Heart of the Assassin

CHAPTER 3

Sarah glowered at the wallscreen in Spider's bedroom, watching a news conference from earlier today-Aztlan's Presidente Argusto at his hacienda outside Tucson; chair tilted back, silver-heeled boots on the desk as he lectured the press. Sarah was glad the sound was off; she couldn't stand hearing that strutting popinjay's voice. The narco-billionaires who had formerly ruled Mexico had been morally reprehensible, but at least their concerns were money and power, not territorial expansion. Not so the Aztec militarists like Argusto who had ousted the drug lords and resurrected the empire. El Presidente had already peeled a chunk of Texas off from the Belt; now he had turned his attention back to the Republic, and he wasn't going to be happy until he gobbled up the whole Southwest. Reclaimed it, while President Brandt dithered in the Oval Office, more concerned with the state of his hair than the state of the nation. She looked over at Leo, Spider's son, who slumped in a chair. "Are you sure of your information?"

"I don't make mistakes," Leo sniffed, a teenage brainiac with a pale pudding face and soft hands, awkward and arrogant and allergic to everything from dust mites to roses.

"Encryption was nine levels deep, Sarah, they don't waste that kind of effort on trial balloons," explained Spider, propped up in bed, head lolling on the pillows. The room smelled faintly of ozone from the static generators that prevented eavesdropping. The house was a run-down two-story box in a Catholic neighborhood of Seattle, a ramshackle Craftsman with buckled floors, peeling paint and state-of-the-art security. "The memo Leo decoded said the president will issue an executive order on water rights next week."

"What a coward." Sarah adjusted Spider's pillows, noted his shallow breathing. A short, paunchy gnome and brilliant mathematician, Spider had led the Jewish resistance during the early years of Muslim rule, hiding in the tunnels under the capital for twenty years. Jews were no longer hunted, but the decades spent without sunlight or fresh air had taken a toll. "Wait until the people find out Brandt's in negotiations to give Aztlan water rights to the Colorado River itself."

"The people?" Spider's voice cracked. "You're a historian, you should know better."

"Have you heard from Rikki?" asked Spider. "I wanted to ask him-"

Sarah shook her head.

"Do you know where he is?"

"Yes." The word left a bad taste in her mouth. "Honoring a request from General Kidd."

Spider patted her hand. "No wonder you look worried."

Sarah and Rakkim had argued before he left. They were doing a lot of that lately.

Let General Kidd send someone else, she had said.

There is no one else.

There's always someone else.

I'm the one he asked.

No, said Sarah, you're the one who said yes.

There had barely been time to make up before he left early that morning, and the making up was just a prelude to the next argument. Terrible thing to be in love with someone as hardheaded as herself. Better she had married a weakling from a good family, a foppish modern who did as he was told. Still…there was something to be said for making up with Rakkim as dawn streaked the sky.

"It's good to see you smile," said Spider. "You've been too serious lately."

"Can you blame me?"

"Surviving dangerous times requires a sense of humor," said Spider. "That's why I love Rikki. I wish he was here now."

"Me too," said Leo.

Sarah blinked back tears, annoyed at herself for her weakness. "I…I want you both to see something." She pulled a thumb projector out of her pocket, sent the wallscreen flickering, replacing Presidente Argusto with a cityscape breaking up, jumpy.

Leo rummaged in his ear with a fingertip. "Where are we?"

"Washington, D.C.," said Sarah.

Leo involuntarily curled into his chair.

The camera panned across a street filled with rubble and stalled cars, zoomed in on a ragged American flag lying against the curb. An insulated boot entered the frame, nudged the flag. Found this in an office at the Pentagon, drawled the voice-over, the sound muffled. Probably some general's. Very rare. Open for bids.

For an instant the cameraman's image was reflected in a sheet of cracked glass, a wiry man in a decontamination suit, his sunken cheeks visible through the plexi-hood, hair plastered against his scalp. The dirty bomb had done more than incinerate D.C.; it had started a chain reaction in the covert facilities that ringed the capital, the very sites whose wall of directed gamma radiation was intended to protect the city. Forty years later the capital was still a hot zone.

"This footage is from Eldon Harrison, one of the scavengers working the D.C. site," said Sarah. "You'd be surprised what they find, and there's an international clientele of collectors and historians eager to buy. I purchased a White House license plate from this particular man for the university a few years ago. Encased in leaded acrylic, of course-"

"D.C.'s a deathtrap," said Leo. "Don't they know that?"

"They know it better than anyone," Sarah said, "but the locals have to feed their families. They gear up in surplus decon suits and homemade adaptations when they go on salvage runs…and they die young. The lucky ones, anyway. They call themselves zombies, proud of the risks they take."

"They should call themselves dumbasses," said Leo. "Why don't they move?"

"Because their people have lived there for three hundred years and it's home," Sarah said. "And sometimes they find things that can make them rich overnight. Last year, a piece of the Declaration of Independence sold to a private collector in Capetown for seventeen million Mandelas." She shrugged. "It was fake, but even so…"

More interference onscreen, then the image stabilized on a brass plaque etched with the words Watergate Hotel, the plaque dented where it had been pried off a wall. All kinds of sex scandals at the Watergate, politicians grinding away like millstones. Cut to the front page of a newspaper…yellowed and brittle but real paper, The Washington Post…children pictured frolicking in a fountain…the date was July 18, 2015, the day the dirty bomb went off. I got a few of these babies, one to a customer. Put your bid in fast.

Sarah leaned forward. "Pay attention."

Static onscreen for at least ten seconds, then the image returned to a completely different location, the image flipping, more static. Julia, put this up on the restricted section of the Web site. Eyes only, client BK-271. She has the access code. The light bounced off the walls of a half-collapsed tunnel, claustrophobic, the zombie's breathing heavier now, his decon suit scraping against the sides as he scooted forward on his belly. Are you seeing this, Sarah? If…if I'm right, this is going to change everything, just like you wanted, he said, trying to catch his breath. The light bounced off a small hatch at the end of the tunnel. Fumbling sounds and the zombie's laser torch snapped on.

The wallscreen went dark, then came back on, a ragged cut around the hatch now. The zombie beat on the hatch with a small hammer until it fell into the space beyond with a crash. He scooted forward. Dust shimmered in the camera beam, reflected off the inside of a larger room, the image jumping wildly. The steel hatch had fallen beside an antique desk. Oil paintings on the walls…men in high ruffled collars and clerical garb, serious faces, most of them in profile, their eyes fixed on something unseen. The beam touched the slightly ajar door of the secure room…heavily reinforced, touchpad locks, DNA encryption, all useless now. This is it. I knew…I knew I'd find it if I just kept…kept searching. Sound of the zombie trying to squirm through the tight opening.

The light moved across the room. A pair of flintlock dueling pistols rested in an open case against the far wall. Another case showed parchment under armored glass. The light beam swept the room, the zombie looking for something. A large painted wooden globe, the continents wrong somehow. On the floor…something white, a skeleton hand emerging from the sleeve of a dark blue suit, the rest of the man hidden behind the desk. A gold wedding band gleamed among the finger bones. Near the hand…a small chunk of wood on the floor. A bud vase lay on the desk, directly in the zombie's line of vision; any water had long since evaporated, but the red rose was intact. Yes, yes, yes, there it is.

"What's with the flower?" said Leo. "I didn't think there was anything alive in D.C."

"There's not," said Sarah. "I've seen cherry trees from the tidal basin offered for sale, some even with blossoms intact. They look perfect, but the whole tree disintegrates as soon as someone tries to move them."

"Then why's he so excited?" said Leo.

"It's not the flower he's excited about," said Sarah.

Spider looked over at her, then back to the wallscreen.

The zombie tried again to get a shoulder through the narrow opening, camera jiggling on the raw metal. Gonna need…Oh…shit. The zombie turned the camera on himself, used his light to see something. Damn. The man blinked behind the scratched plexi-hood, clutched at the tear in the shoulder of his homemade decon suit. He fumbled out a quick-patch, slapped it over the metallic fabric, but the tear had spread down his arm, the material weakened from years of toxic exposure. The man looked into the camera, his breath momentarily fogging the hood. Sorry…I'm sorry. His yellowed teeth chattered, but he clamped his jaw shut, held himself together. Even through the transmission static they could see the effort it took, but he managed it.

The camera wobbled. Been looking for this my whole life…finally found it and look where it gets me. A jagged piece of metal could be seen at the lower edge of the frame where the man had cracked the room. The same sharp edge that had torn his decon suit. Gonna try and get a better shot of it. He scooted forward, extended the camera through the opening with one hand, the room sparkling in the bright light. I'm beaming this to my Web site as a single data packet. This…this is what you wanted, Sarah. He coughed and his hand bumped the edge of the entrance, knocked the camera loose from his thick glove. The camera bounced off the floor of the safe room, the image dizzying for a moment. Just as the light went out, the red rose collapsed, petals shattering onto the desk. The wallscreen went black.

Sarah switched off the thumb drive. "I used my access code to pull that sequence off Eldon's restricted site. He never made it home." She turned to Spider. "Can you and Leo walk back the signal and find out where it originated?"

"I doubt it," said Spider. "There's too much interference in D.C. Even when the surveillance satellites were working-"

"He would have used a dedicated signal to send the data packet," said Leo. "It's the only way to get through that soup, but without knowing the precise algorithm-"

"I need to find that safe room," said Sarah.

"What's so important about some old junk anyway?" said Leo. "Might as well collect bottle caps or baseball cards."

"Why not just admit you can't do it?" said Sarah.

"I didn't say that," said Leo.

"I understand," said Sarah. "It's too complicated. There's too much interference-"

"You still haven't told us what the zombie was looking for," said Leo. "'This is what you wanted, Sarah.' What did you send him after?"

Sarah hesitated. "A piece of the cross Jesus was crucified-"

Leo burst out laughing.

Sarah ignored him, turned to Spider. "There's a school of revisionist history that says one reason the USA achieved greatness was because the founders possessed part of the true cross. As long as they were faithful, they were blessed."

"Supposedly why they had the eye in the pyramid on their money?" said Spider.

"They used to have Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn," said Leo. "Maybe the Easter bunny was the secret of their success."

"That's a full-security safe room that Eldon Harrison found." Sarah backed up the download. Froze on the chunk of wood lying on the floor. "Last room like that was discovered under the Capitol building sixteen years ago, and it contained the real Warren Report on the Kennedy assassination."

"Yes, I can understand your excitement," said Spider. "Still…the cross is a strange relic for a good Muslim to be interested in."

"I'm interested in its symbolic, not religious, value," said Sarah.

"If you were really interested in something valuable," said Leo, "why didn't you go looking for the missing gold from Fort Knox?"

She looked at Leo. "Isn't there something you can do to trace the signal?"

"It's late and I'm tired," said Spider. "If Leo says it can't be done, it can't be done."

"I didn't say it couldn't be done," Leo grumbled as he and Sarah slipped out of the bedroom. "Let's go for a walk. I wanted to talk to you anyway."