Prayers for the assassin

CHAPTER 29

Sarah turned around, looked back into the dark.

“He’s there. The bug’s range would have to be at least four or five miles to make it effective.” Rakkim kept his eyes on the road, the headlights cutting a corridor through the night. He could sense her concern. “The bug gives us an advantage. We know he’s back there. He’ll follow us anywhere now…anywhere we take him.”

“This man who killed Marian…you’re sure that’s him behind us?”

Rakkim shrugged. “The Black Robes don’t go in for such sophisticated technology, and bounty hunters wouldn’t bother with a bug-they would have grabbed you back at the house. No…this guy is more interested in what you’re up to than killing you. Not yet, anyway. He doesn’t care about bringing you in. He wants to know where you’re going, who you’re meeting. That’s why he killed Marian and the others the way he did. He wanted you to know. To scare you. To make you do something stupid.”

“It worked, didn’t it? Going back to Marian’s was stupid.”

They drove on through the rain and into the badlands at the foot of the Cascade Mountains, a nest of narrow roads cut through the forest. A route for smugglers and illegal timber cutters, a dangerous detour for out-of-staters who took a wrong turn. He had taken this same road through the foothills when he’d left Redbeard’s last week, but he was headed deeper into the badlands now. Outlaw country. The last refuge for crazies and losers and malcontents with a million grudges. The abandoned ones. Only forty miles from downtown Seattle and the seat of government, the badlands were off the map, beyond the reach of God or man.

“There’s just one man following us? One man who did all those things?”

“He’s a Fedayeen assassin. They always work alone.”

“Like you.”

Rakkim glanced over at her, then back at the road.

“I’m just saying, there’s only one of him and one of you. So why are we running away?”

“I’m not going to go hand to hand with him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to outsmart him.”

“I said, okay.”

“Are you disappointed? The flower of Islam refusing combat? It must shake your faith. I could call Redbeard, if you want. Ask him to send reinforcements.”

Sarah moved next to him, her face so close he could feel her warm breath. “Just kill him.”

“Assassinate the assassin?” Rakkim smiled. “What would that make me?” He couldn’t leave well enough alone. “You should have contacted me. You should have told me you needed to disappear.”

“I made a promise.” The only sound in the car was the beating of the rain and the slap of the wipers. “Did Redbeard tell you about the Old One? Is that how you knew what I was working on?”

“Redbeard would sooner share his left ventricle than share information. I didn’t need him.” Rakkim edged the car over, pines and cedar crowding the road, their roots cracking the pavement. “Once you open up a secret, it starts leaking out all over. There’s no way to stop it…unless you kill everybody even remotely connected to it.”

“Are you blaming me for Marian’s death? You don’t have to, I’ve already done it.”

“There’s enough blame to go around.”

The road took a hairpin turn, headlights flashing across a skeletal, burned-out truck at the bottom of the ravine. Rakkim relaxed his grip on the wheel, steering with his fingertips. The shocks on the car were lousy, the suspension mushy-it was all he could do to keep them on the road.

Sarah turned on the heater. Still broken. So was the defroster.

Rakkim wiped condensation off the inside of the windshield with the edge of his hand. Checked the rearview. “I’m surprised Redbeard didn’t put one of his own tracking devices in the watch he gave you.”

“He did. I had an electronics tech in the Zone remove it. Said it was Russian. Paid me a thousand dollars for it. Redbeard had to know what I had done, but he never mentioned it.”

“I brought the computer memory to a contact of mine. He pulled pieces of your book off it before the destruct-program was fully actualized.”

Sarah looked out the window.

“I know you want to believe the Zionist Betrayal was some monstrous historical fraud, but I think you’re wrong.”

“Then why is this assassin following us?”

“For the same reasons the Black Robes sent the bounty hunters after you. Redbeard has enemies and you’re a bargaining chip. The Old One is just another player.”

“You may be right.” Sarah stared straight ahead. “I just need to read through the journals. I’m only partway through the relevant volumes. With your help-”

“I could get us to Canada.” Rakkim watched the road. “We can switch cars and shake the assassin. Four or five days, depending on the weather and the patrols-”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Rakkim glanced over at her, then back at the road. “You haven’t changed from the first day I met you. Five years old and you were already a troublemaker.”

Sarah laid her hand on his leg. “Let’s go get the journals. You know I like to read in bed.”

Rakkim gasped at the boldness of her touch. He checked the rearview mirror again to cover his arousal. “First things first.” Brave words from Sarah, but he could see her face by the dashboard lights, the strain showing as she stared out into the rain. She had never been out here before. Most city people hadn’t. Even the police avoided the badlands.

It had only been six months since Rakkim had seen her, but she looked older. It wasn’t just fatigue circling her eyes, it was recognition of the monsters that lurked out beyond the lights of home. For someone like Sarah, who prided herself on her logic and intellectual toughness, it had to be a shock to find out how insulated and privileged her previous life had been. Finding a friend murdered did that to you. Killing a man, and knowing you would do it again and it would be easier that second time…that was the ultimate wake-up. Sarah was learning. If they survived, she would be the better for it.

“Why are you slowing down?” Sarah asked.

Rakkim turned off the lights, but kept the car idling in the middle of the road. “If we’re not going to Canada, we’ll have to kill the assassin.”

A small mound of concrete was all that remained of a sign that had once announced Green Briar Estates, one of many outlying subdivisions built to house workers for Seattle. Affordable Muslim living in an unspoiled Muslim place. It hadn’t worked out at Green Briar, or any of the other remote housing developments. The moderns had fled the long commute, frightened by the surrounding forests and the growing lawlessness. The subdivisions had gone to rot and ruin, picture windows broken, chimneys crumbling, moss so thick on the walls you could stuff a pillow. Squatters had moved in, not caring that the power had been turned off. In fact, they would have cut the power lines and dynamited the water mains had they been working. The access road into the subdivision was blocked by dozens of felled trees. Green Briar existed now only in blueprints long since filed away.

“I don’t like this place,” said Sarah.

Rakkim flashed his headlights twice. Waited. Flashed them once again.

“We should go.” Sarah looked around. “The assassin…he’s going to catch up.”

“No, he stopped when we did. He doesn’t want to catch up. He doesn’t want us to know he’s back there. He wants to stay right where he is, lurking in the background. He enjoys being close, but choosing to stay back, holding our lives in his hand. It’s intoxicating for him. Better than sex. Our stopping here doesn’t make him think we’re onto him-he thinks we’re just exercising caution. He respects that. He’d become suspicious if we acted too trusting. It’s going to make killing us later all the sweeter for him.”

“You talk like you’re inside his head.”

Rakkim stroked her shoulder, felt her fear under the thin sweater. He didn’t blame her. The assassin’s head was filled with broken glass and tortured animals. Rakkim watched the woods on either side of the road. “That was him in the guard shack when we left. I was hoping to get a look at him, but he-”

“I talked to the guard. He didn’t seem-”

“The guard you talked to is dead. The assassin waved me through when I drove up, his face behind a newspaper. I was in a hurry…I didn’t think anything of it, but when you told me the car had picked up a bug at Marian’s, I knew it had to be him at the gate. I would have rammed the guard shack on the way out, but it had a concrete barrier.”

“Why would the assassin kill the guard? What would be the point?”

Rakkim smiled. After all that had happened to her in the last week, she still didn’t understand what they were up against. “I’ll be right back.” He opened his door, but remained in darkness. He had unscrewed the interior lightbulb. “They’re here.”

“Who?” Sarah saw them now. Three men had appeared out of the rain, stepped out of the night like ghosts. Phantoms in soggy wool clothes, their hair and beards long and matted. Phantoms armed with axes and machetes.

Rakkim showed the men his hands and got out of the car.