Predator Paradise

“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!”