Dead Centre (25 page)

‘Calm down, mate. Wait, wait …’

I wanted him to take a breath, and then we could move from there. ‘Where are you, Awaale?’

‘I don’t know …’

They’d gone careering off without a clue.

‘OK. Fire your machine-gun in the air. When I see your tracer I can direct you.’

I got nothing back.

‘Awaale?’

Five or six tracer suddenly blossomed fifty metres short of the junction, three blocks in on the left.

‘Good. I want you to turn directly towards the road. They’re very close to the junction. Is that clear?’

I had to shout so loudly I almost didn’t need the radio. The gunner was going ape-shit on the 12.7. The driver was going ape-shit on his AK. Three empty magazines lay at his feet. Only he knew who or what he was aiming at. If, indeed, he was aiming at all.

I looked up. There was another whoosh from the junction. I could see the smoke trail heading our way. I threw myself to the ground just as the thing exploded. It had landed in front of the shack. An old guy burst out of the door, screaming like a banshee. He legged it down the other side of the mound and kept on running. I didn’t blame him.

Dust and stones showered down on us.

I got back on the radio. ‘Awaale?’

‘Yes, Mr Nick.’

I could hear the engines gunning; everybody shouting.

‘Awaale?
Awaale?
’

Nothing.

‘I’ll keep firing until you get to the crossing. All right? I’ll fire until you get to the road. Awaale? Can you hear me?’

There were shouts from the two lads behind me. I jerked my head round and scanned the junction. A couple of bodies were sprawled in the dust. They’d got a couple of kills.

I bunched my fists, as if gripping the firing handles. ‘Keep going, boys, keep firing …’

I sparked up the radio again. We just needed the Benny Hill music for this performance to be complete. ‘Awaale?’

Tracer stitched its way across Lucky’s position as Awaale’s team blasted straight through the intersection like a demented cavalry charge, bouncing over the two bodies as they went.

I jumped back onto our flatbed, took over the gun and directed rounds towards Lucky’s side of the junction, into walls and roofs and the shells of ruined buildings, wherever I saw anything moving.

Lucky’s technical emerged from cover to take Awaale head-on. Awaale’s driver spun his wheel so the boys behind the cab could lay down fire without zapping him and the boss if their barrels dipped.

I punched three-round bursts into Lucky’s metalwork from my vantage-point. The tracer burrowed into the dirt, burning for a couple of seconds until it died. His gunner didn’t hang around. He leapt off the back and legged it before he got the good news. The driver slumped motionless against the steering wheel.

I gave it one more burst in case any of his mates were still inside. Fuel must have been leaking from a ruptured tank. The tracer ignited it. The whole area was suddenly a riot of yellow and orange. Lucky’s infantry turned and fired back from the flickering shadows.

Instead of standing back in case they were needed, Awaale’s second technical rumbled forwards and kept right on going. The only area that didn’t get raked with fire was the ground beneath the gunner’s feet.

I kept my fire to the right, taking on any hint of enemy movement. There was shit on down there but no one cared. Both sides fired like gangsters, side on, with their AKs in the air. I stopped and let them get on with it. My nose filled with the stink of cordite. The barrel was smoking hot.

I clambered down and waved at the driver and his sidekick. ‘Let’s go, lads. Chop-chop.’ I clapped my hands. We had to move on. I had a meeting to go to.

I climbed into the cab. My two new recruits hauled themselves onto the flatbed.

We thundered down the hill. It was well past time to get the fuck out of there and get on with my day job. We closed on the killing zone. I drove past the doorway where I’d gripped Awaale. I made a left turn at the junction, slow and wide enough to make sure the gun had enough play to point where it was most needed. I thrust my hand out of the window and gesticulated wildly. ‘That way, mate. That way.’ I doubted he’d hit anything, but at least he wouldn’t be aiming at me.

We spotted his crew almost immediately. They were dragging three bodies from behind a wall. They shared the cigarettes they’d lifted from the dead men’s pockets and loaded Lucky’s weapons onto the unarmed technical.

Awaale was nowhere to be seen. I started flapping. If I lost my English speaker, I was fucked. I picked up the handset. ‘Awaale. Where are you, mate? We’re back at the junction. Where are you?’

Silence.

‘Awaale?’

Then I heard my own voice coming from the burnt-out shell of a building.

11

HE CLAMBERED OUT of what had once been a window. He was a very happy boy. ‘We killed some, Mr Nick, and the others turned and ran. No Lucky Justice, but this is still a good day. We’ll do this again. And again. Lucky’s crew will get the message. The general’s crew are back in town.’

He thrust up his bloodstained palm, inviting me to give him a high-five through the window. I fucking hated high-fives.

‘You’re right, Awaale. If Lucky’s still alive, you can see why he was given the name. Now, can we go and see my friends? I really need to know they’re safe.’

His boys were busy mutilating the bodies with knives, rocks, and then a burst of AK for good measure. The corpses were left behind; they were the message Awaale was talking about.

I slipped into the back of Awaale’s technical. Awaale wiped his hands clean on his trousers and resumed his place in front. Music blared from every cab. AK rounds stitched another message into the sky. Every mobile within reach sparked up, in case anyone hadn’t already heard the news.

As the lead wagon joined the celebration, green tracer snaked from the muzzle of its 12.7. The gunner lost control as they bounced back through the potholes and pummelled the buildings four hundred metres away.

Awaale didn’t seem to mind. ‘Mr Nick, that was good, yes? We kicked the ass, oh, yes indeed.’ He pulled the Marlboro pack from his sweat-soaked shirt and offered me one. When I shook my head he slapped the driver gleefully on the shoulder. He laughed, and his white teeth gleamed.

Everybody had had a great night out. Well, apart from the lad whose body now lay on the flatbed behind us. There was a curious innocence to their violence. There was no anger. They seemed to bear no hatred towards Lucky’s crew. Killing and maiming wasn’t an outrageous act to them. It was what they did. It was all they knew. They had no boundaries. And that was what made them so dangerous.

I leant forward. ‘You did really well, Awaale. I think your father will be very proud of you.’

‘I know. I know he will be.’

He pulled out his mobile, hit the speed dial and was soon waffling away. He sounded as excited as a child. I didn’t need to be a Somali speaker to understand the facial expressions and the boom-boom-boom. There were nods of agreement from the driver, and I twice heard my name.

Awaale turned to me with the world’s biggest grin and handed me the phone. ‘It’s my father, speak to him.’

‘What’s his name?’

He looked puzzled. ‘Awaale, of course.’

Of course.

To start with, I could just hear a female voice announcing that the Northwest flight from Chicago had been delayed. Minneapolis was eight hours behind. It must have been about midday there.

‘Hello, Mr Nick. My son tells me that you have helped him to do great deeds today. You’ve made me a very proud father.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re there to buy back your loved ones, yes?’

‘Yes. I’m hoping your son will be able to help me. Maybe you can too. One of them is the wife of a dead warrior. One of them is a small boy, a little boy. I know you’re a brave man, a famous man here in this city. Will you be able to help me?’

The Tannoy came to his rescue. The Jet Blue from LaGuardia had landed.

‘Mr Nick, I have to go. My passenger has arrived. Please tell my son I love him.’

He rang off. I passed the phone to Awaale. ‘Your father says he loves you.’

‘I know. I love him too. He’s a great man.’

It was smiles all round in the front of the cab as we drove past the Olympic Hotel. The streets came alive with movement and light. Everybody had a weapon. It was like we’d just come back from a carnival, all on a high, and we were the three winning floats.

12

WE WERE SOON passing the airport. The same guards sat on the wall and smoked under the hand-painted sign. They didn’t even look up as our convoy drove by. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil was the secret of survival round here.

Only the shells of once-great buildings remained each side of the boulevard. In this part of town, even the trees were fucked. Maybe this was what the Italian Riviera would have looked like if it had been carpet-bombed in the Second World War. This had to be the old city, where the Italians and other ex-pats had hung out on the beach in their all-in-one bathing suits in the 1920s. Now there wasn’t even a dog to be seen. It was a ghost town.

We bounced over mortar craters and potholes, slaloming to avoid big lumps of concrete picked out by our headlamps. They provided the only source of light in this part of town.

Awaale started gobbing off on his mobile again. I wasn’t sure how anyone would hear anything that was being said. The driver waffled away. The music blared. Awaale closed down and shouted, ‘Nearly there, Mr Nick.’

We bumped over what was left of the central reservation, down a side road and into a large square with an empty concrete plinth at its centre. It would once have borne a statue of a Somali puppet dictator or an Italian general with a hat full of plumes. Bodies were silhouetted against the flames of a fire beside it.

As we got closer, I saw we were inside a compound of sorts. Stacks of tyres filled the missing doors and windows of a large colonial building. There was movement inside.

There was no gate. There wasn’t even a barrier into what looked like the coach entrance for this grand building. The wagon stopped next to four or five other pickups and cars. Burnt-out vehicles littered the area.

Awaale was already out of our wagon before the technical behind us had stopped. He sounded excited. ‘Come, Mr Nick. Now it is your time. Come.’

I followed him inside. It must have been a hotel once. A lobby the size of a football pitch opened onto a pair of sweeping staircases that, like everything else around here, had seen better days. The place had been stripped of everything that wasn’t nailed down. The glass in the windows had gone. Wiring had been pulled. There wasn’t a door in sight. Everything transportable had probably been sold as scrap or used to build the shacks we’d spent the afternoon beside. I was getting used to the smell: decomposing rubbish and burning rubber were once more the order of the day.

The staff and customers had been replaced by legions of young guys off their tits, eyes glazed behind their Elton Johns. Their smiles were gold-toothed and
khat
-stained, and that worried me all over again. I knew they couldn’t be controlled; I’d now seen it up close and personal. This was
Mad Max
country. I was in the Thunderdome.

Awaale led me into a ballroom. The whole environment changed. I could hear the hum of a generator somewhere. Arc lamps had been hammered onto the walls. The room wasn’t completely bathed in light but there was enough. Four young guys in Western dress were hunched over ancient PCs. One of them was keeping up to speed with Facebook. Another was admiring a picture in an online brochure of a happy couple at the big wheel of their even bigger yacht. This was Mog’s answer to GCHQ.

I followed Awaale to where two minging old brown settees sat either side of a US Army aluminium Lacon box the size of a coffee-table. The green paint was worn away and the metalwork looked like it had been dropped out of a helicopter.

‘Sit here.’ He pointed to one of the settees. ‘Not long now.’

Dust rose and caught in my throat as I followed his instruction. I shoved my day sack on my lap.

Awaale moved away. He gobbed off to one of the PC geeks and then checked everyone’s screen.

A minute or two later an old wooden tray arrived and was deposited without ceremony on the Lacon box. A pewter pot and two empty glasses took pride of place. Another glass contained sugar and a plastic spoon. I caught the aroma of mint as a man in his mid-sixties – seriously old for this place – sat opposite me. Awaale came and stood between us.

‘Mr Nick, this is Erasto. He will help get your loved ones released.’

Erasto wore a cotton skirt with a black and white check shawl around his shoulders. His feet, which stuck out of a pair of old flip-flops, looked like they were covered with elephant skin. An Omega stainless-steel Seamaster glinted on his left wrist. It was one of the watches I’d looked at when I bought my Breitling in Moscow. It had been way out of my price range.

Awaale handed him the envelope containing Joe’s airport tax. Erasto shoved it under his leg without taking his eyes off me. I felt like I was under a microscope.

Awaale poured the tea, just like Nadif had done in Bristol.

13

ERASTO CONTINUED TO stare at me. ‘
Parla Italiano?
’

The sandpaper voice sent me into a time warp. ‘No.’

He looked as disappointed as he probably had when we’d talked on Saturday morning. He turned to Awaale and waffled away in Somali. Awaale passed him a glass of hot water that smelt strongly of mint and nodded so much I thought his head might fall off.

‘Erasto wants to know who killed Nadif.’

The old man’s deep-set eyes bored once more into mine.

‘I don’t know.’

Now wasn’t the time to complicate things. I was talking to someone who might have the three bodies I was here to collect. That was all that mattered to me.

Awaale translated.

Erasto sat for a while, deep in thought. Then he fired off another question.

‘When will Erasto have his three million dollars?’ Awaale handed me a glass.