Heart of the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

  Rakkim noticed a tall, well-dressed modern man wave to Sarah, walk toward her. Rakkim increased his pace to intercept him. Michael, noticing the modern too, tugged at Sarah, but she kept walking.

  The modern strode through the crowd and it parted, made way for the handsome man with the commanding air. Rakkim recognized him now--Robert Legault, the weekend newsreader for the national news show...and a former suitor of Sarah's, one of several Redbeard, her uncle and guardian, had selected for her approval. She had rejected Legault, rejected them all, rejected Redbeard's authority and his connections and married Rakkim. From what Rakkim knew, Sarah and Legault had never seen each other since their three chaperoned dates ten years earlier.

  Rakkim stayed back, stayed in the crowd...watching.

  Legault opened his arms as he approached Sarah and she nodded, pressed her palms together in greeting. Legault went to pat Michael on the head and Michael twisted away, didn't let him touch him.

  Rakkim saw Sarah and Legault walk across the lawn together while Michael went ahead, turning around every few steps to check on them. They stopped on a rise above the war museum. He watched Sarah and Legault talk for ten minutes, until Michael tugged on Sarah's hand, and Legault bowed low, the gallant modern, and left the way he had come.

  Sarah and Michael started toward the museum.

  "Sarah!"

  She turned, and both she and Michael ran toward him, the wind whipping her long brown hair; she stopped short as people stared.

  Michael pulled at Rakkim's hands.

  "Where did you come from?" said Sarah, closer now, barely able to contain herself. "I missed you." She touched his cheeks. "We'll have to flush out the collagen when we go home--I want to see your real face again."

  "You don't like the new me? Some wives might prefer--"

  "I prefer you."

  Rakkim picked up Michael, reached out with his other hand to draw Sarah to him, squeezed her close. He buried his face in her hair, the three of them wrapped up while the crowd broke around them, clucking their disapproval. Leave it to a modern to marry a Catholic; probably did it to torment her poor parents. Rakkim clutched them even tighter.

  "New Fallujah was that bad?" Sarah whispered in his ear.

  Rakkim held her, unable to speak.

  Women in black burqas walked past, cursed them, their voices muffled, calling Sarah a whore who would roast in hell along with her bastard.

  Sarah gently disengaged from him, took Michael's hand, the three of them strolling toward the entrance of the war museum.

  "Did I see you talking with someone?" said Rakkim. "I was pretty far away...."

  "Yes." Sarah touched her hair. "You'll never guess who I ran into. Robert Legault."

  "He still doing the weather?"

  "No, he's actually at the network now. Senior producer."

  "I didn't like him," said Michael.

  "I hope you gave Robert my regards," said Rakkim.

  "Yes...of course."

  Rakkim offered his blessing to the veterans stationed beside the entrance, while Sarah covered her head with a scarf she took from her purse and pushed down her sleeves.

  The tone inside the war museum was hushed and respectful, the only sound the shuffle of feet across the marble floor and the buzz of soft voices. A baby cried and was quickly comforted. Taking photographs inside the House of Martyrs was forbidden. This was sacred ground, open to all, regardless of religion. The museum was never closed, never empty. Sarah said in the old days, before the transition, the graveyards for the nation's war dead had been overgrown and untended. Military parades had played to empty streets, or worse, the color guard had faced catcalls from those whose freedom had been paid for with others' blood. A terrible time for heroes.

  "St. Louis, Kansas City, Youngstown," said Michael, pointing out the Midwest cities on the holographic battle display. Michael knew every one of them, could recount the names of the commanders and the outcome. The images scrolled past as they watched. Chicago, still smoldering. Detroit's auto works gutted. Denver. The St. Louis arch collapsed. Newark, the deepest penetration into the Islamic states by the Christian armies. Newark, fought for block by block, until Islamic reinforcements, most of them still in high school, had finally stopped the Belt advance. Bloody Newark. As many times as he had seen it, the scenes still made Rakkim tear up.

  As always, there was a crowd around the display at the very center of the museum, the true heart of the memorial. The three of them waited their turn, hearing a steady murmur of "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar," over and over until they finally stood before the marble stand holding up a simple Arabic edition of the Quran. No bulletproof plastic or nitrogen-rich bubble was necessary to protect it. The book had been recovered from the ruins of Washington, D.C., found surrounded by broken glass and twisted girders, the holy relic untouched by the atomic blast, the cover pristine, its pages shiny and white.

  Rakkim lowered his eyes. He kept seeing Sarah and Robert Legault...how the breeze caught her dress, the hem grazing Legault's leg.

  They stayed a few moments, then moved on from the Quran, passed a group of men in traditional garb praying before a mural of the triumph of Newark, the turning point of the war. They stopped in front of a large photo taken at the armistice between the two nations, President Kingsley and the Belt president, Andrew Fullerton, shaking hands, both of them looking exhausted.

  "I bet they were glad," whispered Michael.

  Rakkim played with Michael's hair. "Everyone was glad."

  Above the photo of the two presidents were two aerial shots of Washington, D.C. One photo portrayed a majestic city, filled with cars, monuments gleaming in the sun. The other photo, taken a day after the dirty bomb exploded, was one long expanse of rubble and twisted metal, the great monuments fallen, streets bubbled from the intense heat.

  Rakkim hated both images, the one because it showed the glory that had been lost, the other because it immortalized the extent of the destruction. The Zionist betrayal, that's what the nuke attack on the capital had been called, the Israeli Mossad blamed for decapitating the previous regime. A lie. The great lie. The Jews weren't responsible, it was the Old One. Sarah had proved that. She had a mind that could follow the twists and turns of that evil bastard, a mind attuned to deception. Rakkim looked over at her, but, though she had seen them a thousand times, the photos of D.C. had her full attention.

  "Can we go see the Defense of Detroit exhibit?" said Michael.

  Sarah didn't move.

  "Sarah?"

  Sarah stayed looking up at the ruins, then finally wiped her eyes and walked away from the dead city, walking so quickly that Rakkim and Michael had to hurry to catch up.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Old One watched Gravenholtz from the command center of his pleasure yacht, watched the redheaded brute pace the hundred-year-old Tabriz in the main salon, undoubtedly aware that he was being observed but unable to hide his restlessness. A beast barely able to restrain itself carried a risk to its master, but the Old One had worked with beasts before. Back and forth Gravenholtz walked, but he avoided the large glass-bottomed area of the cabin offering a view of the ocean depths below.

  It had been three days since Gravenholtz killed the oil minister, and the Old One had let him stew in a cabin belowdecks, without any contact or acknowledgment of what had occurred, letting time do the work for him, unsettling the creature, poking and prodding him like a sharpened stick through the bars of his cage. Patience was alien to Gravenholtz. Patience, the most useful of tools...but ever since his conversation with his personal physician, the Old One realized that there were limits to such virtues. Tickety-tock...that's what Darwin used to say, smiling, that most jovial assassin. Tickety-tock, tickety-tock. The Old One was not amused.

  Baby stood beside him, resplendent in a flowery yellow sundress that bared her tanned shoulders and legs. She smelled of summer.

  He could see desalinization plants a mile offshore through the main windows of the control center, dozens
of them strung all along the coast, new ones being built all the time to keep up with the ever-increasing demand. On the outer decks sixty or so revelers danced in the late-afternoon sun, half naked most of them, bronzed and beautiful as they bumped to the afro-salsa beat. The Old One's white-jacketed aides roamed through the crowd carrying aloft silver trays of tiger prawns and octopus. The sweet life, which was the name of the Old One's yacht, La Dolce Vita, a sleek, 240-foot party boat flying a pina colada flag. The last place anyone would be looking for him.

  In his white jacket and white linen trousers with gold piping, the Old One looked like a weekend commodore out for a cruise. The faux-nautical trappings were pure camouflage, as much a part of the charade as the music and the dancers. The World Court had cleared him of responsibility in the nuke attacks on the U.S. and Mecca, but he had learned caution over the years.

  "Father?"

  The Old One looked at Ibrahim, his oldest son and counselor.

  Ibrahim tapped his earpiece. "John Moseby received a transmission two days ago from Seattle."

  "Moseby is contacted regularly, is he not?" said the Old One. "I have other things to concern myself with."

  "Moseby evidently left shortly after receiving the most recent one," said Ibrahim.

  The Old One glared at him.

  "Our...our men on the scene didn't realize Moseby's absence until moments ago," said Ibrahim.

  "Moseby was a shadow warrior once upon a time...it should have been expected that he would retain his skills." The Old One pursed his lips. "Have our technicians been able to decipher the code Leo uses to communicate yet?"

  "Sadly, no."

  "A team of supposed computer experts defeated by one nineteen-year-old boy," said the Old One. "I should hire him and get rid of the rest of you."

  "Father, the men who let Moseby slip away...shall I have them punished?"

  "Why not have them continue to monitor Moseby's home?" interrupted Baby. "Allow them to redeem themselves, Daddy, they'll work themselves harder than ever."

  "This is not your concern, woman," said Ibrahim.

  "Leave the men in place, Ibrahim," said the Old One.

  "Father--"

  The Old One waved him away.

  Baby waited until Ibrahim had left. "A weak man's always in a hurry to punish somebody, so he can show how tough he is." She stroked her throat. "Moseby's a family man, Daddy. He won't be gone long without wanting to talk to his wife and girl."

  The Old One loved looking at her. She didn't even make the attempt to hide her ambition. "We're all family men, my dear."

  Onscreen, Gravenholtz clawed a hand through his scraggly hair, ridiculous in his tourist clothes--madras shorts and a bright orange silk shirt decorated with images of old automobiles. The prosthetics he had worn to kill the oil minister had made him look only a bit more grotesque. Gravenholtz stared directly into the camera lens. Not the obvious one, but the camera inside a clear glass geometric sculpture. "You done playing games?"

  The Old One looked at Baby. "Are we done?"

  "It's time," said Baby. Ibrahim would have taken a moment to consider, to gather his thoughts so as not to embarrass himself. Not her. "Lester's hot enough to boil away the lies, but not so hot that somebody gets burned. Just right, I'd say."

  "Hold this position, James," the Old One said to the captain, "a slow drift to appreciate the view." He offered Baby his arm and she immediately slipped her hand above his elbow. A few minutes later they strolled into the main salon. "Rested, are we, from our labors, Mr. Gravenholtz?"

  "Okay, say it." Gravenholtz glared at them. "I freelanced the hit, and I ain't apologizing either. I'm supposed to open the door for your human bomb, and close it afterward? I look like a fucking doorman to--?" He jerked as a wallscreen flashed on, showed the Aztlan oil minister recoiling in shock. Even with the sound turned down, the minister's voice cracked, a cascade of Spanish pleading for his life as Gravenholtz's freckled hand grabbed his platinum necktie. The oil minister swatted at Gravenholtz's huge hand, mouth twitching as blood ran from his eyes.

  "No, Mr. Gravenholtz, you most certainly are not a doorman," said the Old One.

  Gravenholtz seemed to vibrate slightly, set the silk shirt in motion, the cars seemingly to race across his broad chest. "How'd you get that footage?"

  The Old One slipped off his loafers, walked barefoot across the intricate pale blue and gray carpet, slightly clenching his toes with every step, remembering the Persian girl who had woven it, a tall, beautiful girl with small breasts and eyes like fire. It had taken her two years of work, the Old One stopping by every few months when he passed through on business, drinking tea with her father while she labored over her loom in the corner, stealing glances at him when her father wasn't looking. The Old One had been young then, and when he took possession of the carpet he had taken the girl as his third wife, given her something better to do with those strong, nimble fingers than weave carpets. He swayed on the Tabriz, eyes half closed, remembering her aroma.

  "I asked you a question," said Gravenholtz.

  The Old One gazed at him. "Is that a demand, Mr. Gravenholtz?"

  "Could you please tell me how you done that?" said Gravenholtz.

  "I had a pinpoint camera installed in your right eye," said the Old One. "It transmitted--"

  "When you do that?" The cars on Gravenholtz's chest raced faster.

  "Do you remember our discussion of Sultan Murad and his janissaries the first time we met?" said the Old One.

  "Yeah. You said this sultan didn't give a shit whether his guards were Muslims or not, he just cared that they were the best," said Gravenholtz.

  "He cared that they were the best, but also that they were loyal," said the Old One.

  "So I didn't follow the plan," said Gravenholtz. "Now what?"

  "Oh, quite the contrary, you met all our expectations," said the Old One. "I wasn't sure what you would do, but Baby..." He soundlessly applauded his daughter as she curtsied. "Baby assured me that you would adapt the plan to your own...needs. She was quite confident that you would take the initiative, and so you did."

  "So...you ain't mad?" said Gravenholtz.

  The Old One walked over to the glass-bottom area. "Join me, Mr. Gravenholtz. Come on, no need to worry. It's quite safe."

  Gravenholtz edged along the margins of the glass, keeping one foot on the carpet.

  The morning sun sent shafts of light through the clear water, illuminating the cityscape below--Little Miami, the sunken city off the coast of Nueva Florida. A fake tableau, ten miles of illusion for the tourist trade peering into the abyss. The city was a perfect construct of South Beach at the turn of the century, bright pastel hotels and dance clubs and movie theaters, long lines of convertibles and Italian speedsters, all of it covered with starfish and barnacles, purple and red sea anemones waving in the currents. New Orleans had sunk into the Gulf, killing hundreds of thousands, and the best the idiots in the Belt could do with the site was declare it jinxed, off-limits for development. The Cubans, meanwhile, created a fake sunken city as an homage to the cocaine cowboys of yesteryear and drew free-spending visitors from all over the world. The Cubans were brilliant capitalists. Infidels destined to roast forever in hell, to be sure, but great and creative moneymakers.

  The Old One watched schools of iridescent orange fish veer across the city, darting into the open windows and out again, a synchronized, hypnotic ballet. "You really should see this, Mr. Gravenholtz."

  "I'll take your word for it," said Gravenholtz.

  "I must insist, Mr. Gravenholtz."

  "I told you before, call me Lester. Mr. Gravenholtz was my father, and if he was alive today, I'd kill him all over again."

  "Come here, Lester."

  Haltingly, careful as a fat man on thin ice, Gravenholtz stepped across the glass floor. A few feet away from the Old One, he glanced down, then turned away. Stared at Baby, a single bead of sweat rolling down from his left sideburn. "Ain't...ain't no big deal. I been to New Orleans.
You seen one sunken city, you seen them all."

  Baby tossed her soft hair. "It's all right, Lester honey." She picked up a compressed-air speargun, checked the balance.

  "Yes, Lester honey," said the Old One, "it's all right."

  "Watch yourself, pops," said Gravenholtz, his face the color of boiled pork. "Go ahead, whistle in your guards; let's see who's dead and who's alive afterwards."

  Baby sighted down the speargun at Gravenholtz, tossed it aside. Shooting him with the speargun would have been as dangerous to the redhead as pelting him with a marshmallow.

  The Old One observed a translucent jellyfish undulate past, the jellyfish a delicate, pulsing umbrella trailing acid tendrils. He plucked the fountain pen from the pocket of his white cotton shirt, looked up at Gravenholtz. "May I have your autograph?"

  Gravenholtz wrinkled his brow.

  "You must be a great and powerful man to speak to me in such a rude manner." The Old One held out the pen. "I'd like your autograph as a memento of our meeting."

  Gravenholtz moved toward him, hands balling into fists.

  The pen sprayed a stream of clear strings at Gravenholtz, the strings wrapping around his legs, tripping him, Gravenholtz's face slamming into the glass floor. He tried pulling himself up, but the Old One sprayed his torso now, the strings pinning his arms, tightening around him like a cocoon, tightening...tightening until he couldn't move. Gravenholtz lay there looking up at the Old One. "What...what did you...do to me?"

  The Old One held up the pen. "An aerosol polymer with molecular memory. Heat activated. Amazing what they're coming up with in laboratories these days. I sometimes wish Allah had led me to a career in the sciences." He cupped an ear. "Did you say something?"

  Gravenholtz's face puffed out as he tried to pull his hands free, but the strings only tightened further. "I...I didn't mean..." His voice was high-pitched and wheezy as the strings squeezed around his rib cage, compressing his lungs.