Prayers for the assassin

CHAPTER 47

Rakkim flattened himself against the wall of the giant shark, listening. At least four or five of them were outside. The candles were out, the interior in darkness. Moonlight visible through the open mouth, jagged teeth hanging down. A figure darted across the opening. Rakkim loosened his grip on his knife. The figure that he had glimpsed had been wearing a shock helmet and body armor. Bulbous, old-style night-vision goggles. SWAT. No way they were here for Fancy. Oh, Pernell, what did you do? Figures moved past the opaque window toward the rear exit. Bad luck that they knew about the exit, but good luck in that they stumbled in their haste.

Sarah and Fancy were crouched where he had left them. “Who is it?” asked Sarah.

“Police. Is there another way out of here, Fancy?”

“Front and back door, that’s it.” Fancy primped herself. “What do the cops want scaring us like this? They know they just got to ask.”

“It’s SWAT. They don’t ask.” Even in the darkness, Rakkim could see that Sarah understood. “They’re going to hit us from both sides. If you had to hide in here, where would you go?”

Fancy looked around. Pointed. “Under the sea tortoise. There’s room for all of us.”

“Go on then. Both of you,” Rakkim said quietly. “When you get settled, I want you to keep your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears. It’s going to get very loud and very bright in a few minutes. Stay low and take shallow breaths. Now, go.”

Sarah squeezed his hand as she and Fancy moved into deeper darkness.

Rakkim found a spot beside an octopus with only two unbroken tentacles. In an alcove off the main room, it offered good protection from both entry points.

“This is Anaheim SWAT. Come out with your hands raised.”

Rakkim heard the plywood being torn away from the rear entrance. He slipped his fingers in his ears, but he kept his eyes open. He’d have time to close them.

“YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO COME OUT.”

Rakkim pushed his fingers deeper into his ears. A flash grenade bounced through the open mouth of the shark. Another came in from the back. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth to equalize the pressure when the-

BWAM. BWAM.

Two quick explosions, two bursts of light so bright he saw stars even through his clenched eyes. Opening his eyes wasn’t much better. The room was filled with opaque white smoke. Just what he had hoped for. Pernell had said SWAT was in love with their flash grenades. They were used to detonating them in houses and apartments where the glass windows blew out, and the smoke quickly dissipated. The shark was poured concrete with a sloped roof and thick plastic windows. The smoke stayed. Rendering their night-vision goggles worse than useless.

The SWAT team entered quickly, took up positions on either side of the doorways, just as they had been taught. They clattered when they moved, their body armor unsecured. Sloppy. Rakkim stayed low, below the smoke, belly pressed against the filthy floor. They were carrying standard SWAT machine guns, short-barreled, folding stock. Forty-round clip. A lead man moved in from the front, another from the rear, but they were waving at the smoke, shouting to each other. Their voices echoed, disorienting them. The one in the rear took off his goggles, advanced farther into the room in a half crouch. The smart one.

Rakkim moved slowly toward the smart one, trying not to eddy the smoke.

“You see anything?” shouted the man in the front, standing on the shark’s tongue.

“Shut up!” said the one in the rear. “Take off your-”

Rakkim drove his knife into the back of the man’s neck, right into the gap between his armor and his helmet, drove the blade into the notch between the first cervical vertebra and the brain stem. A Fedayeen knife could punch through body armor in a single thrust, but it wasn’t a guaranteed kill, and sometimes the blade hung up. A cervical strike was instant death and there was almost no blood. He dragged the SWAT down as quietly as he could. White smoke billowing around them.

“Do what?” called one of them.

“He said shut up.”

The smoke was at knee level. Rakkim squatted, watching them continue to advance into the room. He counted six…make that seven sets of boots. Not counting the dead man on the floor. Someone should have taught them how to make a tactical retreat. To wait until they had regained advantage of the terrain.

One of the team passed right by Rakkim, but he waited. The next man started coughing, and Rakkim stood up, cut his throat, kept coughing himself to cover it up. He quietly lowered the man to the floor, warm blood pouring across his hands.

“You sure they’re in here, Cleese?”

Silence. Then the sound of coughing from all parts of the room. From behind the tortoise too, probably. At least Sarah and Fancy had an excuse. SWAT had come on with flash grenades and no masks. Terminal stupidity or supply-officer high jinks.

“Cleese?”

“Fuck. Okay, everybody, stay where you are.” More coughs. “Goggles off. Take ’em off! We’ll wait for the smoke to clear.”

Rakkim found a crushed soda can, tossed it toward the last voice. Machine-gun fire briefly illuminated the smoke. A man screamed, thrashed around on the floor, below the smoke, clutching at his legs. Rakkim moved, screened by a concrete puffer fish.

“Don’t shoot unless you see what you’re aiming at, assholes. We need to take the girl alive. That’s where the money is. Kill the man. Don’t think twice, don’t let him talk, just kill him. He’s Fedayeen.”

“You didn’t tell us that, Emerson.”

“Yeah, what’s with that shit?”

“Any man who doesn’t want the reward is free to leave,” said Emerson.

No one left.

Rakkim would have liked to make his way toward Emerson, but too many pairs of boots were between them. And the smoke was starting to thin out.

“Harris, you still in position?” said Emerson.

“Roger that.”

“On my count we shoot out the windows. One, two, three.”

Rakkim moved as they fired, used the sound and fury to cut down another of the team. And another. Smoke poured out the broken windows, pushed out by the cooler outside air.

“She’s back here!” called Fancy, running through the thinning smoke, coughing, her hands raised above her. “Don’t shoot!” She tripped over a starfish and landed at Rakkim’s feet. “Don’t-” She realized who he was, blinked at him through the haze. I’m sorry, she mouthed. She got up, started forward again.

Bullets hit the wall beside him, sent shards of hardened epoxy flying. Rakkim headed toward where Sarah had gone. He saw her rush out from behind the sea tortoise, saw her launch herself at one of the SWAT team.

SWAT swung his rifle, clipped her across the jaw, and sent her sprawling. The man turned, grinning, had time to see Rakkim’s eyes before his neck was broken.

Rakkim was spun around. He thought he had been grabbed…until he heard the echo of gunfire. The sound so slow it was a funeral cadence. He was on the floor now. Flat on his back. He turned his head and saw Sarah. Tried to reach her, but he was so tired, and every breath made a gurgling sound. There was no air inside the shark. He was dying in a theme park. An abandoned theme park. It was funnier in the movies. He kept waiting for the rest of the SWAT team to come over and finish him off. They must have known he wasn’t going anywhere. He reached around for his knife but gave up. Across the way…far across the floor he could see the SWAT who had gotten shot in the legs. The man was pointing at himself. Then at Rakkim. Then back to himself. Ah…he was the one who had shot him. Good to see a man who took pride in his work.

Someone leaned over the wounded SWAT. Where was the man’s body armor? Where were his boots? He wasn’t part of the team. The man grabbed SWAT by the hair, pushed his head forward, and slipped his knee into the back of his neck. Same spot Rakkim had used on the first one. The man looked over at Rakkim and winked.

The assassin. Rakkim rolled around, found his knife. It was heavy. Almost as heavy as his eyelids. He could see dead SWAT all over the floor. No boots in sight. None standing anyway.

Sarah was bent over him. Her lips were moving but there was such a long interval between when she spoke and when he heard the words that it was as if she were on the other side of the world, speaking with a satellite delay. He felt her tears fall onto his face. He would like to take a long walk with her in the warm rain, but first he had to tell her about the assassin. He just needed to catch his breath. Sarah had torn a piece off her blouse and had put it on his chest, pressed down. He groaned and she eased up. That was a mistake. He wanted to tell her…but his mouth was filling up with blood.

Rakkim saw Fancy run up to the assassin. Saw her kiss his hand…both hands, the knife reversed, hidden along his forearm.

The assassin looked at Rakkim, maintained eye contact while he raised Fancy to her feet, comforting her.

Rakkim’s grip on the knife kept slipping. Not too far to make the throw. Surprise the assassin. Fedayeen never threw their knives. The lesson drilled in from the first day. A thrown knife kills one. A knife kept close…a knife in the hand can kill hundreds. Wisdom there…but not now. Rakkim clung to the knife, fighting to stay awake.

A peckerwood in the Carolinas had taught him how to throw a blade. William Lee Barrows. Sergeant, First Carolina Volunteers. Fine man too. Not many of the old-timers left. He had been happy to teach Rakkim his tricks after work at the plant, the two of them staying up late drinking beer and tossing Barrows’s pigstickers at an oak tree. Barrows amazed at how quickly Rakkim learned. Wasting your time here, boy, you should enlist in the Knights of Jesus, kill ya some towel heads. Rakkim taking another pull on the longneck. Heckfire, Willy Lee, I couldn’t hurt a soul if my life depended on it. Rakkim opened his eyes.

The assassin looked back at him, still nuzzling Fancy. Waiting for something…waiting for Rakkim. The assassin nodded, then drove the knife into Fancy’s ear. Drove it in to the hilt. Almost no blood that way. He must want to keep his nice suit clean. He laid Fancy down gently as a bridegroom. Then he started toward Rakkim and Sarah.

Rakkim thrashed harder, choking now.

The assassin turned Rakkim’s head to the side, let the blood run out of his mouth. Then he took Sarah’s hands, placed them back on Rakkim’s chest, and pressed. “That’s it. You had the right idea, but you have to keep the pressure on. Otherwise, he’s going to drown in his own blood. Good. That’s it.” He had a soothing voice. A kind voice. He looked down at Rakkim. “Don’t worry. We’ve got you.”

“Who…who are you?” said Sarah, pressing down with both hands.

“Don’t stop,” said the assassin. “Put all your weight on it. Steady pressure.” He flipped open his cell, hit a button. “Redbeard? It’s me.”

Liar, shouted Rakkim. No…he had only thought it.

“Thank God.” Sarah smiled at Rakkim. “It’s going to be okay, Rikki.”

“We had some trouble, just like I thought.” The assassin was a fit, middle-aged man with thinning brown hair, and a soft, clean-shaven face. A face you could trust. He could have been a loan officer in a bank. Or sold real estate. “You got the jet standing by?…Medical crew too?…Good. Rakkim has the classic sucking chest wound. Left lung is filling up with blood…I don’t know, I’m not a doctor.” He looked at Rakkim. “Redbeard wants to know if you’re going to survive.”

Rakkim struggled to sit up, but he couldn’t even raise his head.

“He’s going to be fine, Redbeard,” said the assassin. “Can’t kill a Fedayeen, you know that. Just have the jet ready to leave as soon as we get there…No, no time for a chopper…I don’t know-ten minutes.”

Rakkim tried to make eye contact with Sarah, to warn her, but she was intent on keeping pressure on the hole in his chest, and when she did look at him, she was too busy being brave to read his mind.

Still talking on the cell, the assassin strolled over to one of the dead SWAT. Started going through his pockets. “Yes, I know how far the airport is, but we’re not taking a taxi.” He held up a set of keys, jingled them for Rakkim’s benefit. “Tell the medical crew we’ll be there in ten minutes. I’ll put the siren on so they can hear us coming.”