The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson Read Free Book Online Page A

read.
    As for the actual report, I banged it out quickly in the basement of Elvis Documents. The crisscross shadows of the lights’ wire cages, the choking musk of the concrete walls, also the thought of Mohammed Kallon tiptoeing back and forth overhead, none of these things encouraged settling in for a lengthy chat. I wrote:
    I’ve established contact. Changing stations quite soon. Details to follow in 48–72 hours.
    “No lunch today,” I told Mohammed when I came up from his basement, only five minutes after I’d gone down.
    He was already rising from his alleged chair, saying, “I’ve had my lunch. What about dinner this evening? I’ve got some news for you.”
    “Dinner? No. Just tell me.”
    “Very good then,” he said with clear disappointment, “I’m to explain something to you. Michael Adriko was attached to the US Special Forces in eastern Congo. There’s a unit there, you know, chasing the Lord’s Resistance Army.”
    “I’ve heard about it.”
    “Now he’s absent without leave—that’s what I mean when I call him a deserter.”
    “All right,” I said.
    And so I could have reported as well that by his secrecy, his coyness, Michael Adriko had thrown up a screen against most of my questions, in particular the first one I’d asked: If our aim was Congo, or Uganda, what on earth were we doing in Sierra Leone?
    Here was the answer, from Mohammed Kallon. Michael had landed here on the run, probably settling for any destination that would admit him with a Ghanaian passport. Not a bad choice, Freetown. Anything can happen here. Traitors and deserters can evaporate before your eyes.
    Mohammed said, “Let’s meet at the Papa for dinner.”
    “Halfway through you’d be saying, ‘Why take me to an expensive meal? Just give me the cash.’”
    “Well, certainly—I could use a little cash.”
    I gave him a wad of leones half an inch thick but nearly worthless, and walked out into the noontime’s unbelievable heat.
    One half block from Elvis Documents a man with a generator and a satellite rented time on his computer, and I sat in a collapsible chair, under an umbrella, beside his scrapwood kiosk, and found a Reuters report online. Its closing paragraph:
    The LRA mission will belong to about 100 special operators, Pentagon sources said. They declined to say which unit will be assigned to the mission, but a media report in the Colorado Springs Gazette suggested that the 10th Special Forces Group, out of Fort Carson, Colorado, will be the one. This unit typically handles special operations in Europe and Africa.
    Despite the heat I walked to the Scanlon. I was angry. Not with Michael, as I might have been, but with Mohammed, because it was simpler.
    Along my way I stopped at the Ivory Castle Hotel to talk to the baffling, inscrutable West African men who pretended to manage the air service piloted by the drunken Russians. We had to resort to the Russians because no genuine airline would take us aboard without Ugandan visas, although Uganda would issue them to arrivals at Entebbe without any problem—so Michael had assured us. I asked about the fares and schedule. The managers seemed not to understand why I would even want to know. I presented them with the white European’s suffering weary smile, the only alternative to murder. Ultimately they revealed to me the prices and the times. Michael, Davidia, and I would get out of here in less than forty-eight hours.
    *   *   *
    At three in the afternoon I once again entered the Bawarchi. The patronage was light, the place was quiet. At first I thought my contact hadn’t come, and when I located him, seated at one of the smaller tables, nothing before him but a pair of sunglasses, I thought he must be someone else, because I’d only seen him in business suits. But he was Hamid, the one I’d talked to several times in Amsterdam.
    He waved me over and I sat down with him. He gave the impression of being middle-aged and fond of comfort, in a loose