The Hunters (9 page)

“Hold his mouth closed,” Abdullahi ordered.

One fighter put two hands over the boy prisoner's mouth. Another clamped a hand under the prisoner's jaw.

Abdullahi kneeled over the prisoner. The boys holding the captive's mouth closed had to fight him. Their shoulders shook as they forced his head down.

With a sawing motion, Abdullahi stroked the blade across the boy's throat. Hussein heard a popping sound, like when a man cleaning a fish cuts open the air bladder. The boy bled for a long time. He bled until it was dark outside.

T
he atmosphere in the Sheraton Djibouti Hotel felt like a siege. American military personnel had received orders to stay inside after the terrorist strike in the city. The State Department urged civilians to sit tight, too. In his current role, Parson wasn't sure which status applied to him, but it didn't matter. He wasn't going anywhere tonight. Parson, Chartier, Gold, Geedi, and Carolyn Stewart had little choice but to eat at the Sheraton.

At the hotel restaurant, some of the diners looked frightened, some looked annoyed, and some looked unconcerned. At Parson's table, the conversation went on as if no danger existed. The actress chatted amiably with the whole crew, but she seemed most taken with Geedi. In his flowered Hawaiian short-sleeved shirt, the flight mechanic resembled a college student on spring break more than an aircrew member on a mission. The white tablecloths, the potted ficus, the well-presented seafood made it hard to believe terrorists lurked outside and starvation loomed nearby.

“So, what made you join the Air Force?” Stewart asked.

She took a sip of wine as she waited for Geedi's answer. Left red lipstick on the glass.

“I wanted to give back to the country that took in my family.”

“Fascinating,” Stewart said. “And after the Air Force, you went to World Relief Airlift to give back to your home country?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Parson forked a chunk of Lobster Thermidor as he followed the conversation. He was paying for his own meals during this mission; in fact, he'd told the waiter to bring him the bill for the whole table. It still felt a little strange to eat gourmet food in the hunger-ravaged Horn of Africa. Gold sat beside him. She spooned an oyster from her Oysters Rockefeller and placed it on Parson's plate.

“When did your family leave Somalia?” Stewart asked.

Geedi looked around the restaurant. Hesitated before speaking.

“Ah, I don't mean to be rude. But I'd rather not discuss it here.”

“Forgive me,” Stewart said. “I was the rude one, asking a personal question like that.”

“Not at all,” Geedi said. “I don't mind telling you, just not in public.”

Stewart regarded him for a moment. Took a bite of her shrimp salad.

“In that case, would you mind if I interviewed you on camera? In a more private setting, of course.”

Geedi looked over at Parson.

“You're a civilian now, dude,” Parson said. “Colonels can't tell you what to do anymore.”

“In that case,” Geedi said, “I don't see the harm in it.”

After dinner, the crew gathered in Stewart's hotel room. An open laptop computer rested on the room's steel desk. Notepads, Stewart's Nikon, and pens surrounded the laptop. The actress invited Geedi to sit in one of two leather chairs. Chartier leaned across the bed. Parson and Gold sat cross-legged on the floor. Gold placed her hand on Parson's back, a small gesture of affection now entirely proper. No longer a member of the active-duty military, she did not have to conceal their relationship—such as it was. However, they still refrained from more obvious displays. Old habits died hard.

Stewart took the second leather chair, and as she fiddled with adjustments on her video camera, she said to Geedi, “When you answer the questions, talk to your friends instead of the camera. That'll look more natural.”

Geedi sat up straight and grinned sheepishly at his crewmates. He wore a lavalier microphone clipped to his shirt collar. To Parson, the flight mechanic looked like a nervous schoolkid called on by the teacher. But when Geedi began answering questions, he surprised Parson with his grave tone and with a story Parson had never heard before.

“When the civil war began in Somalia in 1991,” Geedi said, “my uncle worked for Radio Mogadishu. The station got shut down, and my uncle found himself without a job. I don't remember much of this myself, but my parents often spoke about it.”

Geedi explained how his uncle somehow scrounged a low-wattage AM transmitter and put together his own private radio station. The station amounted to little but the transmitter, an antenna mounted on top of an abandoned clinic, a four-channel audio board, and one microphone. Such makeshift radio stations were not new; some warlords used unlicensed radio to beam propaganda to a population that was sixty percent illiterate.

But Geedi's uncle served no warlord, nor did he try to make money with the station. In Mogadishu, who would have bought advertising? The uncle merely wanted people to know what was going on.

“He was a broadcaster,” Geedi said. “I guess that means, by nature, he couldn't keep his mouth shut. And he felt he was helping the best way he could during a crisis.”

The famine became the uncle's top story. He told of the bodies sewn up in cheesecloth, left by the side of the streets for pickup like daily garbage. The children with limbs like sticks and the distended bellies of kwashiorkor, a swelling of the gut caused by extreme protein deficiency. And the attacks on food convoys and distribution centers, by warlords who hijacked the supplies and sold them for arms.

“Mohammed Farrah Aidid's men warned him to stop,” Geedi said, “or he and all his family would be killed.”

One day the radio station fell silent. Relatives went to check. The uncle's bullet-riddled body lay slumped over the audio board.

“They had cut out his tongue and draped it across the microphone,” Geedi said. “The rest of the family knew we had to leave.”

Geedi's father spent his last shillings to buy a rust-bucket Fiat for the escape to Kenya. The Ethiopian border was closer, but Geedi's dad had fought Ethiopians in the Ogaden War and did not want to travel in that direction. Somewhere in the Middle Jubba administrative region of Somalia, the Fiat broke down. Geedi, his parents, and an aunt and a cousin made the rest of the journey on foot.

“That part, I remember,” Geedi said. “I remember that my parents were very scared, and that scared me. They tell me I cried all the time. Some of the time, my father carried me. Some of the time, I walked. They tell me I lived up to my name.”

“How is that?” Stewart asked.

“Geedi means ‘traveler.'”

Geedi said the family skulked through the landscape like fugitives. In those desperate days, anybody might attack you for money, food, or perhaps your clothes and shoes to trade for food. Rumors spread that the starving even resorted to cannibalism, though Geedi recalled no hard evidence of that. More than likely, he said, the strictures of Islam prevented that particular horror.

The little food they'd carried with them did not last long because they had packed for a car trip, not days of hiking. When the tinned fish, crackers, and bottled water ran out, the group turned to scavenging.

“We came upon a cornfield,” Geedi said. “At first we thought Allah had answered our prayers. But of course, with such a famine going on, all the ears of corn were gone.”

So they ate leaves and stalks. The dried corn leaves carried the texture and taste of old paper and probably about the same nutritional value. Geedi's parents saved for him the most edible parts—the core of the stalks, which still retained a little moisture. His dad whittled sections of the stalks with a folding knife and cut bite-sized portions for little Geedi.

Parson listened to the story in amazement. Now and then he and Gold glanced at each other. Geedi's tale reminded him of their trek through the Afghan mountains years ago, though the weather and terrain had been vastly different. But he and Gold had faced that ordeal as well-trained, well-armed adults. Parson could hardly imagine going through something like that as a child—or as a civilian with the responsibility of protecting that child. He had no idea he'd been flying alongside someone with such a harrowing background, and he wanted to comment and ask questions. But he didn't want to interrupt the recording, so he kept quiet and listened.

“We took to moving mainly at night,” Geedi said, “and we avoided the main roads.”

One evening as they began the night's trek—right around sunset—they came upon a tamarind tree heavy with vultures. Geedi's mom wanted to avoid the tree and the ill-omened birds, but his father knew the tamarind pods might provide a little sustenance.

As the group approached the tree, Geedi eyed the great birds, their bald heads like the skin of old men. The vultures flapped off the branches and formed a black cloud circling the tamarind. Beneath the tree lay three skeletons, nearly all the flesh and viscera picked away. From the remnants of clothing hanging on the ribs and clavicles, Geedi discerned a mother, a father, and a child. Much like his own family.

Carolyn Stewart kept recording, holding the camera to her eye.

“Did that frighten you?” she asked.

“You bet it did,” Geedi said. “That could have been us any day.”

Parson continued listening in rapt silence. Strange to hear such a tale told by someone who spoke with an American accent, using American slang.

Geedi and his family eventually came to the Jubba River. Not a creek you could step over, but a wide artery that drained the basin of southern Somalia and spilled into the Indian Ocean. There was no bridge where the family came to the shoreline. Seeing no other option, Geedi's father took a chance and approached a man fishing from a wooden boat.

The man wanted payment to ferry the family across the river. Geedi's dad had nothing to offer but his pistol. He handed the revolver to the boatman. The boatman stuck the weapon in his waistband and motioned for everyone to come aboard.

The crossing frightened Geedi. The river flowed fast and muddy. Eddies swirled and foamed. Crocodiles sunned themselves on a sandbar.

As the boatman rowed, he kept staring at Geedi's cousin, a pretty girl of thirteen. When the boat grated into the wet sand on the other riverbank, the man pulled the revolver.

“The girl stays with me,” he said.

Geedi's dad pulled an oar out of an oarlock. Held the oar like a rifle with a bayonet affixed.

“I don't think so,” Geedi's father said.

The boatman pulled the trigger. Click. Tried to fire again. The hammer dropped on six empty chambers.

Geedi's dad lunged with the oar, rammed the narrow end into the boatman's stomach. The man dropped the pistol into the boat as he tumbled into the water. Geedi's father picked up the gun. The crocodiles slid off the sandbar. They began swimming toward the would-be kidnapper and rapist as he splashed around and struggled to stay afloat.

“Our barter did not include ammunition,” Geedi's dad said. “You assumed.”

“Please help me out of the water,” the man shouted.

Geedi's father considered for a moment. He pocketed the pistol, extended an arm, and helped the miscreant back into the boat. The man collapsed into the hull, soaked. Geedi's aunt fell on him with punches and kicks. So did his mother. The crocodiles swam around the boat, disappointed.

When the crocs finally lost interest and swam away, the family stepped out of the boat and onto shore. They left the boatman sitting in his vessel, next to the bank. He bled from his lip and nose. Geedi's father began loading his pistol.

“Are you going to kill me?” the man asked.

“No.”

Geedi's dad cocked the revolver. Fired into the boat. The blast lifted a heron from the shallows, and the bird glided toward the other side of the river. Geedi's father shot two more holes through the boat's bottom, and water seeped in. The boatman scrambled onto shore and watched his boat sink.

More nights of walking followed. Days of exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. The family finally made it across the border and into a refugee camp.

“We didn't stay there long,” Geedi said. “We had relations on my mother's side in Nairobi. They took us in.”

“How did you get to the U.S.?” Stewart asked, still recording.

“Completely legally.” Geedi laughed. “My dad worked in Nairobi until he had enough money for plane tickets. He knew some people who had already moved to Minneapolis, and we left as soon as we got visas. We got refugee status.”

“And then you became an American kid?”

“Well, not that easily. Minneapolis was so cold. You know, up there in Minne-snow-ta. And at first I didn't speak any English. Neither did my mom. When you get thrown into a new culture, though, you learn fast. We found a mosque where the imam kept the young people away from the wrong crowd.”

“And then you joined the Air Force.”

“I did. A high school buddy who was a grade ahead of me went in, and he e-mailed me about all the things he was doing. Sounded good to me, and I didn't have many other prospects, so I signed up. By the time I got out, I was a U.S. citizen.”

“Wow,” Stewart said. “The American dream.”

“Big time. Now I just want to see the Vikings get back to the Super Bowl.”

Parson chuckled. Gold smiled. Chartier looked puzzled.

Stewart spoke for the camera: “We've been talking with Geedi Mursal, a Somali American flight mechanic with World Relief Airlift. He chatted with us at the Sheraton Hotel, in Djibouti, East Africa.”

Geedi unclipped his microphone and handed it to the actress.

“Thank you so much, Geedi,” Stewart said.

Parson started to say something to Geedi. A faint noise interrupted him. In the distance, he heard a shot.

T
he soldiers of God ran through the Djibouti slum. Hussein saw that darkness brought no cover; this city had far more lights than Mogadishu.

All hope of slipping back to sea quietly was gone. When Abdullahi had led the fighters out of the safe house a few minutes ago, they'd found the infidel police still on patrol. Police cars and military vehicles crisscrossed the neighborhoods. Checkpoints clogged intersections.

None of that would have mattered. The al-Shabaab soldiers could have scurried a block here, taken cover there, avoided traffic and crowds. They'd have had all night to go just the distance a cat might wander from its house. Before joining the jihad, Hussein had survived many a night like that, stealing food and looking for places to sleep. But that fool Dawo had to go and fire a shot at a policeman.

It was like kicking a termite mound. Dawo missed, and the policeman, stooge of the Jews and Crusaders, returned fire and struck Dawo in the shoulder. Then the stooge made a radio call. Now sirens screamed. A helicopter pounded overhead. Hussein sprinted, AK-47 across his chest, to keep up with Abdullahi and the others.

Behind Hussein, two more shots echoed through the streets. More police gunfire, probably. Hussein did not turn to look. Someone screamed. Hussein still did not turn to look. A voice, amplified by some kind of device, called out in a language he did not understand. Telling him to give up, he supposed. Telling him to halt. Never.

Hussein caught up with Abdullahi, Dawo, and two of the other boys. They crouched beside a car and looked around for the rest of their fighters. Dawo bled so much that his shirt became soaked, and the blood dripped to the pavement. Abdullahi panted, ducked low when a military truck rolled through a nearby intersection. He raised his rifle. Smashed the butt into the side of Dawo's head. Dawo crumpled to the ground.

“Idiot,” Abdullahi hissed. “You alerted the police, and now you cannot keep up with us.”

Dawo did not move or speak. He lay like someone asleep.

The sirens grew louder. The helicopter thudded closer. A shaft of light, brighter than any Hussein had ever seen, beamed down from the flying machine. The forces of
Shaytan
, the evil one, had many powerful things. The Youth had God.

But the Youth did not have much time. The beam of light swept close. Abdullahi looked around for the rest of his young soldiers. The original team had consisted of seven, including Hussein and Abdullahi. Two were missing.

“We cannot drag this moron,” Abdullahi said, pointing to Dawo. “And we cannot allow him to talk.”

Abdullahi pulled out his knife. With the heel of his boot, he kicked Dawo over so that the boy lay on his back. Dawo's eyes remained shut; the blow from the rifle stock had knocked him out cold. Abdullahi gripped the knife in his fist. Plunged it through Dawo's breastbone. The bone made a cracking sound, like when you step on a dead bird that has dried up by the side of the road. Abdullahi pressed his hand on Dawo's chest, pulled out the blade. Wiped it on Dawo's pants.

“Let this be a lesson to all of you,” Abdullahi said.

Hussein gaped. He did not like Dawo, and he knew from experience to expect swift and hard punishment from Abdullahi. Yet he never expected anything like this. Which one was the sinner? Had Dawo angered God by making a bad mistake on an important mission? Or had Abdullahi lost the true path? Maybe he liked too much to draw a blade or pull a trigger. Maybe he really was a
kafir
.

No time to think about such things now. Hussein knew if the police caught him, they would put him to death or lock him up for life. Worse, they might turn him over to the Americans. The Americans would take him to a place called Gwan-tahn-moh. There, they would do terrible things to him until he renounced the Prophet and bowed to the false gods of the Crusaders. The Americans would boil him in oil, skin him alive, take needles and put diseases in his body. Grind up the Quran and make him eat it. These things were true; the Sheikh and the other older men had told him so.

The helicopter noise grew fainter. That was good. The soldiers of God needed to reach the shoreline. Maybe the flying machine had turned farther back over the land. A light wind touched Hussein's face. Abdullahi pointed into the breeze.

“The sea is that way,” Abdullahi said. “Spread out. Run in the way we have taught you. Meet me at the boat. I will not wait for you long.”

Hussein clutched his rifle. Checked again that he'd set the lever to make the weapon fire one shot at a time. Looked toward the ocean.

He could not see the water—only a street, a car park, and a darkened storefront. He did not need to see the water yet. The men had taught him to pick a place to run to—one you can reach in the time it takes to say to yourself,
Run like a cheetah, hide like a snake.
Stop there, hide, look around, find another place.

A child or a weakling would panic in battle, but a man could still think. Hussein remembered the things he'd learned. He darted from behind the car.

Run like a cheetah. . . .

His sandals slapped the pavement as he sprinted for the storefront. He heard the footsteps of other boys but did not look to see his fellow fighters. Ducked behind a row of trash cans at the side of the store.

He smelled the food inside the store. Some sort of cooked meat. He spotted stacks of cans and cartons through the window. Hussein had never seen so much food in one place in his life. How could these infidels be so blessed? What thievery was this?

On another night he would have broken a window and taken some of the food. His mouth watered, and he felt
Shaytan
tempting him. But Allah needed him to escape, to reach the boat.

More sirens screeched. The helicopter grew louder. Hussein saw the flying machine turn again, still shining that shaft of light so bright it hurt his eyes. Dust and trash swirled underneath the machine as it approached the street Hussein had just crossed. He had run like a cheetah, and now he was hiding like a snake, and the men in the machine would not see him.

One of the other boys charged out into the street. A bad time to move, Hussein thought.

Sure enough, the light from the helicopter caught the boy. A loud voice came down from the helicopter, more words Hussein did not know. The helicopter stopped moving. It remained in one place and shone the light down. The boy raised his rifle and fired up at the machine.

Stupid, Hussein thought. There will come a day when we shall bring down such a machine for Allah. Tonight, however, we must escape.

A police car roared down the street, toward the boy under the helicopter. The boy tried to run. Two shots sounded from the police car, and the boy fell. The light swept over him again. Now he lay motionless, sprawled on his stomach, AK beside him.

Hussein wanted to flee, but they would see him if he ran. He kept as still as he could, as still as a tortoise drawn up in its shell. Now, if he moved at all, he must move slowly and quietly.

A man got out of the police car. Examined the boy shot in the street. The helicopter began moving again, circling and searching. When it flew farther from Hussein's hiding place, he crept away from the store. He crouched in the darkness behind the store and eased down an alley that led to sand. Hussein could not see the sand very well, but he felt the way it ground beneath his sandals. He began to hear the ocean. Because he could think like a man, he would make his escape and not die like a dog.

Footsteps padded near him. He raised his rifle, froze. Saw no one. Maybe it was another of the al-Shabaab fighters making his way to the beach.

More gunfire chattered from the direction of the city. Hussein stalked across the sand, hoping to find a clear path to the water. Instead of a clear path, he came to a wire fence too high to climb. There had been no fence where he and the others first sneaked into Djibouti. Perhaps he had returned to the beach down a different street. He crept along the fence, looking for an opening.

He found no opening, but he came to a culvert running under the fence. The cement pipe yawned wide enough for Hussein's shoulders. He wriggled into the culvert on his back, holding his rifle above him. The inside of the culvert smelled like a dead animal, and the water trickling through it soaked his shirt and made him shiver. No matter; he had hidden in filthier places. He propelled himself by pushing with his feet and rocking his shoulders from side to side. Tried not to think about what sewage or carrion he might be crawling through. Hussein felt as if he were worming into the earth itself.

Wet grit scraped his elbows. Despite the stench and discomfort, he decided he'd found a good path to the beach. No one could see him here.

A whiff of fresh air told Hussein he was nearing the other end of the culvert. Once again he heard the ocean. When his head poked out and he saw the stars overhead, he took in a long breath. Now, where was the boat?

He put his rifle down beside him and turned over on his stomach. Peered out toward the surf. Saw nothing but waves foaming in the moonlight. Had someone stolen the boat? Had Abdullahi already left him?

Hussein fought the urge to leap from the culvert and run up and down the beach calling for help. He would stay inside this good hiding place until he figured out what to do.

The sirens sounded fainter now, but the helicopter noise grew louder. The flying machine swung out over the water, its beam still searching. The light revealed a crumbling dock, a half-sunk scow. Where was al-Shabaab's skiff?

There.

The beam swept across the boat, beached above the high-tide mark. Praise be to Allah, Hussein thought. The infidels had shown him what he needed to find. The helicopter turned back toward the city.

Hussein saw no one in or near the boat. A good thing for now, or else the police in the flying machine might have opened fire. But where was everyone else?

Something thudded into the sand, off to Hussein's right. He looked and spied movement. Little more than a stirring in the darkness. On another night he might have thought he saw a jinn. Everyone knew jinns prowled the beaches after sundown, and mortal men could catch only glimpses of them. Best to stay away from such spirits. You never knew if they were good or bad, and nothing could kill them but a stone flung from a sling.

But tonight, more than likely, this movement in the blackness was a fellow fighter. Hussein squinted, forced his eyes to focus. Yes, a solid form crouched in the sand. Rifle over one shoulder. The figure rose, trotted toward the skiff. Hussein saw that the person also carried a bag. Abdullahi, with the head of the
kafir
.

Abdullahi reached the boat. Placed the bag inside, at the back near the motor. Paused and looked around.

“Get out of that pipe,” Abdullahi said. “Come and help me.”

Hussein had thought he was invisible. He crept through the end of the culvert and dropped to the wet sand underneath. He stumbled to his knees but kept his weapon raised so that the muzzle did not get clogged with sand. Just as he'd been taught. Picked himself up and jogged to the boat.

“Help me move it to the water,” Abdullahi said.

“Where is everyone else?” Hussein asked.

“Dead or arrested unless they get here soon.”

Dawo was dead, all right, and Hussein had seen another boy shot. And two had been missing earlier.

Hussein slung his weapon across his back, and he and Abdullahi dragged the skiff down to the surf. The boat did not feel heavy; Hussein was strong. The water felt warm as it curled over his toes. The surf took the weight of the boat, and Abdullahi held on to the transom.

“Get ready to shoot if you see the police,” Abdullahi ordered. “Those stooges saw some of us running toward the beach.”

Hussein pulled his AK off his shoulder and knelt where the wet sand touched the dry sand. He moved his eyes all around, watched closely. Darkness would make it hard to tell the difference between a policeman, a fellow fighter, or someone passing by. Hussein knew he must not shoot a fellow fighter. But do not worry about passersby, he had been told. If he killed someone by accident while shooting at an infidel or a
kafir
, that person—if a Muslim—would go to paradise as a martyr. If not a Muslim, then the person deserved to die anyway.

A shot sounded close by. Shouts in some strange language. Pounding of running feet. Roar of a car engine.

A boy appeared on the beach near the old dock. Hussein could not tell where or how the boy had cleared the fence. The boy scrabbled toward the water. Two figures ran behind him. When one of the figures called out in that strange language, Hussein knew they were police. He aimed as best he could in the darkness, and he fired.

One of the policemen fell and lay still. The other dropped to the sand and pointed a pistol.

“Over here,” Abdullahi called to the boy.

Abdullahi lowered the boat motor and started it. The policeman with the pistol began shooting. The boy kept running toward the boat. Hussein pointed his rifle toward the policeman and squeezed off four shots.

The policeman did not fire back. The boy clambered into the boat.

“We have to go,” Abdullahi said.

Hussein waded to the boat, now in waist-deep water. He put his rifle across one of the thwarts, then pulled himself, dripping, over the gunwale. Abdullahi gunned the motor, and the skiff plowed through the waves. The flying machine hovered over the city, still searching with its beam, searching in the wrong place.

We started with seven, Hussein thought as he watched the coastline fade away. Now we are three.

Would Abdullahi kill or abandon him so easily if he made a mistake like Dawo? Hussein wanted to belong to something, to join something like the family lost to him. Al-Shabaab was that family, he wanted to believe, a family of the soldiers of God. But the family tolerated no errors. Hussein knew if he'd been less crafty, less fleet of foot, he would be dead in Djibouti. Or soon to be dead, cornered in some alleyway like a rat.