Labaan logged off of one search engine and pulled up a purely spurious e-mail account. This one contained in the draft folder a passage from the Jewish Torah and Christian Bible, Isaiah 11:6. Ah, good, Asad has made it home safely.
Another message informed Labaan that the transfer of his men and cargo, scheduled to take place at Port Harcourt, Nigeria, was on time and fully prepared.
Be glad to get the boy off my hands, actually, when the time for that comes, Labaan thought. Though what he's in for . . . and he seemed like a pretty nice kid, too, the one time we talked, if a little too full of the nonsense his professors have been pouring into his head. Well, until I am relieved of responsibility, I can at least keep him healthy . . . and maybe even knock some of the silliness out.
***
A dim battery-powered lantern swung overhead, not so much bathing as lightly wiping with light the container in which Adam had awakened. He was certain of three things. He was on a ship; the rocking and swinging of the light told him as much. He was chained-literally chained, by the foot, like a slave-inside some kind of big metal box with corrugated floor, roof, and walls. And he was in very serious trouble.
No, I am certain of four things, he thought. I am also certain I am seasick. He reached out for a bucket they'd left for him and emptied the contents of his stomach into it.
Afterwards, he was able to think a little more clearly. Ransom? the boy wondered. My father would pay almost anything in ransom to get me back whole and sound. Not that I'm worth it, or would be if I weren't an only son. Somehow, though, I don't think this is a kidnapping for ransom. For one thing, while I can't be sure, the people who grabbed me struck me as Habar Afaan clan. The one who called himself "Labaan" surely was one.
When, the boy lamented, when will they learn that blood is no solution, that the answer is in forgetting ties of blood and seeing our common humanity?
And what will they want from me? Almost he laughed at himself. Me? Nothing; I've nothing to give or to take from. They wouldn't be grabbing me for ransom; their clan chief, Gutaale, is even more sticky fingered than my father, keeps even more concubines and still doesn't lack for money.
No, it's not going to be money they're after. They're going to use me to exert control over my father, to increase and improve the position of the Habar Afaan over the Marehan. I think that means they'll never let me go. Or never let all of me go anyway. I'm likely enough to lose an ear or a finger as proof they've got me and are willing to do anything to me.
Adam had the thought calmly, but then felt a sudden wave of fear and terror as the thought translated itself to a mental image. He could almost see the knife coming down on a trembling hand-his own-to slice off a finger, or flicking past his eyes to sever an ear from his head. For a moment, but only for a moment, he almost gave in to tears. He killed the tears with a self- and culture deprecating laugh.
We're as bad as the Arabs. Me and my brother against my cousin. Me, my brother, and my cousin against the stranger. Clan and tribe over all. Steal what you can for your own before another tribe steals it first. Or, as in my case, steal a member of another tribe. You can use him or her like a slave or, better still, use the slave to force his family to do your bidding.
God, why do you hate Africa so?
Then again, thought Labaan, there's really no reason to mutilate the boy. Surely his father knows that Gutaale is willing to even without being told or shown. I mean, okay, maybe if we have to produce proof beyond a video that we have him, we could send a finger or something. But I really don't think that will be necessary. I'll tell Gutaale as much.
Then again, I know what the chief is planning. At some point the head of the Marehan is going to balk. He has to. And then, I suppose, we'll have to send him a piece of his son, or his son a piece at a time, until old Khalid thinks better of it. Well, hopefully that won't be my job.
Labaan logged off of the ship's computer and stood up, yawning and stretching. I should probably sleep some. Before I do though, I'd best check on our passenger.
The moving steel bars that held the door in place shifted, lower sliding up and upper down, as a central handle turned. Adam braced himself for something really unpleasant. Unconsciously, he grasped his fingers together as if to shield them.
Instead of a man with a meat cleaver, though, Labaan walked in, unarmed and unaccompanied. Adam sensed there was someone unseen on the other side of the door.
Labaan glanced around the interior of the corrugated metal box, taking in the water jug, the tray of food, the thin-and none too clean at this point-blanket-covered mattress, and the bucket, bedpan, and piss bottle. It was a lot less trouble and risk to move those than to escort the captive several times a day to relieve himself.
"You are well, Adam of the Marehan?" Labaan asked.
Adam nodded, silently. Almost he'd blurted out that they'd never get away with this, that his disappearance would be reported, by Maryam the Ethiopian, if no one else.
But if they can disappear me, they could disappear her, too.
Instead of letting his mouth put his girlfriend in danger, Adam asked, "Where are you taking me?"
"From here to Port Harcourt, Nigeria. From there we'll be going by air to another place. You don't need to know where that is."
"But . . . why?"
Labaan remained genial when he answered, "You are young, boy; you are not stupid."
Adam gave off a deep sigh. "Fine, I know why. But what's the point of it? A little temporary advantage from my father? Eventually he's dead and I'm dead and things will reverse. This is a temporary advantage for your people-you are of the Habar Afaan, yes?-and nothing more."
"Everything is temporary advantage in Africa, Adam," Labaan said. "Everything. When things are crumbling around you, all you can hope for is temporary advantage. Shall the sailor, shipwrecked at sea, worry about the distant shore or about his own next stroke? About the forest in the distance or the piece of timber that can keep him afloat for now?"
"If he doesn't at least look for the shore," Adam countered, "he's unlikely to reach it."
The older man sighed then, countering, "And so are we, young Marehan, and so are we."
D-157, Bandar Qassim, Ophir
A fairly large, wooden, motorized dhow thumped lightly but regularly against the edge of the dock in the almost rectangular harbor. Well-armed and apparently disciplined guards patrolled the landward side, the breakwater, and the docks themselves. This late at night, the sounds of ground traffic were minimal, though off in the distance could be heard the sound of a marine engine, fitfully starting, over and over, and then choking off into silence. Waves rolled and they, too, could be heard whenever not drowned out by that apparently defective engine.
Light there was aplenty, for here, if nowhere else nearby, streetlights worked and the local power plant produced electricity to feed them. Even had there been neither, inside the dhow the boat's own batteries fed enough juice to keep the interior lights going, without a continuous need for the engines to run.
Seated, cross-legged, on a cushion on the lower deck, Gutaale's belly rested approximately on his lap. On the opposite side of the cabin sat a Yemeni, near in appearance to the chief of the Habar Afaan, and likewise with a not unimpressive gut. The Yemeni's hand rested lightly upon a closed laptop.
"Half in three days," Gutaale told the Yemeni, Yusuf ibn Muhammad al Hassan, "the other half on delivery." The sun had been up and high when the two had begun their haggling. It was only well after its setting that they'd agreed on a price within a tiny fraction of the initial offer. The fact was, both men enjoyed the haggling for its own sake.