blueprints

140 | Christopher merrill
For the third time in two months, a fuel truck had crashed, and as people
siphoned up the fuel, something—a cigarette, a spark—touched off an
explosion, killing and maiming dozens of men, women, and children.
A van was waiting to take us to our hotel, and on the drive through
town the diplomat called his office to pick up his messages. He asked his
secretary if she had heard anything about the explosion. She had not. The
road wound up a hill lined with nurseries, and at the top, not far from the
American embassy built after the 1998 al-Qaeda bombing that had killed
hundreds of Kenyans, there was the smell of burning charcoal. Men walked
on the side of the road, past jeeps in which sat Kenyan police officers. A
Somali had lately been arrested here on suspicion that he was doing reconnaissance
for another attack. On we drove.