The same photocopied A4 flyer seemed to be pinned to every door and fence. I kept my speed down, but didn’t move so slowly that I drew attention to myself. I bent forward, concentrating on the AK. I gripped it hard against me to stop the steel mag slipping out of my hand. I was sweating so much under this thing the skull band must be soaked on the outside. The mesh slit was a nightmare to look through. Even so, I could see this place was totally different from Mog. There was no grime, no burning tyres. But in other ways, it was scarier. Everyone looked anxious and uneasy.
On the other side of the road, four more AS sat in old armchairs under an acacia. They were smoking, and had a kettle boiling away on a little fire. All of them had AKs resting across their thighs. Two had canvas chest harnesses stuffed with mags. The other two had belts of 7.62 short slung over their shoulders, Mexican-bandit style. I couldn’t see any machine-guns, just AKs.
All of them wore traditional cotton dish-dashes down to their knees and matching baggy trousers beneath them. They all had black and white checked shemaghs round their necks and multicoloured skull-caps. Their watches glinted in the sun.
They laughed and shouted to each other.
Awaale coughed just behind me. It was a flat cough, one I’d heard many times this morning as he tried to control his breathing. I knew the feeling. He had little or no control of the situation, and no weapon to react with if everything went to ratshit. I switched off in these situations. I was going to walk down the road; I wasn’t going to turn back. I was committed. There was nothing to worry about because there was nothing I could do about it.
We came level with the AS. They were just five metres away, on the other side of the road. My eyes flicked to the side; I wasn’t going to turn my head. A couple of them glanced across at us, then away. One, darker-skinned and taller than the rest, perhaps a Pakistani, looked over, took two or three seconds to register what we were, and got back to the banter.
Two technicals came down the road towards us. One had a heavy gun mounted on the back. The other was weapons-free. Dark brown- or grey-cottoned legs and sandals dangled over the sides. I looked straight ahead and kept on walking. The wagons drove past and dust and shit swirled through the mesh of my visor. Behind me, Awaale had a coughing fit.
I steered us left at the first available turning.
23
It was an alleyway a couple of metres wide. Awaale shuffled alongside me, clutching one of the flyers. His head was inches from mine.
‘Mr Nick, they’re not in the jail.’ He lifted the sheet of paper. ‘This is not good, Mr Nick. We must hurry.’
I followed him across the road. He passed the four fighters and carried on down another alleyway. Two small boys were coming the other way, each leading an old man with a big grey beard and skull-cap, bent over much more than we were, their faces creased with age. As they got nearer, I realized the boys weren’t looking after the men, it was the other way round. The kids’ eyes were milky, clouded by what looked like cataracts. They could have been sorted out for a couple of dollars elsewhere — or for nothing if Somalia hadn’t been too dangerous for the NGOs and MONGOs to pour into. As for the happy-clappy hospital ships, I’d have liked to see what happened if they’d parked up and offered Jesus along with a couple of plasters.
We stepped into the burning sun so they could pass us in the shade. The boys were well into the Wahhabi way of things. They didn’t even acknowledge us. I kept looking down into the dust, where we belonged.
When they’d gone, I moved nearer to Awaale again. ‘What the fuck is happening? What does that bit of paper say?’
‘I’ll translate it for you, but not now. They could be moved any minute. You need to see them while you still can.’
He shuffled on and I followed. Babies cried in the buildings either side of us. We reached the end of the alley and emerged into what was clearly the older part of town. Plaster over stone or brick, the buildings looked like the colonial, Italian area of Mogadishu, but on a smaller scale. They had seen better days, but looked habitable. Most had first-floor balconies. Many boasted parapets; they looked like small medieval forts.
We were in a square, in the middle of which stood an octagonal obelisk that resembled a small lighthouse. Each face was painted alternately black and white.
A gaggle of kids dressed like miniature al-Shabab, but so far without weapons, ran into a building to our left. Facing us, the other side of the obelisk, was the largest of the buildings. It might once have been the town hall, years ago, when the Italians ran the place and there was law and order. The sun bounced off the ocean a couple of hundred metres down the avenue to its right. I could see what looked like old harbour walls.
Awaale paused for a moment. ‘You see the red gates, Mr Nick?’
I followed his gaze to the left of the town hall. Solid metal at the bottom, vertical bars at the top, they were set into a low, once-whitewashed wall, topped with a security fence. Behind it was a single-storey colonial building that might have been a coach-house.
‘They’re in there, Mr Nick.’
‘That’s what the paper says?’
‘They’re being put on display. AS — the fighters, the mullahs — they live in the big building. It is now the Islamic Sharia Court. Not a good place.’
A gang of kids had stopped just to the right of the gates. Some were so deformed they were almost unable to function; some were being dragged about by the others. They were peering through the bars as I approached. I didn’t know if Awaale was behind me or not. It didn’t matter.
A couple of bodies moved around inside the compound: AS, armed and smoking. They picked up their wooden chairs and shifted them to a new vantage-point now the sun had moved. The kids shouted angrily, pointing down into the dead ground the other side of the wall. Locals lined up on both sides to get a better view.
To the right of the kids, close to the wall, a row of holes had been dug. The spoil was piled up alongside them. Arc lights had been mounted on the court-house walls. The wiring hung loosely from windows at the top of the building.
Five Somalis, three men and two women, were in the compound. But all eyes were on the three white prisoners.
24
Tracy, BB and Stefan were huddled in the shade of the wall to our left. They looked exactly as they had in the video. Tracy was wearing the same hijab. It was grimy and covered with dust. She lay on her side, Stefan in her arms. She stroked his hair, trying to comfort him. His eyes were closed. His legs were raw and red with the insect bites.
The three Somali men were in rags. Two lay down; one sat back against the wall. Their faces were blank; the abuse from the kids no longer registered.
BB sat on the far side of them. He also had his arse in the sand, his back to the wall. Elbows on his knees, his head rested on his hands.
The two Somali women were stuck in the corner, on their own, squatting on their haunches. One of them was crying. Her head jerked with every sob. The other, sobbed-out, simply looked down at the ground.
I moved along the wall to get closer to them. I was soon only a couple of metres away from Tracy. I could hear her singing gently to Stefan. ‘Three Blind Mice’. He still had his eyes closed. She sensed somebody above her. Maybe she’d become aware of my shadow on the sand. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes.
‘Help us … please … help us …’