Once A Warrior (Mustafa And Adem) (24 page)

He waited for the ambulance, the police, and knelt beside the dying businessman as a nurse attempted to keep his wound from bleeding. The assassin was screaming the entire time, shouting that Mr. Mohammed was the infidel, not Uzayr. That it was Mohammed who had offended his namesake.

Adem left the café shell-shocked. One dead because of him. The server would live, but the pain and surgery and lost wages and and...Anger. Worse, the guilt. He had been wearing a bulletproof vest. As soon as he got back to his apartment, he ripped it off and flung it across the room, knocked over a lamp. He yanked the plug from the wall and left the shards on the floor. It didn't matter anyway.

Because the next attempt blew up his apartment later that night.

Jacob had known about the bomb, too. Uzayr's people did not realize they were being watched. So he told Adem when to leave, and how they would play it afterwards.

"My neighbors?"

"You have no neighbors. Those are our people."

"Above and below?"

Silence on the line. Jacob was in town, but didn't want to be seen with Adem. Then, "There is a couple on the floor above you."

"You're going to get them out, right?"

More silence.

"Jacob?"

"Look, there's the greater good to think about here."

Adem closed the phone and left immediately. He still had ten minutes to get the couple out.

He was down to his T-shirt and suit slacks. He was barefoot. But he had to get them out. The phone buzzed in his pocket and he ignored it. He hurried down the hallway to the stairwell. Doors opened behind him. He looked over his shoulder. Faisal and Fatima ran after him. He hadn't even known they were there.

Damn Jacob! Goddamn him!

They grabbed Adem before he could get up even one flight. Turned him around, headed back down. At the bottom of the stairwell, the three of them crouched under the concrete stairs and waited. Adem had stopped struggling. He felt something inside his chest tear open with every quiet minute that passed. They were going to let those people die instead of him. Uzayr's people would know something was up if there were no casualties.

Faisel turned to Adem and whispered, "You do know I have to hit you with a rock, right? You'll have to look beaten and cut."

Adem nodded. He was numb by then. Let them do what they wanted to do to him. Let them dress him up in vests and cut his face and pretend it was God Above who was guarding him. It didn't matter. He'd sold out. Nothing he could do about it.

Then the whole world shook. The stairs above them cracked. Dust and debris fell from the ceiling. Adem's ears felt as if he'd been slapped and shoved underwater into a deep, deep cave. Fatima shouted instructions into his ears, but he barely caught the words.

He shouted at her, "I have to tell you something."

"Are you listening to me?"

"I have to tell you the truth. I'm American, like you. I'm from Minneapolis—"

Fatima scrunched her face and shook her head. "Not the time. I can't hear you. Did you hear what I told you to do?"

Then Faisal smacked him upside the temple with a jagged block of concrete, again on his cheek, the pain overwhelming, the blood hot on his skin. But he was still alive.

Still fucking alive.

Come and get me
, he thought.
Do your worst.

––––––––

B
ack to one of the Black Ice "holes", so secret only Teeth and two other Boyz knew about them. Six in all, and this one was out in Stillwater. Quiet, nobody paying any attention to the place. It was an old service station that had closed when the oil prices drove them out of business. Teeth swooped in, dummied the sale back to a fake front from Winnipeg. A couple of dead cars out front blocked the pumps, boards over the windows, pop machine out front busted open long ago.

Inside, Teeth's customer-doctor tried to patch them up, turned Ali into a medic, and told them what happened to Dragoslav. The whole time, Mustafa was wondering how much steel was in this man's blood. He came in through the car wash, took a look at the cheese-grated, belt-sanded Teeth, and just sighed. Shit, what could the man have seen in his life that was worse than that?

The scalpel in the throat hadn't been quite as bad as it looked, and after a quick cleansing, some cotton, and a big-ass bandage, Mustafa waved the doctor over to Teeth, shivering on the floor, still not talking.

"He's in shock."

Mustafa nodded. Of course he was in shock. They all were. Ali had helped Mustafa inside first, set him against the cashier's side of the counter. He looked up to see scattered boxes of cigarettes on the wall. Teeth must've left them, a little something for the Boyz in time of need. Even from inside, Mustafa could hear Ali, right on the other side of the wall, peel Teeth from the backseat where his wounds had scabbed, crusted to the fibers. When Ali brought him inside, his back was bleeding, flowing freely onto the floor.

The doctor was all business, telling Ali what he needed from the trunk of his car. Always prepared. But Mustafa could tell by looking at him, this man, mostly white with something exotic in the mix, was a functional addict. He hid the meth sores with ointments, the bad teeth with dentures, and kept up a jogging routine to explain why he was bone thin. He wondered what sort of doctor this was. How did his patients not see it or smell it on him when he was inches away from them?

"So, he's going to live."

Mustafa thought the Doctor was talking about Teeth, but then realized he meant Dragoslav. He croaked out, "Yeah?"

"He'll need physical therapy. I don't think his bones will ever heal correctly. I see a lot of Vicodin in his future."

"I'm sure he knows a guy."

The doctor shook his head. "It's not funny. If it wasn't for...I mean, why
didn't
you let him die? Jesus." He was getting his hackles up. He stopped working on Teeth's wounds, held his gloved hands up and turned to Mustafa. "What did he do to deserve that, that, that sort of...
savagery
? A bad drug deal? Some sort of initiation ritual? Kill a white man?"

Mustafa stared him down, cleared his throat so he could say what he wanted to as clear as possible. "He fucked little girls. He sold little girls to others so they could fuck them, too."

The doctor flared his nostrils, looked like he actually had a response at first. Then just shook his head and turned back to his patient. Mumbled under his breath, "You're not Batman."

Mustafa thought, No, he sure as hell wasn't, but he wasn't some self-righteous rich addict asshole like the doctor here, either. What sort of stuff had he done to fund his habit? Embezzled? Wasted his kids' college fund? Stole from nurses' purses?

He asked the doctor, "So what happened? After you saw him."

"I set what I could, I made sure he wasn't bleeding internally, and I left him a bag of painkillers. Could be he's still in that cabin." He turned back to Teeth. "Shit, hold on. GOAT, please, I need some paper towels."

Mustafa couldn't watch anymore. Teeth was breathing fast and shallow, his teeth chattering like he was buried in snow. The doctor was slathering cream all over his arms and face. Mustafa pushed himself off the floor and walked over to the restrooms. Tried the men's room door. Open. No power, but there was a little light from the hallway. A busted condom and headache medicine machine. Dry toilet and sink, water rings gone red around each. He went inside and sat on the toilet and closed his eyes.

He couldn't tell what the doctor was saying out there, but it sounded angry. Mustafa jerked himself upright when Teeth let out a long, thin cry. Maybe the drugs Poe had given him were wearing off. He remembered his own paralysis as the freak tried to mutilate him.

Teeth's cry faded to a whimper, and then there was a shadow in the bathroom doorway, a light knock on the door. Ali told him, "The doctor says that's a good sign. He's coming out of shock."

"Good sign. Yeah. I bet he wishes he was dead."

"Naw, man, don't say that."

"Would you have shot him? Like Kong wanted you to?"

Ali looked left and right, didn't want to meet Mustafa's eyes. "Look, you know what it's like."

"The whole time? I thought you were solid."

"They ambushed us. It was the only way to keep the advantage, spill everything I knew, let him back into the house."

"Did Teeth know what you were up to? Or did he think you were a punk-ass traitor?"

Ali's shoulders got tight. "Don't you disrespect me."

Mustafa got off the toilet and crossed to the door, up in Ali's face. "Once a traitor, twice a traitor. Did you give him a wink when Poe dragged a cheese grater across his skin? Like, no worries, man. I've got your back."

"Fuck that. Fuck you." He inched forward, his chest bumping Mustafa's. Ali had a couple inches on him.

"Think about who you're talking to, son."

"I
thought
I was talking to a real man. I don't know who this is, all paranoid and shit."

"What about Kong? He owned your ass, too. How'd he do that?"

Ali shoved Mustafa back a few feet, advanced on him. "Say that again."

"How'd he get you to shoot the Prince? How'd he sell that one to you?"

Something in Ali's eyes dimmed. He shrank an inch. Wilted before Mustafa's eyes. "He didn't."

"Lying motherfucker."

Another shove. "Swear to God, man, I swear. He didn't. He didn't tell me nothing. I did what I had to do, that's all. He didn't tell me shit."

It was ridiculous. Stone cold crazy if he was telling the truth. Kong put a gun in the GOAT's hand and didn't know what he was going to do with it. And if that motherfucking Hmong bitch was surprised by the choice, he sure as hell didn't let on.

"I don't believe it."

"I swore, didn't I?"

"Heem was your friend."

Ali scoffed. "Wasn't my friend. He just liked having someone big around him. Made him feel safe, even if he did treat me like a dog. Wouldn't have mattered anyway."

"Then why? Why shoot him instead of me?"

The GOAT backed off. Hugged himself. "Man, I got sisters. You know what I'm saying? I got sisters, one of them bout the same age as those girls. That ain't right, what he did."

"How'd you know I'd be any different?"

"I could tell. The way you went after that motherfucker Dragoslav, too. That wasn't business. You was really doing something. And then, saving that one girl...shit. Then you said, after all that, you said you were going to hand us all over to him, like nothing had changed. You get your kin back safe, but what about the others? Everything going back to the way it was before? I couldn't let that happen."

Mustafa didn't have anything to say. He raised his fingers to the bandage on his neck. The wound was itchy. "Stupid. That was really stupid."

Shrug. "Whatever."

"Just saying, I wasn't fucking around. I would've given it back."

"Why you want to go and do that?"

"I made someone a promise. I did what he asked me to do. That's all. We saved Deeqa. I'm out."

Ali shook his head. "You can say that, but I know better. Whenever you were around them girls, I felt what you was going through. We ain't talking about one girl. We talking about, like, a hundred."

Mustafa was about to school the kid some more when the doctor knocked on the door. They looked up.

"I'll check back later. Do not move him, do not leave. The best I can do for pain right now is this." He held up a pill bottle, a scar of a label where it had been scraped off. "Whenever he hurts, give him a couple."

"But he'll be okay, right?"

The doctor shook his head. "Lot of blood loss, lot of trauma, chance of infection..."

They let it hang in the air, all of them looking down at their shoes from the weight of it.

Mustafa nodded. "Okay. Okay. Thank you."

"No chance of taking him to a hospital?"

At first, it sounded like concern, but Mustafa sighed, realized that the doctor was already thinking about trying to find a new supplier. "We'll be here. Bring us what you think will help, and we'll do our best."

No need to shake hands or grieve together. The doctor started for his car while Ali and Mustafa stepped back into the store, Teeth on the ground, a blanket tucked under his heels, all the way up to his chin. Eyes open, staring straight ahead. His breath was fast, trembling. If he died—he wasn't going to, he couldn't, because then it would be Mustafa's fault—like Dawit, that was already his fault. He couldn't have them all die because he fucked up the favor. There should've been an easier way. What was he thinking? Could be he had missed it, leading all those guys, the way they respected him. He saw how those soldiers in Mogadishu had done the same to Adem—Mr. Mohammed—when they had shown up to hunt for Jibriil. And he had snooped into Adem's internet history as he kept up with the growing mythology around the pirate negotiator, how no one had caught on that their hero was an American college kid in the wrong place at the wrong time who somehow found the will to do what it took to stay alive. Yeah, made Dad a bit jealous. Made him remember the good ol'/bad ol' days.

But he had a dead cousin, a nearly dead friend, and a son missing in action, working for the CIA. It wouldn't be long before the flesh peddlers came after him, came after Deeqa, after his whole family. Wouldn't be long before the police figured out what had happened at Ibrahim's house and who had been there.

He turned to Ali, held out his hand. "I need a burner. Need to make a call."

Ali fished the phone from his pocket. "Got some minutes on it."

"It'll do."

He walked down the empty snack aisle, paced in front of the coolers, still full of pop cans, energy drinks, bottled water, but all warm and dark now. He called Idil. A few rings, his stomach gripped tight and he stopped walking. They had already gotten to her. Shit. He cleared his throat. Four rings. Cleared it again. Squeezed the cheap phone so hard he could hear the plastic giving way.

But then a rustle and her voice. "Yes? Hello? Hello?"

Mustafa let the air out. "Shit, woman, scared the daylights—"