Elmore Leonard - Djibouti

"Follow him," Dara said. "He makes the phone call, bring him back."

"Harry's thinking of something like that. But who brings Qasim back? Harry doesn't trust the Somalis."

Dara said, "Is he here?"

Idris motioned them up the few steps to the second floor saying, "He went out for a stroll, Harry says so he can think with a clear head, without all these Somalis about."

"Do you trust him?" Dara said.

"Of course not. But what can he do? He has to get Jama's name before he can go to the embassy and work his scheme."

Dara said, "And you want me to talk him out of it."

She glanced down the hall, the light dim, but recognized Jama coming along handcuffed, a Somali, apparently unarmed, close behind him. The Somali unlocked the first door they came to-three on each side of the hallway-pushed Jama inside and stepped in the room with him.

"You see him?" Idris said. "That was Jama."

"I've talked to him before," Dara said. "Why don't I look in and say hi?"

Idris said, "You want to go in their room?"

"With Xavier," Dara said. THE SOMALI'S NAME WAS Datuk Hossa.

Jama sat in a chair made of stout wood with arms and a padded seat of cracked leather. He let Datuk cuff his right hand to the edge of the springs beneath the pad. He said, "Datuk, I am in your debt."

The Somali looked in his face for a moment before turning to Qasim on the cot, his shoulders sagging, his feet on the floor, his right hand cuffed to springs beneath the thin mattress. The Somali was at the door now, leaving. He looked back as Jama said, "Allah will bless you."

Jama watched him go out and waited until he heard the key turn in the lock.

"He'll do it for six hundred dollars."

"Out of fear," Qasim said.

"Scared to death of al Qaeda," Jama said. "I told him it's good to look scared. I'm holding a piece at your head as we walk out."

"How do you have a gun?"

"Datuk has a semiautomatic holds eight loads. I told him that would be lovely, part of the show. Else why would they let us out? The other boys act suspicious, I told him give 'em each a C-note, you still get six hundred. They're in it with you then, you and your associates."

Qasim said, "But we don't have money to give them. He wants to see it, doesn't he?"

"I told him it's hidden. If I show it too soon, I'm afraid one of the others might grab it and cut him out. Or you get in a fight over it and somebody gets shot. I said Allah told me not to show the money until we're free."

Qasim said, "You trust Datuk?"

Jama said, "He's the one can open doors."

In the same moment he straightened and looked toward the door, the sound of a key turning in the lock. THEY CAME IN THE room, Xavier's gaze holding on Jama, Dara asking the terrorists how they were doing. She said to Jama, "I hear your price has been raised to twenty-five million. Did you know that?"

Xavier watched him with his beard and long hair, no kinks in it, sitting there like he was making up his mind.

He said to Dara, "You think I'm worth it?"

Dara said, "Ari the Sheikh does."

Xavier said, "I can't see this street kid goin for as much as the higher-ups. Somebody's made a name for himself like Ayman al Zawahiri."

"You're right," Dara said. "Mullah Omar's big, but he's only worth ten million. And I believe Baitullah Mehsud."

"Baitullah's gone to heaven," Xavier said, "taken out by Hellfire missile in Pakistan. Had CIA's name on it."

"What about the guy," Dara said, "who planned the suicide run on the USS Cole? I can't think of his name."

"If I may," Jama said, "Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al Quso, but he's worth only five mil."

"Thank you," Dara said and looked at Xavier. "I guess bin Laden and Zawahiri are the only ones going for twenty-five."

"Unless this boy qualifies," Xavier said.

Dara thought about it. "What's he done?"

Xavier shook his head. "Nothin I know of."

"Harry's a sly one," Dara said. "He must have a scheme to up this guy's price. Get as much as he can and move to London."

Jama said, "That's where he's going? You're right, I detect a love of Blighty in the man's speech. What about the other one, Idris? Where's he going with his dough?"

"He's leaning toward Paris," Dara said.

Jama, nodding his head, said, "They happen to be gone when I leave here, I'll know where to find them." A FEW MINUTES LATER in the hall Dara said, "He was telling us he plans to escape. Confident about it. Isn't that what he was saying?"

"I thought you'd ask how he thinks he's gonna do it," Xavier said. "All you told him was 'Yeah, right.'"

"He'll never find those guys," Dara said.

"Yeah, but he's thinkin about it."

ONCE THE WOMAN AND her servant were out of the room Qasim said, "You tell them you're going to escape?"

"Both of us," Jama said. "What can she and her nigga do about it, tell Idris? He knows it's all we think about. It's what we do we're locked up. You been in the slam. You forget what it's like? How bad you want to get out?"

"I can't think of doing life," Qasim said.

"We get out you can do what you want. You tired of this shit, make a run with a suicide bomb."

What Jama was tired of was Qasim.

"Coming here from Eyl," Qasim said, "I was thinking of a way to kill myself so I don't go to prison. Idris Mohammed would speak to me, I don't say a word to him. The other one, the sheikh they call Harry, he's with me in the car at night. He says he will allow me to escape if I tell him your Christian name. I ask him how I would escape. He says we think of a way and he watches me walk off."

Jama said, "You told him my name?"

"I thought at first you and I are going to prison for life. What difference is it they know you are Jimmy Russell?"

"Russell," Jama said, looking down at Qasim on the cot. "You remember it all these years? I said my name only once that time, seven years ago, and never said it again I'm over here."

Jama paused to think for a moment and grinned. "I did mention it to a chick at the Cafe Las Vegas, right here in Djibouti, but she don't speak any English. I give her euros and cigarettes for the best two days of fucking I ever had in my life. A Ethiopian chick name Celeste Tamene. Twenty years old, man, she was a panther. So I commit her name to my memory."

"I like an Ethiopian girl," Qasim said, "now and then."

"All those years you remember Jimmy Russell, uh? Only I was never Jimmy, I was James. Which name did you tell him?"

"Listen to me," Qasim said, worming his body around on the cot to look up at Jama in the stout chair. "I did not tell Harry your name. As Allah hears me, I will take it to my grave."

"I believe it," Jama said. "You have never said my name to anyone, James or Jimmy. Is that right?"

"You tell me your secrets," Qasim said, "I keep them here, in my head."

"What secrets you talking about?"

"Things you have told me of your life, your time in prison. Things we do when we are together and can be ourselves."

Jama said, "You never talk about any of that, do you?"

"Of course not, it's a private part of us."

A private part of all these guys who don't treat their women like women, but hide them.

Jama thinking again of the girl at the Las Vegas:

How she liked to fool around with him while she was dancing. Get behind one of the cement pillars on the dance floor and come out shaking her ass at him. Come over close to him and wink and flutter her tongue. Man. He'd get a good whiff of her perfume and want to jump her. It was a while ago, but he remembered her name, 'cause in the Toyota coming here, Idris Mohammed talking-Idris telling him things he'd never have again in prison for life-Idris said her name and he remembered it, Celeste, and his time with her, while Idris was telling him about this girl he saw every month.