Alex Berenson - The Night Ranger

Still, the taxi line belied the city’s fierce reputation. Cabs queued neatly at the curb. Wells slid into the front seat of the first. The driver was a skinny man who wore fingerless leather racing gloves, as if he were driving a Ferrari and not a gray four-cylinder Toyota.

“Where may I take you?” Because of the British occupation, Kenya’s public schools taught English. Nearly everyone in the country spoke some. A break for Wells.

“Anywhere I can buy a local cell.” Wells didn’t think the agency had a problem with him being here. But if Duto or someone else at Langley decided otherwise, Wells wanted the option of disappearing. Prepaid local phones were tougher for NSA to track than American numbers. Though not impossible, as more than one al-Qaeda operative had realized too late.

“A cell?”

Wells had forgotten. Only Americans called them cells. “A mobile phone. Then downtown.”

“To your hotel?”

“The Intercontinental,” Wells said, picking a name at random. “Let’s go.”

“Very good. Be sure to look to your left in a minute, sir. The giraffes are visiting.”

So even before the Toyota left the airport grounds, Wells saw his first African wildlife, a herd of giraffes munching contentedly on the open plains to the west. If he hadn’t known better, he would have wondered if they were animatronic props for tourists: Welcome to Kenya. Have you booked your safari?

“How can they live so close to the city?”

“We have a national park that extends almost to the airport.”

As Wells watched, one of the giraffes loped away. Its first steps were uncertain, but stride by stride it gained speed until it galloped over the plain. The others followed. Wells wondered if the animals had sensed a threat or were taking flight preemptively.

Fifteen minutes later, Wells was the proud owner of two new handsets. Basic models with inch-square screens and twelve-button keypads. Nothing fancy, nothing with a GPS locator for the boys at Fort Meade to trace. Plus four different SIM cards, two each from Safaricom and Airtel, the main Kenyan carriers. The driver glanced at Wells as he clicked cards into handsets. “You collect phones?”

“What’s your name?” Wells liked the guy. The gloves hadn’t lied. He drove with an edge.

“Martin.”

“How much to hire you for the day, Martin?”

“Ten thousand shillings, sir. Plus petrol.” About $120, in a country where most people lived on a few dollars a day. Martin sounded like he couldn’t believe he was asking for it.

“Okay, ten thousand, good. Long as you drive fast. Get me where I’m going.”

“I can do that, sir. Thank you.”

“And call me John.”

“Of course—”

But Wells was already making his first call. Before he went anywhere, he needed a fixer.

“ New York Times ,” a woman said. “Nairobi bureau.”

“Jeffrey Gettleman, please.” Gettleman was the bureau chief. Wells had never met him, but he’d seen the byline for years.

“Who’s this?”

“I have information about the aid workers, the kidnappings.”

“He’s not in. I can have him call you.”

“Trust me, he’ll want it now. If you can give me his mobile.”

A pause, then the numbers. Wells dialed.

“This is Jeffrey.”

“Mr. Gettleman. You don’t know me, but my name’s John Wells.” Wells had thought about using a fake name but decided not to start with a lie. He might need Gettleman later. “I just landed in Nairobi and I’m reaching out because I’ve been hired to investigate the kidnapping.”

“Hired by whom?”

“I have a favor to ask.”

“That was quick.”

“A small one. I need a fixer.”

“You called me for a recommendation, Mr. Wells? Like I’m Zagat’s?”

“Good enough for The New York Times , good enough for me. You help me, I promise I won’t forget.”

“Tell me who hired you, I’ll hook you up with the best guy in town. He’s connected everywhere. Smart. He can give you all the background you need on the camps. And the political situation, which is complicated.”

“Nothing free with you guys. Always trading.”

“You called me.”

Wells couldn’t argue the point. “You can’t use this, not yet, but Gwen Murphy’s family brought me in.”

“From the U.S.?”

“Yes.”

“Have they gotten a ransom demand?”

“No. The fixer, please.”

“His name’s Wilfred Wumbugu. I’ll text you his number. Will I see you at the press conference tonight?”

“Anything’s possible.” Wells hung up, thinking, Press conference?

—

But first the permits. He called Wilfred, explained what he needed.

“It’s not possible. Since the kidnapping, there’s no access. Essential aid workers with existing permits only. No exceptions.”

“I’ll pay. Whatever it costs.”

“We talk in person. At Simmers. Thirty minutes.”

“Simmers.”

“Your driver will know.”

They were closing—slowly—on downtown Nairobi. To the northwest, office towers marked the central business district. Kenya remained desperately poor, but after decades of stagnation, its economy was reviving. New apartment buildings and office parks rose along the highway. Billboards advertised low-fare airlines connecting Nairobi with the rest of East Africa. And the traffic was horrendous, as the new middle class jammed dilapidated roads. Despite his frustration, Wells almost had to smile. Back in Montana, Evan probably imagined him with pistol in hand, cracking skulls. Instead he was stuck in traffic on his way to get a permit. The thrilling life of the secret operative.

Though Wells didn’t doubt the skull-cracking would come.

—

Simmers was a restaurant and dance hall under a big tent in the midst of the office towers, smoky, almost shabby, with plastic chairs and tables and a barbecue grill. A cantina, really. Wells liked it immediately. A man at a corner table caught Wells’s eye, waved him over.

“I’m Wilfred.” He was a slim man in a crisp white shirt and wire-rimmed glasses. Back home Wells would have pegged him as a Web designer.

“How’d you guess it was me?” Wells was the only white person in the place.

Wilfred waved over a waiter. “You want something?”

“A Coke.”

“Not a Tusker? The national beer.”

“I try not to drink before noon.”

“In here, time doesn’t matter. Simmers never closes. Open twenty-four hours. We call them day-and-night clubs.”

“Coke.”

“Two Cokes,” Wilfred said to the waiter. “Now tell me again what you want.”

Wells did.

“You understand, these camps, all of eastern Kenya, it’s dangerous now. Because of Shabaab. You know about them?”

“Yes.” Al-Shabaab was a radical Muslim group that controlled much of Somalia and enforced strict sharia law in its territory. Women wore burqas. Thieves faced amputation. But the group also had a criminal side, smuggling sugar into Kenya and protecting the pirates who kidnapped sailors off the coast. The United States and United Nations had tried to destroy Shabaab for years. Lately they’d made progress. United Nations peacekeepers had pushed Shabaab’s guerrillas out of Mogadishu, the Somali capital. And Kenya had briefly sent troops into Somalia from the west. Still, Shabaab remained a threat. The Kenyan government had publicly announced that the group was the prime suspect in the kidnapping.

“But doesn’t the government or the UN try to screen Shabaab out of the refugee camps?”

“Wait until you see them. A half-million people. Almost ten percent of the population of Somalia. And you think they tell the truth about who they are? Oh, yes, I’m Shabaab, I shot three peacekeepers. They know the story to tell to get in. The UN doesn’t even try to screen them anymore.”