One boy said to them, "We're you're children! We are, too!" And then he took away the second bottle of water he was going to leave with them and poured it out on the road.
One of the boys told Adem and Jabriil that the woman was actually in business, trying to sell food and khat. Adem kind of knew what khat was. His dad and uncles had talked about it with smiles on their faces.
Adem wondered what they were fighting for, or against, if this was all it took to rile them up. Shoving. Pointing guns. A mother and daughter and two young sons, much younger than those in the truck. The sons made guns with their fingers, danced around. The boys in the truck laughed, urged them on. Adem turned to Jibriil, found him grinning. Adem coughed.
The boys climbed back into the truck, their stolen bread and lamb and water passed around like a prize. They'd also taken some khat. Raw leaves. Many of the boys grabbed at those and chewed. Adem lifted his bandana, took a sip of the tart, lukewarm water, and wished it was Mountain Dew.
*
In the city limits, the truck rattled along past piles of rubble and burned-out buildings. How some of them were still standing seemed physically impossible. Everything was broken. Most of the people the truck passed had guns. A handful were shooting blindly down streets. Everyone else ignored them. Some of the boys in the truck shouted to friends on the street. Smaller children in dusty clothes played soccer, and even some of them had laid their rifles to the side for a while.
What surprised Adem the most was the normalcy. People here were used to this. Guns and rocket launchers were a way of life. They still had to buy, sell, work, and play. They had to laugh, or what the hell else would they do but cry? And they cried a lot. Adem heard wails from blocks away. One growing louder as they passed the aftermath of a mortar attack. Blood seeping into the dust. Bodies barely covered by the fallen tarp. Sandaled dead feet peeking out.
Street vendors. Shelled businesses struggling to keep storefronts open. A lot of smoke and noise. Rifle-fire echoing from all over. And singing. Raw, tone-deaf singing. Adem was surprised. He knew the tune. The words were different, foreign. Still, something familiar finally, after thinking he was more of a stranger here, the homeland, than he was in America. Someone in the truck started singing along. Adem looked up. It was Jibriil. They'd sung together in the high school chorale group, Adem never really on key. But Jibriil had it down pat. A natural. Adem hadn't heard him sing in a couple of years. But he knew this song. Could hardly speak a couple of sentences in Somali without making a mistake, but he knew this song? When had he learned this song?
They twisted through the streets, avoiding rubble from the stone buildings, and crisp, still smoking debris from trucks, military jeeps and vehicles, and small cars. And then they were there. A massive stadium, rising from the ruins. It looked like a ruin itself—battered, cracked, and forgotten. The truck kept on through one of the tunnels, dark and cool for a blessed few moments, before bouncing hard and fast into the field. Adem ground his teeth together to keep from shouting. The stands were empty and sun-blasted. The field itself was dry but filled with desert scrub brush and trees. Like the Earth was reclaiming the space while hell burned all around outside the walls. There were men and boys and other trucks scattered inside the ring of growth. Maybe several hundred people. Babbling. Looking serious. No one was playing football.
The truck came to a stop and the boys jumped off. Adem stood and stretched. He'd been sitting with all his muscles tensed without realizing. The release was painful, but worth it. A full lungful of dry air made him cough. Jibriil shook his head and hopped onto the ground as if he was a veteran already.
Amongst the voices, Adem still getting used to the speed and rhythms after another full semester of American Midwestern accents, one was higher in pitch, reciting poetry. No, wait, she was praying. A woman.
Adem looked around. All male.
Then a voice over a bullhorn: "Come on over. It's time to begin. Come on."
A large group of the men had already gathered near one end of the stadium. The truck driver stepped over to Adem and Jibriil, urged them on.
"What's going on?"
The driver urged more, hands on their shoulders. "Justice."
Close and closer. A couple of men had shovels. The closer to the center of the circle, the younger the men, most carrying stones as large as their hands.
Adem's stomach sank like he was falling. He pressed his lips hard together, not wanting to throw up. Then, someone handed both of the newcomers stones. Adem rubbed the top of his with his thumb. Jagged.
At the center of the crowd, a clear area. Several feet around the main attraction: a middle-aged man and a teenage girl, both buried up to their waists. The girl was in a hijab, her head covered except for her face, praying calmly. Another man went over and crouched, told her to be quiet. The man was begging. Crying.
He said, "It was a demon. Momentary weakness. Please. It was not my fault."
Adem turned to the driver. "What…why? What did they do?"
The driver crossed his arms, leaned down and spoke low. "The girl, she accuses this man of raping her. He is a friend of her father. But the court says she allowed the situation to occur. She was alone with him in a car."
"How is that possible? She caused her own rape? Was she not dressed?"
That got Adem the stink eye from the driver. "Does not matter."
"Sure, it matters. How can it not matter?"
Jibriil nudged Adem. "It's just how it is. That's the law."
The driver nodded. "The law."
The driver pointed to a young man in the crowd. Grim-looking. Hard grip on a stone. "That is one of her brothers. Her father is here too."
Adem was about to say more, but Jibriil nudged him again, eyebrows knotted. Like, what are you doing? Stop asking questions.
The driver said, "God's law. We can't question it. We just have to fulfill it."
Another man on the edge of the crowd stood out. Wearing a white koofiyad on his head, with dark sunglasses, and a shawl over the shoulders of his western suit. Gray. White button-up shirt, no tie. Men stared at him with outright love. Crowded close. The man had a peaceful look on his face.
The driver nodded in his direction. Wouldn't point. Told Adem, "The Imam. He was the judge who ruled on this case."
His hands together, fingers clasped. He wouldn't get them dirty with a stone. That wasn't his place. But everything happened on his schedule, his word. The man with the bullhorn was paying close attention to the soft-spoken man, whose voice was lost in the rustling.
Adem looked at the girl in the ground. She was looking right at him. He blinked. Looked away. Then back. Still staring. Lips tight. No signs of tears, wet or dried. No fear at all. Anger, more like it. Adem thought he could read her mind: This? My life for you, Allah, and I'm being killed for this? What he did to me?
What could he say? Anything? He mouthed I'm sorry. Then felt foolish. Couldn't dare look at her anymore. He hoped no one saw what he'd done.
When it began, Adem was surprised. He wasn't standing in a blood-thirsty mob. These weren't hooligans flinging stones for fun. They took it seriously. They aimed. The man's screams, then the girl's, finally breaking down as the stones rained. Dull thuds. Stone on bone. Adem wondered if he could drop his and no one would notice. But there was the driver behind him, shoving him on the shoulder. "Go on! Now!"
More and more stones. Where were they all coming from? Arcing from the back of the crowd or fastballing in from closer. Larger than Adem's. Huge, jagged white things the size of footballs. Adem wrenched his arm back. The man. Aiming for the man. That made it better. The man was a rapist. He deserved it. Deserved to die. Horribly. Back in the States, they'd send him to prison. Back in the States the girl would be a victim, not a conspirator. Shit. What would his ethics professor think of him right about now?
Ready to let loose.
All for the cause, remember. Like Jibriil had said—if we don't win, then our homeland descends further into hell. It
needs peace. It needs justice. It needs God.
Adem flung the rock. It sailed past the man and kept going. A good toss in baseball, a terrible one for a stoning.
Someone handed him another stone. They were pressing tight from all around. He flung that one, too, and missed again. The noise in the crowd was bubbling up. Each rock that connected unleashed another howl from the damned until they had no strength left in their lungs. Bloody. Bruised. Arms broken, fingers gnarled, heads starting to swell, shiny welts as the skin tightened. Adem watched the crowd instead. Barely noticed Jibriil had already thrown a few. He told Adem, "Watch how I do it." Much closer than when they had started. The girl, a rag doll. Jibriil lifted the stone over his head and brought it down, cracking her shoulder.
Adem closed his eyes before impact, but the sound. Louder than he had expected. Then he blinked, adjusted to the blinding sun, and saw that the man must have already been dead, as he was slumped over with half his skull caved in, thin blood spilling onto the ground below like a leaky faucet. Eyes still open.
The rain of stones ceased. Adem squinted, found the Imam. He had held up his hands. He ordered a couple of men to check the bodies. They wore stethoscopes. Doctors? Really? They did their duty, kneeling and checking the obviously dead man's vital signs, pulse, even a breath test with a small mirror. The doctors stood and nodded. On to the girl. They knelt, placed the stethoscope on her back. One shook his head.
"She's still alive."
Adem thought, so, does that mean she can go free? Or at least a little jail time? Did they even have prisons for women? Take her to the hospital?
He got his answer when the doctors backed out of the way and several of the boys in red scarves around their heads crowded closer. Adem grabbed Jibriil by the collar, got him to meet his eyes. Unsaid: This is wrong. As loudly as Adem could say it through his eyes alone.
Jibriil adjusted his neck, reached for Adem's hand and plucked it off his shirt like a bug. A hard look, lips on the verge of curling. Adem pushed away, forced his way through the maze of solider boys, so many of them tall and thin, towering over him like trees, to the back of the crowd. Broke free into the pitch. Open air. Hands on his hips, taking deep breaths like he'd run a marathon. What he hadn't counted on was how much louder the stones sounded back here, echoing across the empty stadium time and time again like the worst déjà vu. He wanted to cover his ears. He couldn't do that in front of this crowd. The men with shovels were still on standby. Adem didn't want to be next.
FOUR
The woman in charge of the International Student Program at the University had tired eyes. She sat forward in her chair, tense. But so tired. Ray Bleeker wondered if she had slept last night. God knew he sure as hell hadn't. Maybe sometime around four or five he'd dozed off, because that's when he saw Cindy alive and pregnant and happy. Not like the body he'd seen the night before—dead and cold and one eye blown clear out of her skull.
He seen Poulson, too. His chest and gut like a water balloon popped by several pins. Too cold to bleed. The doc said he was probably still alive when the bastards killed Cindy, listening but unable to do a damned thing, his lungs already half full of blood.
The ISP woman, Eileen Gromen, had short red hair and if she wasn't sitting like so, her feet wouldn't touch the floor. She also cursed a lot more than you'd expect from a college administrator.
"Fucking nerve, that's all. I've got enough problems with the Nepalese. They heard they can come over here, get visas, driver's licenses, get a bank account, and then move to the goddamned Cities. We take them in like, shit, like they're going to stay four years. All our efforts, all the recruiting, then they get here and screw us. Never had any problems with the Kenyans, the Somalis. Hell, none of our Somalis are even internationals anymore. All from Minneapolis. One's local, his family's been here, shit, like five, six years."
"How many Somali students attend the school?"
She shrugged. "Last I counted, maybe five."
He had to remember to stay on track, not wander off, not get preoccupied with thoughts of the funeral. Talking to her parents. Having to explain. "So, with Adem, you had no clue. Nothing to indicate that he had problems?"
"He was an angel. A fucking angel. Unless it was all an act. Isn't that the way it usually happens? They gain your trust, then bomb your ass. I would've sworn Adem wasn't like that."
She'd already heard the rumors. Spread fast in a small town on a small campus. Nothing he could do about that. He'd been pointed towards Gromen by the school's Security Officer, who said she'd spent a lot of time with these guys even if they weren't from overseas because they were friends with the internationals, came to their campus club's events—International Film Fest, Food Fest, Crafts Fair. A pretty tight group. The local white kids, maybe a few tried to broaden their horizons and get involved, but no more than that. The Nepalese and the Africans, they needed each other.
Bleeker had already spoken to Adem's roommate, a couple of classmates, and knew at some point today he'd have to deal with some ass from the Cities in order to talk with the kid's parents. Maybe even the FBI. In that case, he might as well sign off the whole thing and take the rest of the week off. But…to do what?
Eileen Gromen was riffing on how fucked the university's international recruiting was, getting farther off-track from the questions, but that was okay. She was easy on the eyes and kind of fun to watch get all wound up about stuff. Bleeker's phone rang. It was the office. He excused himself and stepped out into the cinderblock hallway, beige.
A sergeant with whom he'd sometimes shared a beer and a couple hours on the firing range. "You're not going to believe this."
Cindy's parents? Their lawyer? Cop shop head shrinker? "Kind of busy."
"No, listen. This one's, uh, yeah."
"Can't you just tell me?"
"I want to see the look on your face."
"Jesus, Lev."
Guy was laughing. "Okay, okay. I'll give you a hint. You ever heard of the Somali Hardcore Killahs?"
Fuckers had been all over Twin Cities news a few years before. Trouble for the sake of trouble. He'd talked to a few ex-members after some barfights in downtown New Pheasant.
"And?"
"Ray, please. Humor me."
*
Bleeker didn't need this shit. The sergeant told him a couple of officers had been keeping an eye on the missing kid's apartment, all police-taped, when this giant black guy goes right up, rips the tape off, and goes in like he owns the place. The cops ran their asses over and arrested him.
Turned out he was the missing student's father. "And, wouldn't you know, the former leader of the Killahs. Called himself Bahdoon. Never pinned anything on him. Guy was smart, like Capone. We can't even pin tax evasion on this one."
Bleeker said he wanted to meet this Bahdoon guy. The detective questioning him said that if he knew where his kid was, he sure wasn't saying.
"Take a break, get a coffee. Give me a half-hour."
He stepped into the meeting room, mostly a file closet but with a card table and some folding chairs crowding the far side of the room. A Somali man, still wearing his black North Face parka, hood up, melted snow on the ground all around him. He was slumped in the chair, fingers clasped together, resting on his stomach. He didn't stand, didn't reach out to shake Bleeker's hand, but maybe that was because Bleeker had a legal pad in one hand and a can of Mr. Pibb in the other.
Bleeker said, "I can hang that coat up for you, you know."
He shrugged and made a noise in his throat like a dog. Cleared it. "It's aw-ight."
Definitely some leftover Somali accent, but it was ninety percent gangsta.
"We know who you are, Mister, uh, Bahdon. Bah-Doon?"
"Yeah, uh, I don't go by that. I'm Mustafa."
"What, you changed it?"
"Bahdoon is my grandfather's name. I'm Mustafa Abdi Bahdoon. I don't mind telling you. Ain't nothing on me."
"Well, you broke into a crime scene."
"My son'
s apartment is a crime scene?" A weak laugh. "Shit, that's good. His momma called me at work, told me to drive over, see if I could figure out where he went. This is not like him at all."
Bleeker nodded slowly, didn't realize he was doing it until he blinked and imagined the gun in Bahdoon's hand, shooting Cindy in the face. Might as well have been. He took a seat caddy-corner to the Somali gangster. Now he could see the guy was older than he acted, probably in his early forties, still sticking to the street thug routine. But Bleeker saw he was wearing a Target pullover polo under the coat. Worked at Target. Okay. "So you don't know?"
Another shrug. "Man, is this all necessary? Can I pay the fine and keep looking?"
Bleeker set his pad and drink down, slumped onto his elbows and ran his hand through his hair. Greasy. He hadn't showered since the morning before he set off for the lake. He'd need to do that soon. "There's no need, really. We'll do the best we can to find him. If you answered some questions for us…um…how did you hear so quickly? I hadn't even had time to give you a call."
"My wife, she called him. No answer. Like I said, this is not like Adem." Then a pause, a look down at the knuckles he was kneading. "Look, okay, I think I know where he is."
Bleeker sat straight. "Right now?"
"For real."
Round up a squad. Go in guns blazing. Shoot first, ask questions later. Or were they in the Cities? Why would this punk be here if so? Protecting him? Or maybe they were already across state lines.
What the fuck, right?
Mustafa made the dog noise again.
Bleeker said, "Are you alright?"
Mustafa waved him off, cleared his throat.
"Can you tell me where your son is? Because he's in big trouble."
The Somali man looked puzzled—vulnerable, even. Almost no doubt he was responsible for plenty of murders over in the metro. Bleeker was supposed to offer him the same respect he would anyone else with a missing kid?
All the Young Warriors Page 3