Free Black Star Nairobi by Mukoma Wa Ngugi Page B

them by choice. They were much younger than him, probably in their late thirties.
    The one wearing the Sahara T-shirt was in charge. Not that he was shouting orders; he asked for and suggested everything politely.
    “Can you please handcuff him?” “The door needs some attention.” “And Mary, stop struggling so much, it only makes the cuffs tighter.” “Could someone please make sure that there is nothing on the stove?”
    The other three men didn’t jump at his suggestions as if their lives depended on it, they listened first, and sometimes they even asked a follow-up question—like it was a learning moment.
    “The stove—why?” Kilimanjaro had asked, for example.
    “A very good question—the principle of an operation like this is the appearance of normality. Something burns, the fire alarm goes off, or neighbors smell smoke and come knocking. What was a contained situation becomes …” Sahara explained.
    “I see,” Kilimanjaro said, interrupting him and nodding in agreement.
    “Contain the situation, control all you can, and the rest …” Sahara said, his voice trailing off.
    “The rest is out of your hands,” Kilimanjaro finished.
    The white men had semi-automatics I had never seen before—the latest offerings from our fine American firearms industry, I could tell. Only Jamal had an AK-47—the African cigarette—an apt name because in some parts of the continent, the AK, like cigarettes, functioned as money, a medium of exchange.
    Jamal had caught us off-guard. We were used to bad things being done only at night—daylight, at least the morning, was supposed to be the time when the good and bad guys got some sleep, or caught up with their loved ones, or prepared for war later, at night. In “Nairobbery,” we woke up, unlocked the heavily barred doors and windows to let some fresh air in, and tried to remember a time when night did not turn your home into a prison. Morning was life itself, a reminder that you had survived the night.
    How could we have expected four white men and a former friend to walk in unannounced and take us hostage in the fucking morning? It was well known that O was a cop. The neighbors who might have seen them coming through the single entrance to the building would have thought they were friends of O. So the men had literally walked right in to find Muddyand Mary sitting at the dining table, drinking chai and eating bread.
    The men must have been monitoring our movements. They would have seen O leave to go see his sick mother in the hospital, followed by me on my way to Westland Gym to run on their worn-down treadmills. I never went running in Nairobi; it was just plain dangerous, with the dust, the fumes, and the driving. Whenever too much beer found me crashed at O’s, I preferred to sweat out the Tuskers at the gym.
    Coming back, the closed curtains only gave me slight pause—I knew Mary never slept past eight, and she liked her apartment sunny and bright. I figured she might have decided to sleep in this once. Blindly, I walked into the trap Sahara and his men had carefully laid for us. I didn’t even have time to draw my weapon.
    Jamal wanted to find out when O was coming back and so he untied Mary’s gag. He didn’t need to tell her not to scream.
    “He went to the hospital. To see his mother, she has been ill,” Mary answered truthfully.
    It wasn’t going to be a long visit. I didn’t know why, but things were always tense between O and his mother. He’d be back any minute now, but Mary cleverly said that she didn’t know how long he would be.
    “Guestimate, as the Americans like to say. When can we expect his esteemed company?” Jamal asked.
    “Midday, he said he would be back to make lunch,” Mary answered. Jamal put the gag back on her.
    “Could be later … much later. O loves his African Time, or for the benefit of Ishmael, Colored People Time?” Jamal laughed, but the white men smiled politely.
    “If you can give us what we want, we’ll