Spy Games by Adam Brookes Page B

his bill quickly and left.
    Early the following morning, in darkness, Mangan left the hotel in a hired Land Cruiser with a sullen local driver. They drove east out of Dire Dawa into the Somali regions, Mangan hoping for a glimpse of the insurgency, of the military’s vicious response. If nothing else, some descriptive color, some photos. They drove into flat, rocky terrain studded with acacia trees, baboons staring from the outcrops inthe dawn. By ten it was hot, the light flat and hard. They passed Jijiga, turned south. On the plain, Mangan started to see the encampments of Somali nomads, the rounded tents like turtle shells scattered amid the scrub, young blank-eyed boys standing with AKs slung over their shoulders. They drove on. In the early afternoon, on the outskirts of a small town, Mangan told the driver to pull over. He sat watching the compound’s metal front gate, some comings and goings, a guard with an AK squatting, waving away flies.
    He got out of the car, walked purposefully to the compound and waved cheerily at the guard.
    “I am here to see Miss Maja,” he said.
    The guard frowned.
    “Maja. Danish lady. A nurse.”
    The guard got slowly to his feet, gestured for Mangan to stay. He disappeared into the compound. Mangan waited, watched the goats nuzzling the dust, the barefoot boys loping, twirling sticks. The guard waved him in.
    Maja stood in a bloodstained smock, arms wide in ironic welcome.
    “Philip. Welcome. You just missed the excitement.”
    A breech birth, apparently, an extraction. Maja was energized, her eyes bright. She took off the smock and surgical gloves, washed. They went and sat in the courtyard and a young man brought coffee. Maja closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun, basked for a moment. Her hair was travel blonde, lay untidily on the shoulder. She was tanned, broad-boned and strong-shouldered.
    “So don’t imagine you’re going to get much farther,” she said, her English lilting.
    He’d lit a cigarette, exhaled.
    “How bad is it?”
    “Pretty bad. Checkpoints about fifteen kilometers from here. They won’t let you through.”
    “And on the other side?”
    “We hear a little from the women. Sweeps, arrests. Some beatings, some shootings.”
    “Do you know where?”
    She gave him a wry look.
    “Yes.”
    “Are you going to tell me?”
    She sighed.
    “That is not why I am here, Philip. I am a midwife, not an informant.”
    He smiled.
    “I know. Sorry.”
    “They watch everything we do. Everyone we see, they know.”
    “I won’t stay long.”
    She raised an eyebrow.
    “You never do,” she said. She reached for Mangan’s cigarettes, took one. “I’m getting a break for a few days, though. I’ll come up to Addis for a while.”
    “I’ll buy you dinner.”
    She nodded.
    “Then we can talk a bit more, maybe,” she said.
    They stood and she walked him to the gate, touched him on the arm, left her hand there.
    “See you soon, okay?”
    “Sure.”
    They drove a few more miles south, the driver nervous. They passed military transports, old Russian four-ton trucks next to battered American Humvees.
    Then, a checkpoint.
    The driver wanted to turn around but Mangan made him continue, slowly, both hands on top of the wheel. Mangan laid his hands on the dashboard. Soldiers were beckoning at them, pointing at a place on the road. The driver made a hissing sound through his teeth, slowed and stopped, wound the window down. The soldiers looked in, demanded papers. They were lean, dark men, moved like professionals, quietly, economically, their battledress faded, weapons cleanand oiled, Mangan noted. One of them saw him, murmured to the others, walked around the car, tapped on the window.
    “ID,” he said, in English.
    Mangan slowly reached into his breast pocket, took out his accreditation, passed it to the soldier.
    “What you do here?”
    “I am a journalist.”
    “No, no. You go back.”
    “Can I get out of the car?” He gestured. The soldier stood back a