Dead Centre - Andy McNab [70]
Joe was well into war-story mode. ‘Last year I picked up some Canadian woman. She couldn’t even drink water, man. She was broken. Her hands never stopped shaking. They fucked her up big-time.’ He grimaced. ‘Fucking flip-flops, man. They’re animals. If they don’t have anyone else to fight, they fight each other. They just love to fight. It’s the clan system. They’re fucking mad.’
He eased the stick forward a bit and we were buffeted about as the white sand below us got closer. The ocean was gleaming teal. Breakers formed white crests parallel to the shore.
‘Do you know the flip-flops? Do you know the clans, man?’
‘I know a bit.’
‘They got this saying, man.’ His right hand went up into the space between his head and the screen so his fingers could make quote marks. ‘My full brother and me against my father. My father’s household against my uncle’s household …’ He turned to me and shook his head. ‘Our two households against the rest of my kin. My kin against my clan. My clan against other clans. And my nation against the world.’
He laughed to himself. ‘It’s like the fucking Sopranos, but with these fucking things.’ He tapped the mag of the AK. ‘Go on – two hundred and seventy-five bucks, man.’
‘I wouldn’t even know how to use it.’
He looked ahead. We descended more. He laughed. His left hand waved me off. The crevasses around his cheeks dis appeared behind the sun-gigs. ‘Fuck off, man. I’ve seen enough of you guys coming in and out of Nairobi. Don’t give me that shit.’
Joe had picked me up in Nairobi. We’d headed east back to Malindi, refuelled, then chucked a left at the coast and headed up towards Mogadishu. He didn’t know who I was going in to meet; who I was going in to pick up. And he didn’t want to know. That was fine by me.
I reached for the stainless-steel Thermos and unscrewed the top. The coffee was instant, condensed-milky and sweet. I poured a cup and offered it to Joe. He shook his head. He was talking to somebody on the radio and concentrating on the approach.
I rested the cup on my chest while the Cessna shuddered. I closed my eyes, trying to get a little rest. It had been a busy couple of days and the next few were probably going to be worse. I took a sip of coffee as soon as things calmed down again.
It was the second day of Allied air ops over Libya. I’d called Anna from Nairobi to let her know what was going on, and to check she was all right. Everywhere had been bombarded. Syria had been sparking up. I was expecting her to say she wanted to stay on even longer and take in Damascus.
2
THE AIRCRAFT TOOK another pounding from the wind and Joe sparked up in my headphones. ‘It’s like a fucking cesspit, man. Look at it.’
I opened my eyes. To the left was desert. To the right was ocean, gleaming in the sunlight. It could have come from a faraway holiday brochure. Unfortunately, stuck between the water and the sand, there were the ruins of Mogadishu. The city looked like a massive black scorch mark. A haze of smog hovered above it.
The airport was at the southern end of the city. The runway was parallel to the sea and almost in it. As we came down through the heat haze I could see that the buildings were all low level, with roofs of Mediterranean tile and rusted tin. Only the mosques seemed taller. Mogadishu, Joe said: the world capital of things-gone-to-rat-shit.
Joe punched a few buttons and flicked a few switches in response to the waffle from the tower. Not that he seemed to be listening. ‘Over a million fucking people, man, and every one of them kicking the shit out of each other. Did you know the Brits and Italians ran this place? It was supposed to be beautiful, man. Guys in Malindi remember when it was paradise.’
The area beyond the runway couldn’t have been called heavenly. The crumbling grey remains of a concrete