Crossbones by Nuruddin Farah

Author:Nuruddin Farah [Farah, Nuruddin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101552100
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2011-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

The teahouse they find themselves in is a bit of a letdown after the hotel dining room and the private alcove. The waiters are scruffy, their white shirts stained with food and string holding up their trousers. The clients whom they are serving are no different from the folks one runs into in the street outside. Malik, cynical, thinks that maybe democracy has dawned here at last, after all. The men, pretentiously pious, wear lavish beards. They hush as Fee-Jigan and Malik go past them, looking for a free table. When they resume talking, they speak textbook Arabic, not the dialects native speakers would use. One of them is so pleased with his mastery of the language that he throws tongue-twisting gauntlets at them, like a teenager showing off.

As the waiter departs to get them the tea they have ordered, Malik cuts to the chase. He asks, “Does Ma-Gabadeh fund pirates?”

“In truth, the nexus between the pirates and Shabaab is hard to prove and much more difficult to discount,” Fee-Jigan says. “Even so, I’ve heard it said by an associate of his that if there is a link in an expanding chain connecting the pirates to Shabaab, and Shabaab to the foreign jihadis, then Ma-Gabadeh is that link, because he has had extensive associations with all three groups. Moreover, he has been described as someone who has made deals beneficial to the pirates by lending them seed money, and to Shabaab by paying deposits on the weapons they bought from the Bakhaaraha. I know from one of my sources that he has collected tidy sums from the pirates as his percentage, and has paid protection fees to Shabaab. More significantly, he is related by marriage to TheSheikh.”

“And he is wealthy on account of these links?”

Fee-Jigan says, with evident relish, “Ma-Gabadeh, a man from the shit creeks, is now so stinking rich from these illicit transactions that he can afford to bathe in tubs filled with the most expensive French perfume.”

Malik asks, “What about Gumaad?”

“What about him?”

“What is his game?” Malik says.

“He is no journalist, I can tell you that.”

“Precisely,” Malik says. “So what’s his game?”

“Rumor has it he has been lately recruited into the intelligence services of the Courts,” Fee-Jigan says, “and we journalists do not trust him at all.”

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