by Ryan Schow
“Head count!” he screamed when the pair failed to move. “NOW!”
Both men went.
Diaab bent over, grabbed a bag of charcoal briquettes, dumped them into the Webber barbecue grill’s open pit. Small flames formed along the base of the charcoal, but not fast enough. He squirted some lighter fluid on it, then jumped back after he nearly burned his face off. When the flames finally calmed down, he stood over the pit warming himself.
He needed to think, find a way out of this, or through this.
When he was sufficiently warm, he returned to the passenger car, pulled the Dimas’s kids out and stood them around the fire. Somewhere in the last few minutes, he decided their safety insured the safety of his kids.
Then again, the last thing the coward said over the phone was that he was going to cut off Nasr’s ears.
Should he do the same with one of that maniac’s kids?
He glanced up at them from across the standing fire pit. His eyes traveled from face to face, taking in the details of each child, measuring their value, trying to decide which one would cause Dimas the most pain if injured.
Not the nerdy girl. She wasn’t even a Dimas. His eyes landed on Brooklyn and there they remained.
It has to be her.
He moved around the hot metal pit toward her, grabbed her by the hair and just about yanked her over the fire. He knew what was happening the moment it happened: his anger was unraveling too quickly. Even worse, he didn’t care.
The other two kids got really jumpy and agitated at that point. Diaab knew he should control himself, but his mind wouldn’t let him. No one was going to threaten to cut off parts of Nasr without getting the same in return, or worse.
As he gripped the moaning, near thrashing kid’s head close to him, dark thoughts were unwinding. His violent fantasies leapt from Brooklyn to Dimas’s son. He thought of having Benny scalp him. The man would do it without question.
Diaab only had to ask.
With a firm grip on Brooklyn’s hair, he pulled out the blade he often carried in his front pocket, thumbed it open, then showed it to her. The muffled screaming, the sheer horror that fueled her, was muted noise against the duct tape. Her nostrils were flaring like mad, small tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
“If you stand still,” he growled into the side of her face as he tightened his grip on her hair, “I will only cut off one ear. But if you try to break free, or if you continue to struggle, I’ll cut off your nose instead. Nod if you understand.”
Slowly, she nodded.
He jerked her close, but she started wailing under the duct tape, her body squirming. Diaab knew a body’s job was to survive. The mind made this possible. With enough pain, however, a mind could be changed. But not now. Not at first. He did not fault the young girl for her fear, or her inability to stand still, but he had been clear with her about her choices: ear or nose.
Shifting his hand, he grabbed her by the back of her hair and made her face him. “I take it you are less interested in keeping your nose than you are in keeping that ear?” he said, cold, calculating, cruel.
Her eyes flashed open incredibly wide. He never knew a girl’s eyes could get that big! Nostrils still flaring, her cheeks tear-stained and splotchy red, she seemed to become an entirely different person all together.
The other two kids were freaking out, and this only caused him to tighten his grip on the girl. Turning to the boy and the nerdy girl, he snarled, “If either of you take one step in any direction, I cut off both ears and her nose, and then I have Benny take off her lips. Am I clear? This girl will be a sock puppet and it will have been your fault.”
Both kids fell still, sobbing and animated, but nodding their heads.
The human brain could not comprehend that level of violence. Diaab’s could. He’d seen such ruthlessness like this first hand. He was just a boy. Nasr’s age. His father showed him early on that leaders breed fear in their subordinates. To him, one could strike no greater fear in a man than to show utter disrespect for the human body.
Here in America, though? Such methods were rarely done, or glamorized. You let a guy like Benny Breaking Balls loose on a population of kids or scumbags, and word travels fast. Rumors spread like wildfire. Fear spreads it further.
Now these kids felt it, too. But instead of Benny having all the fun, it was him. He was the new nightmare.
Beneath the silver tape covering Brooklyn’s mouth came a new bustle of noise, almost like a compressed wailing. Her eyes were really squeezing out the tears now.
“What you’re doing,” Diaab said, “all this squirming and resisting, you might as well be saying, ‘Please, Mr. Buhari, cut off my nose.’ Is that it? Do you want me to cut your nose off?”
He was thinking of little Nasr’s ears and how precious they were to him when the boy was born. Now he was thinking of them being gone and it rattled him mightily! Nasr had been right in saying he was Diaab’s weakness. He should’ve had Okot kill Nasr when he had the chance. It was better if it was his choice rather than someone else’s.
“Nose or ear?!” he screamed into her face.
When he loosened his grip on Brooklyn’s hair, she turned her head to the side and offered up her ear. Her entire body was quaking with fear, but she forced herself into silence.
This stopped him.
Nasr had done the same thing dozens of times. He always gave Diaab what he wanted when pressed. Lately his youngest son had even given it voluntarily, almost like he didn’t believe Diaab was serious. He was. Now more than ever.
Nasr.
His colossal weakness…
Staring at the girl’s ear, he thought of his other son, Kamal. The child was spineless, a boy with the backbone of a woman and the heart of a mouse. He was kind and sensitive, and he cried at the first slap or punch. An unfettered shame! Kamal would never be tough the way Nasr was tough at nearly half his age.
Why couldn’t Dimas have threatened Kamal instead?
The realization that Dimas had him over a barrel was not lost on him. This was the needle under his fingernail. That thing that had him tunneling deep within himself, to the place where he was not in control, to the dark, hot place where restraint seemed impossible and the beast within him needed to be cut loose, to lay waste to the world, to become the animal—the monster—his father was.
He hated the old man. He revered him, too. It was time to let this side of him free.
It was time to raise the stakes.
Slowly, deliberately, he pulled Brooklyn’s hair back over her ear, then he slid the blade against the flesh and smiled. His arm protested mightily, the pain of being shot still bright and cutting. This, however, failed to sway him. He would not be deterred.
Benny once said, “When given the choice between the nose or the ear, they always choose the—”
The ringing phone interrupted his thoughts.
The wickedness that had overtaken him to the point of possession loosened its grip, the weight and force of it falling away. It was a startling release he felt. Almost like he was being victimized by the darkness, only to have it dissipate under a sudden, bright light.
“If any of you move,” he said to the three kids, “one of you gets cut into little pieces.”
He let go of Brooklyn long enough to answer his phone. With his eyes zeroed in on the girl, and then the other two kids, he saw tears in all their eyes and knew he’d broken them, that he had compliance.
“Nyanath?” he said, working hard to mask the irritation in his voice. “Why are you calling me?!”
“He brought the boys back, father,” his daughter said in a voice fraught with emotion. “They’re here with me now, but the man who has them wants to trade for his kids.”
“Has he hurt you?” Diaab asked.
“No,” she replied. “He says to tell you he hasn’t hurt the boys either, but you need to come home now.”
He felt an incredible lifting coming off his shoulders. It allowed him a much needed sigh
of relief.
“So nothing is wrong with Nasr?” Diaab asked.
“No, he’s fine.”
“I’m coming home now,” Diaab said, renewed. When he hung up, he dialed his second pilot, Jack, at the airport. The old codger picked up right away.
“Hello,” the wet, gravely voice said.
“Jack, it’s Diaab Buhari.”
“I have caller ID,” the old man said, grouchy as always. “Plus I’ve been expecting your call. In fact, I’ve been expecting you.”
“As you can tell, this day got off to a rocky start.”
“You talking about Don, his family and your cargo blowing up?” he asked.
Diaab hoped he wouldn’t mention it, or cancel their plans because of it. He wouldn’t blame the man if he tried, but that would only make Diaab’s job that much harder. He had no leverage on Jack. No way to force compliance. All he had was money and in this failing world, money was just stacks of paper.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Diaab said.
“Is there a problem?” Jack asked.
“If it’s not a problem for you, then it’s not for me.”
“We’re good then.”
If he could measure his relief, it would be the size of Alaska. “Okay, then,” Diaab said. “I just need to get my kids and I’ll be there in maybe an hour or so.”
“What’s the load?” Jack asked.
Diaab gave him a rough head count, added Benny and Talon, and then said, “I’ve also got my two boys and my daughter.”
“That’s too many,” he grumbled, suddenly chewing food in Diaab’s ear. He didn’t know if the geezer was eating nuts, pretzels, or a cookie. The chomping and chewing, along with him breathing heavy into the line, was beyond annoying. “I can get a bigger plane, but you can’t bring everyone.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll be a few seats short even in the biggest plane I can get. Or you can stand all the way there, but that’s a long time and won’t be comfortable for anyone. Especially when we hit turbulence.”
He thought about Nyanath, what she meant to him and the decision was easy. “I’ll leave the girl,” Diaab said.
“Which one?”
“My daughter,” he said. “She weighs the same as two units of cargo.”
Jack stopped chewing. For a second, Diaab thought they lost the connection. “You’d choose cargo over your own blood?” he finally asked.
“Yes, why?”
“She’s your daughter!” he said, aghast.
“She makes me no money,” Diaab said, his tone as icy as a Chicago frost. “Besides, she’s a girl, a grown one no less!”
“Whatever man,” Jack said, chewing obnoxiously again, “as long as your currency can be converted into the pound, or the Euro, then I’m good.”
“The money is real, same as always. I’ll be there in an hour or so.”
He hung up the phone, looked at the three kids, and then Talon, who was approaching with Benny in tow.
“Watch over these three,” Diaab said, fishing his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll be back here in about an hour.”
“Should we load the cargo?” Benny said.
“Not yet.”
Looking at the three kids, Talon asked, “Should we put them with the others?”
“Keep them separate.”
Diaab left in a hurry, climbed into the Ranger, fired it up, and headed home. The roads were getting a little slick as a light snow continued to fall, but thankfully, there wasn’t a drone in sight. This gave him the time and silence to think. If Nasr was unharmed, the Dimas coward would expect the same from him: unharmed children. He had them, but he needed to see his kids first. He would then have Dimas follow him to the railyard.
It was a good thing he didn’t cut off Brooklyn’s ear. But then an image of his son popped into his mind. Farhad. The two holes in his hands. When the drones came, Dimas left Farhad for dead. And the Mexican kid, too. Farhad did what he did to Brooklyn, but was death a justified measure of reprisal?
It didn’t matter, he realized.
He just needed to get out of America while he still could.
He safely returned to the house using alternate routes. The snow kept the skies light and blinding, and even though he heard the sounds of small bombs being dropped in the distance, he never once saw a drone.
When he got out of the truck, he looked in the direction of the noise. The bombing sounded like it was coming from the downtown area. Maybe a bit closer.
Are they heading this way?
He was sure they’d end up bombing his house, but by then it wouldn’t matter. He’d be long gone.
He walked past Nyanath’s Subaru in the driveway. It wasn’t nice. But it was certainly nicer than the Ranger. If she couldn’t come home with him, she could stay there and fend for herself. He’d leave her the keys for the truck, grab his boys—or Nasr at least—then tell her good luck and go.
“You’d choose cargo over your own blood?” Jack had asked.
Yes, he would.
Nyanath had a husband, an infant child. She had her own family. There was no need to be part of his anymore.
She was a doctor, though…there are plenty of doctors in Sudan!
Diaab couldn’t get past the biggest drawback of taking her with him. She was a woman. Sudan didn’t need any more women. Besides, being independent and Americanized like she was, she’d be killed back home. He didn’t need to deal with that. If she died now, at least she wouldn’t be leverage his enemies could one day use against him.
He’d be half the world away.
When he walked inside the home, he expected to see his boys and Dimas, but alas, it was only Nyanath.
“Where are they?” he asked, his voice an uneasy tenor.
“They were here. They told me what you did. They told me what you are,” Nyanath said, seething. “Tell me you are not trafficking pale skinned children.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” he protested.
She walked forward, shoved a stack of papers his way and said, “Well then, why don’t you explain these.”
He looked down and they were his shipping manifests, payment receipts in their home currency (the Sudanese pound) and body counts.
“How many did you take?” she barked, her eyes angry and damp.
That darkness that had overtaken him earlier now returned. How dare she question him or the way he made his money!
“I’ve taken hundreds,” he growled.
“Do you keep them all here?” she asked, her accusatory voice on the rise.
“No.”
“Then where?!”
Knowing what he was planning, knowing it wouldn’t matter what he said at that point, he told her the truth. “We store them in passenger cars at the railyard on the corner of S. Western and US 66.”
“You’re lying!” she hissed.
“Oh, really?” he fired back. “Why is that?”
“Because a railyard won’t let you keep stolen kids! Why can’t you just tell the truth?”
“All the way at the back of the railyard there is a white warehouse where old rail cars are stored for maintenance. Inside this huge building are four passenger cars that I pay a man named Charlie not to release. No one ever goes in there, and my guys get free run of the place. Everyone gets a cut.”
“For hundreds of girls?” she asks, hands at her side, shaking. “No way.”
“Budget cuts forced the railroad to scale back, cutting jobs and re-routing trains. Everything is much closer to O’Hare now. That means half the yard isn’t in use and the guys there are just biding their time. So they get a little extra money on the side to look away, and when the yard closes completely, I’ll still have access.”
“That’s a great story,” she replied, “but none of it makes sense.”
There was a wild restlessness to her he hadn’t experienced before. A bitter edge that was sharp and challenging, almost like she didn’t care about him, or what
he could do to her.
If he killed her, would she care?
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” he said, not understanding all this hostility. “It only has to work, and this arrangement most certainly does.”
“You’re sick,” she said, her voice sizzling and mean. “There’s something wrong with you!”
“You want the truth? Okay, I’ll tell you the truth!” he shouted. “It’s not hundreds of kids I’ve kidnapped and sent back to Sudan. It’s more like thousands.”
Outraged, she tried to slap him, but he grabbed her wrist.
“Let go of me!” she screamed, jerking her hand against his iron grip. When he finally let go, it was to slap her, and slap her he did.
The whopping-hard impact alone hurt his own hand, nearly wobbled him because he put everything into it. She stumbled to the side, nearly fell over. Looking at her, not hating her as much as he expected to, he realized that hitting her wasn’t right.
Looking down at the woman, her face rattled, her entire body moved by the impact, he almost felt bad. The second she came up, though, all that changed.
It happened so fast.
In her hands were a pair of scissors. He saw her arcing arm, tried to make sense of what she was doing, then put up a hand in a defensive measure.
It was already too late.
He felt the scissors sink into his throat. It didn’t feel the way he expected, though. For starters, the two points drove right through flesh and slammed into his vertebrae, jarring his entire body. The squelching sound alone frightened him.
Blinking fast, shock outweighing the pain, he stood there tottered, staring into his daughter’s eyes and seeing something different.
This foul creature was not his daughter.
He opened his mouth to speak, and that’s when the pain came flooding in. That’s also when he realized blood was pouring out. Nyanath didn’t blink. She just stood there, too close to him, her hands still gripping the scissors, her eyes still rapt and pumped full of hostility.
Everything began to clarify in that moment. Everything he’d ever done wrong, the few things he’d done right, the lives he’d created and taken, the struggle he’d lived…it all sat in the forefront of his mind. With her, however, most of what he’d done was wrong. He saw this in her eyes. It sat there with perfect clarity.