All the Young Warriors

by Anthony Neil Smith

  "Sure, okay. What do I do?" Adem was thinking he could be back-up on another secret mission. Or that Jibriil might teach him the right words to say, the right posture.

  "So, the fat son of a bitch at lunch today?"

  "What happened to him?"

  "Nothing yet. He's to be tried in the morning for thievery. Everyone gets a trial."

  Adem thought back to the girl who had been stoned, the man who had raped her. She should've gotten lashes instead. He'd read enough to realize that, but the court had decided she was as much to blame. How could they do that? They weren't following Sharia law. They were rewriting it.

  "He's obviously guilty."

  "Oh yeah. But there must still be a trial. It has to be, you know, tight like that."

  Adem flinched at far-off gunfire, but not much. Already desensitized, and that bothered him more than it should have. "What's going to happen to him?"

  Jibriil, still staring. "They're going to chop off one of his hands. Most likely his best one."

  Exactly. Adem got it then. He had to ask anyway. "How is that supposed to help me?"

  Still staring far off into the distorted air, shimmering above the road. "You will be the one with the blade."

  Garaad laughed. Adem turned to him. The soldier, bright-eyed and pointing at him, laughed louder.

  Adem smiled. Thought to himself, It's just a hand. Then flexed his fingers.

  SIX

  Bleeker thought Mustafa could sure take an ass-kicking. He had that going for him. Wasn't very gracious, though. Once Bleeker had helped him into a bed at the cramped ER, Mustafa said, "You were there the whole time?"

  "I had your back."

  "Then why didn't you call for help earlier, like before they hit me?"

  "You're welcome. It was nothing, really, me saving you from a hell of a lot worse."

  "I'm saying, if you had an idea—"

  "I didn't." Bleeker sat on the stool beside the bed, too low, brought him eye level with Mustafa. "Not about that. You could've known those guys. Damned if that was my business. The only reason I was on you was because I didn't want you tracking mud all over my city trying to play detective."

  That got Mustafa grinning. Reminded him he was hurting, too, from the look on his face. But not so bad that a few bandages and painkillers wouldn't get him back to rights in a couple days.

  The doctor came by, felt around. No broken bones ("Let's x-ray it to be sure"), no sprains. Some lacerations, one on his head that needed a handful of stitches. Otherwise, decent bill of health.

  Bleeker checked out the others waiting for service. A fully covered Somali woman in a chair, a whimpering baby bouncing on her knee. Most of her family leaning against walls or pacing. A middle-aged guy, shaggy, holding his bloodied towel-wrapped hand in his lap, a policeman hovering nearby. The cop tipped his hat at Bleeker but didn't say a word. Awkward. But what could anyone say to a guy whose pregnant girlfriend had been gunned down barely three days ago? Mostly they did the stoic, Minnesotan-style repression, ask him about the weather, if he planned any more ice-fishing trips, and when the funeral was.

  Mustafa said, "Thank you."

  Bleeker turned back to him. "No problem."

  "I made mistakes out there. They could've killed me."

  "Would be a first for them. Worst that would've happened, I think, is that you'd been spending a few nights here instead of walking out with me."

  "Are you going to wait outside my hotel room door all night?"

  Bleeker stood from the stool. His knees made popping noises. His back hurt worse than it had before his days in Iraq. Another glance at the cop in the waiting area. Sure, they could sympathize. They could rouse the anger over a fellow officer shot down, want some revenge. But Bleeker didn't think they really understood. Not the big picture, which would make some sort of wicked sense when he finally saw it.

  But this guy, Mustafa Bahdoon, might get it.

  He said, "You know what happened. Your son and another guy shot two cops. One of those cops was my girl. She was carrying my baby. I'm getting old, and here I had a chance to start over, nice and fresh. Cindy made me feel…different. Like I had taken too many wrong turns but didn't know I was lost until she—"

  A tech showed up to take Mustafa for x-rays. Tired eyes, early thirties but already getting a preview of her forties. To her it was just a job. A dead end. She wore Jack-o-lantern scrubs even though it was January. Bleeker told her to give him a few more minutes. Soon as she left, he forgot where he'd left off, this shining image of Cindy's face in his mind. No words.

  Mustafa said, "I swear to you, if Adem had some place in killing her, I will wash my hands of him. Whatever the courts say, I will abide. I swear. He is a good kid. A smart kid."

  Bleeker gripped the bed rail with both hands. "But…let's say he really was involved. Let's say I'm there in front of him, and he's confessed and I have my gun."

  Mustafa forced himself up on his elbows, straining, to give Bleeker the most hateful and serious look the man could muster. "I would kill you before you know what happened. That, I can promise you. Whether you saved my ass or not."

  Bleeker smiled. Not that it was funny. He believed Mustafa was a stone cold killer who got real lucky when he quit the streets to work at a department store. But they were past that. Had Cindy shot an unarmed Adem, Bleeker wouldn't have hesitated to take out Mustafa had he come after his own justice.

  Family, right? Fuck justice.

  Bleeker said, "Tell me about his friend, the one you think did it."

  The lines crinkled around Mustafa's eyes, lips tightened. "Always a wannabe. The shame of it? He could've gone on American Idol. He sings so well. But that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to be a thug. The crazies prey on boys like Jibriil. Not only do they make the boys killers, but they make them feel righteous about it."

  The Jack-o-latern tech came back. Hands on her hips. "I can't wait any longer. My shift's going to end."

  She helped Mustafa off the bed and into a wheelchair.

  "This is police business." Bleeker stepped in front of the wheelchair. "You can stay a few minutes after, can't you?"

  She wrapped her fingers tighter around the handles of the wheelchair. The plastic squeaked. "It's not going to take that long. Grab a magazine for a bit. Geez."

  Bleeker ignored her, knelt in front of the chair. "There's not much we can do, you think?"

  Mustafa shrugged. "We can try."

  "So tomorrow, you press charges on the guys who jumped you. Then tell our people the boys went off to fight in Africa. All that. I'll take some leave, which they want me to do anyway, and meet you in the cities after Cindy's funeral."

  Mustafa looked away, slid his fingers together across his lap. "Then what?"

  "Then we try to find them. Make sure this Jibriil character gets what's coming to him."

  Shook his head. "If they're really there on the ground, fighting this war, then that's worse than anything Hell could serve up for them, let alone us."

  SEVEN

  It wasn't until he had been assigned the task that Adem began noticing other soldiers around the camp with one hand. He'd been told punishments such as these were supposed to be deterrents, used sparingly. But he counted four one-handed men before breakfast.

  He grew tired of searching, but couldn't help himself. Turned his attention to finding the girl who had poured his milk yesterday. The way she'd looked at him. He wanted her to do it again. If he got another chance to look into her eyes, he would gladly drink a gallon of camel milk.

  Ate what he could—more laxoox, the flatbread, with honey, and a strong tea. More to settle his growling stomach than because he was hungry. Throwing up something would be better than dry heaving. Jibriil was nowhere to be found, so Adem ate alone. Didn't look up from his plate. Acid in his throat.

  If Jibriil began keeping his distance, Adem's days were numbered. All that talk about country and Allah, all of it sounding big and important until they were on the ground, and it seeme
d to Adem like a big high school clique. A gang like the one his dad had led, except with more prayer and no alcohol. Had to face it: he'd come along with Jibriil thinking they would be welcomed with open arms. He had hoped to reconnect with all of the culture Jibriil had told him they had both lost. That they had been lied to by their parents, their aunts and uncles, their older brothers and sisters. Brainwashed by Americans. Especially Adem, off in college. Jibriil telling him, "Son, you've changed. Like I don't even know you anymore."

  Adem could've said the same thing, but when he looked around his small campus, out on the prairie, sitting next to farm kids who barely knew their own language while Adem already had three under his belt, and yet they looked at him when he spoke as if he was mentally challenged. It wasn't exactly like he'd hoped. His dad was dead set on him getting a degree, maybe even going to grad school. His dad, who used to run with the baddest gang on the streets, now, what, a wage slave?

  While his family hadn't been the most fervent Muslims, Adem had steered even further away from faith until arriving on campus and realizing how little the white farm kids knew about Islam, and all the awful assumptions they made to fill the holes. Berated him for his treatment of women. What? "Not me," he would say. "Never." Or he'd get the talk radio Republicans—boys who got their politics from their dad and glorified DJs—wanting to debate him on terrorism, then not believe him when he told them he agreed with them. Then they would say "Islam is a religion of death. It's right there in the Quran. You can't deny it." But he would try, half-heartedly, to save face. Told them they hadn't read the Quran, and probably hadn't read the entire Bible they kept quoting either. Truth was that neither had Adem. As a child, sure, memorizing verses, all that. These days, he had the general gist of the story. Enough to get by on.

  So when Jibriil told him about this trip—this crusade—he asked more questions. Kept getting deeper. At the very least, he thought the trip would set him straight about the importance of keeping his faith alive. But so far everything he'd seen in country had smashed what little was left into shards.

  Adem heard his name being called. He looked up from his breakfast. Garaad was coming towards him, face not as wrapped as the day before. Crisscrossed with several nearly white scars on his lips and chin. He waved.

  Adem stood. His stomach wasn't ready.

  Garaad was talking and walking. "Come now. Let's get this over with."

  Adem followed Garaad out of the tent and towards a crowd in an open area that used to be a town square, he'd been told, but was now barren, all the decoration removed by the soliders. Adem thought about the football field, the pitch overgrown with shrubs. Here, not one plant or tree. Only the crowd, a couple of goats, and a loud dog. Stone and dirt.

  He asked, "Does this make sense to you? Losing a hand over, what, a little bread?"

  Garaad, with his devil's smile, lifted his chin like You've got to be kidding me. "Tell me, in America. Someone who steals, say, a car? He goes to jail?"

  "If he's caught, sure."

  "And in jail, the prisoners tell him how to steal the next car without getting caught. And also, they take his manhood, make him a faggot. He starts on drugs. Maybe sells them when he gets out. His life is ruined."

  "But not always. He has a chance to make himself better. He wouldn't want to go back again, right?"

  "They do, though. Over and over. In jail, out, and in again." Garaad sniffed. "I'd rather lose a hand. Look at a stump every day and thank Allah for it."

  "Okay."

  "You?"

  A minute ago it had been no contest. At least in America, losing your hand wasn't an option. "I don't know." Surprised to say it, but he really didn't. He wouldn't want either fate, but with a possible felony murder charge hanging over him in New Pheasant Run, prison was becoming a real possibility.

  Even Sharia didn't whack off a hand for murder. They went straight to "Eye for an eye". Dead for dead. No appeals.

  He and Garaad made their way through the crowd, weaving through unwashed soldiers, sweating townspeople, children. It was the hottest morning Adem had ever felt. Even a family vacation to the Badlands when he was younger, middle of a heat wave in South Dakota, hundred and ten by noon, easy. That was nothing compared to nine-thirty in Mogadishu.

  The air was so hot it stung his nostrils. Squinted until his brow hurt. Several high-ranking men—two in combat uniforms, clean and pressed. The others in Somali robes, brightly colored, heavy, wearing white taqiyat—prayer hats. One of them, an old man with a white beard, held a machete. As Adem approached, the man with the machete presented it to him, a hand under the handle and the blade.

  The man was praying. A chant. Adem didn't know if he should bow his head or close his eyes or put his hand over his heart. Still no sign of Jibriil, which was starting to freak him out. It was Jibriil's fault he was doing this. Were they going to give him a lesson in hand chopping? Was he expected to put on a show? The solemn faces of the leaders suggested not. He was to act as God's agent of Justice. He was to be blessed for it.

  Crowd noise behind him. Adem turned to see the people make a path for the accused, looking shocked but not frantic. Almost like he'd been drugged. Leading him by his arm into the center of the square was Jibriil.

  Following him were two men, one carrying a metal table like you'd find in a hospital. The other, a chair. In Jibriil's free hand, a plastic shopping bag. The men set up the table, the chair, and Jibriil led the convicted man over so he could sit down. Speaking softly in his ear, to which the man nodded, did as he was told. Adem could imagine what Jibriil was telling him: It's alright. You'll be punished, won't feel a thing, then forgiven so you can get on with God's work. What else could you tell a man about to lose his hand over a few extra pieces of bread?

  As the guilty man was prepared, the holy man who had handed the machete to Adem placed his hand on his back, led him in slow steps to the table and chair. The crowd closed in, shrinking the circle. Jibriil backed away, revealing the thief's arm being tied off with a tourniquet. His hand rested palmside up on the table. One of the men assisting Jibriil took the bag from him, pulled a syringe from it, and held it up to the sun. Tapped his finger against the side, plunged just so a drop bubbled out and ran down the needle.

  He wiped a cloth across the man's arm. The alcohol smell hit Adem's nose. The needle slipped into the man's arm near his wrist. He flexed his fingers. Small sounds coming from him, not quite crying, not quite whimpering. Pathetic. Much calmer than Adem would be if they switched places.

  Time passed. No one in the crowd said a word. A surprise. Adem expected shouts, jeers, but it was much the same as the stoning. Silence. Respect. Then why did they bother to watch? It was a horror show. They claimed to be the more civilized religion, right? Not even the American devils used public punishment as a spectacle anymore. That had faded away at some point in the twentieth century. Prisoners had the right to accept their time behind thick walls, no prying eyes, or in antiseptic execution rooms with only a select few on the other side of the glass.

  Here? Why did they flock to see this behanding instead of going to work, taking care of their homes, playing football, cooking, laughing, praying? Like an American car wreck. In spite of the suffering out in the open, it was hard not to watch.

  Adem didn't understand the injection at first. What was the point? But as the men poked at the hand, testing for a response, he realized that they didn't want screams and blood. They didn't want carnage. They wanted to please Allah. So they found the least painful way they could to do this while still making sure the message got through. Never take bread without asking.

  Jibriil held the man's numb right hand high, made sure all of the crowd got a good look, before he set it down again gently on the table.

  Adem wasn't even going to get a practice swing.

  Another of the clerics spoke into Adem's ear. "They will mark the best place to strike. You bring it up over your head, keep your eye on the mark, not the blade. Let it fall heavy with a little fo
rce behind it. Don't think too much. It has been sharpened so fine that a child could do this."

  "But what if it doesn't come off?"

  "Do what I said, and you won't have to worry. It's been taken care of."

  Adem stepped up to the table. Glanced at Jibriil, who winked at him. Glanced at the convicted man. Head turned the other way. Eyes tight. Waiting.

  Adem took a deep breath. Cleared his throat, gagged, placed his free hand over his mouth. Easy, easy. Just do it. Nothing to fear.

  Once lifted, there was no turning back.

  Adem arced the machete over his head. Held it a moment too long. Knew as he was coming down with it that he was off, pushing too hard. Flinched his shoulders. The blade landed with a clang, shaking the table. Adem had closed his eyes without realizing. He looked down.

  Three fingertips, two on the table and the other on the ground flecked with sand.

  The guilty man began breathing fast, heavy, wheezing. He'd looked too.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Adem lifted the blade again. Slung blood over his head. Came down again. A better blow, but only half a cut. The man tried to lift his hand. It wobbled, dangled. Adem grabbed his arm, pushed it back against the table, fit his blade against the remaining attached skin and muscle, and sawed his way through. The guilty man screaming the whole time. Shrill and painful.

  Jibriil held the man in the chair by his shoulders. Leaned down and whispered in his ear some more. Whatever he said calmed the man immediately. Adem stepped back as the two attendants came forward and began bandaging the stump. Another look at the severed hand—a ragged cut, too much loose skin left over. Too much blood.

  The clerics and military men turned back and forth between the guilty man and Adem. Animated talking. Shocked eyes. Then the man with the white beard raised his hand chin high, spoke loudly and got the others' attentions.

  "He did as we asked. He did the best he could. No one can fault him." Turned to Adem, reached out.

  Adem walked to him, dropped the blade along the way. The cleric took both of Adem's hands in his own, never mind the blood. Kissed him on each cheek.