Heart of the Assassin

CHAPTER 6

Something was wrong, the Old One sensed it. He should have been pleased-earlier today, Lester Gravenholtz had killed the Aztlan oil minister, the first step in his plan to reshape the geopolitical landscape. In New Fallujah, ibn-Azziz's loyalty remained unquestioned, and with him, control of the Black Robes. Both the Republic and the Belt had fractious populations and weaklings governing them. The time for a strong man to appear was close at hand, and yet…

The Old One felt rested, but the excitement, the heat, the erotic tingle at his nerve ends was missing. Sex was always his first instinct after a session. Always. He tilted his chair to the upright position, took a few more unhurried breaths of pure oxygen before beckoning Massakar to remove the mask.

"Are you feeling better, Mahdi?" asked Massakar, his chief physician, a short Pakistani with tiny, delicate hands and bags under his eyes.

The Old One examined his reflection in the mirrored wall of the recovery room, tapped under his chin. His skin was taut, his eyes clear. His steel gray hair had regained its shine, and his upper lip had lost the indentations that so vexed him. He felt better after his rejuvenation treatment, better than he had felt in weeks, his blood cleansed of impurities, his lungs ionized, his system restored to its natural vigor by Massakar's technicians and their miraculous machines, may Allah be praised. He stood up, naked and unashamed before his own critical gaze. No, something was wrong.

After all these years, the Old One knew his body intimately; he sensed every heartbeat, every pulse, every sag and ripple in his flesh… He stretched…and felt a slight heaviness in his limbs, a weariness. This is what dying feels like, thought the Old One, the first glimpse of the yawning abyss, a whisper that would slowly grow to a scream.

"Mahdi?" Massakar steepled his fingertips like a merchant fearful of losing a sale.

The Old One stared at Massakar.

Massakar lowered his eyes, trembling.

"What did you do to me?" asked the Old One, not raising his voice.

"My b-best, as always, master."

The Old One held out his hands. There was the faintest hint of yellow at the base of his cuticles. He plucked the thin skin on the back of his hand, released it…watched how long it took to smooth out. He looked up at Massakar. "Your treatments have not fully restored me."

"Yes…I know."

"Did you think I would not notice?"

"After last month's session, I thought…perhaps the instruments needed to be recalibrated." Massakar licked his thin lips. "But this time…I knew they were accurate."

"So my decline began last month?"

Massakar rubbed his small hands together as though washing them. "The decline only became statistically relevant last month. I first noticed certain…anomalies in the readings three months ago."

The Old One watched Massakar squirm. "What sort of anomalies?"

Massakar smoothed his white tunic. "A slight decline in liver function and renal output. A minute loss of cardiac elasticity."

"So replace my liver and kidneys, swap out this heart for a new one. You've done that before. What's different now?"

Massakar stiffened. "It's not…organ failure we're dealing with, Mahdi. It's a systemic breakdown. Deterioration at the cellular level. My skills are inadequate to reverse this. Perhaps another doctor, a better doctor-"

The old one waved him silent. "No, you are the best…as was your father before you, and your grandfather." He reached out, wiped away the doctor's tears. "I remember you when you were a child…and the other boys would tease you. You would cry even as you beat them, so fierce you were, and weeping all the time."

Massakar hung his head. "Forgive me, Mahdi."

The Old One stared straight ahead, trying to compose himself. It took every bit of his courage. The only sound in the room was the faint hum of the air-filtration unit. So this is how it ends, he thought, imagining his cells huffing and puffing like cartoon slaves building a pyramid, growing more fatigued by the moment, until finally…"How long?"

Massakar looked up, blinking. "Master?"

"How long do I have?"

"I…I can't-"

"Make an educated guess, Doctor."

Massakar seemed to draw strength from being addressed by his professional title. "Three or four years, if the rate of decline continues uniformly. Less if there is a cascade effect on the major organs, which is…possible." He tugged at his lower lip. "Increasing your rejuvenation sessions to twice a month may help, but-"

"Thank you for your assessment."

Massakar fell to his knees, kissed the Old One's hand.

The Old One beckoned him to rise. "This information…it must be our secret. Not all of my subjects are as steadfast as you."

Massakar wiped his eyes. "Shall I send in the Abyssinian to dress you?"

"No, I think today…I shall dress myself." The Old One waited until Massakar backed out of the recovery room and closed the door behind him before slipping on his clothes. He took his time. Buttoning his white cotton shirt. Zipping his trousers, the gray summer wool English trousers from the cramped shop on Savile Road that smelled of pipe tobacco. Tucking in the shirt, his abdomen still firm. Slipping the titanium cuff links through the fabric with a faint sound, the click of the bezel. The silk necktie slid through his fingers as he tied a perfect Windsor knot, his thumb pressing a dimple. He pulled on his socks with their pattern of tiny clocks…ironic now. Wiggled his toes in his handmade leather shoes. Every sensation was suddenly heightened by Massakar's diagnosis. A blessing, he told himself. Allah has given me a blessing. First he gave me time. Then he gave me an ending. Yes, a great blessing.

He didn't believe that for an instant.

His reflection in the mirror showed a healthy, vigorous man in his sixties, although he was over 150. He was still almost six feet tall, his stature undiminished by the years. Smooth-shaven to allay suspicion. A strong, prominent nose. Dark eyes, alert as ever. Thin lips, a sign of cruelty, an elder in his tribe had noted long ago, but the Old One was not cruel, not at all. He was clear. He was certain. The elder was dust now, all of them dust.

The Old One stepped briskly through the door into an anteroom, and then through the private door into his suite…found Ibrahim, his eldest son and chief advisor, waiting. And Baby. The two of them glaring at each other.

Baby was twenty-three, slim and high-breasted, the poisonous flower of Southern womanhood. A daughter he had forgotten until a year ago, one of the many seeds planted across the earth, beautiful girls raised among the kaffirs in the Belt and Russia and China, raised among the faithful in Arabia and Europe. Most he never even saw, just occasionally read reports of their marriages to powerful men, and the steady stream of information they fed back to him. The power of the marital bed. Baby had shown up at his Miami compound last year without an invitation, along with a human killing machine named Lester Gravenholtz. Gravenholtz offered some unique possibilities, but it was Baby who was the true prize. No wonder Ibrahim hated her.

"Father," said Ibrahim, bowing.

"Father," said Baby, voice sultry with promise. Her dress rustled around her long legs as she bowed, her honey blond hair falling onto her bare shoulders. She wore a simple, brightly colored silk dress cut high up one thigh in the contemporary Cuban style, the spoils of one of her many shopping trips with his concubines. She looked up at him as she rose, her mouth ripe and wanton as a plum.

Ibrahim straightened, taller than the Old One, hard and stern as a knotty stick. "I told this creature that you and I had private matters to discuss."

"You're up late, child," the Old One said to Baby. "It's almost dawn."

"I was restless," drawled Baby, hazel eyes playful. She walked slowly toward him, hips swaying. "Thought I'd come by and see if you wanted company."

"Her spies told her that I was on my way to see you," said Ibrahim. "She can't bear to think that I-"

"Her spies?" The Old One looked at Baby. "Barely a year in our company, and already she has cultivated a network of informants. What a remarkable woman."

Baby curtsied.

"I don't find her nearly as amusing as you do, Father," Ibrahim said tightly.

"You don't find anything amusing." The Old One flung open the double doors and stepped out onto the veranda of his penthouse on the fortieth floor of the Grande Hotel, Miami. One of his many corporations owned the hotel, the Old One keeping the top seven floors for himself and his retinue. "Leave me, both of you."

"But, Father," said Ibrahim, "we have to talk about-"

"Are you still here, boy?" Old One leaned against the pink marble railing, watching the Atlantic roll in. He stayed immobile until he heard the door to the suite close behind them, then allowed himself a small sigh. He slowly closed his fists lest they start to shake and undo his confidence. Best to survey the world that Allah had laid out for him, rather than linger on his own sudden mortality.

He stood there, marveling as the moonlight turned the peaks of the waves silver. Raised in the desert, he still found the ocean overwhelming in its beauty, the sea air clean and bracing. Ibrahim disapproved of his being outside, had ordered digital chaff generators built into the walls to prevent eavesdropping, and stationed heavily armed fishing boats offshore to protect him from missile attack. Foolishness. Well-intentioned, but foolishness just the same. Anyone could be killed. Ask Darwin. The Old One's expression twisted at the memory of his prized assassin, dead now over four years. Such a loss. Darwin specialized in killing those who could not be killed. The rich and powerful surrounded by bodyguards, politicians hidden away behind high walls and vast armies, protected by rings of elaborate technology. All had died at the Old One's command. Now Darwin too was dead, and the Old One could still not understand how it had happened.

The breeze shifted, brought the smell of ripe decay to the Old One's nostrils, as though some vast leviathan had been slain in the deep, and only now had risen to the surface, stinking in the moonlight.