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 seemed 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.