Once A Warrior (Mustafa And Adem) Read online

  Mustafa motioned towards the girls. "I can look at them, right? I can talk to them?"

  Chablis nodded. "If you want privacy, you can take them to the bathroom. But leave the door unlocked. Dragoslav will stand outside."

  The white man nodded.

  Ali stepped up. Mustafa almost forgot he was there.

  "Bahdoon does business differently. You have no right to treat him like the Prince. The Prince was an asshole. We all need to trust each other here."

  Chablis huffed. "Then tell your man to speak up! Why am I feeling like, like, bad person here? Look at the way he stares. Look at his face. This is good business?"

  Mustafa wasn't going for the bait. He turned to the closed bathroom door. No more retching. He knocked once. "Can I come in?"

  No response. Dragoslav brushed past Chablis and reached for Mustafa's shoulder, but Ali moved between them. "His business."

  "She's a liar. She lies." Terrible English. A voice like he had eaten a grenade.

  "He talks to who he wants. He's Bahdoon."

  Another soft knock, and then Mustafa clicked the door open, slid inside and closed it again quickly. He heard Chablis say, "He'd better not think of backing out. Not now. I don't care who he is."

  In the bathroom, the girl had pushed her hijab off her head, The front of it was stained with vomit. She hadn't flushed the toilet. Not much more than stomach acid. She was almost too weak to be frightened. Mustafa sat against the door. Let them try to push their way in now.

  Why not start with, "Hello. My name is Bahdoon."

  She didn't say anything.

  He tried again in Somali. She said, "I know English."

  "What's your name?"

  She closed her eyes. Cleared her throat. "Does it matter?"

  "It helps."

  She relaxed her head against her arm, resting on the toilet seat. Still no name.

  "The man outside, he told me you're a liar. So, he did something to you. I understand. The first thing a liar does is call everyone a liar."

  She gagged again. Mustafa turned his head away and waited her out. His own stomach tumbled, but he held it together. The odor of her sickness burned. He held his jaw tighter.

  "So, he raped you."

  Nothing.

  "Does your mother know where you are?"

  Nothing.

  "Your father?"

  That got her to turn his way. Hate, oh yes, hate. If hate had a face, there it was. But not at her father. No, there was shame there, disobeying him, getting into this situation. The hate was for herself. For Mustafa. "Don't talk about my father!"

  Mustafa shook his head. "I don't know your father. Listen, you're going to be okay. I'm going to treat you like you deserve to be treated, alright?"

  "Like a whore."

  "You don't deserve that."

  "I deserve to be dead."

  "Hey, that's not the American spirit, is it?" He smiled. At least she was listening. "Americans come back from shit like this. Americans overcome. Triumph. I promise, with me you'll make enough money to come back and buy this motherfucker's ass, make him beg."

  Shook her head. "I don't even want to look at him. What he made me do. I would've, like, you know? I would've been, like, nice for him, made it sexy. That wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to embarrass me. It hurt."

  "I know."

  "I cried. Like, hurt cried, right?" Sitting upright now, animated. "He liked that."

  Mustafa shrugged. "You don't want to face him again, I'll do it for you. I'll make him beg. I'll make him cry that way. You'd like that?"

  Her eyes were brighter. She nodded.

  "You think you can get up and walk out of here with me?"

  She pushed herself off the floor. For a moment Mustafa thought she might lose it again, but she kept on her feet. "Pins and needles." A small laugh.

  "Do you know those girls out there?"

  "Only for the last few days. Two of them are, like, new here. They don't understand much. The others are like me, from the Cities. All we wanted was, you know, to make our own way. My father, already talking about taking me out of school, making me work at the store. I don't want that. I want to go to college."

  Mustafa stood, reached out his hand. She took his. Hers was wet with spit, but he squeezed tight. "One day you'll go back home and he will respect what you've become. You might even make more money than he ever will. You can buy him a car."

  She took a few deep breaths. Acid-tinged. Mustafa turned his face away and opened the door. Ali's back was right there, blocking a flame-faced Dragoslav. Mustafa told Ali, "Take the girls. All of them. Even this one."

  Chablis, pacing, cigarette still jiggling. "That's right, you will."

  "I mean right now, to the van. I'll finish our business here."

  Dragoslav. "No, that's not what we do. Money first. Then you leave with girls."

  Mustafa shook his head. Waved come along to the girls on the bed. They stood, wide-eyed, and quickly followed right along. They wanted the hell out of this hotel room, obviously, away from this Chablis bitch and her child-fucking white man. They filed past. What was Chablis going to do? Tell Dragoslav to shoot them one by one? Had she ever before? Did she have that much pull with the hotel manager? Had to be someone getting paid to turn the other way, falsify the reservation, or not even write it down.

  Three of the girls moved past, joining Ali and the runaway. The last, Sixteen, Dragoslav stopped with a hand on her shoulder. "You can stay. Leave when we're done." To Mustafa: "Collateral."

  Mustafa turned to Ali, who was ready to throw down. Nodded at him. He gathered the girls and left, eased the door closed behind him. Dragoslav took his hand away but wrapped his arm around the girl. Gave her a squeeze. Some grin he had. Lips looked like he used ChapStick, even in the middle of summer.

  Mustafa pulled out his phone. Pulled up the bank app. Again, all of this was out in the open, an anonymous account, never drawing attention. Transferred to another. Then to another. Hopping through the money markets and bond markets and other pre-ordained electronic trades in a matter of seconds before landing in another anonymous account that Mustafa had no control over. But Chablis' phone chirped. She took a look, poked her screen a few times, and there it went again, moving along. The original account now closed. Chablis' delivery account closed.

  She looked up. "You took ten thousand off."

  "I don't like being lied to."

  Dragoslav hissed. "She's the liar!"

  "I don't like my product, which had already been tested and certified, fucked with so that I can't offer it at the same price. She's traumatized. Next time, Lady, he's not involved." Nod to Dragoslav.

  The white man spilled a stream of nasty Eurotrash words into the air. Chablis shut him down with three of her own. She then said, "You don't tell me who I—"

  But Mustafa had already made a move and held Dragoslav against the wall, even as he held the girl. Hand around the bastard's throat, the man's own gun in his other.

  "If this was acceptable under Heem's rule, then let's make it clear. Anything you do to the whores, you've done to me, and I won't let it go."

  Dragoslav's face was going purple. Hacking. Eyes bulging. He let go of the girl, who slipped under and made for the door.

  "You're supposed to be professionals. Act professional and I won't have to do something we'll all regret."

  Chablis was at his side. "Please, okay, please. I'm sorry. I should have—"

  Mustafa let go of Dragoslav and he dropped. Mustafa lifted his foot and slammed the sole into the white man's nose. Got him honking, grabbing, rolling on the carpet, thick red dripping from his hands onto the floor, smearing it on the walls. Mustafa turned his back. He had no time for their excuses. He dropped the magazine from the pistol, racked it to release the live shell. He dropped the gun and kept moving on out the door with the mag, Sixteen close behind. They didn't look back until they were in the Escalade, Hot Cruze already backing out and burning out, nearly hitting a few cars as he raced
through a yellow light.

  Then Mustafa bent double and grabbed his knees. Let out a shaky breath. The sixteen-year-old by him looked just as afraid of Mustafa as she had been of Dragoslav. That was okay. That would change, he hoped. He had forgotten about the adrenaline rush and the fear. It was the fear that made him bad. Only way to get out of that sort of shit was take a chance, be bad, and leave. Don't give them time to respond. They come at you again, put 'em down harder. Faster. Do not flinch. Do not linger.

  Mustafa cleared his throat. Sat up, brushed his suit coat flat. "Motherfucker."

  Teeth said, "Go okay?"

  Shook his head. "Not at all. Holy shit, man."

  "I know. Take it easy. You'll get your nut back. Give it some time."

  His sleeve was sweat-soaked. God. How did he do what he had just done? He looked down. At some point he'd pulled out his phone again without thinking, had it in a death grip. Tried to make a call, but more sweat dropped onto the screen. He smudged it off. Looked at Teeth.

  "You know what to do?"

  Teeth said, "I got it." He told Hot Cruze where to drive the girls.

  Mustafa stared out the window. Construction had the whole street wrecked as they put in a new light rail line. Maybe it would change this place, all the storefronts faded and all the sidewalks cracked. Sure, lots of time to get his nut back.

  FOUR

  The man who stepped over to Adem, seated on the floor of the restaurant he'd chosen as a place to lie low for a while, looked like so many others he'd seen in the streets—spotty beard, rough-skinned, with a traditional ornamental dagger, a jambiya, in his belt cinching his sarong. A Western suit coat, a black-and-white keffiyeh on his head. Canvas sports bag on his shoulder. But when he spoke, it was clear, right-off-the-TV Midwestern American.

  "That was some running you did back there."

  It sure was. Adem had twisted his way into busier streets and subdivisions until he found a market, bought a new keffiyeh and a sarong, and hoped that would be enough camouflage. Then he slowed down, keeping an eye behind him. While he hadn't expected the snag with Hasan right at the airport, Adem had a feeling that somehow, someway, he would need Plan B. The helplessness he felt last time in Mogadishu had led him to read about spies from the Cold War and double-agents in the Middle East, always a minute or two from having their covers blown, needing an escape route at all times. He took notes. He made sure to have plenty of local money hidden in his clothing. A couple of shitty fake IDs, enough to confuse a cop or soldier for just as long as he needed to bolt.

  Last resort, that one. Adem was pretty sure the American authorities wouldn't be happy to learn he had lied about his destination and the purpose of his pilgrimage.

  So when he finally settled into the small, family-run restaurant that looked more like someone's home—lots of children staring at him as he ordered coffee and a bowl of stew—the last thing he expected was to hear someone who spoke English like a native. This scared him silly.

  He couldn't take the guy on. He was out of breath. Sana'a was up there, altitude-wise. Give him the coldest winter day home in Minneapolis and Adem could outrun almost any of them, absolutely. But they had an edge on him with the thinner air. He took a sip of coffee, thought about faking an accent or pretending his English sucked.

  Before he could answer, the man sat across from him and said, "I guess something went wrong, right, Adem?"

  Adem stared. All he could do. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course he'd been outmaneuvered. He was one guy against an entire worldwide network.

  The server came back, asked what the new man at the table wanted, and he answered perfectly, the inflections, everything, as if he'd been speaking Arabic from the day he was born. Ordered the same as Adem had. Told the server, a pre-teen girl, that it all smelled wonderful and he had heard about this place from his neighbors.

  She smiled and dipped her head several times and then went away.

  The guy sat down, crossed his legs, hands braced on his knees. "No, I'm not with them. You're thinking that. I'm not. I had my facts wrong. We thought you might have been, like, hired again."

  "You mean—"

  "I know about the chat rooms. We've been watching. I knew when you finally responded. We had been expecting you to. We know you're looking for her, and hoped you would lead us..." Stopped for a moment, looked off to the left. A noise like a fly buzzing. Adem saw the transmitter in the man's ear. The buzzing stopped and the man said, "Okay," then turned back to Adem. "I think we can find a better place to talk."

  "I'm not going anywhere with anyone. Not you, not anyone."

  As the girl came back with their stew and the new man's coffee, it gave Adem a chance to take a closer look. When he looked past the garb and the facial hair, the man was only half Arab. Something about his eyes. Also, mid-thirties. Adem thought about it—white US military man meets and seduces a desert woman. Marries her, because otherwise think of the scandal. It also helped that she was pregnant with a baby boy instead of a girl. So...not a Yemeni. Saudi? Kuwaiti? Raised on American military bases but very close to the Arab side of his family. Making him a perfect candidate for some sort of foreign service. CIA?

  Really? The CIA?

  As if Adem had said it aloud, the man said, "Seriously, do you think we would have let you come on this trip if we didn't have our own agenda?"

  A chill, hard and cramping, started right in the middle of Adem's gut. Made him cough. They'd been watching his every move for three years. He'd always suspected it, but he had never assumed they were watching that closely.

  "But how did you...right now, this place? How did you?"

  Rolled his eyes. "We use the Force. We always know where the Americans are. Magic."

  Adem flashed on his real passport. Microchip.

  The agent stood up, shouldered his bag. Full of guns? Money? GPS locator? Hadn't touched his food. "Can we go now?"

  Don't move a muscle. Stay still. Look away.

  "If it helps, my name's Jacob. What I have to offer you is a good thing. A way to get her back, help your country, bring peace to the Middle East, save kittens. Just listen to me for a little while, okay?" He reached out his hand.

  Adem unfolded his legs, took the agent's hand, and was pulled to his feet. Jacob handed money to the server, who apologized if the food was not good or the service or—

  "It's all excellent. We're late, that's all."

  Out into the dry air of the late afternoon, the street less crowded than when Adem had ducked into the restaurant over an hour ago. He didn't know if the agent's name was really Jacob, or if this really was an agent at all, but he followed blindly, not having a better play. Plan B went out the window.

  Jacob led, speaking over his shoulder. "I've got a car nearby. We'll head to the place I've been renting and meet up with the SAC who has the details."

  "Wait." Adem put it together. "You actually know where she is?"

  "Not here, okay? Keep it down." This agent was too nervous. He should own this street. Instead, he was stepping too fast. Watching too many windows and peering down too many alleys. But Hasan hadn't found him. The others hadn't found him. Could be they were tangled up in steel and brick and heading to the hospital, or they could've been gunned down by soldiers. If Jacob was for real, then it was the passport. No other way.

  All around him, louder voices on the streets than he would've heard in Minneapolis. The smell of the food, the people, the animals, all at a different pitch than back home. But what if he thought like he was back in the Cities? No need to rethink the wheel. A city is a city is a city.

  He inched closer to the agent, spoke into his left ear. "I need to know. You have to understand. If I let you lead me into a trap—"

  "It's not a trap."

  Adem stopped Jacob in the middle of the street, hand on the agent's shoulder. Eye to eye. "Give me something. If you try to force me along, in front of all these people, would that be a bad thing for you?"

  Adem saw wheels turning. How much cou
ld Jacob tell him? How much could he leave out? How much of it would be utter bullshit?

  Jacob shook his head. "You've done it before. We're just asking you to do it for us now."

  "Do what? What are you talking about?"

  A sigh. "Play Mr. Mohammed again. That's what we want. We bankroll you, set you up, and you play for their team. Every once in a while, we'll need you to tell us something, or need you to tell someone else something. Otherwise, we leave you alone."

  That was what he was afraid of. Hasan had wanted him for more sinister reasons, but now Jacob wanted him, all because he'd been a crap fighter in an awful war, and his friend had helped get him out of a bad situation. He closed his eyes, jostled by passers-by. Why couldn't everyone leave him alone? Jacob took him by the arm and led them out of the street to a wider boulevard, a jumbled-up jigsaw of cars and pedestrians, horns and shouts. Once they rounded the corner, Jacob took the lead again, talking again, in Arabic this time. Adem could barely catch what he was saying except when he flicked a sentence or two over his shoulder.

  "—which will give you protection...seriously, not like last time...better success rate than you'd imagine..."

  "Will I have a choice? I mean, can I just go home now?"

  "Why? You've come this far. Why not keep going? We're not just talking a reunion with that girl. This is a chance at redemption. A paycheck. Service to your country. I'm kind of jealous, really."

  But Adem wasn't listening because they'd come to a busy intersection with lots of foot traffic, car traffic, animal traffic. He slipped his passport and cell phone into the agent's canvas bag, then stopped walking, waited as the still-talking agent got several steps ahead, then turned right and got as lost as he could.

  *

  Amazing. Two escapes in a day. Thanks to novels from Jeremy Dun and Barry Eisler and Daniel Silva, detailed explanations of how their superspy characters got out of tight spots over and over again. Adem memorized them, practiced in the Cities. Documentaries on the Discovery Channel, History Channel. Black and white movies on AMC and TCM. So what if the CIA had known about his plan all along? They hadn't predicted this part, and that was why he was in the back of a cab, miles away from the agent and his passport. With no idea what to do next.