Once A Warrior (Mustafa And Adem)

I
t's been three years since Mustafa Bahdoon, one-time leader of the Southside Killaz, saved his fugitive son Adem from the clutches of pirates in Somalia. But when Mustafa is asked to rescue a young girl from the gang's sex trafficking empire, he returns from retirement to seize control once again. But his coup ignites a vicious gang war on the streets of Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, still haunted by guilt over the girl he left behind in Somalia, Adem reprises the role of Mr Mohammed, legendary pirate negotiator. But the CIA is on his tail and he soon finds himself unwillingly enmeshed in a deadly campaign against organised crime.

Half a world apart, survival for both father and son depends upon telling friend from enemy, truth from lie, and their own true selves from the roles they must play.

ONCE A WARRIOR is the highly anticipated follow-up to the award-winning ALL THE YOUNG WARRIORS.

ONE

––––––––

T
here was Mustafa Abdullah Bahdoon, still badass as ever but too old for this crowd of barely legal gangbangers, all muscles and tattoos, all of them from the Southside Somali Killaz out of Minneapolis. Mustafa led these guys back in the Nineties. Shit, he was the one who started the gang. Weren't none from his time still around. They were either dead or in jail or, like Mustafa, "retired" with real world jobs and real world problems. Mustafa lost his job with Target a few weeks ago. Got fed up with a manager, got in his face, shouted. The bosses gave him a half-assed severance, just to keep him from suing. All according to plan.

He wandered through the Killaz party in this foreclosed condo up in Little Somalia, emptied of furniture, bass shaking his whole body, the air hot and sweet with marijuana smoke, no air-conditioning. Lots of mouths moving, lots of dancing, but the bass—
throom throom throom
—deafened him to any of that. Had to be a lip reader. Had to be young, know the lingo. The new generation was way past how the old Killaz talked, got their own vocabulary that sounded wack. All around, little pockets of glow coming from smartphones. Everyone texting one-handed. Guys taking pics of girls' asses grinding against crotches, sending the pics across the room to friends, and vice versa. Girls getting they bitch on. More white girls than Mustafa remembered. The music was harder, techno. Alien. He didn't know these bands anymore. Whatever, this noise had no soul but that was what they were calling soul music these days.

He was more than Old School. Old School to these kids was five years ago. Mustafa was Grandpa. But he was betting he still had some respect around here, and also that they underestimated his thirty-nine-year-old ass.

He nodded up high to a guy who looked like he was keeping an eye out. Got a nod back. This one knew him. Mustafa grabbed the man's hand and wrapped an arm around his back, fist-pounded twice then let go.

"Bahdoon? Where you been hiding yourself, man?"

"I need to see him." Mustafa didn't want to shout. Just smooth-talked into the soldier's ear. "Ibrahim."

Got another nod. "Prince Heem."

"That's the one."

"Let me tell him." The soldier slid open his phone. Typed on it. All text, all the time. Kind of stupid, Mustafa thought, leaving an electronic paper trail. These phones weren't burners, neither. These were fancy. Custom colors and shells and ringtones. Status symbols the way gold chains used to be. The phone made a robot noise seconds later, and the soldier looked up again.

"You can go on back. Mind if I?" Held up his phone. The camera. Mustafa nodded, gave him a sign, but looked away right before the fake camera click. Couldn't even tell it was him. That was the idea. Then the soldier pointed the way.

Mustafa could tell that one had been born American, not like the original gang—the first wave, arriving in the Twin Cities back in the early Nineties, fleeing their homeland in order to save their families and their culture. Twenty years later here were their children and grandchildren, never seen Africa except on TV or photo albums. Like Mustafa's son, Adem, born in Minnesota and stupid enough to disappear for a while and go hellbent to Somalia, fighting for Islam. Mustafa had to drag him back and force him to finish college, had to promise the government he'd keep Adem in line to keep him out of Guantanamo Bay, but now had to put up with the boy's new Muslim identity. At least the bangers here weren't caught up in that bullshit. Not yet.

The soldier took the lead. It had been a nice condo before it became a permanent party pad. Mustafa guessed there were mattresses all over the floors in the bedrooms, guessed they were full now, guessed the line of couples in the hall, almost getting right to it then and there, were waiting for a spot. Some guys had two girls. Some girls had a handful of guys. One or two looked too young, too scared. Some teen girls wearing hijabs with tight jeans were way out of place. But the others—not Somali, not Islam, just black and white and Hispanic and Asian girls trying to act like porn stars, letting these assholes treat them like porn stars. Mustafa kept his jaw like stone. Hard breaths. Fingers balled tight.

Back to the kitchen. Someone had made love to this kitchen—glass brick backsplash, fine upscale maple cabinets. State of the art appliances, stainless steel. On the counters, three large flatscreen TVs, the left blaring hip-hop videos, the right hardcore anal XXX, and the middle, a video game. Men in body armor, explosions, alien war cries, missiles. Wires snaked from the TVs to the back corner, where three young men and five young women were packed tight into what looked like a wraparound booth salvaged from a restaurant that had caught on fire.

"Hold up, hold up." The one in the middle was Ibrahim, wearing a Vikings hat, a retro Wild jersey, and glasses. Black plastic square frames, lenses tinted just enough. Light-skinned, no scars. He was grimacing, biting his tongue, fingers flicking on the buttons of his controller. His friend had a controller, too. Both were leaning as their characters ran. Ibrahim leaned hard left against a white girl with raccoon eyes and streaks of pink in her blonde hair. She rubbed her hand on his head, knocked his cap over his eyes. He shouted
"Shit, bitch!"
and slapped the cap away, but it was too late. A big bug-robot had jumped him, ripped him apart.

His friend, muscly guy with long dreads and a loose Timberwolves tank-top, laughed and hit pause, pulled out finger guns. "Boom! Boom!"

"That shit ain't fair. It's her fault." Heem gave her a palm to the face. Shoved.

"Fuck that!" White girl spoke up. "Fuck that, you don't
touch
me, right? Don't
ever
touch me."

Prince Heem stood as much as he could in the booth, hunched over the girl. "That's it, girl. Stand up for yourself. Stand on up and get the fuck out, too." Then to his friend. "Fuck's wrong with you?"

Mustafa was bored. He watched the rejected girl try to walk out with some sort of attitude, but the guys had moved on to the next game. He wanted to tell the others to get out of here. All these girls. What were they getting out of this? Money? Girl was wearing a short denim skirt they stocked at Target, nothing fancy. Was it some sort of rush? Did they get free weed? Crank? Or just Important Boys making them feel important too? All of them bared too much thigh and ass, too much make-up. They loved the attention and thought they could control it but would find out soon enough that there was no controlling it. Mustafa's jaw tightened more, his teeth about to crack.

Heem told the girls to give him some time alone with Mustafa. Having put the older man off like that was Prince Heem showing he was on top, didn't bow to anyone. Mustafa's reputation got him in without a blink, but once in, it was the same old games.

He didn't blame Heem. Mustafa would've done the same thing if he was sitting in that seat. Still wanted to punch the motherfucker, though. Look at him wasting his time, throwing a party because that's all he knew to do. Fucking video games and porn, and he wasn't even watching the porn. The whole set-up like a display window for what it meant to be a gangsta. The kid wouldn't recognize the real thing unless it had a designer label on it.

The girls out, Mustafa slid into the booth next to the guard with the dreads and tank-top. No one would let him sit right next to the Prince, no way. The other guard in the inner circle, plain white tee, looked half something—Hispanic, maybe—like, maybe he didn't have any Somali blood in him at all. He was across the table, elbows wide and fingers clasped like this was a fucking business meeting.

Heem reached over to shake Mustafa's hand. "The Big Bad Bahdoon. Honored. How you doing, brother? Got some wisdom to drop on me?"

Head nod. "Making it. Doing what I do."

"Heard that."

"Hard out there."

Prince Heem relaxed into the Naugahyde, arms unfolding against the back of the booth. He had a big wingspan. "I heard. I heard."
Hurd, hurd
. No accent. All-American. Third-generation Somali in Minneapolis, raised on TV voices. "What you come to ask me, then? Anything you need. You're the Godfather."

He sure as shit was. Mustafa and his people barely survived getting out of the homeland, arriving in the Cities during winter, slackjawed at the snow, the cold, knowing only the barest of English. They had first escaped to Kenya, where they lived a while before friends and cousins told them Minneapolis was becoming the center of a new world. Businesses to be opened, money to be made, nice apartments to be lived in. All those opportunities from all those American films, not just daydreams anymore. They were knocking on all of the Somalis' doors in America. In Minnesota. The last place on earth they would've guessed.

The Somalis were isolated at first, learning English from African-American stars, bands—Bell Biv Devoe and Wu-Tang and Bones, Thugs, and Harmony. Watching Fresh Prince, the outcast amongst the Bel Air set, but also magnetically cool. Gangs were so cool. Ice Cube may have had a good day, but Mustafa liked him better when he hadn't and instead wanted to one-eighty-seven some police. Him and NWA. Him and Ice-T and Bodycount and Public Enemy, in their damn-near military uniforms.

So Mustafa took his grandfather's name, Bahdoon, and told his friends they were going to be the Southside Somali Killaz, and they were going to rule the streets. Seemed silly now. All of them had just escaped slaughter in a tribal civil war. Their families wanted a future for themselves, their children, their grandchildren. But Mustafa and his dumbass friends went out and made new tribes and dressed like their hip-hop heroes while raising their chins high on Somali pride, then proceeded to beat the shit out of each other.

The Godfather.

Then drugs.

Then guns.

It wasn't for fun anymore. It was a business. Turf. Real grudges. Real blood spilled.

He was still King Shit when his wife became pregnant with their daughter Rooxo—they called her Roxy now—and then again two years later with Adem. Mustafa didn't want to die before his kids grew up. Still, it took until Adem was nearly in high school before he got out for good. A Killa made a bad decision with a gun at a concert Adem and his friends had gone to, putting them in danger. That was it. Next day, Bahdoon was done, as soon as he took care of the fuck-up. Broke both his arms and his jaw. For a handful of years after that, the Killaz had a price on Mustafa's head. Ten large. But no one seriously wanted to collect it. The old guard faded, forgave their former leader, and the new kids had the attention span of fleas. All good again.

Other books

A Not So Respectable Gentleman? by Diane Gaston

Saving Simona (Alone In The World Trilogy) by Blackmore, Rebekah

My Dad's a Policeman by Cathy Glass

Bond of Fire by Diane Whiteside

Evermore by Rebecca Royce

Palm Beach Nasty by Tom Turner

The Leopard (Marakand) by K.V. Johansen

The Law of the Trigger by Clifton Adams

His Saving Grace by Sharon Cullen

Early Decision by Lacy Crawford