Читать книгу Predator Paradise - Don Pendleton - Страница 7

Habir Dugula was no stranger to death. He knew there were many ways to die in his country, most of them brutal. Old age rarely claimed life in Somalia. The land itself could kill a man without water in a matter of hours.

The parched and unforgiving earth produced next to nothing to feed ten million hungry mouths. The country’s famine, though, was no secret to Western relief workers, he knew, nor to the world at large for that matter, thanks to naive intrusion by CARE, UNICEF, the Red Cross and the United Nations, which seemed to take a morbid pride in denouncing his nation as a seething hotbed of outlaws, thieves and genocidal maniacs.

Starvation, so it was said, had laid waste to nearly a half-million Somalis in the past five years, another two million on the brink, if he was inclined to believe UN or Red Cross statistics. Those numbers, in his mind, were greatly exaggerated—propaganda—if only to give the West excuses to make incursions into his nation, strip him of power and return Somalia to the control of white colonial imperialists. It was true, however, that he was branded the Exterminator by the United Nations, the devils of the American media. To some extent he was responsible for the plight of the starving, at least in the area he controlled south of the city. He had his reasons, plus the blessing of God, to maintain a certain population control, and that was enough. First, they would want food, then, bellies full, education would be the next demand, minds alive and seething soon enough with what they perceived a monstrous injustice perpetrated on them by him. With the power of knowledge there was little doubt an uprising was sure to find its way to his front door.

Not if he could help it.

There would always be too many hungry mouths to feed, he knew, always the poor and the needy who would fall by the wayside, and he didn’t intend to let the great unwashed, the weak and the vanquished weigh him down, hold him back from climbing the next rung up the ladder of power and glory. As long as he didn’t have to look at the dying masses on his doorstep, there was no point burdening himself with guilt. Sentiment was weakness.

Then there was civil war, consuming another half-million or so lives in the past decade, what with roughly five hundred clans divided into twenty-six main factions, all of them heavily armed, shooting up one another in a running bloodbath that saw no end in sight. There was widespread disease, savaging mostly the children, but again, if he didn’t have to see it…

Why bother, he decided, to attempt to search for reason when madness and the law of the gun ruled his country? How could a man show mercy to even the poor and the needy when his own survival was always in question? As leader of his clan, there was a bottom line, deemed by him every bit as important as seeing the next sunrise. If death, war, famine and pestilence appeared destined to push millions of Somalis to the edge of the abyss, the least he could do for himself—and the continued survival of his clan—was to profit from the madness somehow. Even in the hell that was his country, cash was still king.

So was the power of the gun.

Dugula had a busy day ahead. He rose from behind his desk, checking the wall map and factoring in the grueling stretch of miles needed to take him to the afflicted village and its refugee camp, due southwest of Mogadishu. Three events on the day’s agenda, a long, hot twelve hours or more before him, and it was time to embrace death once again. The grim problem could prove the first order of the day’s business, but, then again, he concluded, it was best to deal with the most troubling and by far the most hazardous of his three chores.

Listening to the soft hum of the air conditioner, pumping out icy waves through the office of his command-and-control center, he knew that once he stepped outside, the sweat would start to flow free and unchecked. Discomfort he could live with, but uncertainty he wouldn’t entertain, since not having answers to certain questions, not knowing who or where his enemies were, could kill. Indeed, the first outbreak of sweat, he thought, would be brought on by more than just the brutal hammering of sunlight.

He watched as Nahbat, his AK-47 leading the way, swept through the door.

“They are on Aboyge Street. Perhaps three minutes remain before they arrive.”

Dugula grunted, a slew of questions about the visitors tumbling through his mind. He picked up his AK-47, chambered a round, aware of the numbers coming their way. “Assemble everyone in the courtyard. Same drill as before. Do it quickly, and may God pity the first man who is not ready to fight to the death, if necessary, because I will not show mercy to cowards.”

“Understood.”

White men in Somalia, Dugula thought. They were a rare sight. It was beyond strange—malevolent perhaps—how these whites had ingratiated themselves to a rival clan, even if they had thrown around large sums of both shillings and U.S. dollars to buy protection, gather information, carve inroads into their clans. But for what purpose? Who were they? CIA? Mercenaries? The first time he had met them they had dropped off an envelope bulging with U.S. dollars, saying little, only that they would require his help, that he would be well compensated for, again, some unspecified act. Dugula had some idea what they wanted, catching the whispers from his various informants around the city, but he needed to hear them state it out loud.

Slipping on his dark sunglasses, he marched outside, grimacing at the first blast of heat. He was halfway across the courtyard, counting his own men, spread along both walls, a gauntlet of assault rifles and RPGs, poised to catch the visitors in a crossfire, when the first wave of the technicals rolled through the gate. The technicals were a common sight all over Mogadishu, he knew, the Toyota pickups or anything else on wheels, with roofs cleaved off to allow free and easy fields of fire for the .50-caliber machine guns or the smattering of TOW rockets. Truck beds, he noted, were crammed with gunmen, most of the them mooryan, teenage thugs. The glaze in their eyes from the amphetamine-like high of qat warned him they were edged out. Not good, no telling what they would do as he saw their fingers tight around the triggers of assault rifles, ready to shoot, he had to assume, for little or no reason.

He stood his ground, dust spooling in his face, the technicals fanning out. Twelve, no, thirteen technicals lurching to a halt then, nervous-sounding laughter, chatter among the mooryan, a few mouths still grinding away at qat. As before, the black minivan was last, carrying its mystery whites, two motorbikes with gunmen flanking the vehicle. Dugula waited, pulse drumming in his skull. The minivan stopped in the dust cloud, door sliding open.

Three men in brown fatigues stepped out, slow, sure of themselves. AKs were draped across their shoulders, spare banana clips wedged in their waistbands. Commando daggers were sheathed at their hips. As they cut the gap, Dugula found the black hoods concealing their identities unsettling for a moment. He wasn’t sure what to make of this display, wondering if they were issuing some silent statement meant to unnerve him, or if their desire to keep their faces hidden was genuine, bore some special significance. If he chose, he could have them followed again, but the word from his trackers was that these men were bounced all over Mogadishu in the black van, changing vehicles, in and out of safehouses, able, or so he was told, to vanish into the air. It made him wonder how accurate—or deceitful—their report, whom he could trust, where did the truth lie. Money always had a way of shifting allegiance.

Blue Eyes, as he thought of the hood in the middle, held his stare. Dugula was certain he was grinning to himself. Arrogant bastard, he thought, stifling the urge to whip the assault rifle off his shoulder and blaze away. Dugula felt himself being measured, Blue Eyes laughing back at him, a private joke.

“We have to stop meeting like this, Habbie. Your little slice of hell on Earth, not high up on my list of hot spots to start with, is starting to make even me a little jumpy, and I’ve been down some dark alleys in my day.”

“Perhaps you would prefer we do this on some sandy beach, sipping iced tea?”

“Right. After a nice dip in the Indian Ocean. No, thanks, but I’d rather swim with sharks of the human variety than what’s out in those waters. And do me and yourself a favor when we leave here. Leave your own mooryan at home. If I start seeing a bunch of your shooters on my bumper, I’m going to begin thinking ours can never be a working and profitable match made in Hell.”

“Perhaps if I knew exactly what you wanted? If I were to understand what is this working relationship to which you refer?”

“It’s this.”

The white with the scar on his hand spoke up, producing a thick envelope from behind his back, tucking it in his waistband. “Fifty thousand dollars, American. An advance, if you agree.”

“But you need to understand the rules first, Habbie,” Blue Eyes said before Dugula could ask the obvious. “Then we can play ball. You love money, you want power, you want to be top dog on the block. You’re on every shit list from UNICEF to the White House. Thing is, what we are, we’re your three wise men, come here bearing gifts.”

“How magnanimous. To what do I owe this great honor?”

The third black hood got into the act next. Like the first time they met, the three whites ricocheted the verbal shooting match between them, leaving Dugula wondering if this act was scripted, and who, exactly, was in charge between them. Number three had blackness behind the slit where his left eye was, Dugula fairly assuming there was a patch covering some war memento.

“Here it is,” One Eye began. “In the coming days there are going to be several very significant big events, within and beyond your borders. We prefer to not stand here in this heat and dust and with sky spies framing our every move, answering a bunch of questions that only time and decisive action will answer in the first place. First, we’re taking the human cargo you have smuggled in-country. They’re part of the plan. They go with us.”

There it was, he thought, gut clenching, spine tightening. Before the thought they were some sort of international bounty hunters or CIA black ops, come to either kill or capture the holy freedom fighters he had been paid to grant safe haven to, Blue Eyes, as if he could read minds, cooled some of his fears.

“Relax. We’re not here to kill or arrest those who are under the care of your golden umbrella.”

“Truth be known,” Scar Hand said, “their leaders are aware of our presence here. Call it a blessing from Allah, a strange union between infidels and Islam, but it’s arranged. And your guests have already agreed to go the distance.”

Dugula bared his teeth, a half smile, half grimace, and waved a hand. “This is all very mysterious, and suspicious. You talk, ten ways out of your mouths, but you say little.”

“No time to stand around and gnaw on nerves or question what’s damn near an act of God being dumped in your lap. You accept—on faith—and you’ll be well rewarded,” One Eye said.

“There is a number inside the envelope,” Blue Eyes said. “Call it. A cutout to a very important individual in a country better left unnamed at this time, but an individual you know well through your own Web site. He’ll back our story, and he’s backing us.”

“You are telling me, what, exactly?”

“Rule number one,” Blue Eyes said. “You’re on a need-to-know basis, that is, until the time comes when your role will become larger than the scourge of Muhammad’s head-lopping converters. Then it will be defined, a blinding light that will grant you, shall we say, instant transformation. Super warlord. That could be you.”

They paused, Dugula sensing he was supposed to be impressed or implore them to continue. “I’m listening.”

“You recruit some of these fighters for your clan,” One Eye said, “from other countries, some of them used by you to wipe out rivals, help keep the iron grip on your turf. They train here, they plan their operations when they’re not beefing up your troops. Surprised? Habbie, we know everything that goes on in this neck of the woods. Hey, as far as some folks you know are concerned, we’re the next-greatest thing to Allah. Think of us as damn near supernatural.”

“The Alpha and the Omega,” Scar Hand declared. “That’s us.”

“And we’re here to tell you what is in motion cannot be aborted,” Blue Eyes said.

“We don’t need to spell out the organizations of the fighters you have in-country,” Scar Hand said. “All you really need to know is they’re with us. More truth—these fighters have already been contacted by their leaders, weeks back, and they’ve been ordered to accept our terms without conditions.”

“They know some of the score,” One Eye said. “Not much, but the truth will be revealed in due course. But their leaders know something of the endgame. All parties—down to you—have agreed.”

“You want endgame speculation? What will go down could prove one of the biggest coups,” Scar Hand said. “One of the most fearsome blows Islam has ever struck against the infidels.”

“With or without you,” Blue Eyes said, tone hardening, “it’s a done deal.”

“And Umir Hahgan? You come to Somalia, three wise white men,” Dugula said, putting an edge to his voice, “and you go straight to my main rival. How much did you pay him? And if I say no to this strange offer, ask no questions, go along, a blind man in the dark among the wolves and hyenas, what then? Do you set Hahgan’s men against me?”

“It’s like this,” Blue Eyes said. “We hedged our bets, granted. Hahgan’s giving up some fighters, and yeah, he’s been paid, enough to keep the troops in qat and whores for a while. Time to put aside all this petty squabbling over some real estate. Fact is, you’re stronger than Umir, more men, more guns, more contacts from Cairo to Karachi, but we’ll pencil in the number-two man on the roster if we have to. Hey, you need to start thinking more about your future, leave the hand-wringing to the losing side. Now’s the time.”

“Think big, as in immortality big,” Scar Hand added. “Your name could end up being glorified by the entire Muslim world, feared by your enemies, for decades to come. You’re a rising star, could be bigger than Osama, if you want. Let me ask you, you don’t want to just be a second-string warlord, creaking around this shithole in your golden years, or do you?”

“I would think,” One Eye said, “your ambitions would be a little bit larger than ‘exterminating’ all those hungry mouths you and the twenty-something other clans won’t feed.”

“While you rip off planeloads of UN aid and resell it across the borders,” Scar Hand said. “Chump change, compared to what we’re offering you.”

“Now you insult me in front of my men.”

“No offense intended. Just the hard facts,” Blue Eyes shot back.

“We won’t waste your time—don’t waste ours. We’re thinking you’ve got a big day ahead of you,” One Eye said. “Probably heading out to exterminate some camp infested with disease.”

“Or take down another UN plane,” Scar Hand said.

How did they know so much? Dugula wondered. Or were they guessing? Perhaps his secured phones and fax weren’t so secure. Or had Hahgan infiltrated his clan with spies?

“In or out?” Blue Eyes asked. “No is no, and we’re fine with that.”

“You can go back to business as usual,” Scar Hand said. “Stay small.”

“Decision time,” One Eye added. “Dump or jump off the crapper.”

Dugula took a few moments, peering into those slitted gazes, eyes, he decided, without emotion, no soul. It was true that he wanted far more for himself than remaining where he was, doing what he’d done. The suggestion on their part was that certain freedom-fighting organizations—of which at least forty members were under his protective umbrella—had already agreed to some undefined role for some allegedly grand but mysterious big events. If he declined? Then what? Risk some long, protracted war with rivals who supposedly were ready to leap on board for this so-called big event? Let rivals grab the glory these whites were offering? What glory? Or was this some elaborate ruse, a trap being laid by rivals? He didn’t think so; none of the competition was that clever or devious. His rivals were, for the most part, thugs with hair-trigger tempers, rarely, if ever, thinking through the consequences to their impulsive violence. If he was right, then being presented with some bigger picture…

Dugula felt curiosity and greed wrestle him to the brink of acceptance. “How much money?”

“Is that a yes?” Blue Eyes wanted to know.

“The money?”

“Two million, deposited into a numbered account in one of several European banks of your choosing,” One Eye answered.

“Half on acceptance,” Scar Hand said, “the other half when the curtain drops on the last act.”

“I have a large clan,” Dugula said. “Many men to feed, house, equip, arm. They say there are over two million assault rifles in Mogadishu, but, as you said, my ambitions are bigger than just having my men ride around in technicals with outdated Russian machine guns. You demand much, tell me next to nothing. I hear promises, words, big plans. I would like to hear how badly you are willing to enlist my services. Two million,” he told them, shaking his head softly, lips pursed.

He watched them, no change of expression, their eyes cold, then Blue Eyes said, “Four. That’s as high as we can go.”

Dugula already had an answer to give them, but the fact that they had upped the ante with little hesitation told him they had come to the bargaining table prepared to lowball his services. So be it, he decided. Depending on what the future held, how great the risk, whatever his undeclared role in this big event, he could always ask for—no, demand—more money. If he was going to be allied with other Muslims for some glorious battle against the infidels, how could a mere three Westerners possibly dare to think they could deceive him into a course of action that would destroy him and the clan?

“When will you need these services of myself and my men?”

“Soon,” Blue Eyes said. “Carry on with your day. You’ll know when it’s begun.”

Dugula smiled back at the laughing eyes, unwilling to show fear or hesitation now that his decision was final. “Then…the envelope, please.”

HUSSEIN NAHBAT was pained and baffled. Beyond that there was a fair amount of anxiety about the future, namely his own.

From the shotgun seat of his technical, he saw the village and surrounding camp of nomads rise up in the distance on the barren plain. The panorama of squalid dwellings, meandering camels, goats and black stick figures in rags struck him as little more than some hellish mirage, floating up on the slick heat shimmer. Judging the numbers of shabby stone hovels, the huts erected by sticks wrapped in plastic sheeting, he guessed four to five hundred Somalis. Whatever Ethiopian refugees had crossed the border, survived this far, he figured perhaps another hundred or so bodies would be tossed to the fires. If what he’d heard about their trek and their affliction was true, they were walking contagions, cursing the Somalis here with the same inevitable fate. Drought, famine, another round of civil war between rebel forces and the outbreak of some hemorrhagic fever had been driving Ethiopians across the borders into Sudan, Kenya, Eritrea.

It was their task, Nahbat knew, to cleanse the area, contain the plague these people had brought to Somalia. This land was not their home, and their leader, calling them leprous invaders, had issued the decree they were to put the torch to all homes and flesh, diseased or otherwise, Ethiopian or Somali.

As Omari, his cousin, bore their technical down on the northern outskirts of the first line of beehive-shaped hovels, he found the others were already hard at it, rounding up men, women, children. The shooting had started, rattling bursts of autofire coming from all points around the village, limp bodies already being dragged from the tents of various sizes on the western perimeter. Dugula’s men, he noted, didn’t handle the bodies. Instead, they forced Ethiopians at gunpoint to drag their own dead—or dying—to the pit. He saw other Ethiopians, weakened by disease and malnutrition, standing utterly still outside their tents, some of the women hitting their knees, pleading for mercy.

There was none.

And the pain bit deeper into his belly. This was madness, this was…what, he wondered—wrong? Evil?

Nahbat was unaware Omari had ground them to a halt, as he witnessed a small baby ripped from the arms of its wailing mother, a pistol leaping in the hands of her executioner, a bullet through the brain abruptly silencing her pleas. Though he had to follow orders under threat of execution, and related as he was to Habir Dugula—a distant cousin of one of the leader’s countless sons and daughters by various wives and mistresses—what he felt whenever they cleansed a village went beyond horror and pain.

He felt his heart ache, a swollen lump in his throat threatening to shut off air the more he watched. He wanted to weep.

Nahbat fought back the tears. He suddenly longed to be a twelve-year-old boy again, a simple goatherd, ignorant to the horrors of his country. That seemed like only yesterday, when, in fact, it was just a little over a year ago his cousin had shoved an assault rifle in his hands, and life had changed forever. Strange, he thought, in this one year of being an armed combatant in the war for Mogadishu and the campaign of genocide against those deemed unfit to live, he felt like a tired, sick old man. He was too young, he thought, to feel such pain. Worse, he was helpless to do anything but carry out his part in the atrocity, thinking himself a coward for being unable to stand up and shout how wrong this was.

He tried to focus his distress on another baffling matter, failing to will away the nausea as the first wave of the stench of diseased flesh, the sickly sweet taint of bodies being doused by gasoline and torched, ballooned his senses. What was this business with the white men and the rival clan? Why were they involving themselves in some mysterious affair with foreigners that not even their great leader had the first clue was all about? They had lingered at the compound after the departure of the black hoods and Hahgan’s mooryan, while he assumed Habir Dugula made some attempt to verify the existence of the cutout, their supposed marching orders. Then there was a briefing by their great leader, all orders, no questions allowed. Simply put, he recalled, Dugula told them they would do whatever the white men’s bidding, that they would be paid in time, far more, or so promised, than their weekly handful of shillings. The future was more than just in doubt, he feared; the time ahead was in peril. He wondered if he would live to see his fourteenth birthday.

He was out the door somehow, Omari barking in his ear to get moving. The AK-47 began to slip from his fingers, bile shooting up into his throat. He heard the wailing, pleas for mercy, the braying of animals in terror. The din alone might have been enough to bring him to his knees, retch and cry, but the stink was overpowering by itself, threatening to knock him off his feet. The world began to spin, legs turning to rubber when a rough hand clawed into his shoulder, spun him.

“Take this!”

It was Omari, eyes boring into him over the bandanna wrapped around his nose and mouth.

The slap to his face rang in his ears like a pistol shot.

“What is wrong with you!”

“I…I feel sick, my cousin.”

“Get over it! We have work to do!”

Omari wound the bandanna around his face, knotting it tight against the back of his skull with an angry twist. He had another disturbing thought right then, as the veil seemed to do little to stem the tide of miasma assaulting him, mind, senses and soul. What if he fainted, flat on his back, the vomit trapped by the bandanna, strangling him?

The screaming, shooting and the awareness Omari was watching him closely, perhaps questioning his resolve, put some iron in his legs. He was turning toward the Russian transport truck, where they were hauling out more ten-gallon cans of gasoline, when Nahbat spotted their great leader.

Resentment flared through him, another dagger of pain and confusion to the heart. Dugula was standing in the distance on a rise. Surrounded by twenty or more of his men, he watched through field glasses, making certain they did as they were ordered. When he appeared satisfied the job would get done, he hopped into his jeep, the others falling into an assortment of technicals, Hummers. That the great man wouldn’t dirty his hands with this hideous chore inflamed him with great anger, leaving him to wonder if Somalia would ever know justice, much less peace.

He lingered by the technical, watching as the convoy kicked up clouds of dust, all of them gone to greet the UN plane flying in from Kenya.

Another wall of grief dropped over Nahbat. He knew what they would do when that plane landed. It sickened him. There was an answer, he believed—no, there was an answer he knew and felt in his heart—a way around this insanity, one far greater, a solution most certainly noble and humane and merciful, but the afflicted, the doomed he heard wailing around him would never see it.

All that medicine and food, he thought, on board the UN plane. Doctors, with skill and knowledge, who could, if not save the afflicted, perhaps ease their pain and suffering until a cure was delivered.

It would never happen.

He had seen it before, too many times.

“May God have mercy.”

“What was that?”

Wheeling, startled, he found Omari glaring at him. He watched, holding back the tears, fighting down the bile, his cousin marching toward him, holding out a can.

Nahbat shook his head, muttered, “Nothing.”

And took the can.