Dead Centre - Andy McNab [75]
Awaale was still gobbing off into his mobile. He was happier now. I could see the old smile on his lips in the rear-view mirror. Before long he placed a Marlboro from the pack in his shirt pocket between them and lit up. The wagon bumped up and down, almost in time with what sounded to me like the same never-ending song on the radio.
Cars and pickups suddenly crammed the streets. Rusty trucks leaking diesel and minging old French saloons from the 1970s rubbed shoulders with brand new Mercs. Famine or feast: this was more like the Africa I knew. Kids darted down alleyways, their runny noses clogged with dust. Meat hung from street stalls, swarming with flies. Bored-looking men and women squatted beside piles of bruised fruit at the roadside. One guy under a beach parasol sold nothing but batteries.
The buildings were in better condition here, and slightly more substantial: two, three and four floors, with air-conditioners humming on the outside walls. Water streamed from the units, staining the already badly stained white paintwork. It wasn’t the only clue that this part of town was where the money hung out. The ads here weren’t faded and the latest BlackBerrys and iPads were on display in the shop windows.
Metres from the brand new Mercs in the traffic, guys sat in old armchairs with weapons across their knees. They were probably guarding the hawala brokers. Most people here depended on money from relatives overseas to survive. A million Somalis had fled the country. Between them, they sent home about two billion dollars a year to the poor fuckers they’d left behind. I wondered whether Ali in Barratt Street had a slice of this action.
The lads in the armchairs weren’t short of competition. Every man in sight was toting some form of eastern-bloc AK or light machine-gun. The really flash boys carried RPGs in their ancient canvas day sacks.
5
STOPPING AND STARTING every ten seconds, we ground our way through the chaos. The driver of the technical in front eventually got bored and his gunner, who had the best sun-gigs of all – massive blue mirrored stars with white frames – raised the weapon and loosed off two long forty-five-degree bursts. The moment people realized they weren’t under attack they just got on with their lives again, but the birds didn’t come back in a hurry.
We bounced from pothole to pothole. My head shunted left and right. Awaale closed down his phone and slid it under his Marlboros. His eyes scanned left and right as we picked up speed.
‘Where are you from, Mr Nick?’
‘London. What about you? Where did you learn such good English?’
‘With my father.’ He pointed beyond the huge snake of illegal wiring that hung from pole to pole across the street, towards a five-storey building with shuttered windows. The wall facing us had a large painting of a TV, and next to it the words VIP Institute.
‘Look, Mr Nick. Do you know what that building is?’
‘I guess it must be where we’re going to meet Tracy and the other two.’
He tilted his head towards the driver and told him of my stupidity. He had to shout over the music. They both had another chuckle.
‘No, Mr Nick. That’s the Olympic Hotel. Black Hawk Down – have you seen the movie? My father – he’s famous.’
‘I haven’t, but I know the story.’
We came level with the building. A leaking pipe had filled the ruts in the road with water. Dogs lapped at it like they hadn’t drunk for days.
‘This is where the attack started. The Americans came to capture General Aidid, but it was a trap. The general was a great man.’
The driver had started scanning left and right as well. The lads on the back were edgy. Everyone was on his toes.
‘You know about General Aidid and the trap?’
I nodded. General Mohammed Farrah Aidid hadn’t actually been a general but the clan warlord who’d controlled the city back in 1992. Operation Restore Hope hadn’t been designed as America’s biggest gangfuck since their failed attempt to rescue hostages from their Tehran embassy in 1980. It was intended to relieve the