Heart of the Assassin

CHAPTER 14

Spider curled in the armchair of his study, watching Sarah. The noise of the Catholic sector seeped through the security windows. "Have you told Rakkim what your zombie found in D.C.?"

"Her zombie?" Rakkim pulled the blanket up around Spider where it had slipped off. "Yeah, she showed me."

"Rakkim is…skeptical." Sarah looked at Leo. "Did you find where the safe room is?"

"Not exactly." Leo loudly blew his nose. His allergies had kicked in. Probably a dust storm in Tibet or somebody on Mars had a new kitten. "Not yet."

Spider dimmed the lights, the wallscreen flickering. "We cleaned up the original, increased the resolution."

The D.C. rubble bobbed onscreen, bones littering the sidewalk, the American flag in the gutter. A quick pan of the collapsed Capitol dome as the zombie gave his voice-over sales pitch, his breathing moist and heavy through the decon suit, boots kicking up cinders and dead newspapers. The cameraman's emaciated face was reflected for a moment in a sheet of glass, his sunken cheeks behind the plexi-hood, damp hair plastered across his scalp.

Static onscreen, then a dimly lit tunnel, the ceiling half collapsed, the zombie cursing as he squeezed his way through. His decon suit scraped against the sides as he scooted forward on his belly. This…this here's something special. The laser torch popped on and he started cutting away at the hatch to the access tunnel. Moments later a clang as the access hatch fell into darkness. Dust shimmered as the light from the camera poked through the opening.

The zombie grunted, tried to work his way through the narrow opening. He stopped, panting. Tried again. Still too tight. Gonna have to come back with a hand jack. He swept the room: the wooden globe with the continents oddly shaped…a red rose in its vase…a couple of flintlock pistols…a yellowed document under armored glass. A man lay behind the desk, only his skeletal hand visible, sticking out of the sleeve of his blue suit.

The image wobbled as the zombie tried to squeeze into the room. A curse hissed into the darkness. The zombie turned the camera light on his arm, saw a tear in the shoulder of the decon suit. He slapped on a quick-patch, but the tear spread, the material weakened from years of toxic exposure. He looked into the camera, blinking, and even across time and space you could tell that he knew. Sorry…I'm sorry. His hand bumped the edge of the opening and he dropped the camera. The image bounced, stabilized for an instant, long enough to see the red rose on the desk collapse, petals shattering to dust… The screen went black. Faint sound of thezombie sobbing before Spider stopped the recording.

"Why does he say he's sorry?" said Rakkim.

"It's a much clearer recording," said Sarah, "I just wish you could have located where-"

"Nobody can track a signal out of D.C.," said Rakkim. "The soup's too thick."

The wallscreen flared and the safe room was in sharp focus, the angle tilted.

"What…?" said Sarah.

"Leo couldn't pinpoint the safe room," said Spider, "but Leo did succeed in walking back the signal sent to the zombie's Web site. We thought the camera had gone dead, but it's still operating. You missed it, Sarah, and so did we at first. It only broadcasts a five-second burst every twenty-four hours. Leo's managed to retrieve three of the bursts, spanning the last week. We've attached them on the main recording."

"Showtime," said Leo.

A flash of light illuminated the safe room. Low angle. More of the dead man visible now, his suit in rags, one shoe off…metacarpals gleaming through his tattered sock.

"There's no way you can triangulate the room's position from the signal?" said Sarah.

"Do you even know what that means?" said Leo.

"It wasn't possible, Sarah," soothed Spider. "We've been trying. The only way Leo was able to snatch the five-second bursts was because they had the same digital signature as the original data packet. What Leo did…it's really quite remarkable."

"Yeah, a little appreciation might be nice," said Leo.

"Something…something was different between the original recording and the five-second bursts," said Rakkim.

Spider froze the image. Turned to Leo. "I told you he would notice."

Leo rolled his eyes.

"What's different?" said Sarah.

The wallscreen jumped, the angle canted so that the desk looked as if it were about to fall over. "One of the things we were able to do when we cleaned up the image was to add a holographic component," said Spider, manipulating the remote. "Now we can see everything in the room."

Spider shifted the angle on the freeze frame…he ran across the smallest oil painting, the cleric's eyes cold and remote…the dueling pistols in their felt-lined box, each flake of rust highlighted on the striker…across the empty case…to the parchment under armored glass. The parchment was hard to read until Spider adjusted the focus…the parchment was an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, with a mention of "Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" that didn't appear in the final version.

The image onscreen shifted again, moved slowly over the skeletal man curled on the floor, one bony hand outstretched…past the hand…to what lay just out of reach, the small, flat piece of wood…dappled now with tiny white flowers.

"My God," Sarah said softly.

"Those flowers…they weren't there before," said Rakkim.

"No shit," said Leo.

"Are they blooming?" said Rakkim.

Spider nodded. "Rather interesting, wouldn't you say?"

"More than interesting, it's impossible," said Rakkim. "There's been nothing alive in D.C. for the last forty years. Even the cockroaches died."

"Blooming in total darkness," whispered Sarah, still watching the screen. "Eldon really did it. I didn't believe him. I thought he was just trying to get more money out of me."

Spider zoomed in on the piece of wood. The flowers were clearly rooted in the wood itself, a chunk of dark, pitted pine six or seven inches long, maybe four inches thick.

"Those are white anemones, according to the botanical index, by the way," said Spider. "A very archaic form of the modern flower."

Rakkim looked at Sarah.

"I told Eldon I was interested in something important." She reached out, grazed the flowers onscreen with her fingertips. "Not just historically significant, something that would get everyone's attention. That would change…everything." She trembled in the light from the wallscreen. "He'd been looking for two years, said he finally had a lead. Bigger than big, bigger than I could imagine, that's what he said."

"What is it?" said Rakkim.

"I…I could see the way things were going," said Sarah, lip quivering, unable to turn away from the screen. "Even…even before President Kingsley was killed it was clear that the whole country was unraveling."

Rakkim was beside her. "You've been saying that for as long as I've known you." He held her but she pulled away. "We're doing as well as the Belt."

"Exactly," said Sarah. "They're a failed nation just like we are, poor and weak."

"Here we go again," said Rakkim. "Reunification's a fine idea, as long as you get rid of all the people that go to sleep at night praying that God strikes the other side dead."

"There's not that many zealots," said Sarah, "they're just louder than the rest of us. We need something to bring us together, something greater than the things that divide us."

"Yeah, a bunch of posies on a chunk of wood are going to make us all love each other," snorted Leo. He dabbed at his nose with a tissue.

Spider zoomed in, the piece of wood filling the wall, a dull black stain in high relief.

"The cross?" Rakkim looked at Sarah. "Come on."

"You've heard the stories," said Sarah.

"Everyone in the Belt's heard the stories," said Rakkim. "Most of them believe it too; the secret behind the glory of the USA was that the founders were devout Christians, keepers of a piece of the true cross, the most sacred relic of all."

"Maybe it's true," said Sarah.

"Rikki, your people believe the black stone in the Kaaba in Mecca dates from the time of Adam and Eve," said Spider. "They consider it a source of great power."

"The black stone is real," said Rakkim.

"So is the cross." Sarah pointed at the screen. "Flowers, Rikki. Flowers blooming in a dead city…" Tears shimmered in her eyes, and Rakkim could see the blooms reflected in them. "People need symbols, something greater than their own lives. Remember…remember at the war museum last week? After the truce was signed, both sides sent search teams into the ruins of D.C. It was a suicide mission, but they had ten times the volunteers they needed. The men from the Republic found the immaculate Quran and put it in the museum…the team from the Belt brought out the statue of Abraham Lincoln, brought it out in pieces and reassembled it in Atlanta. It was a healing moment for both nations, a sense that they had done the right thing in fighting for their faith, but Rikki…Rikki, what would have happened if President Kingsley had given the Quran to the Belt, let them put it on display? And what if the Belt president had returned the honor, given us the statue of Lincoln?"

"Government isn't about religion or signs or symbols," said Rakkim. "It's about power and control and…Tell her, Spider."

"I gave up trying to tell Sarah anything a long time ago," said Spider.

"All this talk about a hunk of magic wood may get you all excited, but not me," said Leo. "What I want to know is where does it leave the Jews?"

"Where we always are, on the outside looking in and hoping for the best," said Spider. "Judaism is the wellspring for both Christianity and Islam. I'll leave it for others to decide if they've improved on the original source."

"It's a beautiful idea, Sarah, and I wish the world worked that way," said Rakkim, "but we don't even know where this…thing is."

"Not yet," said Sarah.

"Not yet." Rakkim looked around. "Have you thought that Leo might not be the only person who can walk back the data packet from the Web site?"

"I am the only one who could do it," sniffed Leo, a twist of tissue hanging from his nostril.

"No, you're not," said Rakkim. "You might be the smartest person in the world, but the second-smartest person will just need a little more time to do it."

"A lot more time," said Leo, the tissue jiggling with every word.

"This zombie…this Eldon, he had some powerful clients," said Rakkim. "Big money boys with the means to hire the best and the brightest. You might have plans to use the cross to bring the two nations together, Sarah, but I guarantee you, other people might have a completely different agenda."

Sarah kissed him. "Then we'll have to get busy, won't we?"

Ibrahim barged into the Old One's chambers after a perfunctory knock, out of breath, having hurried over from the communications offices. It was late and his father was leaving tomorrow morning, but this news couldn't wait. He started to speak, stopped when he saw Baby lounging on the couch. She wore a red silk robe, but one leg was up, wantonly exposing her bare flesh.

"What is it, my son?" said the Old One, seated across from Baby, his back to the wall.

"Father…I…"

The Old One gestured with his glass of chilled cider. "Out with it."

Ibrahim bit back his fury. To be addressed in such a matter, and in front of the slut…He bowed, certain that his face did not betray his emotions. "John Moseby just contacted his wife. It was a simple encryption this time."

Baby shifted position, the silk rustling. "If you were able to translate the message, it might be a ruse."

"It's Leo's encryption program we can't break," Ibrahim said. "Moseby doesn't have the same capability-"

"What did the man say?" snapped the Old One.

Ibrahim handed him a printout of the brief conversation. "The message itself is nothing. 'Sorry for leaving so abruptly, darling, but I promise to come back as soon as I can. Kiss Leanne for me, and know that I love you.' The message is nothing, Father, as I said, but it's where it was sent from that's of interest." Ibrahim let them wait for a few seconds. "Our men traced the call to somewhere in the zombie sector near Washington, D.C."

The Old One looked at Baby.

"Moseby is a finder," said Ibrahim. "He's doubtlessly been sent to retrieve something from the ruins."

"But y'all don't know what it is he's been sent after, do you?" said Baby.

"I think we can assume it was something very important, Father," said Ibrahim, ignoring her. "Otherwise why risk entering that cursed place?"

The Old One tapped his fingers together. "Do we have men in place?"

"They're already on their way," said Ibrahim.

"Have our men ask around," said the Old One. "See if any of the locals have had dealings with Moseby, or heard of any recent discoveries that might be of interest to us."

Ibrahim bowed.

"Baby and I will be leaving for the Belt later tonight," said the Old One. "See that you keep me apprised of any further news regarding Moseby?"

"Tonight?" said Ibrahim.

"Daddy and me are eager to hear a little of that old-time religion," said Baby, laughing. "If you're a good boy, maybe I'll bring you back a pecan nut log."

The Old One dismissed Ibrahim with a wave of his hand.

Flushed with rage, Ibrahim heard Baby's voice as he walked out the door.

"It's just like I told you, Daddy, Moseby's a family man. No way he wasn't going to talk with his sweetie."

Ibrahim kept walking. In spite of everything that had gone on before, all the things Baby had said and done to damage his standing with their father, it was at that precise moment that Ibrahim decided to kill her.