My hapless African rebel

I laid out my plan to visit the Ogaden and I asked Reagan if he could recommend any important towns to pass through. At this point, I believed that my journey would only be a matter of hiring a car and a translator, and wandering into town, tape recorder and camera in hand.

Reagan suggested a town called Kebri Dehar. It was located in the heart of an area loyal to the Ogaden rebels and was populated almost entirely by Somalis. Kebri Dehar is said to be rich in oil and Ethiopia is in no mood to give it up.

Reagan led me to believe that Kebri Dehar was a shit hole among shit holes, a place of secrecy and intrigue: spies spying on spies, U.S. troops in the area riding out into the desert on camelback and blasting goats whose teats were tied in rags that could conceal bombs. Veiled ladies of legendary beauty. Secret Ethiopian prisons where CIA and FBI agents have interrogated terrorism suspects.

Reagan said ONLF rebels had recently shot down a couple of planes near Kebri Dehar. He boasted that he had family there. Not only would he be able to put me in touch with the ONLF, but he would, through his clan ties, be able to guarantee my safe passage.

The town itself is controlled and dominated by the Ethiopian army. But beyond its limits, this is a no-go zone for anyone from the wrong tribe. Reagan said we would need a well-connected guide. I would not be able to show up and do man-on-the-street interviews. Everyone would be terrified of speaking to us. And there were no hotels. But never fear. He had family there. They would know people who could put us in touch with the Ogaden rebels. His clan ties would guarantee our safe passage.

There was one more thing. When we got to Kebri Dehar, to avoid detection by Ethiopian security moles, we had to pretend we were there to see camels. Somalis love their camels. Wealth is determined by one's ownership of camels. People eat camel meat and drink camel milk. We could, Reagan said, just claim to be there to check 'em out.

This didn't sound too far-fetched. Everywhere I went in Ethiopia, I had to fabricate some new identity to thwart the police if they asked too many questions about what I was doing. I was alternately a missionary, a teacher on vacation or a representative of the "National Endowment for Development." A contact in the West told me that I could explain away the interview subjects filing in and out of my hotel room by pretending that I had come to investigate schistosomiasis, a parasite found in ponds and creeks that can cause disease.

As I sat in the hotel with Reagan, there was something about the moment -- his stories, his earnestness -- that made me think Kebri Dehar held the key to my Ethiopia investigation. So I agreed: I would go to Jijiga, the regional capital of eastern Ethiopia, and join up with Reagan a few days later.

My first view of Jijiga was from a distance, along the road that snakes out along the Marda Pass to the west. The city of 250,000 looked tiny, and I was filled with dread. I was going to spend four days in this city, with one paved road bisecting its middle?

Jijiga is not the type of place where white people just stroll the streets. In much of Ethiopia, you attract attention as a foreigner, but mostly from curious kids. Here, the suspicion is deeper. You feel watched. It's the kind of place where people ask a lot of questions about you. The Somalia war all of a sudden felt a lot closer.

So perhaps it was no surprise that my suspicions about Reagan deepened. I decided to do a little digging into his past. He claimed to have worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross as a translator. Yet no one with the ICRC knew him. Same with the Ethiopian Red Cross.

My local contact -- I'll call him Berhanu -- was worried too. Berhanu was a man I had met through a source in Addis Ababa. A former teacher, he had reason to be fearful -- he'd received his share of death threats, and so had all his friends. A buddy of his had just bowed out of the race for Parliament after someone stuck a gun to his head and told him if he didn't bow out he'd be killed.

After much discussion with our local friends, I decided on a plan for Reagan's arrival. I would meet Reagan at my hotel and chat with him briefly in the lobby while Berhanu and one of his cohorts sussed him out while sitting nonchalantly nearby. If Berhanu gave me the go-ahead (to be conveyed by the casual pulling of his right ear), we would decamp to a local restaurant, where the one-time aspiring parliamentarian would be waiting.

It was all set up. The parliamentarian waited in the restaurant. He was terrified, but we tried to reassure him. I went to the hotel on my own. Berhanu was in place. I waited.

My cellphone rang. It was Reagan.

"Hello!"

Whenever we spoke on the phone, Reagan never said, "Hello Nick!" It was always just "Hello!" as if he was not quite sure who exactly he was speaking to.

"Reagan! Where are you?"

"I am at the hotel."

I scanned the lobby and looked toward the front desk.

"Where in the hotel are you?"

"I am in the lobby."

"I'm in the lobby and I don't see you."

Silence on the other end.

"The Bade Hotel? You're in the lobby of the Bade Hotel?" I said.

"Bade Hotel? Not Bade Hotel! Lalibella Hotel!"

Lalibella Hotel, I thought. There was no Lalibella hotel in Jijiga. Where the hell was Reagan? The only Lalibella Hotel that I knew of was back in Addis Ababa, a two-day drive away.

"Reagan, are you in Addis?"

"Yes, in Addis, at Lalibella, where we met first time."

"Reagan, I'm in Jijiga. I was supposed to meet you tonight at the Bade Hotel in Jijiga."

"You are in Jijiga?" I could hear the panic in his voice. What would this mean for him? The prospect of this American and his money, lost forever. "I call you back."

Frankly, everyone on my end of the line was very much relieved when I told them the news. Reagan had screwed up. He would not bring us to Kebri Dehar.

Reagan, however, was not so willing to let go. He called the next day to say that he was leaving Addis immediately. I was unsure why exactly he wanted to go, though I began to suspect that he'd seen the whole thing as a way to get a free ride to visit his family. He swore it wasn't the money.

By this point I was so shaken by my experience in Jijiga, and by my Jijiga contacts' suspicion of Reagan, that I wanted to be done with him. Reagan might be a good guy, but it was time to move on.

On the phone, I told Reagan that yes, indeed, I was still planning to go to Kebri Dehar, but I could not take him with me. I told him I realized that this was a little late in the game, but I didn't know who he was. None of his references checked out.

That's when Reagan got nasty. He told me that he had already called ahead to his pals in Kebri Dehar.

"Reagan, I still want to go to Kebri Dehar, but I don't trust you, so I'm going to go without you," I said.

"What?"

"I just don't trust you, Reagan. No one in Jijiga had heard of you. I didn't know what to do. I had to make a decision."

"Now you don't understand something. You don't understand something, Mr. Nick."

"What do you mean? What don't I understand?"

"Everyone in Kebri Dehar think you come with me. When I not there when you come Kebri Dehar, they wonder. They not talk to you."

"Well, I'll just have to try my luck, Reagan.

"No. You no understand. I in Addis Ababa. I cannot guarantee your safety in Addis."

"What's that supposed to mean, Reagan? Are you saying I'm in danger if I go there?"

"Not saying danger or no danger. I say only I no guarantee your safety because I in Addis."

I was flustered. Reagan continued lecturing me. "Why you not honest with Reagan from the start? Why you not just say, 'Reagan I not need your services now?' That's fine. But you, Mr. Nick, you don't do that. You say, 'I don't trust you.' You not honest with me. So now I think we no longer talk. I don't call you. We don't talk anymore."

That was fine with me. I still planned to go to Kebri Dehar, but I didn't want to tell Reagan. I figured the only thing to do was to tell a lie in e-mail.

Next page: Mr. Mohammed would only meet after I had been on CNN