THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (20 page)

“With Jamal gone, you on our side now, Abdul,” Corey informed him.

Jackson
nodded and switched teams. He’d opted to play ball tonight after jogging just a short distance to leave the pendant for Toby to pick up from a pre-appointed location. Then he’d hurried back in time to join a game, and to monitor the officer’s vigilance.

Beyond Artie’s flat rooftop, the sky turned magenta. With a loud buzz, the halogen lights over the blacktop blinked on as the game continued under a darkening sky. An hour passed, and Jamal still wasn’t back yet.

Jackson
wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow and willed the lazy ass, screw-up of a deputy to get out of his cruiser and walk inside the store.

What idiot would miss Jamal’s entrance coupled with
Lena
’s disappearance for over an hour? But the cop couldn’t seem to tear himself away from the talk radio show
Jackson
caught snippets of now and then. Only one customer had visited Artie’s in all the time that she was alone with Jamal, and the man was still lounging in his cruiser listening to his radio.

Jackson
reminded himself that she had pulled a gun on him. She could handle a mere convicted bank robber
.

“Wake up, Abdul!” Shahid’s admonishment snapped
Jackson
out of his reverie as the ball whizzed past him and bounced off the metal fence. “We gonna lose this game if you don’t start lookin’.”

“Sorry.” At least they still had possession.

“Yeah, you is sorry,” Shahid agreed with frustration, stalking to the sidelines with the ball. He bounce-passed it to Corey, who quickly passed it off to
Jackson
.

Seeing an opportunity to redeem himself,
Jackson
made a fast break down the court, where
Davis
defended the basket. Leaping higher than
Davis
could jump, he slammed the ball into the hoop. He was still in midair when
Davis
body-checked him, fouling him intentionally.

Jackson
flailed like a cat trying to right himself. Unlike a cat, he landed on his back, not his feet, the wind driven clean out of his chest.
Oh, fuck, that hurt.

Davis
’s face blotted out the bright lights. “Best watch yourself,” he taunted before moving away.

Corey and Nadim bent over him
.
 

“You okay, brotha?” Corey examined him with worry
.

Nadim was grinn
ing
like a kid. “Man, that was dope, Abdul! I didn’t know you could dunk.”

Jackson
’s lungs re-inflated in painful little gasps.

At last, he was able to lift his hands and let the two men pull him to his feet. That was when he saw Jamal loping back towards Gateway. The grin on his face filled
Jackson
with envy. At least, his appointment was scheduled for tomorrow. As he’d warned her, he fully intended to keep it, even without Ike’s permission
.
  

“Switch sides again, Abdul,” Muhammed called, as Jamal rejoined them on the blacktop.

“Yeah, we don’t want no white Devil on our side.”

At
Davis
’s unsolicited comment, all the men turned and gaped at him.

“Half of my family’s darker than you, Sulayman,”
Jackson
countered with a hard look
.

Davis
stalked toward him with his fists balled.

“You got a problem with me, brother?”
Jackson
demanded, itching for the chance to thrash him soundly
.

“I ain’t your brotha,”
Davis
spat. “You don’t look like me and you don’t talk like me.” 

Silence descended over the basketball court as the men formed a circle around the adversaries.

“Ain’t you learned nothin’ at this place?”
Jackson
spread on the dialect more thickly. “We all sons of Allah.”

Davis
jabbed a finger at his own chest. “I am Allah,” he boasted.

Jackson
shook his head. Ibrahim’s lessons yesterday and today were already taking root in
Davis
’s shallow mind. “You ain’t nothin’ but a fool.” 

With a growl in his throat,
Davis
pulled back a fist and swung.
Jackson
easily avoided the blow. The man was powerful but too slow to pose a threat to him. “Come on,” he said, gesturing for
Davis
to attack him again.

Like an enraged bull,
Davis
lowered his head and charged.
Jackson
stepped aside at the last possible moment, gave him a push and sent him sprawling face-first onto the blacktop
.

The men broke into uneasy laughter.

Just then, a flash of white beyond the cage caught
Jackson
’s eye. He realized Imam Zakariya was making his way toward them.
Ah, hell.
Now he would pay for letting his emotions get the upper hand. “Hey, hey, quiet,”
Jackson
hushed the others, nodding toward the gate.

As Zakariya stepped into the cage,
Davis
clambered to his feet, shooting daggers at
Jackson
. Under the bright lights, the cleric’s robes shone as radiantly as an angel’s.

“Peace be with you, my sons,” he called, splitting a look of concern between Jackson and Davis.

“And with you, Imam,” the men murmured uncertainly.

“There is no place for dissention here at Gateway,” the clergyman stated on a gentle note.

“Yes, Imam,”
Jackson
muttered.

“Look your brother in the eye,” Zakariya urged. “And shake hands with him.”

In
Davis
’s dark eyes,
Jackson
read nothing but loathing. He extended his hand, all the same, earning a vice-like grip. The thought of that same hand snuffing out the life out of a child had him snatching his hand back.

“Reconcile,” Zakariya insisted, giving
Jackson
an admonishing look for cutting short their handshake. “Now, I am sorry to disturb your free time, men,” he continued, explaining his reason for interrupting, “but there’s a truck due to arrive with important cargo, and I will need your help unloading it.”

The men knew better than to complain. As they followed the imam toward the shed,
Jackson
gave
Davis
a wide berth
.

The roar of a semi truck preceded the appearance of headlights. Brakes squealing, it slowed at Gateway and backed right up to the new shed.

The men stood nearby, breathing diesel fumes as Zakariya swung open the shed doors and snapped on a light. “Make a line,” he instructed them. “You will pass canisters from person to person. Whoever is last in line will place them along the rear wall, understand?”

Curious to know the contents of the truck,
Jackson
took up the first position. The cargo door rumbled upward, revealing several dozen canisters of what looked like propane. The driver lowered one down to him. He passed the bulky canister along to Jamal, who passed it to Nadim, and so forth, then he reached up for another one
.

“Man, wha’s in these things?” Jamal huffed, weary after just three passes
.
 

“Propane,” Zakariya cheerfully confirmed. “You are going to warm the homes of your brothers in the city.”

Jackson
glanced at the warning labels as he passed the tanks along.
Danger. Flammable Substance.
Suspicion kindled his thoughts, leaping into blazing tongues of doubt. Older homes in the city might be heated with propane, yes. But if the Day of Judgment was near, then, Christ, this stuff was just as apt to be used for malicious purposes
.
 

“You will deliver the gift of heat yourself,” Zakariya enthused, “along with donations of food and blankets.”

The imam’s sincerity about their good-Samaritan efforts left
Jackson
wondering if he had aligned himself with Ibrahim’s radical ideas or was completely oblivious to them
.
Was the propane’s intended use really benign, or was it going to be used as an accelerant? 

“In helping others, you will be a blessing to Allah and to all in your community. Thank you, my sons,” Zakariya called as the truck revved and pulled away. With a reminder that their recreation time was a privilege and not a right, he took his leave
.

“We got time for one more game,” Jamal said, glancing at the sky to gauge the time
.

Seeing
Davis
’s vengeful glare,
Jackson
dismissed himself. He needed to text Ike about the propane right away. Given the donations to insurgents overseas and Ibrahim’s radical preachings, the delivery of forty propane tanks took on a menacing connotation
.

He longed to slip across the street to visit Lena tonight, but the police presence combined with
Lena
’s refusal to leave as he’d requested convinced him to keep his distance for now. He’d done all he could do to keep her safe.

Chapter Eleven

By the next afternoon,
Jackson
felt his tension mounting like a rubber band pulled taut, and for good reason
.

“Before I dismiss you for supper,” Imam Ibrahim was saying as he paced before the same seven parolees he had pulled into his office three days in a row, “let me see how well you have listened to the first Supreme Lesson. Muhammed,” he called, wresting that young man’s attention from the window.

“Yes, Imam?”

“Who is the Devil?”

Put on the spot, Muhammed’s initial panic gave way to confidence. “The white man is the Devil,” he answered with a playful smile
.
 

Davis
snickered, casting
Jackson
a sidelong smirk. Earlier in the lesson, he’d asked why Abdul wasn’t considered the Devil, being half-white. Ibrahim’s assurance that Abdul’s black ancestry purged him of evil clearly failed to placate
Davis
. His expression of loathing warned
Jackson
of impending reprisal for last night’s embarrassment
.

“And why does the Devil keep our people illiterate, Jamal?”

“So he can use him as a tool or a slave.” Jamal’s tone conveyed his resentment
.