ALEX BERENSON: Minnesota learned the hard way that tribes don't vanish at the border

Nairobi, Kenya, December 2011:

I am in Kenya to research my seventh John Wells novel, "The Night Ranger." Wells is chasing American missionaries taken into the bush by Somali mercenaries. It is a change of pace for him, lower stakes than his usual work. It will turn out to be one of my favorite novels.

I have visited a vast Somali refugee camp in northern Kenya and the Indian Ocean coast, where Somali kidnappers have recently captured and killed several Europeans.

Now I am back in Nairobi...