Free The Night Ranger by Alex Berenson Page A

three peacekeepers. They know the story to tell to get in. The UN doesn’t even try to screen them anymore.”
    “Everyone gets in?”
    “They call the policy prima facie. You’re Somali, you get across the border, you’re an automatic refugee. In the United States you would call them illegal aliens. But here CNN runs pictures of starving babies, so they’re refugees. If you’re a Kenyan living in Kenya you don’t get free food and shelter, but if you’re a Somali you do.”
    Wells saw what Gettleman meant about the complexity of the political situation. He hadn’t considered how the Kenyans viewed the refugees. “Would that anger extend to the aid workers? Could a Kenyan gang have kidnapped them?”
    “Possible. It wouldn’t be political. Just for money. But I don’t know how they would get paid without getting caught. In Somalia it’s much easier. There’s a whole setup.”
    “So you think it’s Shabaab.”
    “That’s the most likely. And the police say so. Though in Kenya the police say lots of things.”
    “Why I need to go up there myself. Today.”
    “You can’t hide up there, mzungu”—the not-entirely-friendly Swahili term for a white person. “Everyone will know you’re American.”
    “I’m not so sure,” Wells said in Arabic.
    “Arabic?”
    “Get me the permits or I’ll find a fixer who can,” Wells said, still in Arabic.
    Wilfred looked at Wells’s coiled hands and broad shoulders. For the first time he seemed to understand who Wells was,
what
Wells was. “You have money? Not one, two hundred dollars. Real money.”
    Wells handed Wilfred a packet of hundreds from his backpack. “This enough to start?”
    Wilfred riffed the bills. “Castle House first. If the Department of Refugee Affairs approves you, the police will follow. By the way, my rate is two hundred fifty a day in Nairobi. Whether I get these permits or not. If I go to Dadaab, five hundred.”
    Wells felt he had to protest, if only to prove he wasn’t a total sucker. “Gettleman said your rate was a hundred.”
    “Gettleman didn’t see how much money you have.”
    —
    The refugee department was headquartered west of downtown. Martin slalomed through traffic on a broad avenue shaded by oak trees, then swung onto a rutted road hemmed by concrete-walled houses. The neighborhood’s wealth reminded Wells of the fancier precincts of Los Angeles. The homes here had similar private guards, security cameras, and signs promising armed response. “There’s money here.”
    “You want poor people?” Wilfred said. “We’ll take you to Kibera. Over the hills just southeast. A few square kilometers, maybe a million people, no one really knows. No running water, no open space, no legal electricity. Shacks and shacks and shacks. After the elections in 2007, the politicians stirred them up and they rioted. Tribal warfare, the Kikuyu against everyone else. Five hundred died, maybe one thousand. The police waited for them to fight themselves out. Like animals.”
    “Nice.”
    “Don’t let what you’re seeing here fool you. This country, a few hundred thousand live well. Two, three million more have a decent job. Teachers, truck drivers. Everyone else feels hungry just looking at the price of sugar. You want to see, I promise you’ll see. Now let me talk to the DRA so we can get this piece of paper.” Wilfred reached for his phone.
    Four calls later, he was shaking his head. “Everyone says the same. It’s impossible.”
    “Wilfred Wumbugu, the great fixer. Fine. I’ll go without a permit.”
    “I have one other contact. But I don’t trust her, she’s strange.”
    Wells lifted his hands: What are you waiting for? Wilfred dialed, spoke for a bit. “She’ll see us.” Five minutes later, they stopped at a brick-walled compound protected by a guardhouse. Behind it was what looked like a fieldstone manor, straight out of the English countryside, with turrets and recessed windows. Beside the main entrance, a sign