Once A Warrior (Mustafa And Adem) (14 page)

"What if he doesn't listen?"

"No deal. You keep right on trying to fight the good fight, but with some anonymous tips called in about who's in charge of the Killaz these days, it would be harder for you to pull it off."

Fuck. Wasn't that always the rub? If the government needs you, they can give you the best toys and sweetest candy while at the same time cutting off your legs so you're stuck there, bleeding, surrounded by toys and candy you can't even enjoy.

"He's my son, but he's his own man."

"Damned right he is. I already tried once. I even waited until the bastards that had tricked him into coming to Yemen already had him. Another half-mile and I was prepared to jump in, shoot a few guys, and whisk him to safety. You know what he did? He made them crash the car. He got out and ran. Your son was awesome, I'm telling you." Jacob smiled, pointed to Mustafa. "You raised him up right, you did. Good going."

Mustafa suddenly grew very tired. The hot tub had robbed him of the energy he'd built up with swimming. All he wanted to do now was sleep. He climbed out of the hot tub and grabbed his towel, sat on the edge of the chair where Jacob had been a few minutes earlier. He covered his head with the towel and leaned forward, head down, knees wide.

Jacob said, "You know he went to Yemen right?"

"I knew he didn't go to Mecca. He didn't tell me the truth, but I'm not stupid. I knew. I knew why, too."

"Because of her."

Mustafa pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Yes. I thought...I thought he had found her, too. Nothing I could've said would have kept him from going. I knew it. So I just went along, hid it from his mother. I didn't know...they were going to kill him?"

"Or hold him hostage for a while. Use him for videos, make themselves famous. Then, probably off with his head. But, hey, no worries. He's free of them and the only people looking for him now are the police and us."

Mustafa pulled the towel away and looked up. Jacob was all pulsing blues and greens. "The police?"

"At least in Dubai. So far. You have no idea, do you?"

He was up and in Jacob's face. "Tell me. Right now."

"He took on being Mr. Mohammed again on his own, thinking he could get the info on the woman that way. Instead, he got played. Big player over there, throws a lot of money at pirates. He keeps his name quiet, most people just call him ‘Our Benefactor', but he calls himself Uzayr. I have no idea how these guys can get so rich and still be invisible most of the time. Anyway, he roped in your son and got a decent payout, but it wasn't for the money. It was a diversion. Instead of the pirates giving up the boat, they killed the crew, flew a chopper on, and now it's a floating army. Mr. Mohammed is in deep shit."

"And you let him do it? You could've pulled him out of that, but you let him do it?"

Jacob looked down. "It was out of our hands, unless we wanted to blow the entire cover on dozens of agents. It's complicated."

"It will be very simple if Adem gets hurt because you didn't help him."

"Oh, fuck that."

Mustafa's arm shot out and he clawed Jacob's throat. The agent was fast, saw it coming and was about to do some serious kung-fu damage. Both of them, thinking ahead, Jacob aiming for Mustafa's balls, landing a kick at the same moment Mustafa let go of the man's throat, pushing him backwards into the pool.

The radiating pain from the kick sent Mustafa to the ground. Cramps pulsing. He curled up and gritted his teeth and tasted blood. The wounds had opened again. Blood and spit pooled under his cheek. He heard someone knock on the window that looked out into the hall. He lifted his head. The other agent, Benny, grinned and waved at him.

Jacob surfaced, coughing like a walrus. It echoed all over and he gasped for breath. He stood and waded to the side of the pool closest to Mustafa. Collapsed on his forearms and took deep, rattling breaths, coughing after each one.

Mustafa wasn't much better. The dull ache still pulsed, and all he could do was lie there in the fetal position, rolling back and forth.

After a while, the agent stopped coughing and said, "You talk to Adem. We get him on the phone with you, and you tell him to work for me. I'll protect him. He's right at our fingertips.. Do that, and I'll tell you where Deeqa ended up. You do with that whatever you like."

Mustafa stared at this arrogant little punk and decided that was exactly who Adem needed on his side. "You promise, right? He's not in trouble. He's not going to jail."

Jacob lifted a Scout salute. "Yeah, yeah, all that shit."

Mustafa sat up, rubbed his balls. "Okay. Get him on the phone."

––––––––

A
lone. Not a friend within, what, thousands of miles? It wasn't even a full day ago that he had an entire generation of young Somalis and Arabs willing to help him recover his reputation. Even bend—no, outright
break
—the laws for him so Mr. Mohammed could do his job. And now, in their eyes, Mr. Mohammed had betrayed them.

So far he had been able to ditch the suitcoat and find a new keffiyeh with which to cover his trademark bald scalp. He tossed his glasses away. He didn't need them. No matter what he did, he still looked out of place for Dubai. At least it was big enough and modern enough that he was able to move from restaurant to bar to hotel lounge without being found or noticed, with only a few hours in the early morning with no options but to hide in alleys or at the public beaches. Sleep? Minutes of it here and there, completely accidental. Waking up with his face on the sand, in his mouth. Salty and dry.

Dawn was an hour ago and Adem was feeling the heat. The shore was slowly filling with people—tourists, locals, police. There were no other moves to make. He didn't see a way to break the pattern. Hide. Move. Hide. Move. Until he was out of money, which wouldn't be long, or caught by one side or another. He glanced left, right, straight ahead. No one stared, but he had to look weird—expensive leather shoes and gray slacks, fully dressed on the hot part of the sand. Already sweating through while still shivering from the night's temperature drop.

All he had wanted was Sufia. That was it. No more games, no more wars. Just Sufia, to bring her back to the US, fix her face, to show her he was much more than an opportunist or a spoiled American. It didn't have to be
love
, really, so much as making her
see
. She would find a life in Minneapolis. She could do anything she wanted. She would be sorry that she ever turned him away.

It was a nice daydream. It made him smile. He saw her, the skin now mostly healed, only a few scars showing, mouthing "Thank you" to him. He mouthed it back to her. Except he realized it wasn't her. It was a child on the beach staring at him as her mother held her hand and helped her across the sand.

He had to face facts. It was over. He wasn't going to find her. It had been a lie from the start. No one knew where she was. Not Hasan, not the Benefactor, and not the CIA.

Time to move. He pushed up from the sand, brushed himself off, and took a three-sixty degree look around before heading down the boulevard. Got some forward momentum, but he thought he'd seen someone back there. Someone looking directly at him. Another look over his shoulder. There he was. A lean man in khaki pants and a white dress shirt. A smooth face, slicked hair. His chin came to a severe point. He was a lot closer than he had been only a minute before.

Adem launched out into the traffic, nearly hit by a Merc as he scrambled across lanes to the median. Bolted past people walking hand in hand, hand on phone, hands in pockets. Glanced back. Closer still. A scar divided his eyebrow in half. He had hazel eyes. How could he walk so fast?

The other side of the boulevard was wide-open. No advantage there. But Adem didn't have a choice. This guy was prepared to take him in broad daylight. He had to be some sort of police, then. The back-up was on its way. Adem needed to get more lost. If he didn't have distance, maybe he could head into one of the skyscrapers, find a crowd.

He turned suddenly and ran across the empty lanes, right for the front doors of a medium-height tower, blinding glass reflecting orange sunlight all over the road. He slipped in by a revolving door, peeked behind him. The lean man was still coming. Right outside the glass.

Ahead, it was sleek, white minimalism. Curved, smooth, modern. Wide open all the way to the desk, scattered plush sofas and chairs, sculptures, small groups of businesspeople milling around. The blue-shirted security guards, all young men, had noticed him and were already headed his way, machine pistols at the ready, one of the three speaking into the handset clipped to his front pocket. Exactly what he didn't need. Stupid, Adem. So stupid.

Where to from here?

Outside, the lean man held up a cell phone. He jiggled it, pointed to it.

Adem chose. Back out the revolving door, shielding his eyes with his hand. The lean man grabbed him by the arm and started down the sidewalk. "I have a call for you. Come with me."

"There's been a mistake," Adem said in English. "I'm an American, I'm just visiting."

The man gripped tighter, held the phone in Adem's face. "Take it. Take it."

The scenery was a blur. They took a corner. Then another. Lost, but there were shadows on the ground and Adem could see again. The phone was still in his face. The man at his side was walking too fast.

Adem took the phone. "Hello?"

"Finally. Like talking to a brick wall sometimes with you." He recognized Jacob's voice and relaxed somewhat. "Listen, what happened on the boat, we know there was nothing you could do about it."

"I need help. I need to come home. Can I go to the embassy?"

"I've got someone here who'd like to talk to you."

Adem listened to rustling. The man beside him still had a grip on his arm. They had nearly made the entire block.

Then another voice. One that stabbed him in the gut.

"Son? Are you okay?"

"I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry." On the verge of tears.

"You're okay, right? Not hurt."

"I'm so sorry, please, believe me—"

"Listen to me." It was the tone of voice.
The
tone. Adem stopped babbling. Mustafa said, "Jacob has told me what's going on. I want you to do what he says. We both know what he wants, and he's not going to stop until he gets it."

"Yeah, I understand, okay, okay." He couldn't believe his dad was telling him this. After the escape from Somalia, when the Feds came down hard on both of them, Mustafa had stood his ground. His son had been brainwashed, Mustafa told them, and what else could a father do in a situation like that? Adem picked up on the story, began having amnesia, began talking about how Jibriil had denied him access to his family, and how he had held back food and water to get Adem to do what he ordered. Kind of true, maybe a little. But both father and son knew it was the only way they were getting out of that mess with their freedom.

Now, Mustafa told Adem to give in to blackmail.

"Adem," he said. "Whatever it takes."

That was all he needed to hear. "I know, and I'm sorry. Okay, okay, I'll do it. I'll do it."

"Going to let you talk to Jacob now, son."

"Okay. I'm sorry, Dad."

"I know."

The agent at his side jerked them both to the left, crossing a street in the shadow of another skyscraper. Like a wind tunnel. Adem was getting shin splints. Hard to keep up.

Jacob was on again. "Still there, buddy?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"First, let Hafeez get you off the street. You're going to a safe house, and I'll talk to you when you get there."

"Tell me the truth first."

"We don't have time—"

"I need to know. It won't change my answer."

"You've got to hang up, got to get rid of the phone. Then we've got to rebuild Mr. Mohammed's reputation. Do you understand? We can talk about your girl problems later."

But Adem was distracted by the loud
crack
that echoed off the glass from both buildings, then another and another and the hand on his arm went slack and dropped off, and Adem felt fifty pounds lighter. Almost like a balloon. He looked behind him, and Hafeez was on the sidewalk, blood spattered around his head. A few of the blue-shirted security men with guns at the ready, running. Screams and shouts, shouting at Adem, women dropping to the ground, balling up. Men pointing, waving their hands in the air.

Adem flat out
ran
. More gunshots. He flinched and flinched again. He zigged, zagged, kept low and took the first corner.

The phone, you idiot! The phone!

Out of breath, he wheezed into it. "Hafeez....dead. Hafeez...dead. Jacob? Jacob?"

"Hello? What? The fuck did you say?"

"Hafeez is dead! Security guards...where...where do I? Jacob, help me!"

Another corner. Then another. Not daring to look back. If they knew where he was because of the phone...but if he lost the phone, Jacob couldn't tell him...

"Jacob!"

"Goddamn it, tell me a place. Any place. I'll get someone there in half-an-hour. Can you stay loose that long?"

Adem wondered if the Benefactor would expect him back at the same building where he had prepared for the meeting. But think about it—all those empty floors, all those behind the scenes corridors. He shouted, "Lutfi Brothers."

"One more time?"

"Lutfi Brothers Tower. Give me an hour." Adem threw the phone into the street and checked the skyline. There was shouting at his back. Left, then right. Tall buildings. Couldn't he remember where it was? Just one peek of it?

He had to turn himself nearly all the way around before he saw it, four o'clock, and took the next right. Nearly out of breath, but what was a little air between death and escape, right?

Another left. No time to burn.

––––––––

M
ustafa asked, "Everything all right?"

Jacob closed the phone. "Peachy. We'll go get him, keep him safe, and maybe later he can tell you all about his vacation. Show you the pics, that sort of thing."

There had been a lot of yelling after Mustafa handed the phone back to Jacob. Some poolside pacing by the agent while Mustafa sat on the edge of the lounge chair and held the towel tightly around his neck. He tried to tongue the spot where Poe had stabbed through the bottom of his mouth, but it was out of reach.