“You go to Mombasa,” Sele said, his voice cracking. “You do what you must. But you leave one thing here. With me.”
“Sele,” he said, his voice steady for the first time that night. “The police took my father. The cartel took my sister. Poverty took my mother. The only thing I have left that is truly mine is my will. My roho.”
Abdi tilted his head.
“Abdi!” Sele shouted over the storm. nitarudi na roho yangu afande sele
“No, Afande. I came back to thank you for keeping it.”
Sele pulled him to his feet and wrapped him in a bear hug that smelled of old cologne, rain, and redemption.
Abdi paused, his silhouette a dark cutout against the flickering neon light of a roadside kiosk. “You go to Mombasa,” Sele said, his voice cracking
Abdi finished tying his laces. He was twenty-two, but his eyes held the weight of a hundred years. His mother had died of a preventable fever because the nearest clinic was a two-hour matatu ride away. His younger sister had been lured into the sex trade by a smooth-talking broker from Mombasa. The broker now worked for a cartel that ran the port.
“Nimerudi,” Abdi said. I have returned.
The news on the small, crackling TV in Sele’s new post talked about a massive fire at a godown in the Mombasa port. Millions in contraband destroyed. A mysterious explosion. Two cartel lieutenants found bound and gagged. No arrests. With me
Sele pushed himself off the doorframe. He placed a heavy, calloused hand on Abdi’s shoulder. The touch was not of an officer to a suspect, but of a father to a son he was terrified of losing.
“I have to, Afande,” Abdi whispered. “The system you protect… it forgot us a long time ago. I can’t fight the system. But I can burn their warehouse.”
“You go to Mombasa tonight, you set that fire, you disappear… or they kill you. I will never see you again.”
“If I survive,” Abdi said, stepping into the downpour. “I will come back as a free man. Not the angry boy you know. But a man with a future.”