Maahi steered the old Mitsubishi Pajero across the dirt track that wended through the interior wadi country of central Libya. The air was dry and the desert shimmered with heat, the occasional blast of road dust entering from a hole in the floor pan of the vehicle.
He’d left his coastal town of Al-Uqaylah almost an hour earlier to drive to a meeting that filled him with dread. Beside him, his younger brother Demir pretended to drum along to the beat of an Arabic song on the radio, a station that broadcast from Cairo.
‘How much further?’ asked Demir, taking his feet down from the dashboard.
‘It’s just ahead,’ said Maahi, nodding. ‘But look up. That’s who we’re meeting.’
Demir peered at the sky, where a silvery aircraft glinted in the desert sun. ‘Let’s race them,’ he said, excited.
‘No one’s racing in this old thing,’ said Maahi, smiling at his fourteen-year-old brother and remembering happier times, when their whole family performed for weddings and birthday parties. Now, he ran errands for the al-Kaniyat militia, which stole land and wealth from Libyans on behalf of General Haftar.
‘Come on,’ said Demir. ‘The faster we can do this for Parzan, the better we look.’
Maahi slowly shook his head. Parzan al-Sharif was one of the al-Kaniyat commanders who had elevated himself to leadership status when Mohammed al-Kaniyat had been killed by an American bomb. Parzan had concluded that the al-Kaniyat militia’s appearance on Western war crimes lists necessitated a new strategy, whereby normal townsfolk were co-opted into the local warlord’s schemes. One afternoon, Parzan summoned Maahi and his father to a disused mining camp inland from Al-Uqaylah. It was the kind of invitation one couldn’t refuse. Maahi remembered the meeting vividly: the wafting camouflage netting that was strung across the compound; the cheap barracks and makeshift kitchens; the expensive satellite communications equipment that looked suspiciously as if it were supplied from the West.
Parzan had been sitting under the camouflage netting on a director’s chair, peeling an orange. He was dressed in desert cam military fatigues with a shemagh worn loosely around his neck rather than his head.
‘Who do you work for?’ asked the al-Kaniyat commander.
Maahi’s father replied, ‘I’m a musician.’
Parzan stood and shot the musician in the head. Before the son could even scream or cry out, the warlord had asked Maahi the same question.
In shock, and shaking with fear, Maahi responded, ‘You. I work for you.’
And that had been the last day of freedom for seventeen-year-old Maahi. The al-Kaniyat militia paid him, which enabled him to provide for his mother and brother, but he was now a slave to one of the most bloodthirsty warlords on earth.
He approached the small airfield that had been bulldozed by an oil and gas company ten years earlier. A small shed sat alongside the runway, and the genset that had once powered the airfield lighting system now sat derelict, stripped of its solar panels and batteries. It looked to Maahi like the story of Libya: a once-wealthy nation reduced to a rabble of thieves.
Maahi parked the Pajero beside the shed and it plinked as it cooled. To the south, the twin-engine plane lined up and came in low, kicking up white dust and pebbles as it motored across the desert, losing speed.
The plane rolled to a stop in front of Maahi and Demir, and depowered. The airstairs were pushed out and folded down to the ground. Two men descended. The older of the two had a noticeable hunchback and wore a dark suit that suggested he usually worked in a town or city. He carried a conspicuous black 9mm handgun in a hip holster. The smaller of the pair was younger and dressed in black jeans and a black windbreaker, a shoulder holster visible under his jacket.
‘You’re it?’ asked the man in black when he was standing in front of Maahi. ‘They sent me a kid?’
Maahi nodded. ‘I’m here to pick up a package?’
The man in black chuckled and looked around through dark sunglasses. ‘Where’s Parzan?’
Maahi shook his head; he wasn’t allowed to say.
The hunchback returned to the plane and almost immediately came back down the stairs, a satellite phone to his ear, followed by two large soldiers without uniform. The soldiers carried what Maahi knew to be submachine guns, although they weren’t the American or German models favoured in the desert—they looked like Russian Makarovs.
The hunchback paused at the foot of the airstairs, terminated his phone call, and spoke to his companion in Arabic. ‘Faisal! We’re clear.’
Faisal looked around the desert airfield, and then up at the sky, suspicious. ‘Let’s go,’ he said finally, pointing to Maahi’s car.
‘Go where?’ asked Maahi.
‘To Parzan,’ said Faisal. ‘He’s expecting us.’
The soldiers took two metal cases from the fuselage luggage hold and put them in the back of the Pajero. Maahi got in the car, and Faisal climbed in beside him.
‘Got any aircon in this thing?’ he asked.
‘No, it’s broken,’ said Maahi.
‘Your brother will stay here with my friend, okay?’ said Faisal, with a winning smile. ‘I guarantee he’ll be safe.’
They made good time across the desert, Maahi chatting with Faisal while the soldiers stayed silent in the back.
‘So, are you one of the musicians that Parzan has told me about?’ said Faisal.
‘I play when it’s possible,’ Maahi said. ‘The wars make it hard.’
‘What’s your ambition?’ asked Faisal, lighting a cigarette and offering one to Maahi, which he took.
‘Peace,’ he said, as they passed a massif that rose out of the desert like an animal’s back. ‘No more fighting in Libya.’
■
In the wadi off the main road, a yellow Toyota van was almost hidden from view. Maahi knew it as Parzan al-Sharif’s drop zone for weapons and explosives. There was an aquifer close to the surface, so there was some foliage around the wadi and the militia considered it relatively obscured from the drones that flew over the desert.
Parzan al-Sharif put on a big smile when he greeted Faisal, and together they walked away from the van, the soldiers standing off. Maahi sat in the Pajero, worrying about his brother.
Faisal and Parzan parted less than ten minutes later. Faisal spoke to his soldiers, before peeling off to the cab of the van to deal with the paperwork. One soldier approached the Pajero. ‘Can you give me a hand?’ he asked Maahi.
They went to the back of the Pajero and grabbed one handle each of a large metal ammo box, and they walked it to the load space of the yellow van. Maahi then helped with the second, larger box, which was so heavy his fingers almost gave way as they lifted it. As he deposited the box in the van, he heard its contents shift with a dull metallic clank.
Maahi’s eyes widened—he couldn’t help it—and he stole a glance at the soldier on the other side of the box.
‘Dhahab,’ said the soldier, with a conspiratorial smile. Gold.
Maahi gulped, wondering what he was witnessing.
The soldier put a finger to his lips in the international sign for, Keep your mouth shut.
■
On the drive back to the plane, Faisal was pensive, and Maahi worried that he’d said something wrong.
‘You’re the Europe group, right?’ Faisal finally broke the silence. ‘You’re in the drumming troupe?’
‘A drummer, yes,’ said Maahi, wondering if this meant he was going to Europe. ‘Also some dancing and singing.’
Faisal nodded to himself, blowing smoke out the slightly cracked window. ‘I have some advice for you, Maahi.’
‘Yes?’
‘If you ever find yourself in a strange country, and things are not going well, go to the embassy of America or France or Britain—one of those countries—and ask for asylum.’
Maahi was confused. ‘This word?’
‘Asylum,’ Faisal said. ‘Say it.’
Maahi repeated it several times— ‘A-sy-lum’—slightly intimidated by his passenger’s serious face.
‘You know the LNA?’ asked Faisal.
‘Yes.’
‘You know Haftar?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you understand the al-Kaniyat militia?’
Maahi nodded, and still confused, asked, ‘What is asylum?’
‘A safe place,’ said the older man. ‘Don’t forget my advice,’ he said, and flicked his cigarette out the window.