guys?” Paul asked.
“What do you think, Paul?” I said angrily. He called out to someone in the hallway and the suit from the embassy came and fingerprinted the dead. The rest, the DNA samples and dental impressions, would be taken at Kamau’s. The suit picked up the two remaining Glocks still on the floor.
“That’s all?” he asked. I just shrugged, thinking to myself,
Welcome to a Kenyan crime scene, motherfucker
.
Hassan pointed at the paramedics.
“Can they?” he asked O, who nodded yes. They picked up Mary first, then the rest of the bodies, and filed out the door.
“Hassan, can I talk to your men?” Jason asked. Hassan agreed, and O and I stepped outside with Jason and Paul.
“I understand this is a bad time … a very bad time. We,” Jason drew a circle to include O and me, “must always stop to take care of our dead and protect our own, but I have to insist, and I implore you, to tell me what happened. I want each word, each detail that comes to mind—accents, scents, anything. Our friendship works to the extent that I know everything.” Jason reached up to place his hand on O’s shoulder.
“Listen, Jason—one of the guys, the main guy, showed me a terrorist watch list and O, Muddy, and I were on it. How about we talk about that?” I said.
O looked at me—we hadn’t had time to talk about what had gone down before Jason arrived.
Paul indicated that we should walk down the courtyard, away from other ears. He left us standing next to the tree in the middle of the courtyard, walked to a Pajero with embassy license plates, and came back with a briefcase.
He opened it and handed a file to O and me. We flipped through it in amazement. Sahara had shown us the very same parallel lives.
This much I knew, we were only a few steps away from having drones firing missiles at our cars, or even worse, some might say, ending up in a torture chamber in Kenya, Yemen, or the U.S. Guilt or innocence didn’t matter—only being on the list mattered.
“How did you get that?” I asked Paul.
“An alert was sent to us this morning,” he answered.
“Can we get off the list?” I asked.
“The short answer is no. Even if I called in your innocence, the response would be ‘better safe than sorry.’ It will take hardevidence to get you off that list, if it’s even possible. The only way out is to get the people behind this and bring them to justice,” Paul said. “O, I’m sorry you have to hear this after your loss.”
“Who is powerful enough to get our names on that list?” O asked, looking at Jason.
“Any mid-level government employee. Suspicion alone—neighbor calling in neighbor—we had some people in Guantánamo because some motherfucker wanted their piece of land. The question is, who is powerful enough to whip up this sort of evidence in a short time and get it noticed enough to land you prominent spots on the list? I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” he answered.
It worked for us that they should not try to clear our names at this point. If we played along, then at least any action to be taken against us would go through them. Innocence at this stage was no defense. We would make a good news story—Muddy, the beautiful but wounded cold bitch; O, a disgruntled marijuana addict who loved violence for its own sake; and me, the American who never really felt at home in the U.S. and who had betrayed all those who loved him for the warm bosom of jihadists. Sahara had done well for himself and his handlers.
I looked at O. He was smiling. O leaned in closer to Jason, looked him in the eye, and then looked down into his jacket. I followed his gaze and saw his old rusty .45 pointed at Jason’s gut. Jason’s eyes widened for a second and then slowly wound down. I looked around, looked again, and, in the late afternoon sun, high up on the rooftops, I could make out the snipers in position. Some of the windows above O’s apartment were opening slowly.
“Jason, mark my words. I am
“What do you think, Paul?” I said angrily. He called out to someone in the hallway and the suit from the embassy came and fingerprinted the dead. The rest, the DNA samples and dental impressions, would be taken at Kamau’s. The suit picked up the two remaining Glocks still on the floor.
“That’s all?” he asked. I just shrugged, thinking to myself,
Welcome to a Kenyan crime scene, motherfucker
.
Hassan pointed at the paramedics.
“Can they?” he asked O, who nodded yes. They picked up Mary first, then the rest of the bodies, and filed out the door.
“Hassan, can I talk to your men?” Jason asked. Hassan agreed, and O and I stepped outside with Jason and Paul.
“I understand this is a bad time … a very bad time. We,” Jason drew a circle to include O and me, “must always stop to take care of our dead and protect our own, but I have to insist, and I implore you, to tell me what happened. I want each word, each detail that comes to mind—accents, scents, anything. Our friendship works to the extent that I know everything.” Jason reached up to place his hand on O’s shoulder.
“Listen, Jason—one of the guys, the main guy, showed me a terrorist watch list and O, Muddy, and I were on it. How about we talk about that?” I said.
O looked at me—we hadn’t had time to talk about what had gone down before Jason arrived.
Paul indicated that we should walk down the courtyard, away from other ears. He left us standing next to the tree in the middle of the courtyard, walked to a Pajero with embassy license plates, and came back with a briefcase.
He opened it and handed a file to O and me. We flipped through it in amazement. Sahara had shown us the very same parallel lives.
This much I knew, we were only a few steps away from having drones firing missiles at our cars, or even worse, some might say, ending up in a torture chamber in Kenya, Yemen, or the U.S. Guilt or innocence didn’t matter—only being on the list mattered.
“How did you get that?” I asked Paul.
“An alert was sent to us this morning,” he answered.
“Can we get off the list?” I asked.
“The short answer is no. Even if I called in your innocence, the response would be ‘better safe than sorry.’ It will take hardevidence to get you off that list, if it’s even possible. The only way out is to get the people behind this and bring them to justice,” Paul said. “O, I’m sorry you have to hear this after your loss.”
“Who is powerful enough to get our names on that list?” O asked, looking at Jason.
“Any mid-level government employee. Suspicion alone—neighbor calling in neighbor—we had some people in Guantánamo because some motherfucker wanted their piece of land. The question is, who is powerful enough to whip up this sort of evidence in a short time and get it noticed enough to land you prominent spots on the list? I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” he answered.
It worked for us that they should not try to clear our names at this point. If we played along, then at least any action to be taken against us would go through them. Innocence at this stage was no defense. We would make a good news story—Muddy, the beautiful but wounded cold bitch; O, a disgruntled marijuana addict who loved violence for its own sake; and me, the American who never really felt at home in the U.S. and who had betrayed all those who loved him for the warm bosom of jihadists. Sahara had done well for himself and his handlers.
I looked at O. He was smiling. O leaned in closer to Jason, looked him in the eye, and then looked down into his jacket. I followed his gaze and saw his old rusty .45 pointed at Jason’s gut. Jason’s eyes widened for a second and then slowly wound down. I looked around, looked again, and, in the late afternoon sun, high up on the rooftops, I could make out the snipers in position. Some of the windows above O’s apartment were opening slowly.
“Jason, mark my words. I am
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