Prayers for the assassin

CHAPTER 54

“Nervous?”

“Excited,” said Sarah.

Rakkim checked the mirrors as they left the Joy Luck Boutique. The main mall was crowded, filled with eager shoppers from all over the world. Sleek oil barons from West Africa, technos from Japan and Russia, Arabs trailing their retinues. Tourists in the brave new world. No sign of anyone tracking them; in fact he hadn’t sensed any stragglers in days. The Old One said they had free rein, but Rakkim always assumed he was being followed. Always assumed he was being followed by the best.

Sarah had gotten her hair styled at one of the fashionable shops in the Mangrove Hotel, had it cut and stiffened into layers of ringlets. Rakkim hated the flashy look, but it would wash out and allow her to change her appearance quickly. She wore Mylar pants and jacket, purple snakeskin stiletto half-boots, real attention-getters, but in one of the shopping bags Rakkim carried was a change of clothes and shoes.

“I saw Ibn Azziz on TV again, screaming about Zionists,” said Sarah. “His whole face looks infected.”

“It matches his soul.”

“I know you don’t think it was Redbeard,” said Sarah, “but who else would have gone after Ibn Azziz? Redbeard must have heard he tried to kidnap us at Disneyland and wanted to send him a message.”

“Ibn Azziz is too hard-core for messages. Redbeard knows that with someone like Ibn Azziz, you either kill him or turn them. Maybe another one of the Black Robes tried to assassinate him. Mullah Oxley had plenty of friends.”

Sarah swayed to the music piped through the mall. Calibrated cash, that’s what it was called, harmonies designed to give shoppers energy, to increase their pleasure and sensuality. Sales had increased 17 percent after the music service had been installed, but it was the subaudible program that really made the difference, a vibration tucked under the music that released endorphins in the brain. The music selection was changed every five days, but the subaudible stayed the same. The human constant. “Smile, Rakkim.” She wiggled her hips, the Mylar outfit throwing off sparks.

Rakkim smiled. It wasn’t an act or the subaudible, she was genuinely happy. Las Vegas didn’t apply Web filters-yesterday she had walked into a toy store, picked up a wireless stuffed bear, and tapped into the Devout Homemaker site. There had been a coded message from her mother. Katherine was in Seattle! Sarah posted her intention to taste the recipe for victory radishes soon. They had spent the next half hour in the toy store, playing with nano-bots, Sarah all the while keeping up a commentary on the history of toy soldiers and dolls with body functions and how it all meant…something.

Sarah danced for Rakkim beside the light fountain in the mall, and a couple of Chinese college girls loaded with jewelry mirrored her moves, the three of them dancing for each other while Rakkim stood transfixed. The Chinese girls finished with bows to Sarah, and she responded with a deep curtsy.

Sarah took Rakkim’s hand as they strolled on, so happy she was buoyant.

“Strange to see college girls wearing old-fashioned jewelry,” said Rakkim. “I thought the Chinese directed all their energy to the future.”

“Retro-chic is all over the runways of Shanghai and Milan. Nigerian divas decked in safari outfits, French software designers dressed as peasants, fake mud and all. It’s an attempt to reclaim one’s heritage at a time when individualism is under attack.” Sarah squeezed his hand. “I was writing a paper on the subject before…” She turned around, watched the two Chinese students slip through the crowds.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure. Nothing. There was something…but, I don’t remember what it was.” Sarah shook her head. “Just trying to put the pieces together.”

Wrist alarms buzzed around them, alerting the faithful that they had fifteen minutes before afternoon prayers. No one dashed for the exits; no one made the slightest attempt to interrupt what he or she was doing. In the Islamic Republic, Muslims would have responded or had the alarms turned off, not wanting to advertise their lack of piety.

Sarah tensed. “There’s Desolation Row.”

“Relax. Peter has done this before.”

Sarah hesitated. “Do you believe the Old One? I know you’re sick of talking about it, but why would he admit to faking the Zionist attacks, admit to a fourth bomb, and then lie about what happened to it? Why not just lie about everything?”

“The most effective lie is ninety-nine percent true. If we believe the fourth bomb is really at the bottom of the South China Sea, why keep looking? Why not just sign up for the caliphate and do whatever he says? No, we have to act as if he’s lying and go forward.”

“What if he’s telling the truth?”

Rakkim kissed her. “Then the joke’s on us.”

Sarah ducked into Desolation Row. The chicest of the chic, deliberately transgressive, the mannequins hollow-eyed and gaunt, bare brick walls, stark lighting. The clothes themselves were flimsy and dull, flattering only the most perfect and youthful figure. No prices. The place was packed-mostly Asians and L.A. Catholics, plus a few blond Europeans. She wandered the aisles, fingering the merchandise with the distant show-me expression affected by those to whom price was irrelevant. He went back outside. Checked the reflections in the windows.

In a few minutes, Sarah would go into changing room 9. Instead of slipping into something from Desolation Row, she would change into the casual clothes they had brought. Rakkim would show up a few minutes later, loudly complaining. When she called him in to help her, the two of them would slip through a false panel in the changing room and into the maintenance corridor. Peter would be there. Fifteen minutes later they would be lifting off in one of the hot-air tourist balloons. Only this one would go off course, drifting into the Islamic Republic. Peter said it happened all the time. Wind currents were unpredictable, part of the charm of the balloons. A car would be waiting for them when they came down, gassed up and legally licensed, its GPS unit programmed to show every back road in the country.

“Rakkim?” Sarah’s eyes were wide. “I want to show you something.” She led him back into the store. “There’s a woman beside the shoe display. An older Chinese woman shopping with her granddaughter.”

Rakkim pretended to examine a blouse. “She’s had some good cosmetic surgery. They tucked up the epicanthic fold, but maintained her ethnic integrity. She looks disgusted by the merchandise, but judging by the diamond studs in her ear, she can afford-”

“Look at her pendant.”

“Nice. Plain, but nice.”

“That’s all you see?”

Rakkim moved some ugly tops around. “It’s a small, copper pendant with Chinese writing on it. Looks old. What am I missing?”

“I’m not sure.” Sarah kissed him. “Go wait for me outside.”

“What about Peter?”

Sarah gave him a little push. “Now, go, let me shop in peace.”

Rakkim heard other women laughing as he stalked out. He found a coffee bar. Men were sprawled on small metal chairs, packages on their laps, looking dazed and exhausted. He ordered a double espresso. Ten minutes later…

“Rakkim!” Sarah beckoned from Desolation Row. “I need you to help me decide.”

Rakkim walked into the store. The Chinese woman stood at the counter with her granddaughter, the counter overflowing with clothes. He followed Sarah inside changing room 9, tossed the bags into a corner.

Sarah closed the door behind him. They quickly changed clothes. Slid back the panel.

Peter stood with his arms folded. Another man and woman beside him. Body doubles. “Glad you could make it.”

Sarah and Rakkim stepped into the corridor. The man and woman quickly put on their former outfits, then slipped into the changing room.

Peter replaced the panel, locked it. He spoke into his cell, and a moment later bio-emergency sirens went off all around them. In the crush to the exits, anyone monitoring the mall security cameras would be fooled by their body doubles.

Peter led them down the passageway.

“It was too easy,” said Rakkim.

“Would you prefer we got caught?” said Sarah.

Rakkim watched other tourist balloons drifting far below, massive orbs stenciled with adverts, iridescent in the sunset. Peter had taken their own balloon to a higher altitude, letting the eastern airstream push them toward the California border. Rakkim shivered, pulled the hood of his heavy jacket tighter. Maybe he was just uneasy being up here in the sky, transitory as a dust mote, completely vulnerable. One handheld missile from below…

“You should be used to getting away,” said Sarah, sitting cross-legged on a heated cushion. “Disappearing…that’s one of your specialties, isn’t it?”

Rakkim followed the nearest balloon, caught by the thermals, rising slowly. “Yeah, and keeping track of things, planning every detail…that’s the Old One’s specialty.”

Sarah tapped away on the cell she had borrowed from Peter. Latest model from China. Full data bank access. Untraceable.

If Rakkim squinted, he could make out the skyscraper where the Old One had offered him the world last week.

Peter broke away from the trusted guests he had invited along for cover. He sidled over, nodded at the Las Vegas skyline in the distance. “Nice view, eh?”

“Any word from our body doubles?” said Rakkim.

“They’re driving south toward Arizona,” said Peter, still looking toward the city. “Sarah’s double said they’ve had a succession of trailing vehicles, all makes and models. They never get too close and peel off after five or ten miles and are replaced by another. Somebody knows what they’re doing.”

“Good,” said Rakkim. “That’s good.”

“Thank you, Peter,” said Sarah, not looking up from the cell screen.

“Casino management is all about the incursion of debt and the repayment of same.” Peter glanced at Rakkim. “I owed Rakkim.”

“Note the past tense,” said Rakkim.

Peter smiled. “I’m going to own the place the next time you two visit.” The breeze barely moved his lustered hair. “I have a car across the border tracking our progress. It’ll be waiting for you when we touch down. I’ll call in our location to the authorities after you leave. Even doing the legal limit, you should be in Seattle in two days.” He bowed to Sarah, ambled back to the pair on the other side of the balloon.

Sarah waited until Peter was out of earshot. “We’re not going to Seattle. We’re going back to L.A.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Old One lied to us, just like you said. The fourth nuke wasn’t lost off the China coast. It’s on the mainland.” Sarah had that hard, wide-eyed stare, her brain working overtime. “I just…don’t know where exactly.”

Rakkim sat beside her. “Are you okay?”

“Like Redbeard always said, keep your eyes open. Pay attention. Life’s a puzzle. You get new pieces, the picture changes. Don’t be afraid to take a fresh look. That’s what happened, Rikki.” Sarah gazed past him. “Fancy’s scar…it wasn’t from a tracheotomy. It was too round. Too perfect. I wondered at the time if she had done it deliberately. Scarification is popular with certain subcultures-”

“Tracheotomies are popular with junkies who overdose.”

“That’s the old puzzle. I got a new piece at the mall and it changed everything.”

Rakkim glanced around. Peter and the others were on the far side of the balloon gondola.

Sarah took his arm. “The Chinese woman in Desolation Row wore a medallion the exact same shape as Fancy’s scar, resting at the same place at the hollow of her throat. She said it was a good-luck amulet from the village where she was born. The spot on the throat is the precise intersection of five different energy meridians in Chinese medicine.” Sarah squeezed him tighter. “Fancy’s scar is a radiation scar. Her father must have bought her the medallion on his last trip, and it picked up traces of the radioactive material he was transporting. He probably didn’t realize he had radiation poisoning until-”

“You spent five minutes with this Chinese woman-”

“Five seconds would have been enough. I knew there was something about Fancy’s scar that bothered me. I just didn’t have enough data.”

“You still don’t have enough data.”

Sarah showed him the cell screen. A round, gray scar with two small pink spots. She zoomed out and Rakkim saw a man’s abdomen with several identical scars running down from his sternum to below his navel.

“Buttons?” said Rakkim.

Sarah nodded. “Silver buttons from a military dress uniform. Probably from Chernobyl or some other hot spot, then were sold and reused by this man’s tailor.” She zoomed in closer. Closer. The scar filled the screen. The edges had tiny bubbles with faint striations toward the center. “I saw the same stippling on Fancy’s scar.”

Rakkim stared at the screen. “It was dark at Disneyland-”

“There was moonlight, and I was right beside her. I know what I saw. I just didn’t know what it meant at the time. Now, I do. The Old One’s son may have drowned in the South China Sea, but Fancy’s father made it to land. So did the fourth bomb.”

“Why…would he buy her a souvenir on the most important mission of his life?”

“Because that’s what fathers do when they go away,” Sarah said quietly. “They buy a memento for their daughter, so she knows he was thinking of her when he was away. That’s why Fancy would have kept the medallion, even after she realized it was ruining her skin. I know I would have. If that was the last thing my father had given me, I would have kept it no matter what.”

Rakkim remembered the snapshot of Sarah and her father that he had found in her music box, Sarah as an infant resting in her father’s arms. He remembered the expression on her face when he’d handed it back to her. So happy she couldn’t stop crying. She said it was all she had left of him. Rakkim didn’t have anything. Any keepsakes, any photos of his mother and father, had been lost along with everything else before he met Redbeard. Except for the key. A key to the house he’d grown up in. A few days after Redbeard had brought him home, Rakkim had flushed the key down the toilet. He couldn’t remember now if it was because he thought he had a new home…or if he was afraid that Redbeard would use the key and all it represented against him.

“The Chinese woman said every village has their own distinct medallion,” Sarah said. “When we find the medallion, we’ll know where he was on that last trip. We’ll know where he planted the fourth bomb.”

“Fancy’s girlfriend…Jeri Lynn. She’ll know where the medallion is.”

Sarah smiled. “You believe me.”

“You haven’t been wrong about anything important since I met you.”

“We still have to find Jeri Lynn.”

“That’ll be the easy part.” Rakkim hesitated. “If the medallion was so important to Fancy, Jeri Lynn might have buried it with her. She’s been dead over a week. You better be ready to dig her up, because that’s what it could come down to.”

Sarah’s eyes blazed now in the setting sun. A cold fire. “I’ll do whatever is necessary. Just like you.”