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  “You look sick.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re pale and you’re shaky and you’re sweating.”

  Paul hadn’t noticed that his arms were shaking. A cold wave ran along his skin. His heart was beating quickly. He thought of Ali. The young man was alive, conscious and stable. Most importantly, he would survive.

  “Dr. Alban?” the nurse stood in front of him, glancing at him sideways. “Are you feeling ill?”

  Paul jolted as her words dragged him back. “I’m fine. Just a bit tired… and hungry.” He forced a smile to try and reassure her that he was okay. “If you need anything, I have my cell with me.”

  Paul turned abruptly and walked across the parking lot to his Jeep. He turned the handle, hopped in, and closed his eyes. You know how that feels, losing a son, Sami had said. He wished he had responded differently. I know what it’s like, but you don’t. ‘Cause I just saved your son. Nephew actually. You don’t even have a fuckin’ son.

  Neither do you, another part of his mind responded immediately, and thanks to you he doesn’t have a father, either.

  Paul’s breathing quickened. Waves of nausea kept coming and he felt like he was floating. He needed sleep, that was all, a good night’s sleep.

  Paul reached in the pocket of his khaki vest, removed a vial of morphine, and held it between his fingers for a moment. Then, he opened the backpack resting on the seat next to him, found a syringe and a rubber tourniquet, and tied it around his calf.

  Four hours later, Paul woke to the buzz of a mosquito in his ear. He swatted the side of his face, then opened his eyes slowly, squinting to try and keep out the blinding early morning sun. Everything hurt, even light hitting his retinas.

  He looked at the parking lot, which was empty. He looked at his watch. It was 6:00 AM, which meant that it wouldn’t stay empty for long. Nurses came in at seven and Ellen would be there by eight. She was probably still sleeping.

  He dug into his shorts pocket and found the keys, turned the car on, and cleared his throat. He adjusted the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of himself. There were dark circles, not just under his eyes, but around them. A crease ran along his right cheek, and his graying hair looked as though it had not had a comb run through it in weeks.

  He decided he needed to go home to have a shower and some more rest. As he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road, he searched between the car seats with his free hand and retrieved his cell phone. He saw that he had three missed calls, all from Ellen. He flipped the phone shut and tossed it onto the passenger seat without listening to the messages. He didn’t need to because he already knew what was on them. Where are you? Why aren’t you answering? And Paul’s personal favorite: I’m worried. Why was it that she always said that when she was angry? When what she really meant was What the hell have you gotten yourself into...again.

  The rattling of Paul’s Jeep pulling up to the metal gates of his home broke the early morning silence. It was located just off a main road in the eastern quarter of Bosaso, several blocks from the clinic, on what most people in town considered a quiet street. Paul thought it was far too close to the main drag and the houses were too close together. Tall trees around the perimeter of the property provided the two-story home with some privacy and shade. Orange sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees and reflected off the white concrete walls of the building. Grape vines climbed up the front walls to the second floor balcony that overlooked the short driveway.

  He stepped out of the vehicle and left the car running. He unlocked the padlock and dragged one of the gate doors open, which creaked horrible—Ellen had been asking him to put oil on the hinges for weeks. He looked up at their open bedroom window to see if the noise had woken her. Satisfied that it didn’t, he quickly looked around the sides of the house.

  “Raza?” he whispered, “Raza?”

  There was no answer. He only heard the rustling of the palm trees overhead. Paul had hired Raza three years ago to guard the house during the nighttime. He stayed within the parameters of his job description. At the crack of dawn, Raza was always gone.

  Paul drove the Jeep through the open gate and up the short driveway to the front of his house. The gate clanged as he pushed it closed and then chained it shut. He walked up the tiled walk to the side of the house where a set of stairs led him to the second floor. Paul unlocked the deadbolt and then slowly turned the doorknob and slipped inside as quietly as possible. He slid his hikers off on the Turkish rug and walked lightly towards the bedroom along the cool, red, tiled floor. He stopped at the walnut bookcase that ran along the wall and placed his keys on a glass ashtray that sat on a shelf. More pictures than books filled the shelves of the bookcase. Most of them were Ellen’s.

  The photos read like a picture book that chronicled her life. Pictures of the places she had lived adorned the top shelf. It was a collage of framed 4 x 6 photos of her time working in a village in Nicaragua, smiling beside schoolchildren she had taught in India, arms interlocked with her fellow tree planters in British Columbia, and casting a leg in a desert in Sudan. The pictures on the shelves at eye level—in noticeably larger frames—were dedicated to her family. The largest photo was of Ellen in her medical school graduation gown standing next to her father, who wore a double-breasted suit and black tie. His nose was slightly raised and he hung on to his lapels, beaming with all the pride that would be expected of an immigrant who came to Canada with no money, and was witness to his only living child becoming a doctor.

  It was the same look Paul had seen when her father, Kazim Al-Hamadi, had first laid eyes on him exiting the gates of Terminal 1 in Charles De Gaulle airport. It was three years into their relationship when Ellen had arranged for Paul and Kazim to meet in Paris for several hours before they each took their respective connecting flights in opposite directions. The “meeting” Ellen had hoped for turned into an interrogation. What is your background? What are you doing in Somalia for so long? Where is your family from? Why doesn’t a man of your age have a family of his own? The encounter lasted all of thirty minutes before Paul lied to Kazim about how disappointed he was that his connecting flight was early. It was the last time Paul had seen him. Ellen had never tried to arrange another meeting.

  While the other photos were there for Ellen to remember, Paul always sensed the small Polaroid in a wooden frame was one she wanted to forget. A young Ellen, thirteen maybe, being carried on the shoulders of her older brother. He had died weeks later, hit by a taxi driver at a crosswalk. Ellen could go on for hours when a guest came to the house for the first time, telling detailed stories to accompany each picture, but she always skipped over the one with her brother.

  Paul’s eye was drawn away from Ellen and her brother to the photo next to it, the only one of his in the house. He remembered the moment it was taken. They were at Crane Beach, near their home, and he and his father had just completed a sandcastle, with six turrets, one for each year of Paul’s life. His mother had collected shells to decorate the walls of the castle. The photo captured the three of them, his mother and father with their arms interlocked around him, crouched beside the castle, smiling.

  Paul walked towards the bedroom at the end of the hall and listened for Ellen’s snoring (which if you ever asked her about she would deny). After a brief moment of silence, he turned back towards the entrance and realized that his shoes were the only ones there. And his keys were the only ones in the glass dish. It was only 6:45.

  Paul pushed the bedroom door open and poked his head inside. The bed was empty.

  “Ellen?”

  No answer.

  “Sorry I’m late. It was really crazy at work. The gunshot wound took forever.”

  Silence.

  He opened the bathroom door. It was clean; there was no fog on the mirror and the tub was completely dry. Their towels hung in the exact same spot as they had the day before. Paul ran the taps, splashed cold water on his face and examined his reflection in the mirror. He hadn’t sha
ved in days, his hair was greasy, and he could tell that his breath stunk. His eyes were a bit bloodshot, and he still felt a little high.

  And he was in trouble.

  Ellen always waited up for him, except when she thought he was shooting up. Paul figured that she probably called the clinic and asked if he was still there, found out that he had left hours ago and put two and two together. Then she would go for a run. Ellen always went for a run when she was angry.

  Paul sat on the edge of the bed and chewed his fingernails. His mind searched for an excuse. Three months ago, Paul had picked up a big shipment, and was on his way to the clinic when he was stopped at a roadblock for four hours. A roadside bomb had gone off near the road and there was no way through. Traffic was at a standstill. He waited for over an hour and decided to turn around and drove to a nearby beach with his stockpile of narcotics. He sat on the secluded beach for eight hours, injecting the next dose of morphine before the last one wore off. The next morning, a local boy found him half-conscious and covered in sand, and ran to get his father, who carried Paul to the clinic. Ellen worked on him and supported him through the withdrawal. Three days of the worst diarrhea, vomiting, fevers, and headaches he had ever experienced led him to vow to never use again. When the withdrawal was over, Ellen just said one thing to him.

  This is your last chance.

  Nothing else was said. The distance in her voice and her sullen expression echoed in his mind.

  He had blown it.

  Paul’s right hand began shaking and he couldn’t quite tell if it was the morphine leaving his system or nerves about the impending blowout. He reached into his vest pocket, removed his half-smoked package, and lit up a cigarette. He took a long drag, fell back onto the bed, and closed his eyes.

  Paul awoke from his drug-induced slumber to the sound of tires skidding on the gravel road in front of his house. He scrunched his eyelids together to try to fall back asleep but it was quickly followed by several car doors slamming. Ellen’s home, Paul assumed, forgetting that he had determined earlier that she had gone out for a jog, without her car.

  Paul rose out of bed and picked up the ashtray on the nightstand. He flushed the ashes into the toilet. He opened the bedroom window shutter, which overlooked the front of the house. Then he froze. The ashtray slipped out of his right hand and shattered on the ceramic floor.

  A white van with tinted windows idled in front of the house. Two men in fatigues, scarves covering their faces, assault rifles hanging off their shoulders, snapped the chain on his front gate with bolt cutters and burst through. Another masked gunman emerged from the van, and the three ran onto the property. Two went to the lower floor, and one went up the side stairs to the second floor. Paul could hear the gunman’s steps approaching the front door.

  He didn’t know why gunmen were invading his home, but he recognized them. The black-checkered pattern on the white base of their scarves identified them as the Asabiyyah Resistance, a newly formed secular terrorist group (or freedom fighters, depending on one’s perspective) responsible for a number of attacks in the Puntland.

  Paul slid down under the windowsill, out of sight. His hand pressed onto a shard of glass, gashing part of his palm. He rubbed the blood on his pants and crawled on his elbows along the floor, around the bed, to the nightstand. He crouched with his back to the bed and then turned his head slowly, peering just over the mattress towards the open door. He had at most a few seconds before the man was in the room. Paul slid the drawer of the nightstand open and felt around the bottom. He pulled a dusty seven-chambered revolver from inside and felt blindly around the bottom with his fingers for the cartridges he heard rolling along the bottom of the drawer. His fingers found two cold cylindrical cartridges.

  The gunman’s heavy footsteps approached the bedroom. Paul’s hand shook as he fumbled, sliding the rounds into the revolver. One of the bullets rolled along the floor and under the bed. He managed to slide one into the chamber and shut the revolver.

  The gunman was at the door. Paul held his breath and slowly lowered himself prone down to the ground. Through the six-inch space between the bed frame and the floor appeared the gunman’s scuffed black boots. The gunman stood momentarily at the door and then stepped into the room and walked along the edge of the bed. Whatever else might happen, Paul knew that once the gunman’s feet rounded the corner of the bed and walked towards him, it would be too late. If his one bullet was to have a chance against the assault rifle in the gunman’s hands, he had to strike first. His finger tensed around the trigger.

  Then, the gunman’s feet turned away. His back was turned, five feet away. Paul pushed off his fingertips and in one fluid motion pointed the gun at the back of the gunman’s head where he expected to see a dot of red enlarge along the white and black-checkered scarf.

  Click.

  Chamber empty.

  Click, click.

  Fuck.

  The gunman swiveled around and pointed the assault rifle at Paul. The surprise that Paul had expected to see in the eyes of a man who had just survived a round of Russian roulette was absent.

  “Put your gun down.”

  Paul tossed the revolver.

  “Hands up high.”

  Paul stretched his arm up.

  The gunman walked over to the bedroom window and yelled something in Arabic. The two other gunmen ran into the bedroom within seconds and yelled at Paul to get on the floor.

  “I don’t know what you want, but I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

  “Doctor Paul Alban?” one of them said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You are the right man.”

  “Money?”

  There was no answer. The men were busy tying his hands tightly behind him with nylon rope that burned his wrists. It happened quickly, and now they spoke at him from behind.

  “We don’t want money.”

  “What is this?”

  “We’re taking you in for questioning.”

  “What? Why? For what?”

  A dark hood was placed on his head and he was led out of the house.

  “Conspiracy.”

  7

  The gunman herded Paul down the exterior stairs of the house, jamming the muzzle of the assault rifle deep into the small of Paul’s back. The dark hood over his head made him unsteady. He thought to yell for help as loudly as he could manage, but the impulse dissipated when the muzzle nudged him forward, a reminder that any gesture might cause the muzzle to stop nudging and fire.

  He heard the van door slide open, and one of the men shoved him into the backseat. Gunmen sat on either side of him. The door closed, and the van began to move.

  “What do you want?”

  There was no answer. Instead, the men spoke softly to each other in Arabic, and the radio was turned up so that Arabic music muffled their voices. Paul strained to hear what they were saying, but even at the best of times, his Arabic was weak.

  “Who are you?” he raised his voice. “Where are you taking me?”

  “We are a security force,” a man up front spoke in heavily accented English. “You are under arrest.”

  “What kind of security force invades a person’s private residence, places a bag over his head and rushes him off in a van? Your security force sounds like a bunch of terrorist—”

  Whack!

  An object struck him in square in the face with enough force that it caused his head to snap back. He wasn’t sure what the object was, but it was too hard to be a fist, and too soft to be the butt of a gun. Tears ran down the sides of his nose. The streams became warmer when they dripped onto his lips. Only when he tasted the salty metallic did he realize that his nose was bleeding.

  “You will not speak unless we ask you to. Okay?” the man beside him said.

  “Are you asking?”

  Whack!

  Paul was pretty sure that one broke his nose. Heat pulsated, making the skin feel taut. He ran his tongue along his upper lip where more blood accumulated.


  The van sped up and turned a hard corner, the momentum pressing Paul against the shoulder of the man to his left. In a vain attempt to have the ability to retrace his steps should he miraculously escape his captors, Paul tried to keep track of the turns they made, but the speed of the van, the throbbing on his face, the mélange of forty-five-degree bank turns and ninety-degree turns disoriented him. Waves of nausea coursed through him. With each turn, he felt like he was going to vomit.

  For nearly half an hour, they drove around like that. Varying speeds, constant turns, each one nearly knocking Paul over. No one spoke. All he could hear was the blaring radio and the acceleration of the van engine. They were driving for a long while, but with all of the turns, he couldn’t tell if they were two blocks from his house, or on the other side of the city.

  Then the van stopped.

  Nothing happened. Paul’s face tightened underneath the hood, unsure of whether the stop would herald another blow to the head, or worse, a bullet through his skull. Paul pushed aside his conjectures about what his kidnappers were doing. He no longer had control over his fate.

  Then Paul realized that they could have Ellen. He had assumed she left the home in the morning. But something was wrong with that. There was perfectly made white linen on the bed. Ellen had never been able to fold the sheet’s edges at the corners of the mattress that perfectly; that had been the maid’s work from the previous day. The bathroom had been pristine, fresh towels hung on the racks. Ellen must not have made it home. These men must have ambushed her, and he was about to see her tied to a chair, her face bruised and cut, being used as leverage to get something from him.

  The car engine turned off, the door slid open, and a hand that seemed to envelop the top of his head pushed Paul out of the van. He stumbled onto the ground, and another pair of hands picked him up and led him forward, their feet crunching along a gravel path, then down a set of stairs.