Once A Warrior (Mustafa And Adem) (27 page)

With a half-hour left before they landed, Jacob shook Adem awake. He didn't realize he had drifted off. That was a first for him. Jacob sat on the edge of the couch. "You okay?"

Adem yawned. "Less bombs, more jets, please."

"We'll debrief tomorrow. I've got to find you a driver and put some distance between us. You'll always have a ghost detail, always have someone listening in. But after a while you'll forget about it and expect it at the same time. Weird, I know, but trust me." Jacob reached into his pocket and pulled out a smartphone, handed it to Adem. "Sat phone. It's already set up and scrambled. If you need us, that's how you get in touch. If you don't use that, I'll know you've been blown. Understand? That's the lifeline. If you break it or lose it, then you keep your mouth shut until I give you another one."

The phone was already on, emitting a dull light. Adem brushed his finger against the screen, accidentally turned on some sort of voice-to-text program. He hit another couple of buttons until that was gone. The wallpaper was a photo of the Minneapolis Metrodome, home of the Vikings.

"Cute."

"Thought it might cheer you up."

Why would it? He wasn't sure if he would ever set foot in Minneapolis again, let alone the United States. Just a few months ago, that seemed like an impossible idea. "Yeah, thanks."

Jacob said, "And check out the second number I've got programmed in. If you want, you can go ahead and call."

Adem looked around the cabin. "Now? In the air?"

"No worries at all. See you when we land." He got up and kept on back, grabbed a beer from the built-in fridge, and went back to his chair.

Adem looked down at the favorites listing on the screen. The first one was WORK. Okay, self-explanatory. The second was HOME. Like, home home? Or Duabi home? Only one way to find out.

Pressed the button and listened to the numbers dial. Listened to the weird clicks and beeps that bounced the signal across the world to Minneapolis. What was the time difference? No, it was cool. Middle of the day back in the Cities. Then the rings. His gut twisting more and more with each one, until finally the voicemail clicked over. His mother's voice, telling the caller to leave a message. Very formal. He had been there when she recorded it. They tried at least twenty times before she was satisfied.

The Beep.

"Hey, Mom? Dad? Just...sorry I missed you. Yeah, I've got a new job, and...I'm fine. I'm going to be fine."

He hung up, turned the screen off, and stared out the window, wondering who down there was going to try and kill him next.

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Two Months Later

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J
acob and Adem waited in the Land Rover. They were parked by a restaurant on the outskirts of Dubai. It was closed today. They sometimes did that, closed without warning, quite often enough that most people didn't bother to risk the drive out anymore. But that was okay. The rumor was that the owners didn't really need the money. They just liked the idea of owning a restaurant.

It was nine twenty-six in the morning. The sun was cooking them, every minute they sat there, three more were taken from the end of their lives. Another car, a Mercedes, was closing in, the only other vehicle for miles. It pulled into the parking lot, kicking up dust so dense it took a full half-minute to clear. The man in the Mercedes got out of the car. Jacob got out of the Land Rover and went over to meet him. Adem stayed put.

Adem noticed that there were three other men in the car, all of them Somali. The two in back stared murder at him. The one is front tracked Jacob, who embraced their driver.

The driver of the Mercedes, a familiar face, said, "I am sorry I am late. The call didn't reach me in time."

"That's okay."

"But why here? Why not at your hotel?"

"Because this is where the girls will stay. They will work here when they are not otherwise engaged at the hotel."

The man put his hands on his hips and looked the place over. "It's not enough they give you what you want? Can't they at least have some time to rest?"

"Appearances are everything. You know that as well as I do."

Shrug. "It's not like they are sheep. Not like a farm animal. That's all I am saying."

The man looked over at the Land Rover and saw the passenger, but what he noticed first was the smartphone. Adem held it out at arm's length, transmitting the conversation via video chat.

"Hey, why is he recording this? What is he doing?" Panic. The man snapped his fingers and whistled. "Hey, this is...they're....no, no. Kill them both."

Nothing happened. A glance back towards the Mercedes. Bullet holes in every window. All three of the Somalis slumped over. Fatima had done a good job. Adem wondered if any of them were relatives. He stepped out of the car, walked around to the front, still transmitting. That was when the man noticed him.

"What...Adem? Adem, my God, are you really...is that you?"

"Yes it is, Uncle Chi."

Chi looked all around him, looking for a place to hide. Looking for escape. In the end, all he could do was drop to his knees. "They made me do it. They said she would die if I didn't do it. Please, Adem."

Mr. Mohammed dropped his eyes to his phone screen, hit the button to flip the camera.

"That's him. Is that enough?"

The man at the other end of the line said, "Yes. That's enough."

Jacob stepped back over to the Land Rover and opened the back gate, where he kept the weapon for this. A .22. Easy and clean.

The voice on the line. "I want to see it."

Adem said, "Okay." He stepped closer to Chi, resigned to his fate. Head heavy.

"Look."

The man lifted his eyes, saw the chat screen. There, sitting thousands of miles away in Minneapolis, was his cousin Mustafa. He sat before a screen in a room Adem didn't recognize. He had been told his parents had moved, but for their safety and his own, he wasn't told where.

Chi turned his head away. "How dare you. You are a liar. You stole my daughter."

Mustafa said, "She's doing fine, by the way. Much better these days."

"A shame she is to her mother, then. Whore."

He said, "Adem, keep it still. All the way to the end."

Jacob was back, .22 in hand. "Okay?"

Adem nodded and held the phone steady. He wasn't sure he wanted to see this for himself, but if his dad could watch, so would he.

Jacob didn't stretch it out. Chi started praying, bowing all the way to the ground, up again, down again, up. Jacob shot him in the eye. Chi crumpled. Jacob leaned in close, touched the gun to the back of Chi's neck, and fired one more time.

It wasn't quite what Adem had expected. If anything, it was anti-climactic. He lifted the phone again. Three of them this time—Dad, his cousin Deeqa, and standing behind them both, steely-eyed, was his mother.

Adem said, "How was that?"

Dad nodded. "Okay. Yeah, it was okay."

"Okay."

He cut the connection. Stood for another short while looking at the dead man. A little blood, no screaming. Just a couple of pops and the motherfucker was dead.

Jacob said, "Let's go."

Adem nodded. "Okay."

They got into the Land Rover and pulled out of the parking lot, turned towards Dubai, leaving the dead for someone else to clean up.

###

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novels

The Baddest Ass (Billy Lafitte #3)

Hogdoggin' (Billy Lafitte #2)

Yellow Medicine (Billy Lafitte #1)

Choke On Your Lies

The Drummer

Psychosomatic

Colder Than Hell (Dead Man #16)

XXX Shamus (as Red Hammond)

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novellas

Sin-Crazed Psycho Killer! Dive, Dive, Dive!

To the Devil, My Regards (with Victor Gischler)

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short story collections

The Early Crap: Selected Short Stories, 1997-2005

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