Sins of the Assassin

Chapter 5

Rakkim braked as traffic slowed up ahead. Emergency flares fizzed in the darkness, sending out sparks. A semitruck had overturned, spilled its cargo of fresh corn across the freeway. Sarah craned her neck as they passed, ears of corn crunching under their tires, pop pop pop. The driver of the semi leaned against the overturned truck, a young guy, blood running down his forehead as he argued with a policeman. Probably going too fast and lost control after hitting a particularly deep pothole. The winter had been hard, the roadbed lousy to begin with, and the repair crews were way behind schedule.

Sarah moved beside him. “I’m glad you’re careful.”

Rakkim glanced at her.

Sarah laughed. “You know what I mean.”

It was just after 2 a.m., light traffic, rain misting in from the Sound. They had barely spoken after leaving the Presidential Palace-Sarah may have suggested him for the mission, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She stayed close, while he maintained security protocols-checking the rearviews, taking a different route and different vehicle each time they traveled, always checking the car for bugs and tracers. Like Redbeard used to say, trust but verify.

Rakkim and Sarah had never been directly connected to the events of three years ago, the unmasking of the Old One as the initiator of the suitcase nuke attacks on New York City, D.C., and Mecca. The official version credited Redbeard for the intelligence breakthrough, but the Old One knew better and he was the only one who mattered. Not that anyone had heard from him. There were rumors that he was dead, murdered by his acolytes or one of the Arab regimes, exposed as another fake messiah. Rumors that he was in exile in the mountains of Pakistan or rendered silent by the infirmities of age, his dream of restoring the caliphate abandoned.

Rakkim and Sarah didn’t believe a word of it. Sarah because she was smart enough to appreciate the Old One’s cunning, his incredible patience. Rakkim because he knew the Old One would never abandon his dream…and even more, because Rakkim knew the seduction of hiding in plain sight. The singular pleasure of blending into the background, of setting the table in the house of the enemy and watching him eat dinner. Rakkim had looked into the Old One’s eyes, recognized that special delight in floating among the rest of the world, superior and untouchable, there but not there. So Rakkim and Sarah stayed invisible too, unmentioned and unnoticed, just a rumor now themselves. Sarah had quit the history faculty at the university and spent her days privately advising the president and raising their son. A few months ago she started work on a new book. Not done causing trouble? he had asked her. Never, she had answered.

“Any idea what kind of weapon the Colonel’s looking for?” said Rakkim.

“Not at this point. Spider’s still doing what he can with his own sources…his own methods.”

“I still want to know what al-Faisal’s doing.”

“Let State Security handle it,” she said. “That’s their job.”

He veered toward the shoulder, trying to avoid misaligned sections of freeway. Even with its heavy-duty suspension, their car shook running over the rough pavement. He thought of John Santee, the renegade shadow warrior who now called himself John Moseby. What had it taken for Moseby to throw in with the Colonel? Moseby was a man who wanted only a smooth ride…no more hide-and-seek, no more enemies and knives at the throat. Did he even know what kind of bumpy road he was accelerating down now?

Fedayeen forever, that’s what they told you at the Academy, and it was true enough for the combat units. Not so for shadow warriors and assassins.

The part they didn’t tell you, the dirty little secret, was that given time, shadow warriors always went rogue. To survive, shadow warriors had to walk, talk, and think like the enemy. Ultimately, they became the enemy. Before that happened, they were pulled out of the Belt and given a post closer to home. Promoted with honors. Asked to teach at the Academy. Moseby had gone native sooner than anyone expected, with all his Fedayeen knowledge and training intact. Rakkim had been sent in to find him and kill him. A mission for an assassin, but given to Rakkim instead. They said no one knew the Belt like he did. He’d found Moseby, all right, but let him live. Came back with a lie. A year later Rakkim retired and took up residence in the Zone. He became part owner of the Blue Moon, wallowing in sin. It didn’t help. It took Sarah to save him from himself.

If shadow warriors always turned renegade, assassins always slipped their leash, became drunk with blood, killing without direction or restraint. No such thing as a retired assassin. Darwin had lasted longer than any of his breed before the order to terminate him was given. They’d sent three master assassins to do the job. The commander of the assassins found their three heads sitting on his desk the next morning, their mouths smeared with red lipstick, cheeks rouged like kewpie dolls, rhinestones stuck in their jellied eyes. Then Darwin stepped out of the shadows…the horror show was left on the security cameras for all to admire.

A coyote blinked in the headlights as it tore at something by the side of the road. They were getting bolder every year, coming in closer to the city from the surrounding forests.

Sarah turned her head, watched the coyote as it got back to work.

“Tired?” said Rakkim.

Sarah lowered the window, the sound of rain filling the car. Wind blew her hair, and the smell of her was clean and electric. “A little.”

“Why don’t you sleep in tomorrow? Let me take care of things.”

Sarah rested her hand on his leg. “You have enough to do…before you leave.”

“I’ll be fine.” He glanced over at her, then back at the road. After all they had been through, he could still see the little girl in her-she was four the first time they met, Rakkim nine, a streetwise orphan Redbeard brought home after Rakkim picked his pocket. The two of them had grown up together in Redbeard’s fortified villa, played and fought, swam and argued, and when Rakkim had left at eighteen, Sarah had seen him to the door. She was thirteen, thin and gangly, but she had kissed him, and spoke with the certainty of a woman. I’m going to marry you someday, Rikki. He had laughed but she was serious. Smarter than he was then…smarter than he was now.

“What are you thinking?” said Sarah.

“Nothing…just, sometimes I wish we had a simpler life.”

“I don’t,” said Sarah.

“I know.”

Illuminated by floodlights, the Grand Saladin mosque loomed ahead, the largest fundamentalist mosque in the city, a delicate, turquoise blue domed structure built with Saudi money and the labor of the faithful. The side of the mosque facing the freeway was adorned by an eighty-foot mosaic of a hook-nosed Jew with cloven hooves carrying a nuclear bomb into a New York City cityscape. Ugliest thing Rakkim had ever seen. The mosaic itself formed from Quranic script, neatly sidestepping the prohibition against depictions of the human form. Although in this case the human was debatable. The mosaic had been ordered bricked over after the revelation of the truth behind the atomic attacks. Last month the Supreme Court finally ruled that the mosaic was protected religious speech. The grand unveiling had drawn a crowd of over 200,000 and was broadcast around the country.

Exposing the Old One’s responsibility for the suitcase nuke attacks had exonerated the Israeli Mossad, and by extension, all the Jews. Within a year, well-funded scholars published articles challenging the evidence against the Old One, and once again, politicians again blamed Zionists for the ills of the world, claiming that even the crafty Redbeard had been taken in. Six months ago, the top-rated late-night comedian made a joke about the attacks, blaming mermaids and leprechauns. There was silence…then wild applause. The international police agencies still searched for the Old One, but the average citizen in the Islamic Republic wasn’t even sure he existed.

Rakkim turned away from the mosque. It had been Sarah who first suspected the Old One’s role in the attacks, Sarah who persisted in spite of the danger, Sarah who insisted they had a responsibility to history. Rakkim didn’t care about history. He had wanted to simply slip out of the country, move to Canada or Brazil and start a new life. Sarah said he could leave anytime he wanted. Made him feel like a coward for even suggesting it. He saw the floodlit mosque in his rearviews. “You ever wonder if it was worth it?”

“No.”

“All the people who died so we could prove the Old One-”

“I said no. That filthy mural is just a setback, a minor-”

“I thought we had changed the world.” Rakkim drove faster, the edges of the freeway overgrown with weeds, the asphalt crumbling. “The truth will set you free? What a joke.”

“You don’t have to go,” said Sarah. “General Kidd wanted to send in another shadow warrior team, three of them-”

“I said I’d do it.”

“If you feel it’s not worth it, just say so,” Sarah said gently. “No one would blame you.”

“You would.”

She stroked his arm. “No…I wouldn’t.”

He glanced at her. She was telling the truth. “Nah, I could use a vacation. Besides, after two years of marriage, I’m getting a little tired of your cooking.”

“Oh, really?”

“Southern food can’t be beat. Something as simple as grits and eggs, sunny-side up…it’s the bacon grease they fry the eggs in that makes all the difference.”

“Sounds yummy. Perhaps when you come back you could bring home a hawg.”

“Sure. We could put a leash on him, tell the neighbors he was a pit bull.”

“Dogs are filthy animals, pets fit only for Christians. We’d have to tell the neighbors we converted to Catholicism.” Sarah crossed herself, mumbled something in Latin.

“I really will come back.”

“I know.”

“I will, Sarah.”

Sarah looked straight ahead as Rakkim accelerated.

Sarah flopped back on the bed, exhausted, hair lank, their bedroom steamed with sex. She stared at the ceiling, eyes half closed. “Wow.”

Rakkim curled himself around her, watched her breathe. Captivated by the steady rise and fall. Her breasts were fuller since the baby. He liked them before. He liked them now. He lightly raked his nails across her belly, and she shivered. His kissed the warmth back into her.

Sarah threw a leg across him, pinched him. Laughed as he yelped.

They still hadn’t talked about John Moseby. They had driven through the gates of their fortified home, walked inside, stopping only to peek in on Michael. Sarah had adjusted the baby’s covers, and Sarah’s mother, Katherine, grumbled from the next room, said if Sarah woke him up, she was going to have to put him back to sleep. Rakkim and Sarah kissed their son on the forehead. They lingered, listening to him snore and wondering what he dreamed of.

Afterward, they made love in silence. Time enough for words later. Rakkim lost himself in her as always, lost himself in the process, relieved at the absence of his own thoughts, the awful weight of knowing what he had to do. There were times making love with her that he couldn’t remember his name, and was grateful for it. He played with her hair while she rested her cheek on his heart. The two of them spent and exhausted, content for a moment, drifting…Of course he had to ruin things.

He raised himself on one elbow. “Do I…do I seem different to you?”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. Just…different.”

“You’re more playful lately. More fun. Not so serious. I like that.” Her fingers traced the scars on his chest. She kissed the biggest scar, a pale, thick knot where Darwin had plunged his knife in. It should have been a killing strike, but Darwin had stopped the blade an eighth of an inch short, wanting to draw out the fun. Another kiss and she looked up at him. “You’re a better lover.” Her eyes creased, teasing. “Not that you weren’t always wonderful, but lately you’ve been a real maniac.” She must have seen his expression. Laughed. “I mean you’re just…unstoppable.” She kissed him. “I’m flattered, if you really want to know. I was worried after we had Michael that…that you might not be so interested in-”

“I killed two men earlier this evening.”

Sarah pulled back slightly.

“Al-Faisal’s bodyguards.”

“I’m…I’m sure they were trying to kill you.”

Rakkim nodded.

“Then they made their choice.” She reached for him. “What is it?”

“They made their choice…that’s just what I said afterward.”

She pulled the sheet over them, cooling their bodies as it fluttered down. “Well, they did.” She yawned. “Are you complaining?”

“No.” Since he had killed Darwin, Rakkim had been scanned, poked and prodded, every few months. The doctors said he had been lucky, his recovery miraculous. Most Fedayeen, in spite of their genetic boosters, would have died in that abandoned church in New Fallujah, bled to death from a hundred cuts, or gone into shock. Instead the two of them had circled each other, covered in each other’s blood, jabbing and slashing. Darwin chattered away the whole time, pale and rat-faced, but his hands, those beautiful hands, long-fingered as a concert pianist’s, and fast…faster than Rakkim…Yet it was Darwin who had died in the abandoned chapel, Rakkim’s knife driven into his open mouth, silencing his taunts, severing his brain stem. Darwin was gone, but there were times, late at night, while Sarah slept beside him…There were moments when he held up his hands and didn’t recognize them as his own. Moments when he closed his eyes and saw Darwin’s arrogant leer, heard his voice echoing in the church-Don’t die on me, Rikki. Not yet. Come on, don’t you want to play some more? It was all a game to Darwin. Until Rakkim killed him. Rakkim still wasn’t sure which one of them had been more surprised.

This wasn’t the first time he had closed his eyes and seen the dead. Heard the voices of men he had killed. Taking a life put one in God’s place for an instant, and with that role came the burden of ghosts. Killing Darwin had been different. Rakkim, the shadow warrior, had a new shadow now. Today he had killed two men in the Zone. Trained men flanking the choke points of the alley. At best he should have attempted a series of asymmetrical feints, hoping to draw them out of position, but instead, he had killed them without breaking stride. Killed them so quickly he wasn’t even aware of how he did it. Killed them as though they were cobwebs to be brushed aside.

“When you come back from the Belt, I want us to make another baby.” Sarah cupped his face. “Promise me.”

They both knew the pledge she wanted was that he would come back. “I promise.”

He drew her close. “How did you find out that John Moseby is John Santee?”

She yawned again. “How did I find out that you gave a false report to the commander of the shadow warriors? Is that your real question?”

“You’re too smart for me.”

“I know.” Sarah curled up against him. “Redbeard told me. I don’t know how he found out.” Her nipples stiffened against him. “It was after you asked for my hand in marriage. That’s when he told me.” She giggled and her nipples tickled him. “He said a Fedayeen who violated his oath had committed a capital offense. He asked me if I thought such a man was a worthy husband.”

He pulled her on top of him.

“I told him…I told him you must have had a good reason to lie…” She slipped him inside of her, rocking gently. “…and surely…surely a man who thought for himself, without the burden of law or tradition, surely such a man was the best of all husbands.” She bit her lip, back arched, her eyes locked on him. “I said…I said, Uncle, if you hadn’t come to the exact same conclusion, surely you would have turned him over to the Fedayeen rather than risk being branded a traitor yourself.”

Rakkim groaned, his cries slowly trailing off.

She flattened herself against him, the two of them prickly with sweat. She waited until they got their breath back. “Why…why did you tell them Moseby was dead?”

He was still inside her, feeling her pulse as his own.

“This man broke his oath,” she said. “What was it about him that made you break yours?”

He remembered the last time he had seen Moseby. The man was a light sleeper, but not light enough. He had opened his eyes, felt Rakkim’s knife against his throat, but made no move to struggle or resist. Moseby was a shadow warrior too, he knew how skillful Rakkim had to be to sneak up on him. Moseby let out a long sigh, released his fear like a flock of white doves. Rakkim looked down at him and knew he had never felt at such peace with himself as this dead man did. Go on, Moseby whispered, not wanting to wake his wife, who lay sleeping beside him. Do what you have to and go quietly.

“Rikki? Why did you lie for him?”

“When I met him…it was before you and I were together, before I had any hope for us to be together. The way he looked over at his wife when he thought he was going to die…I never saw anybody so in love before.” Rakkim felt her grip him, enclose him with her heat. “Moseby…he was the only man I was ever envious of.”