Warrior

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Abdullahi stepped out of the inspection shed’s shadow, offering himself to the relentless heat of the Somali sunshine. He had been a dock worker for eight years now. The constant exposure to the elements had hardened his skin to the point where little affected him — hours under the cloudless sky were routine, as was the exertion and strain that came with handling the heavy equipment littering the port. All of it acted as a complicated grid, a puzzle that no single man could decipher. Thousands of shipping containers flowed in and out of the port every day, loaded off small bulk transport ships and larger intercontinental vessels.

By this point, Abdullahi’s work had become a blur.

As had the payments.

He sauntered along a disused path squashed between two terminals, the trail littered with gravel and the ground on either side overflowing with weeds and rubbish. He checked his cracked wristwatch covered in fingerprint stains — two minutes until the cargo was scheduled to be off-loaded. Abdullahi had been around the port long enough to know that just as the sun rose each morning, the containers were off-loaded at the precise minute they were expected to be.

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