’t point to Somalia.
“Nice job, Wilfred. You get anything else, you tell me.”
Wells spent the next couple hours searching Owen and Scott’s trailer, which was littered with brochures for safari camps in the Tsavo game parks. Those were two hundred miles southwest of Dadaab, nearly as close to Dadaab as Lamu. The parks would have been a natural choice for a vacation, one that Owen and Scott seemed to have considered. Then they’d decided to go to Lamu instead, with Suggs encouraging them. Suggs. Wells wondered if he shouldn’t have stayed in Nairobi, tried to find Suggs’s wife.
He was leaving the trailer when his phone buzzed. Shafer.
“How’s it going?”
“I’m in Dadaab.”
“Finding anything?”
“Bits. Suggs, the fixer, I think he was probably involved, but it’s just my gut so far. And the Kenyan police seem obsessed with proving Shabaab’s behind this. From what I can see, they’ve hardly looked at him. They’re not even here. You get anything from Fort Meade?”
The Night Ranger Page 11
