Afraid of the Dark - James Grippando [79]
“There,” said Abukar, pointing.
The market was mostly shanty shacks made of old wood, rusty corrugated steel, and any piece of cloth that was large enough to provide shade. With temperatures exceeding 110 degrees, the stench of raw sewage and garbage rose up from the streets. At the whim of the breeze, Habib caught whiffs of the business being conducted at the various kiosks. He could smell live animals—camels, chickens, and goats—and the putrid piles of guts and puddles of blood that baked in the sun after the animals were slaughtered on-site. He detected sour goat and camel’s milk in unrefrigerated steel drums, which stank like a rotting corpse. There were rancid meats, many of them unidentifiable. Habib did not smell it today, but he’d been told of kiosks where human corpses—villagers dead from disease or starvation—were butchered and sold as animal feed for the dogs and hyenas that the poorest of the poor kept as pets, watchdogs, or a future meal.
And there were the arms traders. An RPG-2 grenade launcher would set the buyer back about five hundred American dollars. Ammunition for your AK-47: just seventy-five cents. Around these booths, it didn’t take a trained nose to breathe in the smell of gunpowder.
“The man by the orange tent?” asked Habib, his gaze trained on the kiosk to which Abukar had pointed.
“Yes. That one. He sold to the alliance.”
Abukar meant the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), a group of secular warlords that was funded in part by the CIA. Militia loyal to the Islamic Court Union had driven the alliance out of the capital in what had come to be known as the Second Battle of Mogadishu, though to most Somalis it was all just one continuous battle with no beginning or end. In a single month Habib had been all the way down the coast to Marka, yanking out teeth because gold and silver fillings were sinful. Next it was Awdheegle, to punish women who did not wear the veil, with a stop along the way to carry out the sentence—public whipping—for two boys caught playing soccer. Then it was on to Afgoye, to destroy American textbooks in schools; to Baidoa, to defile the graves of infidels and loot the UN offices; and to Balcad, where Islamist clerics belonging to the Ahlu Sunna Wal-Jama faction were beheaded. More blood was spilled in northern Mogidishu’s Maslah Market: firing squads for spies and public amputation of hands for anyone caught stealing—common punishment for common thieves. Next week his team would take over six UN vehicles for use in suicide bombings against the African Union’s main base.
Important work, to be sure. But Habib’s calling was the high-tech stuff. He got started by simply monitoring reports about al-Shabaab on the Web—“100 Britons a year coming to Somalia Training Camps,” or “American from Seattle Kills 21 Peacekeepers in Suicide Bombing”—and reporting back to his superiors. His goal was to work with the production team on the latest propaganda video in progress, At your Service, Osama, in which al-Shabaab would formally and publicly pledge its allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
Habib checked his watch, then glanced at Abukar.
“One minute,” said Habib.
Timing was critical. They were implementing one of two separate but simultaneous suicide attacks in the city. It was Habib who had delivered the stock of explosives for use in the Bakara Market bombing: forty kilograms of fertilizer, the same amount of ammonium nitrate that last week had delivered up a thirty-year-old husband and father of four to martyrdom. Habib was dependable in all he did for al-Shabaab, and his reward was to witness firsthand the fruits of his labor.
“Ah,” said Abukar as he peered through his binoculars into the busy market. “She is right on time.”
“She?” asked Habib. He didn’t know the bomber’s identity; very few did.
“They will not suspect a woman.”
“She must be very brave.”
“You should be proud.