The Jericho Gambit “Terrorism Strikes Home”

The Jericho Gambit

Terrorism Strikes Home

A Matt Gannon Novel

by

Frederick F. Meyers, Jr.

Published by

Brighton Publishing LLC

501 W. Ray Road

Suite 4

Chandler, Arizona 85225

Second Edition

eBook

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright © 2002

ISBN: 978-1-621830-67-2

Cover Design: Tom Rodriguez

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Reader Comments

Gripping…intelligent…terrifying…!

"Frederick Meyers has delivered a taut, fast-paced thriller with unrelenting action, unpredictable plot twists, and a masterful fight between good and evil. Combine Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan with David Morrell’s John Rambo and you get an idea of the caliber—literally—of what Frederick Meyers has written."

***

Exciting terrorism thriller!

"I recently read Frederick F. Meyer Jr's most recent book The Lazarus Connection. I was completely blown away having read Myers first two books, The Jericho Gambit and Cry Judas. I was excited and eager to find I could finally get the Lazarus Connection and continue with the story of Matt Gannon.

In this thriller, as the breathtaking story of Matt Gannon unfolds, as retired Army Colonel turned C.I.A. operative , I am once again spellbound by this intriguing story. Meyers brings the interesting characters to life in every chapter. No wonder Meyer's is compared to writers such as Tom Clancy. No one can read one page without finishing the book.

I can unreservedly recommend reading this outstanding novel and I am only sorry this is Meyers last planned fictional terrorism trilogy."

***

Compelling page turner!

"Was given this book by a friend. For the most part I am not a fiction fan, leaning more to historical novels. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised by this effort. The book is well paced with many teasers at the end of easily readable chapters (don't read the back cover synopsis as it gives away too many of the stories twists and turns). I especially enjoyed the author's perspective on the the roots and development of Islamic Terrorism - very compelling point of view. Also, Michael Crichton-like in its attention to detail - obviously very well researched. I think it would be a great summer page turner but with considerable more gravitas than the usual fare."

***

Outstanding!!!

"This book easily transcends the routine Middle East terrorist stuff. It is well written with an intricately woven plot filled with charismatic brilliant characters. The author obviously has some experience in the area of terrorism or a great imagination. This was a hard book to put down as the story line carries you from page to page always waiting for the next unexpected turn of events. Definitely a page turner and exceptionally well written. I highly recommend it to those who like a complicated unpredictable story with no slow points in the narrative that keeps you guessing from page to page. Well Done!!!"

***

Engaging, riveting, captivating!

"I was engrossed from the initial pages, and hooked until the last Paragraph. There was realistic military jargon and language, laced with colorful word pictures and sexual imagery. The story is relevant to our time as we struggle with the middle east wars. The story was cleverly written to weave in background material with current events. I'm very glad I had it to read while relaxing in the sun by the pool. Very worth the time and money!!"

***

Tightly woven, highly entertaining, and thought-provoking!

"Add the name Frederick F. Meyers Jr. to the ranks of Tom Clancy and Dale Brown. Meyers spins one mesmerizing story after another and all of them are tightly woven, highly entertaining, and thought-provoking."

***

Very engaging, easy to read!

"I found it hard to put down once I got started. I was hooked until the end. Several twists and turns. Graphic language and sexual imagery. Written like a Marine would talk. Nothing over the top, but obviously Meyers has been there and done that or at least observed enough in the Middle East to write a great, riveting story."

Chapter One

Wilmington, North Carolina—July, 2000

Rabbit felt a gagging dryness in his mouth accompanied by a dull throb at the base of his skull. He awoke in a vacant warehouse—a hollow-sounding metal prefab of some sort. While the night still held the heat of the day, he was chilled and tied naked, spread-eagled to two of the structures medal ribs. The abduction had been professional and without notice. There was no escape route on the dark waterfront streets. Rabbit dreamily remembered being lifted into a car. Their abductors had snared and left them here. Now as Rabbit regained his senses, he was afraid. He wanted to cry out, but was frightened if he did, it would attract unwanted attention.

As he recovered Rabbit moaned softly. Just six or seven feet away, Dancer hung, tied onto what could serve as a heavy frame for a chin-up bar. He looked a little worse for wear. A deep cut below his left ear bled profusely, the blood blending with his sweat. Dancer’s head lolled against his shoulder. Rabbit sensed the bigger of the two men was in pain. Pain was an old friend to Dancer and it had never before slowed him down.

This one awakens, Abdul, said a voice. In all, there were five members of the abduction team scattered about the interior of the warehouse. They were dressed in loose-fitting work clothes, blue jeans, T-shirts—the well-worn and non-descript uniform of the waterfront. Four of the five men appeared young—between twenty-five and thirty-five—and they were fit. The fifth man, the one they called Abdul, appeared a bit older and heavier than the rest.

Welcome back, my friend. You were unconscious longer than we expected, Abdul said.

Rabbit managed to slur out the words, Who and what da hell you think you doin? before unseen rough hands grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked his head sideways.

Be still. We will tell you when to speak, a harsh, accented voice replied.

These guys were both tough and very scary. Rabbit knew they were dangerous, but he wasn’t sure to what degree. Yeah, right. What the hell is this? Rabbit asked, still trying to assess the true peril of his surroundings.

Do not worry. You will understand everything in a short time, Abdul continued in a more gentle tone.

Yeah, Rabbit thought, swallowing another retort. I‘ve been better off if I’d stayed still and then maybe this bad dream would have gone away.

Rabbit admired professionalism. He also respected brute power. They were set up, he and Dancer. Both of them had lived in Wilmington all of their lives and knew the area as well as they knew their own names. For anyone to accomplish this task on their home turf was no small feat.

Rabbit’s capture had been the more tenuous of the two street abductions. Both finesse and experience had been displayed in turning his fleeing, stringy running legs to Jell-O. The trunk lines of nerve endings and electrical impulse from brain to muscle were instantly disconnected by the precisely applied tap of a sand-filled leather sap and Rabbit crashed without ceremony to the concrete pavement. The collision with the harsh stone surface caused several brush burns and bruises. They were more colorful and tender to the touch than the lingering ache in the spot where the blackjack had struck. Dancer, on the other hand, had offered no resistance. The 9mm semi-automatic that somehow appeared like magic in Abdul’s hand was pointed at Dancer’s forehead. The declaration in the Arab’s suddenly sober eyes and his very lethal looking expression convinced Dancer that resistance would be dumb—if not fatal.

Nabil, bring the light closer to the big one, Abdul instructed.

The one named Nabil moved closer and sat a Coleman lantern on the concrete floor. It hissed and sputtered three feet from Dancer’s trussed-up form, casting shadows of carved, receding hollows of darkness in a circle of light that surrounded the two bound men and their five captors.

***

Leroy T. Rabbit Walton and Tyrone Dancer Benton were a strange pair. Tyrone had known, protected, and intimidated Rabbit since grade school. Both he and Dancer had played on the same high school football team, Dancer as a defensive lineman, Rabbit as an elusive wide receiver, thin and wiry, quick and slippery. There was a time, in fact, when Rabbit was considered Olympic material, but that was before he embraced drugs as an alternate source of fulfillment.

Dancer, in contrast, was a large, solid mass of meat and muscle. A Goliath at 6’5 and 260 pounds, he dwarfed the diminutive, drug-emaciated former football and track athlete. Tyrone had been dubbed the Dancer for his antics after a backfield sack—just as Rabbit had been tagged with his handle as the result of acceleration off the offensive line. Together, on the field and off, they made a good team.

Although their personal shortcomings and meager talents were distinct, they shared a common bond in their shared view of money and happiness. Each brought his own peculiar needs and each offered his talents to a common bonding to acquire pleasure and money. Both subscribed to the philosophy that honest labor was demeaning, but that they were entitled by birth to the same things that others worked for. This mutual understanding had evolved into an unspoken pact between the two men which eventually grew to also encompass each other’s psychological needs. For Rabbit, Dancer was a protector and bodyguard, a friend; for Dancer, Rabbit was an ego builder, a fan club, a surrogate little brother, a flunky to do his bidding.

There were other differences too; namely, their personal vices. Dancer’s penchant was an uncontrollable lust for the warm, wet spot between the legs of any woman he had found, willing or otherwise. He had many women, and though not all were willing at first, one way or another, he always managed to convince them. Dancer indulged in a little toot now and again—or maybe a taste of smack—but he found by experience that drugs, at least for him, inhibited sexual performance. Anything that interfered with sex was something he would not tolerate. Rabbit, on the other hand, would take a drug over a woman any day.

Rabbit could have jumped into a barrel full of titties and come out sucking his thumb, oblivious. The smaller member of the duo took his pleasure from a $200-a-day habit which, though arguably more compelling, was no less fulfilling than Dancer’s compulsion. Rabbit’s constantly-sore, runny nose testified to a corrosion of nasal tissue from snorting anything he could. In truth, there were very few drugs that Rabbit hadn’t tried in his twenty-nine years, and the physical proof was painfully clear. The needle tracks along his forearms and between his toes had left Rabbit gaunt and wasted.

Rabbit and Dancer had both suffered to satisfy their habits. Once there had been a hotshot that almost killed Rabbit. Dancer’s exploits, though not as life threatening, were no less traumatic. They came at the hands of jealous husbands or large male relatives of his amorous conquests. They came still worse, in a hot burning urination two or three days after the clap had blossomed. Dancer had no fear of AIDS because, simply, he didn’t believe he could catch it.

Together, Rabbit and Dancer had struck upon a modest source of income. They enjoyed the prosperity and growth of the city as much as the city fathers. The waterfront bars, adult bookstores and massage parlors provided ample environment to practice their style of free enterprise. The two entrepreneurs offered Wilmington’s life experience, to the unwary, the inebriated, and imprudent.

Dancer, the more articulate of the two, was a salesman who considered himself, with the aid of Rabbit, a culture merchant, an unofficial extension of the Chamber of Commerce. Promises and descriptions of uninhibited, big-titted women who could suck a golf ball through a garden hose was a lure not many horny seamen passed up. If women didn’t suffice, then other attractions, such as high stakes crapshoots, card games, or drugs, served as enticements.

I can gets you whatever you wants, was the standard pitch Dancer used, accompanied by a large yellow, toothy smile. But the duo would part their patrons from their valuables, often before accommodating their desires.

Mugging and robbery weren’t the easiest ways to make a living. Sometimes the victim carried a weapon and would become a bit too much to handle, even for Dancer, but it beat manual labor, and they extorted sufficient funds to keep themselves well-stocked with drugs and booty.

Every once in a while they would pimp for one or another of the street-wise women when it proved to be to everyone’s advantage. Those who passed their office on Market Street, drunk or alone, offered the duo a final opportunity to solicit a contribution from the unwary. No great harm was done, and the occasional waterfront strong-arm or robbery casualty was an accepted way of life the world over. But that, of course, was before the Arab.

Bosheer had proven to be the exception.

***

The evening they met Bosheer, they had cruised the normal waterfront hangouts of Wilmington, looking for a mark from one of the several ships in port. To find a sailor not in the company of one or more of his shipmates was unusual, but every once in a while, fortune smiled, They stumbled upon the Arab by accident. He appeared to be an eager and easy score.

Bosheer had a full eight hours to kill before his scheduled rendezvous with Abdul. He had completed his reconnaissance early. It was the first time he was unsupervised and removed from the safety of his companions.

My bro-theer, Dancer had said, approaching the Arab wide-armed and grinning. You lookin’ for some action? Den I’m de man.

Bosheer became a new bar friend and initial suspicions dwindled helped by more than just a few drinks. Dancer’s graphic promises of what could be provided for just a slight commission brought both interest and a smile to Bosheer’s face. He listened in rapt attention to the crafted scenarios dangled by Dancer.

I tell you, man, dis booty I knows she can’t ever get enough, and she loves Arab men da best, he confided to Bosheer.

The embellished stories were transformed into very credible lures, as the line was dangled. The sixth member of Abdul’s team wasn’t the first man who had let the little head between his legs do the thinking for the big head atop his shoulders. Besides, he had never had a non-Arab woman. The blonde American ones, he had been told, were the best. It was said they were the most creative and uninhibited when it came to sex.

A bit over an hour passed before Dancer gave Rabbit the signal. Rabbit left the bar moving off toward Market Street and the waterfront. The wait was short until Dancer’s booming voice announced their approach to the ambush site. Rabbit listened to the unsteady footsteps of Bosheer, accompanied by the footfall of Dancer. He lay close to the sweet-smelling, moist earth of the vacant lot, down low behind the forgotten shrubbery and debris. By design, Dancer walked closest to the curb, placing Bosheer between the two accomplices. They were near now.

Rabbit tensed, the spring-loaded five-ounce leather-wrapped knot of lead gripped tight in his right fist. The two men passed by, Dancer’s right arm encircling Bosheer’s left shoulder. Rabbit was up and swinging the sap before the two men were three paces past him. With an arcing swing, he tapped Bosheer with just the right amount of force in just the right place, but the Arab failed to fall. Instead, he let out a shrill yell and sprinted away, like a shot from a cannon. His action was far from expected, and caught Dancer off guard. Rabbit was flat-footed and it took him all of five or six seconds to recover. Bosheer had already raced fifteen yards down the street, and was gaining speed as he headed toward the lighted dock area. Rabbit darted after him. Within a hundred yards, he was at Bosheer’s left hip, positioned a half-pace to the rear.

Heh, heh, gotcha now, sucka, Rabbit giggled to the panting Bosheer. Rabbit struck Bosheer again with the sap in just the perfect spot between skull and neck. Bosheer stumbled, let out a loud groan, somehow recovered his balance, and again stumbled forward. They were under the outer bank of lights at the very edge of the pier, Bosheer moved just a few paces ahead of Rabbit. He looked back to see that Rabbit held the homemade spring-loaded sap chest high in his right hand. It swayed obscenely with each of his pumping strides. As they raced along the edge of the pier, the sap came up once again. Bosheer tripped and went down.

Bosheer remembered the urgent, running thud of feet behind him just as he tripped. He hit the wooden fender of the dock with a thud, hung for a moment, and then rolled awkwardly over the side and into the black water twenty feet below. There was a splash and he disappeared. The sudden, cold waters that swirled about him—submerging him, carrying him beneath their dark mantle—shocked Bosheer. The chill sharply cut to the warm inner core of his being and sobered him.

Bosheer could not swim—at least not well—so he sputtered to the surface and tried to call out. A sudden gulp of foul water smothered his plea. He coughed, only to take more of the rank-tasting water through his nose and down his throat. Bosheer felt himself being drawn down into the dark depths. The now soaked navy blue jacket, heavy layers of shirt and sweater, and faded, thick corduroy trousers tugged him down. His arms grew heavy and would not respond to his feeble struggles to draw his body up to the oily surface. An annoying ache in the back of his head grew stronger with every beat of his racing heart.

Bosheer flailed, fighting to find and reach the surface of the river. A thoughtless, frantic attempt to inhale sucked more cold liquid into his lungs and stomach. His body reflexively responded and his coughing only increased the situation’s desperateness. Reality burst in a clear, quick flash.

This can’t be happening. It is not Allah’s will, not now – not when Jericho is so close, he thought.

There was a claustrophobic realization… overwhelming… compelling. There was so much at stake and he was suffocating.

I’m drowning he tried to scream.

Bosheer panicked, whipping the water to get to the source of oxygen. So much depended on him. But where was the surface? It was so dark. There was just the overwhelming press and presence of water everywhere.

The roar grew within his head. It was hard to concentrate, but Bosheer had to think; he tried to keep ahead of the roar which now filled his being.

He pounded at his wet surroundings. The movements of his limbs became more frantic, less coordinated. The ache at the back of his head grew stronger, more pronounced, the burning tightness in his chest more acute. The electrical impulses to the muscles of his body became confused as his brain called up its last reserves of oxygen. His furious thrashing turned into spasms. The nerve strings frayed and popped. Bosheer’s unseeing eyes bulged and strained in their sockets. His heart spasmed, thumped, and convulsed. It pulsated a final time and then, in unwilling surrender, it stopped.

Bosheer’s last thoughts were of Abdul. Abdul would be angry with him.

***

Dancer, who arrived a few minutes after the Arab had gone over the side, was not happy.

Wha’s the matta wif you, you dum damn nigga’! Dancer howled. Dat mutha had bread, man, and it was in my pocket and here you done screwed it all up.

Rabbit cringed. He ducked and parried the blows Dancer aimed at his head and shoulders. Luckily, Dancer’s outburst was brief.

Let’s get the hell otta here, Dancer instructed, making no attempt to find or rescue Bosheer.

The two men scanned the area—alert for movement—searching the shadows for witnesses to the event. Dancer could not believe his bad luck. It was entirely Rabbit’s fault, and he planned to later leave some bruises on the addict’s bony ribs.

The police picked them up for routine interrogation soon after the body was discovered amid the trash and debris washed along the shore of the harbor. The investigation was pro forma and without much interest. The town fathers were neither particularly fascinated nor alarmed regarding the incident. Dancer, who other witnesses had placed with the deceased at a bar earlier in the evening, talked some trash, but in the end the police could find no evidence of foul play. The victim had been found with wallet, watch, and ring intact on his body. The autopsy attributed slight swelling and bruises behind his left ear to an unknown object that his head must have struck during the fall.

No charges were lodged and the incident was obscurely reported as a drowning on the back pages of The Wilmington Star.. The one-paragraph story noted that Dancer thought he saw the victim fall from the pier and had been questioned by the police. Dancer clipped the article and carried it folded in his wallet. He said that women always get the hots for newspaper celebrities. A broad smile lit up his face as he contemplated the sexual prospects resulting from this notoriety.

Heh, heh. I sho’ ’nuf gonna git me some good booty from this, Dancer told Rabbit while refolding the clipped article, then placing it back in his wallet for the third time in as many hours. Rabbit doubted Dancer’s statement, but said nothing. No one ever seemed to have the hots for Rabbit, even during the days when his track and field glories routinely made the papers.

No big thing, Rabbit thought, seeing no reason to pick at the scab of Dancer’s disappointment over the loss of what seemed to be easy pickin’s. He was just pleased that the newspaper article made Dancer happy and even forgetful of retribution. Besides, the lack of public acclaim had never before seemed to slow Dancer down when chasing a slice of damp. It just sorta worked out for Dancer that women were somehow there whenever he wanted them.

Only a few days later, Abdul entered their lives.

***

Dancer had come upon Abdul much the way the two had stumbled upon Bosheer, by accident. It was still early in what was a slow evening—around ten o’clock. Dancer had wandered through two bars without any action before crossing to the west side of Market Street. At that precise moment, Abdul emerged from the old storefront that housed one of the adult bookstores and peep shows. He looked up and down the street, then sauntered across to McGrady’s tavern and entered.

McGrady’s is best described as the seediest bar in a worse-than bad-neighborhood. Even the toughest of sailors recognized the pub as a no questions asked Wilmington refuge. The dark, boarded-up storefront was close to the Wilmington docks and was a convenient place where a lonely sailor might find companionship from one of the two or three well-worn hookers who perched on tattered bar chairs. They would take your money and give you a good dose of the clap—no charge for the clap.

Dancer smelled the money on Abdul.

According to Earl, McGrady’s career bartender, Abdul had been in earlier and was already well on the road to liquor-induced forgetfulness.

Humph. Wher dat sucka bin? Dancer asked.

Hell, how am I supposed to know Earl growled in response. Do I look like his damn mother?

Jus’ never seen him ‘round before, that’s all, Dancer replied in easy conversation. Yu gettin’ lot ah faces in here, Earl. He a nuw reg’ula’r?

Nah, said he was from Kitar or Guitar or somethin’ like that, wherever the shit that is. He’s lookin’ for some action though, Earl replied as they eyed the swarthy, medium-built sailor sitting alone at a table along the wall facing away from the door.

Got some bread, too, Earl concluded, picking at his teeth. For Earl, any guy who paid his tab with anything bigger than a twenty had bread.

Armed with his new knowledge, a pick-up approach for Dancer had been easy. Before long, a fifty-dollar bill was incautiously peeled off a large roll of bills, and Rabbit hustled from the bar to lie in wait at the vacant lot.

Rabbit had not heard the two Arabs as they came up behind him, nor seen their shadowy movements until the last moment. It had been with luck and speed that he bolted from their trap. There was no one who could catch Rabbit, and he quickly outdistanced the pair. Rabbit turned the corner at full tilt into the alleyway that stretched between Market and Riverside. The third man was waiting for him there.

***

The six-man cell was a composite of sleeper agents and student immigrants. The team had been activated with orders to assemble at Wilmington, North Carolina. Further instructions were to be provided at that time by Abdul, the team leader who was to arrive from Libya.

Abdul, a member of Salal’s cadre team at his southern Libya training base, owned broad authority to carry out his mission. When the first five members of the six-man cell met upon Abdul’s arrival, he briefly outlined their tasks.

You will gather current and critical intelligence in the local area. Provide details on the facilities, photographs, blueprints, the location and strength of local police forces, their capabilities and reaction times, he said.

Two of you will become members of the workforce at the Sunny Point Military Ocean Terminal. Gather information on the ammunition and explosive storage locations, the roads inside the terminal, communications, weaknesses and strengths. You will be the eyes and ears of Salal’s attack force.

Abdul often repeated the importance of their mission. What you accomplish is critical to Jericho. Without you there is no chance for success. You will be the guides for the force that will attack Sunny Point and destroy it. Later you will guide your brothers to our other Arab friends who will assist the freedom fighters in their evasion of capture, and escape back to the Middle East.

The team worked with due diligence to organize rally points, temporary safe houses and transportation from the area through the clandestine network from Wilmington in the North to Myrtle Beach South, to Fayetteville and Lumberton in the West.

At Sunny Point, Nabil became a railway workman, and Kirshid, an administrative supply clerk. Both of these men were activated sleeper agents who lived in the United States and had no problems in taking on their new identities. Two more members of the cell gained employment with the assistance of forged papers. Trained as a mobile crane operator, Zayed worked at the State Port located in Wilmington and the fourth, Sa’id, a Syrian Arab, as a cab driver within the city. The last man to arrive, Bosheer, had traveled to the United States as a deck hand on a Norwegian cargo ship bound for Wilmington, North Carolina among other US port destinations.

Abdul, the sixth member of the cell and its leader, had entered the country on a tourist visa. He’d gone underground upon clearing customs and disappeared from immigration’s sight. Being both alone and unemployed, Abdul had more time to explore the region and coordinate the intelligence gathering effort. As the sole communications link with Machmued, the second in command, and Salal, their leader, he alone possessed the passwords and communication tools for routing and linking to Salal—wherever he was.

Abdul established his base of operations in a rented safe house in Caswell Beach—a summertime bedroom community. A modern yuppie adjunct to the staid, unchanged Civil War hamlet of Southport, North Carolina—and relatively isolated— this small but popular resort community was close to Sunny Point Military Terminal. No suspicion was aroused in the transit community of summer sun worshipers by Abdul’s seasonal arrival, nor did anyone take notice of the late evening comings and goings of swarthy young men who never appeared on the beach.

When Bosheer had not appeared at the designated meeting place, Abdul and the team immediately searched the waterfront. It had taken only a few hours to learn of the death and then two days of discrete inquiry to reconstruct Bosheer’s steps. The discovery of his departure from McGrady’s with Dancer was an accident, but put the team back on track.

***

Abdul said that Dancer would weep before death.

Neither Rabbit nor Dancer had been impressed. Such talk was an accepted form of street intimidation, a way of projecting image, of just getting over.

Nah, that Abdul guy, he was all jive talk, man. Just talking trash, Rabbit reassured himself. Dancer hadn’t been foolin’ wif any foreign or any white quail in a long time.

Dancer just laughed. Dat gotta be som’ kin’do joke or sumthin’, yo dumb ass. Ain’t gonna happen and you can take it ta yo camel humpin’ bank, asshole. So yus bettr jus’ jump back, Jack, and unties me ‘fur I gets pissed.

The big one appears arrogant yet brave, but we shall see, Abdul thought.

At first, Rabbit figured maybe Dancer had been servicing somebody’s stuff and her old man found out. Dancer more than once had been found his pecker in the wrong set of willing female drawers.

So maybe we’re in for a thumpin’, a good ol’ ass whoopin'. Shit, I can handle dat and so can Dancer. Wouldn’t be the first time, Rabbit silently acknowledged.

But for some reason, that simple and easy explanation just didn’t feel right this time. Somehow, the exaggerated response of these dudes over a little booty just didn’t ring true. Rabbit sought refuge in the fact that no one ever wanted to piss off Dancer. Everyone knew that Dancer was vicious, vengeful, and violent.

Deese brothers jus’ ain’t got de word, d’ats all, Rabbit mouthed to Dancer. Dis jus’ a mistake.

Maybe don’ happen right away, buts I do gets even, Dancer often warned potential adversaries. Besides man, you don’ do no bro over a lil’ piece of booty. Maybe you whup up on his ass a little, but you don’ do him.

Abdul stood in arm’s reach between Rabbit and Dancer. He turned to each of them with disdain on his face. He took Dancer’s massive head and cupped it between his two hands, forcing Dancer to look into his face.

Do you believe in God? Abdul asked in a curious, conversational tone, his English heavily accented.

Hey man, what kin’ a shit is ‘dis? Dancer angrily demanded. Does you kno who you’s screwin’ wif? You donkey shit, mother f—

Silence.

The word was enunciated with harsh precision. It was a compelling statement, a command, delivered with indisputable authority. Abdul left no doubt that he was the leader.

Dis is bad,