Heart of the Assassin

CHAPTER 40

Rakkim floated on his back in a warm sea…buoyant as a jellyfish, drifting on the tide, arms trailing. He thought of Sarah, reached for her, but she wasn't there. He couldn't remember where she was. Misplaced her. Or she had lost him…he forgot which. He tried calling her name, thought somehow she might hear him…come join him. It wasn't far. He was right over…the bridge…the mountain…just around the bend. He called louder now, his throat aching with the effort. If you can't be smart, you might as well be persistent, that's what Redbeard had said, Rakkim barely ten, new to Redbeard's house, trying to understand the rules so he could break them and still survive. Persistence. Never quit, Rikki. No one can beat you if you don't quit. So many lessons from Redbeard, but that was Rakkim's favorite. He called out to Sarah again, his voice weaker now…wondered what lessons she had learned from Redbeard. Her uncle. Blood of his blood, something Redbeard never allowed him to forget.

The sun was warmer. Closer too. Rakkim reached out, tried to bring it to him, use the sun to boil away the water so he could walk on dry land again. Walk home to Sarah. The sun smiled at him, a face forming slowly…a woman's face…Sarah. He tried saying her name but he didn't recognize the words that came out. She lightly touched his hair, her fingers cool against his skin. Sarah…He said her name again.

"You better get your eyes checked, darlin'," said Baby, leaning over him, her light hair brushing against the sheets.

Rakkim flinched.

"Well…nice seeing you too," said Baby.

Rakkim looked around. He was in a hospital bed, one of a dozen in the whitewashed room. All of them empty, except for one near the window, the patient's face half hidden by an oxygen mask, tubes in his arms. "M-Moseby?"

"He's still alive, which is saying something." Baby looked even more beautiful than he remembered, a little tired, maybe, but her skin was smooth, her mouth ripe. She wore tight jeans and a man's dress shirt with the top two buttons undone. Pistol on her hip, one of the slim automatics that Belt gunsmiths specialized in. "Doc, can you come over here?" she called, not taking her eyes off him.

Rakkim saw his Fedayeen knife on the stand beside the bed, a single piece of razored carbon polymer imbued with his own DNA. He picked it up, flipped it end over end. "Where's Gravenholtz?"

"He's not here, that's all that matters." Baby watched as he pressed the knife against the inside of his right forearm, the knife melding to his flesh. "Doc said he couldn't understand how that knife sticks to you without a scabbard."

The doctor ambled over, a paunchy man with a clipped mustache and a frayed white jacket. The V between the index and middle fingers of his left hand was yellow from nicotine. "The sleeper awakes. You're a very lucky man, Mr. Epps. If Corporal Hitchens hadn't found you two on the road-"

"I want to talk with the Colonel," Rakkim said to the doctor.

"I'd lose that tone of voice." The doctor plucked a bit of tobacco off his lower lip, flicked it onto the floor. "The Colonel and just about everyone else have gone to Atlanta, so you can thank the lady here for tending you night and day. We're shorthanded and Baby bathed you, saw to your medications, changed your IVs, and anything else I asked."

Rakkim sat up in bed, head spinning. "Why…why are they gone?"

"Easy." The doctor smoothed his mustache. "You got a touch of D.C. syndrome."

"Aztlan bombed Graceland last week," said Baby. "Colonel's gone to Atlanta to organize the counterattack."

"We're attacking Aztlan? How long have we been here?" said Rakkim.

"Three days," said Baby. "Doc completely changed out your blood, pumped you full of chelating minerals to hoover up the radiation."

The doctor pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, glanced at Baby. "I'm taking a smoke break. Call me if you need help."

"How's Moseby doing?" Rakkim called after him.

"He's progressing," the doctor said, not bothering to turn around as he pushed open the door and stepped out into the twilight, a cigarette already in his mouth.

"What exactly does 'he's progressing' mean?"

Baby lowered her eyes. "Moseby…he needs to get to a real hospital, but we can't do that until he stabilizes. Fact is, doc's surprised he's even alive. Gunshots compromised his rad-suit. Fedayeen or no Fedayeen, he should have been dead five times over from infection and unknown contaminants floating around in D.C."

"Moseby's tough."

"Yeah, well…that's one explanation," said Baby.

"What's that mean?"

"It can wait."

Rakkim swung his legs over the side of the bed, tore the IV out and started toward Moseby. Baby put her arm around him, supporting him as he walked and he didn't stop her. She smelled too good, and he was afraid he'd fall over without her. He sat on the edge of Moseby's bed. "Hey, big man. You looked like you could use some company."

Moseby stared up at the ceiling, the machine beside him making steady clicking sounds. Oxygen hissed from the large tank nearby.

Rakkim took Moseby's hand. Squeezed. Felt Moseby weakly squeeze back. "I'm going to get some fresh air, John, but I'll be back. Don't you run off now."

Moseby blinked rapidly.

Rakkim walked outside, Baby beside him. "Surprised seeing you here. Last I saw of you, you were waving good-bye as the helicopter took off."

"I made a mistake," said Baby. "You may hold it against me, but the Colonel forgives me, that's all that matters."

"I'd like to have been there for that homecoming," said Rakkim, standing on his own now. "Nothing like the wayward wife on bended knee…"

"You can be a very nasty person, Rakkim Epps."

"You have no idea." Rakkim walked across the grass, taking deep breaths. The site was nearly deserted, just a sentry at the north end of camp, scanning the nearby woods.

Baby touched a finger to her ear. "Is that you?"

Rakkim looked back at her.

"He's right here, Zachary, suspicious as ever." Baby removed the phone clip from her ear, handed it to Rakkim. It was warm against his ear.

"How are you, Rikki?" said the Colonel.

"Fine…just fine, sir," said Rakkim. "Moseby took a couple of slugs in zombie country. Doc patched him up, but I need to get him to a better facility. Mecklenburg, maybe."

"The roads are bad," said the Colonel. "Don't rush things."

"I was surprised, sir, to see Baby here," said Rakkim, his voice neutral.

"Temporary, I'm afraid," said the Colonel. "She's made that clear. Honesty hurts like a bitch, Rikki, but what else do we have?"

"Sorry to hear that, Colonel," said Rakkim, staring at Baby. He had figured that she would string the Colonel along until she could get something out of him.

"My own damn fault," said the Colonel. "Man my age marrying a girl of sixteen. What did I expect?"

"Are you going to be in Atlanta long?" said Rakkim.

"I'm not sure," said the Colonel. "Somebody needs to teach Aztlan a lesson, and people here think I'm the man for the task." He said something to whoever was with him. "I've got to go. Glad you're doing well and give my best to Moseby. Could you let me talk with Baby again?"

Rakkim handed her back the phone clip.

Baby listened. "I love you too, Zachary. You take care of yourself, hear?" She air-kissed the phone, switched it off. "Are you hungry for solid food?"

"A little." Rakkim jerked. He had forgotten…"Where are my things?"

"What you're looking for is under Moseby's bed," said Baby.

Rakkim watched her.

"I looked inside the little box, what did you think I'd do? Way you hung on to it even while you were passed out…figured it had to be important." Baby hooked her fingertips into the front pockets of her jeans. "It's safe, no one's messed with it."

"You put it under John's bed."

"Thought it might do him some good having it close. Help him heal."

Rakkim walked quickly back to the field hospital.

"Of course, why trust me? I only stayed around so I could steal it once you were feeling better." Baby kept pace with him all the way inside the building and over to Moseby. She bent down, reached under the bed, and the seat of her jeans was worn smooth and shiny. It bothered him that he noticed. She dragged out an old footlocker, flipped it open, and he saw the bleached-pine box.

Rakkim opened the box. The piece of the cross was inside, nestled in the red velvet lining, flowers blooming. He looked at her. "How…how did you know?"

"You think I'm an idiot?"

"No, I don't think that at all."

"I knew what it was even before I looked at that thumb recording you made," said Baby. "I heard about the true cross in D.C. my whole life," she said, playing with her hair, "but I never heard a thing about flowers on it."

Rakkim lightly touched the tiny flowers. Barely larger than a pinhead, but perfect in every way.

"I did the same thing myself. Hard not to touch beautiful things…make them part of you." Baby bent forward over the box. "Don't know what kind of flowers they are, but they sure smell good." She inhaled, holding on to his leg to brace herself. "Smells like some kind of spring day when I was a kid, and everything was new…and good."

Rakkim closed the box. Held on to it.

"Up to you what you do with it, but I'd put it back where it was," said Baby.

"You really think it's helped him?"

"Rikki…I don't know, I truly don't. Might have been just good doctorin' or that Fedayeen bounce-back, but he should be in the cold, cold ground by now and he's not."

Rakkim put the box back in the footlocker, pushed it under Moseby's bed. If she wanted to steal it, she would have already done it and been long gone.

The two of them watched Moseby sleep, his breathing rough.

"One thing I thought was interesting," said Baby, slipping her arm through his. "The pine box, and the cross itself…they're not radioactive. Hardly moved the rad-counter at all."

"Moseby noticed that too."

Baby's eyes were a deep blue, the color of the sea that he had been floating on before he woke up. "That's kind of strange, don't you think, considering all the years it's been in that terrible place." Her eyes warmed on him and he felt dizzy. "Guess God can do anything he sets his mind to."