by Yasmin Angoe
But after years of war, the two tribes came together and began to blend their peoples. That is how my father came to be of both peoples. But when he was younger and newly returned from studying overseas, he met Mama at an open market in Accra. And because he loved her, he left his home to marry her. Mama was the chieftain’s only daughter, and by law, when Grandfather died, Papa became chieftain.
Mama was one-fourth Yoruba, Nigerian, on her grandmother’s side. The rest of her was Ewe, from her father’s side. Thus making me and my brothers a blend of all three great regions of Ghana: Ashanti, Fanti, and Ewe.
Of all things I will remember, this I know to be the truest of all: my father is an honorable man.
But even the most honorable of men have an enemy or two.
Tonight, those enemies have arrived with guns. With machetes. And with bloodlust as ravenous and destructive as a wildfire that will consume us all.
5
AFTER
When Nena finally made it to the van, she tried her best to ignore the probing glances from her team members. Yes, she was late. But it had all worked out, hadn’t it? She hurriedly shed her gear as if speed could shed her guilt at putting the team behind and possibly in jeopardy. She changed back into her flowing melon-colored evening gown, which had been chosen by her sister, not her. But Nena supposed Elin had done all right this time.
The van coasted away from the base of the long, winding drive of the Cuban’s estate. Five miles away, Miami’s upper echelon was drinking and dancing and likely hadn’t missed her at all.
The job was complete, minus a few hiccups, but the night was not yet over.
Charlie handed forward her gold clutch. It looked comical in his big, burly hands, hands that not twenty minutes ago had been shooting people to death.
“Thanks.” She opened it to pull out a mirrored compact to assess herself. She removed wipes from the go bag containing her clothing and proceeded to clean the sweat from her face, glad to be rid of the mask. The air-conditioning felt glorious on her skin.
She had to get through the rest of the party. She had to focus and get back to her regular self, whichever self that was. Oftentimes, she found it hard to distinguish which was the real her, the socialite or the wudini. But she guessed, for now, she was the socialite, forced to attend this pretentious soiree because Elin was handling the Tribal Council’s business abroad. Plus, the party had served as a perfect alibi—be the face of her family and eliminate the Cuban on the same night. What luck.
Alpha watched X-ray maneuver the van onto the main road, increasing the speed to put more distance between them and the Cuban’s home. Through the mirror she saw him raise an eyebrow. “Maybe clue your team in the next time you decide to go off-roading?” he said.
She applied a few dots of lotion, then smoothed it into her skin. Lastly, her tinted lip gloss. “You’re right,” she said. “My fault.” She pulled her hair up so it sat in a lush mound atop her head, held in place by a gold hair band. She brushed her edges smooth.
“You know,” Sierra chimed in from beside Charlie. They were also in various stages of undress, exchanging their work gear for their normal attire to dispose of when they split up later. “We always got you, fam; just let us know what’s up.”
Nena offered Sierra an apologetic nod through the mirror, applying another coat of deodorant and then perfume. She stole a glance through the window, checking their location. Ten yards ahead was a set of security gates flanked by tall palm trees. “Drop me here, please.”
As the van door slid open, Sierra said, “Behave in there, boss.”
Nena gave a nod. “Always.”
Sierra grinned lasciviously, still talking as the door closed: “’Cause I sure wouldn’t.”
The team wouldn’t see each other again until they were assigned their next job. For now, they’d go back to their respective homes scattered along the eastern front. None knew the others’ real names, and none were exactly sure where the others lived, though Nena suspected Sierra lived somewhere in Florida, as she did.
In heels she despised, she carefully trudged up the drive toward the grandiose mansion in which the party was being held, its strobing white lights illuminating the night sky as if it were New Year’s Eve. She took in the high gates, swaying palms, perfectly cultivated bushes, and brightly lit windows. The sprawling, manicured lawn stretched out before her looked more like a football field.
She passed the valets, clad in crimson vests, who busily squeezed high-end cars into makeshift parking spaces as attendees arrived and left the party. She walked past a college-aged kid determined to be curbside before an approaching Bentley slowed to a complete stop.
“I’m in,” she murmured, knowing the high-tech comms embedded in the onyx earrings snaking around her ears would pick her up easily. She entered the mansion, confident that Network would make sure her entrance back into the party was as undetected by the security cameras as her earlier departure. She followed the saxophone riff from the live band to the ballroom.
“Copy. Channel closed,” Network answered.
“Nena, there you are. I’ve been looking for you for quite a while,” her handsome date said, taking her protectively by the elbow. “Are you all right?”
She slipped back into her delicately demure role as quickly as taking a breath, but not before her jaw tightened while she stared intently at her skin, the color of deep walnut with golden undertones, where David held her a bit too possessively for her taste.
She stayed in character. “I got lost,” she said breathily, as if relieved her misadventure had ended. She blinked up at the sea-green eyes of her date, the random with whom her sister had made her attend.
“For pretenses,” Elin had told her.
More like to torture her. Nena had wanted to attend this event solo.
“I needed a bit of air and decided to walk the grounds—which are huge, by the way. Then I got turned around. I’m glad you found me.”
David’s chest swelled, the happy hero. “Are you up for a dance? Or do you want to leave?”
She did want to leave. But she also didn’t want to hear Elin’s mouth about abandoning her familial obligations to cement relationships with potential business and political partners. Building wealth and power for the Tribe wasn’t Noble Knight’s only vision—building for his family, ensuring they remained powerful inside and outside the Tribe, no matter what happened, was equally important.
She gave in, allowing David to guide her to the middle of the throngs of guests dancing and laughing beneath a domed glass ceiling, from which they could see a black sky blanketed by innumerable twinkling stars.
“Do you mind having the bloke not whisper sweet nothings into your ear? He sounds loud as hell through the earrings,” her older sister’s voice suddenly cooed with syrupy sweetness through Nena’s earpiece. Nena didn’t buy the false sincerity for a minute. “You only have to bugger around with him a bit longer.”
She should have known Elin wouldn’t be gracious enough to leave her be the whole night. Now that the job was done, Elin wanted to crash in on a comms channel to toy with her, especially when she knew Nena couldn’t reply or turn her off just yet. She could rip the earrings off and toss them, but then she’d have no backup if something were to go down.
David twirled her slowly. He held her waist, pulling her closer. She could tell by the growing bulge in his pants as he held her close and the way he stared down at her with glazed eyes that he hoped to bed her tonight, but hopes were meant to be dashed. What would he do if I let the air out of his hard-on with my dagger?
“You are so beautiful,” David whispered, his eyes glassy and lustful.
His reaction was interesting to her. She wondered what he saw as he looked down at her, hovering over her full lips and the oval outline of her face.
“Thank you,” she said politely, remembering that her shift as Echo was over and she was Nena Knight right now. But even Nena wouldn’t kiss this guy, Tom Cruise looks or not.
/> Again, she questioned who she was. Nena had worked as her alias, Echo, for so long. Again, she wondered which role was the real her, the rich socialite gliding in the arms of this equally rich Adonis, or the athletic killer who’d ended lives just a few miles away. And what had happened to who she used to be before, when she was Aninyeh? What had happened to that fourteen-year-old girl? Oh yeah, she’d died.
“You could act like you’re actually into the bloody bastard,” Elin taunted, pulling her from her thoughts. “I pulled your vitals up on screen, and they’re dropping,” she cackled. “The wanker is lit-err-ally boring you to death. Like, as I speak, down they go!”
Nena’s mouth tightened, biting back a retort. She hoped Elin had remembered to switch them to a private channel. But she knew her sister, and Elin likely had all of Network listening. She enjoyed launching these small tortures against Nena. Enjoyed it far too much.
Elin snorted gleefully. “Well, we both know you aren’t going to fuck him. Maybe I should? Naturally, if it wasn’t for Oliver. Do you know who David favors? Tom Cruise. It’s why I picked him for you, because you go all doe eyed when Mission Impossible comes on.”
She didn’t. Elin was lying.
“I’d screw him two ways from Sunday, if I could.”
She tuned Elin’s voice out until it was just white noise in the background. Her mind slipped back to the girl in the Cuban’s bedroom. Had she escaped? Was she smart enough to steal the gaudy jewelry to sell and start a new life? Hopefully, the girl wouldn’t be recaptured. Nena knew about captivity too.
David murmured, “How did I get this lucky?” as he nuzzled her, no doubt putting a nose-shaped dent in her beautifully coarse, coily hair. Her hair was one of the few things she took pride in, one of the few things she kept cultivated, just as her mama had taught her before she’d passed.
These three parts of Nena, always at war with each other, always at war with one another for survival. She wasn’t sure which she wanted to be the victor. Nena or Echo. Echo or Aninyeh. Aninyeh or Nena. When the war finally came to an end, she didn’t know who she would be.
Nena willed herself to lay her head against David’s chest. She let the rhythm of his beating heart take her back to a place far away, beyond the Cuban’s torture chamber, across an ocean to a lifetime ago.
David said he was lucky to be with her. But would he still consider himself lucky if he knew the woman in his arms took lives for a living, and that her story began, back home, with the betrayal and decimation of her simple little world?
6
BEFORE
The rat-a-tat-tat draws me farther from my family’s compound like a fish on a reel. Villagers are shouting. Their gut-wrenching cries send riptides of electric fear from my scalp to my toes. These are the cries of my people in pain. The gunfire barely pauses for breath. I force my feet to keep going, one in front of the other, even though all I want to do is run back.
Strange men dressed in camouflage clothing, none of whom I recognize, zoom past in trucks, the odor of diesel trailing behind them. The trucks slow, and some of the men jump out. They run into homes, and screams follow. My hands fly to my ears to blot out the noise. My eyes squeeze shut so I do not see when they begin to drag people from their homes. When I can, I force my legs to move, clinging to the shadows against the walls of homes, hoping I remain unnoticed as these men seek out victims who will better feed their hunger for chaos than I can.
Up ahead, the men are corralling N’nkakuweans in the middle of the village square. They threaten the villagers with an arsenal of weaponry—guns, knives, machetes—which they use to herd our people into a small, indefensible space.
They begin setting fire to homes I thought were empty. Until I see people begin to run out, engulfed in bright-orange flames that no one is allowed to extinguish, screaming in such agony my legs refuse to listen to my brain because my brain can no longer function. I can only stare at the figures in their grotesque dance as they suffer. When the first one drops, my feet move without my even knowing it, the cries of the burning chasing me toward the square. Acrid smells of cooking meat turn my stomach. When my stomach lurches, I vomit everything down the sewer ditch that runs the length of our main roads.
Using the back of my hand and then the hem of my dress, I wipe the mess from my mouth. Where are Wisdom and Josiah? Ofori and Papa? Each passing minute deepens the dread coursing through my veins. And though I try not to, I search the dead for my family. I search the howling mass of my people. One of the aunties’ children is wrenched, screaming, from her arms. She tries running after the child but is clubbed down by an intruder while two others pull the children kicking and screaming toward a line of open-bed trucks. Another uncle is cracked over the skull with the butt of a gun as he begs for the life of his wife, a wife who is already gone from this earth. I spied her body on my way here.
“Aninyeh,” someone calls from within the dark throngs of people.
Rough hands grab me, forcing me to the ground amid a gaggle of arms, legs, and sweaty bodies that ooze the stink of fear. My immediate response is to strike whoever has touched me, but Wisdom enters my line of vision, and my struggle abates, as does all my resolve. I want nothing more than to fold into him and be told this is all a horrible dream.
“Shhh,” he breathes, his eyes imploring me to listen for once.
Next to him Josiah is wild eyed and watching our every move. His eyes most echo mine, full of terror, of confusion, with a question at their very center. Why?
“Where is Papa?” I pant through clenched teeth. “Is he—?”
“There.” Wisdom motions in front of us. His face shines beneath a film of sweat in the suffocating heat. There lies the problem. The heat. It is not supposed to be this hot. This is not normal. None of this is normal. Therefore this, all of this, must be a terrible dream. Either that or we are in hell.
Josiah’s eyes move rapidly, taking in everything around us. He is listening to us but saying nothing, a rarity for him. I finally follow Wisdom’s hand, looking beyond the huddled mass.
“Where is the chieftain?” one of the intruders, a soldier I do not recognize, demands. He stands amid the cowering crowd, the sleeves of his uniform rolled in cuffs above his elbows. On his head is a black-and-white checkered scarf wrap. I know this covering. These men might want to appear as if they are military, like the real Ghanaian soldiers, but they are not of them. And if these men are not the government, then who are they? And why are they here doing this to us?
The intruder holds up one of our village elders, bleeding significantly from a wound above his eyebrow. In his other hand, he raises a club high. “Show yourself, or Uncle suffers the consequence of your weakness.”
Knee-jerk reaction and rage make me nearly shoot to my feet, but Josiah’s hand stills me, warning me to remain as I am. Therefore, Josiah would be the perfect advisor to Wisdom. Impulsivity never overtakes him as it often does me. Most of the time to my detriment.
“I am here,” Papa answers, his rich voice carrying across the sea of cowering heads and trembling bodies. He stands. His clothes are heavily stained with sweat, dirt, and blood. It is the first I recall seeing Papa disheveled in front of his people. He has always presented himself in his very best. And yet now, dirtied as if he has rolled in the dust and muck, with his hair in disarray, still he stands erect and assured and fearless.
“Now,” Papa commands, his voice without any trepidation, “remove your hands from that man.”
The heat from the fires makes the night unbearable, sucking out all the air. The intruders cast demon-like shadows in the fires’ light. But Papa’s features do not betray anything but a decree of calm for the rest of us to follow. The soldier still holds the club, but his fingers begin to unfurl from the old man’s shirt collar, his will bending to Papa’s as if entranced.
“Why have you people come here?” Papa demands as the old man sinks to the ground, a bag of weighted rocks dissolving into tears.
A large man, so heavy
that when he drops down from one of the open-bed trucks, it springs back happily, unleashed from its burden, walks toward us. He schleps along as if he is about to reason with Papa. Perhaps this is all a mistake.
Instead, the man raises the butt of his rifle and smashes it against Papa’s head so viciously that a collective gasp is emitted from the villagers like a stadium wave. Again, I want to rush to Papa’s aid, but both Wisdom and Josiah net their arms around me to contain my struggle. That is my papa he has hit. That is my papa staggering from the blow, shaking his head to clear it from the dizzying effects. A hand is over my mouth. Three others hold me tight, and Josiah murmurs as if chanting:
“Be still. Be still.”
I heed him, stilling myself, because it is all I can do.
7
AFTER
The Cuban and the party nearly two weeks behind her, Nena left her little cottage home, locking the door. She’d been a recluse, keeping a low profile, watching her movies, and enjoying the backyard oasis that had taken her years to perfect. She was glad only one job remained before she’d have some real time off. She had last-minute preparations to make for her Baxter dispatch, but for now all she could think about was hitting her favorite burger hangout.
When she arrived at Jake’s Burger Spot, located in a sketchier part of town, all the stores were closed and the streets relatively empty, but Jake’s remained open a little longer for those working late shifts. Nena noticed an emerald-green Cadillac parked along the street not too far from the bus stop. Etched on the top of its trunk were five playing cards: an ace, a king, a queen, a jack, and a ten.
The Royal Flushes, a local gang.
She saw Holding all the cards scrawled in a flourish below the winning hand. Nena frowned. She wasn’t into Keigel’s business, but even she knew the Flushes were on his “turf.” And she was pretty sure whatever the reason, it was for no good, and Keigel wouldn’t be pleased if he found out.