CHAPTER 28

Before late-night prayers

Sarah slumped on the worn leather chair in Marian’s library, her head in her hands. Too tired to cry, but more than enough anger to hurl every book on the shelves across the room. She didn’t do it, though. She loved books…and she loved Marian. Had loved her. Loved her clarity, her intelligence, her shy laugh. Loved the way she laughed when she poured tea, as though the two of them were children playing grown-up. Marian was gone now and so were her father’s journals. Sarah sat in the dark, the room lit only by moonlight. The loss of Marian was a stone in her heart…but the theft of the journals was even more devastating.

It had taken her a year to focus on Richard Warriq, a year of fruitless contacts with other China experts, engineers and seismologists and architects, men who had worked on the Three Rivers Gorge project, most of them retired now or, like Warriq, long dead. She had cultivated these sources or their survivors, cross-checked their information before discarding them and moving on to the next name on her list.

An owl hooted nearby and Sarah crossed to the library window, looked outside. Owls were a bad omen, but the security lights from the house next door revealed nothing. She paced the room, restless, the empty shelf on the bookcase mocking her.

Compiling the list of names had been relatively easy. She had run a computer model to track American Muslims who had worked on the dam, supposedly as part of a research paper to highlight scientific talent among the faithful. The Chinese had kept most of the work among their own citizens, but many of the engineering requirements were specialized, and the Chinese had been forced to use several American firms. Marian’s father had been a fractal engineer, a devout Muslim who had returned again and again to the project and who seemed to travel widely. Sarah had almost decided to move on to the next name until Marian mentioned that her father had made a pilgrimage to Mecca after finishing business in Asia, had gone to pray at the holy city less than a month before it was devastated by a dirty nuke. Marian had thought his timing a blessing, but Sarah saw a darker coincidence, convinced now that Warriq’s meticulously detailed journals were the key to unlocking the truth behind the Zionist attack.

Sarah stared at the empty bookcase, not knowing what to do. The Old One’s killers must have taken them after murdering Marian and Terry and Terry’s wife. No other books had been removed, just the journals. So the Old One knew. Which had to mean that Sarah’s theory was correct…didn’t it? That was something, wasn’t it? Sarah took no pleasure in being right. She wished that Rakkim had been at the Blue Moon club Wednesday night. She was sworn to secrecy, but Rakkim…their hearts were joined. She was ready to tell him the truth now.

The clock ticked away in the corner. Another couple of hours until midnight prayers, but she would be long gone by then. No reason to make the security guard suspicious. First though…she started up the stairs to Marian’s bedroom. The neighbors had told the cabdriver that she was found dead in the bathtub. Sarah wanted to see the spot where Marian had died, to pray for her there. Sarah owed her that much.

The stairs were dark, the rain beating against the windows as though someone were trying to get in. Her legs felt weak, and in spite of all her good intentions, her brave intentions, she slowed as she neared Marian’s bedroom. A stone the size of a fist was in her throat, and she had a sudden, overpowering fear that Marian’s body had not been removed, that unlike the bodies of the butchered servants, the police had kept Marian where they had found her, part of some complex forensic necessity. It was a ridiculous thought…but she could barely breathe as she stood outside the closed door to Marian’s room.

Her hand trembled as she opened the door, but she quickly stepped inside, leaving it ajar. Redbeard said that at the moment of greatest fear, the best solution was to go boldly and without hesitation. Sarah stood in the center of the bedroom, heart pounding, and knew it was good advice. If she had waited another moment with her hand on the knob, she would have turned around and raced down the stairs, her chador floating behind her.

She opened the curtains. The wind blew leaves against the glass, and she stepped back, frightened. Smiled at herself. God hates a scaredy-cat, that’s what she and Rakkim had told each other as children, egging the other on to mischief and disobedience. He was five years older than she was, an eternity at that age, but she had never felt the gap between them. If she did, she knew it would be breached soon enough.

Through the open bathroom door she could see the edge of the tub. Too many shadows. She walked into the bathroom, checked the tub. Nothing there. Just a bit of water in the drain, black water in the dim light. The towels were uneven on the racks. Small details that would have bothered Marian. Sarah walked over and straightened them. She didn’t have the courage to turn on the light. Back into the bedroom, her stomach doing flips. The dresser drawers were half pulled out, the tiny Chinese figurines on top knocked over. The police had been in a hurry…or someone else had. She shivered. Yes, it had been a bad idea to come up here.

She heard a tiny click as the front door closed downstairs. It might as well have been a thunderclap. She was frozen now, afraid any step might be heard downstairs. Listening, knowing she had heard something. The rain seemed to stop for a moment, and in that moment she heard footsteps across the hardwood floor of the entryway, a whisper of sound. She had parked on the street, but it wasn’t the security guard come to see what she was up to. There was no way he moved so lightly.

The rain was back, carried on gusts of wind. She slipped out of her chador, tossed aside her head scarf. Underneath the chador she wore the slacks and thin sweater of a modern. Just in case. Another of Redbeard’s lessons. Never let a description of you be accurate for too long. Reversible jackets. Hats and no hats. Sunglasses and no glasses. Umbrellas that shielded the face. When leaving her tiny apartment in Ballard, she had always left as a modern, then changed into a chador at the first opportunity. Changing back on the return. It had worked. Until the night the bounty hunters had come for her.

She moved in tandem with the steps from below, heart pounding. She crossed across a bar of moonlight, blinking now as she flattened herself beside the door.

Someone was coming upstairs.

Sarah looked around for something to use as a weapon. There. A heavy granite clock on the nightstand. She hefted it. Heavy enough to brain someone. She was barely breathing, all of her energy focused on listening, filtering away the outside sounds, the wind and rain, focusing on the sounds of the approaching steps. She could isolate the sound of a flute from a performance of the philharmonic, could pick out the individual violinists with her eyes closed. This was no different. That’s what she told herself.

Someone was outside the half-open door.

She pressed herself against the wall, tightened her grip on the clock. Better to attack him as he entered, or wait until he was inside, his back to her?

The door creaked open. “It’s me, Sarah.”

Rakkim! She threw herself into his arms, kissing him, sobbing, lost in the feel of him, the strength of him, the smell of his skin. She hung on to him, digging in, as though to reassure herself that he was really here, that it wasn’t a dream, some desperate trick her mind was playing on her. She felt him squeeze her back, lift her off her feet, and cover her face with kisses, and she knew…it was Rikki. She went with the sensation, eyes closed, the two of them swaying in each other’s arms…no idea how long they stayed there like that, alone in the big, dark house. It could have been seconds…minutes…hours, she didn’t know. She bit him, nipped at his neck, more playful than angry. “You scared me.”

Rakkim laughed. “You can take care of yourself.”

Sarah wasn’t laughing. “Did you…did you hear about the bounty hunter?”

Rakkim must have seen the look on her face, holding her now. “Killing a man like that is a good deed in my book.” He held her close. “Don’t second-guess yourself. Don’t. It will only slow you down the next time.”

“I don’t want there to be a next time.” She felt Rakkim stroke her hair and she wished they were someplace else, someplace quiet and safe and with a fireplace. The rain beat against the roof, louder now.

“We should go.”

“How did you find me?”

“I was at Jill’s ranch. She said you knew Marian had been murdered. I figured you had come back for the journals.”

Sarah looked up at him, dizzy. “You know about the journals?”

“I have them. They’re in boxes beside my bed-”

Sarah kissed him hard. “Let’s get out of here.”

Rakkim smiled. “Definitive as ever.”

“Did you expect me to go all gooey once I left Redbeard’s protection?”

They walked downstairs together, Rakkim slightly in front, head cocked. He stopped in front of the door, checked outside through the side windows. Sarah waited. He knew what he was doing, that was one thing she was sure of. He rested a hand on the back of her neck as he watched the street, his hand light. The familiarity of his touch, the intimacy…not possessive, not a bit of that, it was a connection that ran both ways.

“Does your car run all right?” asked Rakkim.

“It’s beat up, but it’s a smooth ride.”

“Beat up is good, it will fit in with half the other cars on the road. I’d rather take yours than mine. We leave your car, one way or the other, it’s going to be traced back to Jill.”

Sarah opened the door, they stepped outside, then she closed it behind him. Locked it. She stared at Marian’s key. Marian had given it to her the last time she had visited. The wind lifted her hair, the night air cool against her scalp-a relief after the confinement of the head scarf. She tucked away the house key, stopped. Rakkim had taken the journals, not the Old One’s killers. The Old One didn’t know their value…if the journals even had any value. Her theory about the Zionist Betrayal was still just a theory.

“Is there a problem?” asked Rakkim.

“No…no problem.”

They walked through the rain to the car, refusing to hurry, waiting for the other one to break and run. Neither of them did. Sarah handed him the car key, then got inside, while Rakkim did a last survey of the area. “That’s odd,” she said as Rakkim got in.

“What?”

Sarah reset her wristwatch. Same result.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.” Sarah checked her watch again. Same result. “Redbeard gave me this watch after my book came out. It detects a full range of tracking devices. Microwave, ultrasonics…everything. He was worried that I would be targeted-”

“The car is bugged?”

“I don’t see how. It wasn’t bugged when I got here. Anyone who wanted to harm me would have to know I was in Marian’s house.”

“Maybe they don’t want to hurt you. Maybe they just want to know where you are.”

Sarah opened her door. “We should take your car.”

Rakkim switched off the interior light. “Close the door.”

“We have to-”

Rakkim started the car.

Sarah closed the door. “We have to find the bug, don’t we?”

“No.” Rakkim switched on the wipers, watched them flick back and forth across the cracked windshield. “This is perfect.”


Darwin rested the side of his face in the palm of his hand as the headlights approached the guard shack. Beep-beep-beep went the tiny scanner on the counter. The rainstorm beat against the shack, sheets of water streaming down the glass sides, distorting the view. A blur looking out. A blur looking in. Bitter with the sweet.

He had waved Rakkim through about fifteen minutes ago, face down, pretending to read a newspaper. Sarah’s car drove past, not stopping. All Darwin got was a glimpse of the red taillights shimmering through the rain. They were both inside the car. Darwin had seen that much. He had watched them on the Cyclops. Watched them nuzzling in the front hallway, the two lovebirds finally reunited. Darwin had actually applauded at the tender moment, his clapping echoing off the walls of the guard shack. Sarah had discarded her chador, was garbed as a modern, a modern woman with all the modern desires. They would be inseparable now. Until Darwin decided to separate them.

Darwin still didn’t know if she had found what she had come back for, which was annoying. Very annoying. Sarah had been off-camera for ten or fifteen minutes in Marian’s bedroom, but she wasn’t carrying anything when she left. Neither was Rakkim.

There were those two boxes Rakkim and the fat detective had removed from the house a few days ago. That might be what she had come back for. Hard to know. Darwin could ask the Wise Old One about it, but the old man treasured his secrets. Ah, the mystery of it all…Darwin could hardly wait to find out what the old man was really up to. It would be interesting, that was for certain. In the early days he had done a few jobs for the Black Robes, but quickly grew tired of their narrow intentions, their joyless theological bickering. The thing about fundamentalists was, they had no curiosity. All they cared about was deciding where the line should be drawn, determining which side of the line was black, and which side was white. Right and wrong, good and bad…Darwin transcended all such categories. In spite of all the old man’s God talk, he was the same way. The two of them were unique.

Darwin whistled a happy tune as he peeled off the security guard’s lime green jacket. An ugly color for an ugly man. He tossed the jacket onto the floor, right next to where the guard lay curled beside the wastebasket, neck broken. Two guards killed in this same shack within a week. The homeowners’ association was going to have to pass a special levy to cover the increased cost of protection. An amusing thought. Death always brought so many surprises. So many unexpected consequences. A butterfly splatted against the windshield of a speeding car, and there went all hope of that typhoon in Japan that the philosophers were always prattling on about.

Some would call the killing tonight unnecessary. He had intended to talk his way past the guard, show his insurance-company ID, but then…then, instinct took over. A predator who takes no prey is no longer a predator. God had created Darwin to take pleasure in killing, and Darwin would not deny the wisdom of God. Darwin smiled at the blasphemy.

He slipped the scanner into his pocket, waved good-bye to the dead. It was a short walk to his car, the scanner beeping away. The microwave transmitter attached to Sarah’s car was working properly. Good timing on Darwin’s part. He had placed the device and gotten back to the shack just before Rakkim had driven up. Darwin slid behind the wheel, started his car. All things considered, things were working out perfectly.

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