Born of War Page 11

  Omar put his rifle over his shoulder and checked for his two hand grenades in each of his pockets, as if that provided additional security. He walked out of the compound and headed up the street towards the tall house.

  After some walking he arrived at the mansion. He entered and, climbing what was left of the staircase, Omar reached the top floor, went out on the roof, and tried his call again. The phone rang and he heard her voice.

  The conversation did not go well.

  “Hello, my wife!”

  He encouraged her to come to Somalia and support the fight. Her refusal to come was a disrespect, and violated Sharia law; however, it was still good to hear a voice he recognized.

  “I have been through some training and am ready for battle.”

  He tried to persuade her by telling her of her grandmother in Mogadishu.

  “The people are so friendly. They truly care about you.”

  He told her of the monkeys and the beauty of Jilib. He told her of how green and tropical southern Somalia was and the bravery of his fellow jihadists. It was to no avail.

  She told him that she was returning to Canada.

  “My child needs to be born in Toronto.” She told him that she wanted a divorce.

  Omar was alone on the roof. He finally gave up. If Allah meant that he would never see his child, so be it. He wanted to call Mobile but decided that it could only cause more trouble. There could be no doubt that his parents’ telephone was on the closely monitored list. He didn’t care about what they heard from him, other than possibly the tracking of the signal to Jilib, but it did matter that the FBI would bother his mother.

  Omar did miss his mother. He thought of her and began to cry. He would have a child that she would never see. And it was likely that he would never see her again as well.

  Finally, as he wiped his face with his sleeve, he started to head towards the stairway down from the roof.

  “Allah has sent me on this journey. I must continue and be strong.”

  Omar looked out over the houses, trying to get his bearings. He saw the river and the street that paralleled the river. He followed the line of houses and saw what he thought was where the commander’s house was.

  Then it caught his eye.

  A block away from the commander’s house there was another, larger building with openings on the sides like an airplane hangar. It had light brown tarps, similar in color to the surrounding buildings, that hung across the opening. It could only be seen from the vantage point of the roof of the abandoned building, and only by someone searching, like Omar was. It took an intentional look on Omar’s part to notice the hangar-shaped building at all.

  “Odd.” He spoke the word as he stepped towards the edge of the roof.

  The sun was starting to set so Omar stopped looking at the odd building and concentrated more on his feet, as bombing had damaged the stairs and he had to move more like a goat than a human. He was out of breath when he reached the bottom.

  Omar stopped at the side road that led to the odd building. From the alleyway it was impossible to tell more about the structure.

  “I wonder,” he said to himself as he decided to take a side trip. The building could not have been more than a block from where he was staying. Plus, he was an armed warrior. Omar turned up the alley and walked less than a few yards.

  “Who are you?”

  Two guards came out of a side street. Both put their rifles directly in his face.

  One of the guards pulled back the slide and chambered a round.

  “I am Omar. I am with the commander.”

  The two guards looked far different from the other soldiers he had served with. One of them swung the butt of his rifle, connecting with the side of Omar’s head. The blow knocked Omar to the ground. He started to get up but the other guard slammed his rifle into the center of his back. He tried to suck in air as the red dust clung to his face. He could feel the rifle barrel jammed into the back of his head.

  “I am Omar. I am the Amriiki.”

  It was a dangerous thing to have said.

  His face was buried in the dirt for what seemed an eternity. Finally, he saw the boots of a soldier. He had only known the commander as one who wore boots.

  “You are very lucky.”

  He pulled Omar up from the dirt, forcing him to his knees.

  “You should not wander off. There are lions in our country. They are known to even walk in the streets of Jilib.” Omar knew the commander was telling the truth. He had already heard the stories of men who had gone into the bush at night to use the latrine and had never returned. There were children from Jilib who disappeared on cloudy nights.

  “Why did you go down that alley?”

  “I got lost. I was using the old house on the river to make the call.” He pointed to the shell of the mansion near the river. Omar’s life was saved by the lie. He was important, but the other building held something far more important to Faud.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The old man struggled in his run back to his village of Ferfer. His legs were rubbery and he stopped often to catch his breath. He was running away from where the sun sat in the sky, and trying to get word back before dark. As he approached the village, two women with their children looked up and stared at him crossing the rutted road that led up past the riverbed. They were carrying large plastic jugs balanced on top of their heads as they walked back from the river with water.

  “Oh, ya!” He mumbled the words. “Oh, ya!”

  The women stopped and soon the villagers started to gather around as he caught his breath while leaning against a wall. He started up again and moved towards the MSF encampment. The guard that had watch over the station saw him run up the hill alone and knew that there had been trouble.

  The old man told of the capture of the two young doctors and Mataa. He jumbled his words.

  “They let me go. They shot at me as I was running.”

  The old man’s life was spared by bad aim.

  “We must go to the army station.” The guard pointed to the other side of Ferfer. Just beyond the center of the town, the Ethiopian Army had a small outpost of soldiers. “We will get word out.”

  The director at MSF called the World Health Organization’s operation center. They had the difficult job of relaying the news on to Atlanta.

  “Dr. Stewart?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have a serious problem.”

  The call had awakened Paul Stewart in his home in Buckhead, a suburb of Atlanta. Once his daughter had told him of the decision to go to Africa, Stewart had moved the telephone from the kitchen to the night table next to his bed.

  “Is it the Neisseria meningitidis?” It was the first time in his life that he hoped a deadly disease was the reason for the call.

  “What?” It seemed that the WHO had not gotten word of the illness of the child near Ferfer. “We have a report of a meningitis outbreak in Yemen. Is that what you are talking about?”

  “No.” He paused. “Why were you calling?”

  “Two doctors from an MSF team were captured today by some soldiers near Ferfer, on the border of Somalia. We understand that one of them may be your daughter.”

  “Yes.” He felt a wave of fear and nausea. It was a call he had thought of as his worst nightmare. He couldn’t get any other words out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Do we trust him?”

  Abo Musa Mombasa had asked the important question. He was in charge of internal security. Faud, however, outranked Musa.

  “Godane doesn’t.” Faud looked into space. “But Godane doesn’t always understand how we get our money.”

  Faud had called together a meeting of several of the leaders of Al Shabaab.

  “Godane doesn’t trust any of us, does he?” It was a dangerous comment that could only come from one of the few people who maintained the link between Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda.

  Al Shabaab had kept control over southern and central Somalia, but at a p
rice. Most of Faud’s friends from the earlier wars were now martyrs.

  A meeting of the leadership was rare, since their gathering together increased the risk of a Predator strike. No cell phones were used to set it up. Spies were known to be everywhere.

  “He has been the reason why we have already gotten substantial money from both Egypt and Saudi Arabia.” Muhammad Al Faud studied the faces of each of the men in the room. “You know what that money has meant. We have received the gift from our brothers in Iran that can change everything. Our boats can be more courageous in reaching out to the ships that pass our land. And with the capture of more freighters, it will mean even more money.”

  “Yes, brother.” Musa did not say the “but” that was in his head

  “We need to get him into combat quickly.” Musa came up with the idea. “If he braves a helicopter attack or some machine gun fire, we will know what he is made of.”

  “But if he is killed, we lose someone who has shaken the West seriously.”

  Faud pondered the thought. “And other wars are pulling away our Western brothers from us.”

  Faud was playing a chess game in his mind. Omar was like an RPG. It had great value until it was shot. Likewise, word that Omar had complained about the lack of food and ammunition was heard, and remembered.

  “It is settled. He will join the fight in Garbaharey.” Faud had fought in the battle of Gedo in the west, near the Kenyan and Ethiopian borders. It was a damaged city where the only thing constant was killing.

  Omar was excited, like a child at Christmas, with the news that he was going to war.

  “I will fight like no other!” he said to Faud. “You will see.”

  The truck left immediately. He had more room than before; however, as the truck moved out of town and towards the northwest, it soon picked up some other soldiers heading towards the front. These fighters all had the same green uniforms with sandals, but now he was seeing the men outfitted with brown vests that carried magazines of ammunition.

  “A vest?”

  “I have an extra one.” The driver was a happy sort who shared everything. He tossed a brown vest to Omar.

  He looked at it. Two of the pockets had magazines in them. The rifle clips were empty. The fourth pocket was torn. It had a dark brown tint to the canvas.

  He felt the cloth. It was stiff. And then he pulled his hand back.

  “Blood!”

  The war was coming closer by the minute.

  At a crossroad just north of Jilib the pickup truck stopped at another sentry post. Like the others, it was basically a stack of blocks behind the burned-out shell of a car. He could see the tops of the heads wrapped in the black headbands that were the uniform of his fellow troops, along with the guns they carried. In the beginning, the guns were unnerving. Now, however, he had become used to them; it was like passing dangerous animals in the zoo.

  Just behind the guards he could see another group of soldiers with the same black headbands. One was taller than the rest.

  “Hello!”

  Omar heard the familiar voice of his friend from Minneapolis and Toronto.

  “Brother.”

  The guards stared at the two white men hugging each other.

  “Come, sit next to me.” Omar had his plastic bag stuffed in the corner, and the two huddled together while others jammed into the truck bed. “We will ride together to war!”

  “We have ammunition!” the driver yelled out to everyone as he came back to the truck from the guard post.

  Omar watched as one of the soldiers put two large green cans into the bed of the truck.

  “And this!” The driver held up a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

  “Let me see it.” Omar felt the weight of the weapon as he lifted it up in the air. The nose was top heavy with the weight of the grenade. “How does it work?”

  “Easy. Aim and squeeze.” The driver pointed to the trigger.

  Omar waved the weapon around, acting as if he was shooting at an imaginary target.

  “Have you been to the front?” the driver asked as he lifted the nose of the RPG so Omar wouldn’t be aiming it at the others.

  “No.”

  “If you hear a helicopter you must run into the bush.”

  It would not be the last time that Omar would hear of the helicopters used by the Kenyans and Ethiopians in war.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I must survive.

  The stubbornness she had inherited from her father gave Karen a chance.

  The captors held their guns to their chests yelling as if they were more frightened than the prisoners. There were four of them with the little white pickup truck. It had one tire that was the wrong size, causing the truck to be on a slant. One of the guards pointed for them to sit down. She tried to not make eye contact and pulled her scarf further over her head and face. Her knees hurt as she held her hands above her head.

  “Stay easy,” Peter whispered to her.

  The guard heard him say something and went over and struck him with the butt of the rifle. Peter rubbed the blood from his cheek but continued to look down.

  It soon became clear who the leader was. He seemed to be barely in his twenties, skinny, with bony knees that stood out with his ragged, torn shorts. He would yell at the others and move his hands in a frantic shake.

  Finally, they pushed the old man aside and told him to go. It seemed a decision of necessity. She would learn later that the little food they had meant that an extra person was a burden that could not be fed. The burden needed to be dismissed if it was little threat and shot if it was more. Because of a small silver cross Mataa wore on a necklace, the guards realized he was a Christian. One of the guards pulled out a machete and was ready to use it when they squabbled for some time and he put it down.

  Karen watched the old man trying to move as fast as he could despite his age and tired legs. As he reached the top of the hill, the youngest one fired his AK-47 with what seemed to be a well-aimed shot. Without meaning to, she screamed, causing the others to turn towards her. She could see the bullet kick up some dirt near the rock by the old man. He never looked back. He only ran faster and then finally disappeared. Her scream had saved him from a second shot.

  As the old man disappeared over the horizon she thought about how much she wanted to run and catch up to him.

  If both Peter and I ran in two different directions one of us would have a chance.

  But she hesitated and Mataa shook like a leaf.

  The young one ran over to her yelling, shaking his fist, and then raised his rifle up ready to strike. But the leader intervened, putting his arm between the young one and Karen. She barely spoke the language but got the sense that the leader was more concerned for his newfound goods than feeling any sympathy for the captives.

  A third man, with a pockmarked face, drove the truck and turned it around while the three prisoners knelt by the rutted road. Both she and Peter remained still.

  The driver yelled as the smaller wheel got stuck in a rut, and the two guards came over and pushed. The leader kept watch over the captives. The truck rocked back and forth and then jerked out of the furrow. It turned towards the village of the dead.

  “They are dead. A disease.” She struggled to speak. It was hard to both breathe and say anything.

  “You say nothing.” The leader spoke English. He turned to the young one, who pulled a length of cord from the cab of the truck. He tied the hands of Karen and Peter, on separate ropes, to the back tailgate. Mataa’s hands he wrapped tightly with the cord, but left him free from the tailgate. It was as if they cared little whether Mataa made the journey. In fact, it seemed that they hoped Mataa would run and be shot. They then sat on the back end as the truck started to move towards the east. It meant that they would all pass through the village of the dead.

  “See, lady.” The leader pointed to the huts. The village was silent. “They won’t follow.”

  He was right.

  The old man would bring
news of the capture of the two Western doctors. He would also tell Ferfer of the village of death. The Ethiopians would hesitate to follow the trail.

  They continued on well past midnight, heading south and then east. She overheard them talking. They were determined to avoid the larger town of Beledweyne. They were set on keeping on the move; their bounty, like two sacks of gold, in tow.

  Finally, sometime after midnight, they stopped at a grove of trees near the Shebelle River. She could see that the road went straight into the water, as if it had been used in the dry months without restriction. Now, the crossing took more of a plan.

  Karen could tell, after listening to the conversations between the men, that the leader was called Xasan. He had yellowed fingernails, which were broken, and dirt was jammed underneath.

  “We are thirsty,” Peter bravely spoke up.

  “There is a river.” Xasan pointed to the water. It ran red like all of the mud puddles they had passed.

  The guards let them go down to the water’s edge.

  “Don’t drink,” Peter whispered. “Don’t drink.” He repeated the whisper.

  She cupped the cool water and poured it over face.

  “God, I want to drink.” Her self-control gave her the only chance to survive.

  As they stood on the river’s edge, Xasan suddenly stopped. He pointed to the shore just a few yards from Karen. He silently waved his arm for her to move towards him. The moon’s light glimmered on the surface with one beacon of light extending in a straight line like a flashlight. She saw something move across the river’s surface.

  “Mamba.” Xasan pointed to the snake as it moved back into the reeds next to the water’s edge.

  Oh, God. She tried to control her breathing again. The land was as terrifying as these people. Hunger and thirst and death.