Heart of the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

  Darryl glanced at his sister. "Okay...that would be good. No sense wasting."

  Rakkim handed the bottle over.

  Darryl started to snatch it, forced himself to slow down.

  "Rikki and I are going back into the city, ma'am," said Moseby.

  "That's foolish," said Mrs. Harrison. "You're going to poison yourself."

  "We've got a better vehicle this time," said Moseby.

  "I noticed," said Mrs. Harrison. "Seems like I saw a man named Corbett driving a van just like it."

  "We bought it from Corbett," said Rakkim.

  "That so?" Mrs. Harrison massaged her gums with a forefinger. "Well, you might have paid him, but the Corbett I know would sooner give up his balls than that war wagon."

  "He's got no need for the van now," said Rakkim. "Or his balls."

  "Glad to hear it." Mrs. Harrison examined her forefinger. "Honest...like your wife, that's saying something, but you still don't know where you're going, and the war wagon's not going to change that," she said. "Couple of outsiders driving around the city thinking treasure's going to call out to them."

  Rakkim walked over to the family photographs that lined one whole wall. Photographs, not holograms, some of them ancient black-and-whites too. Poor folk in their Sunday best, kids behind the wheels of trucks, hard-eyed men and suspicious women, two young men in homemade rad-suits pretending to hold up the Washington Monument.

  "That's me and Eldon on our first trip into the city together," said Darryl, standing beside him. "We hammered out an FBI insignia from inside a federal building a day later. Sold it for almost eight hundred dollars. Would have got twice that much but we chipped it."

  "You chipped it," said Mrs. Harrison.

  Rakkim checked out a grainy snapshot of a tired young man with a cigarette dangling from his lip, an automatic rifle slung in front of him. His jungle camouflage uniform blended in with the dense green foliage around him. A medal under glass was on the wall next to him. "Who's the soldier?"

  Darryl stood beside him. "That's Eldon Harrison the first," he said, his gums whistling slightly. "Our great-grandpa. We got an Eldon in every generation since. My brother was the fourth in the line."

  "Looks like he saw clear to the other side," said Rakkim. "That's a Silver Star."

  "Yup. They don't give those out in cereal boxes."

  "Where was that photo taken?"

  "Vietnam. First war we ever lost. Not the last, though." Darryl sipped the Coca-Cola, offered it to Rakkim.

  "You finish it," said Rakkim.

  "Obliged," said Darryl, as fixed on the photo as Rakkim. "He was killed in action eighteen days after that picture was taken. A real hero. The best of us. Never even got to see Eldon Harrison Junior."

  "I'm sorry," said Rakkim.

  Darryl nodded.

  "You had any more time to think about what we talked about, ma'am?" said Moseby.

  Mrs. Harrison sat across from him, knees pressed together. "I've tried my best, but I can't come up with anything else. I'd tell you if I could."

  "I know that," said Moseby. "It's just that sometimes things that you don't think are important turn out to be."

  "I made Eldon three fried eggs the morning he left for the city and there was a spot of blood in one of the yolks," said Mrs. Harrison, her hands in her lap like they didn't even belong to her. "Just the tiniest spot of blood, but that's bad luck. I was going to throw them all out, start fresh, but Eldon told me I was crazy to waste good food." She blinked back tears. "That was the last meal I ever cooked for my husband. You'd think what I cooked or didn't cook wasn't important, but I think of that fried egg sizzling away in a dab of bacon grease, and I see that spot of blood...and...and I just want to die."

  Darryl looked over at his sister-in-law, then at Rakkim. Shrugged.

  Rakkim stared at another photo, a wedding photo, the young couple holding hands, grinning shyly at the camera. The slender bride seemed lost in the folds of her wedding gown, the groom stiff. He squinted at the date on the bottom.

  Darryl tapped the glass over the photo. "That was a happy day. God, me and Eldon got so drunk the night before I didn't think he was going to make it through the ceremony."

  "I didn't have any doubts," Mrs. Harrison said. "He knew what I had waiting for him that night. Both of us sixteen and raring to go."

  "He was happy, Bernice." Darryl took a swallow of Coca-Cola. "No matter how bad things got, he was happy. Made me jealous, I'll tell you the truth."

  Rakkim stared at the date on the wedding photo. If they were sixteen when they got married, Mrs. Harrison was only thirty-six. She looked like she was in her sixties.

  "Do you love your wife, Rikki?" said Mrs. Harrison.

  "Yes, ma'am, I do."

  "You have children?" said Mrs. Harrison.

  "A son."

  The mister and I had nine," said Mrs. Harrison. "Three of them alive and well, praise God."

  Rakkim pointed to another photo, three children in neat blue school uniforms with white piping on the sleeves and trousers. "Is this them?"

  Mrs. Harrison rose from her chair, crossed over to him. Moseby followed her.

  "That's my angels." Mrs. Harrison tapped the biggest child. "That's Eldon the fifth." Tapped the girl. "That's Evelyn." Tapped the smaller boy. "And that little dickens is Zachary. Named him after the Colonel, greatest man who ever lived after Jesus Christ and Eldon the first."

  "Nice-looking children," said Rakkim. It was the truth. They looked radiant.

  "They're at the Bush Academy in Ottawa, Canada," said Mrs. Harrison. "Your wife got them a full scholarship. I guess you didn't know that."

  "No, ma'am...I didn't," said Rakkim.

  "Cost a pretty penny to go to that school," said Darryl. "All those rich kids...they're never going to want to come back here."

  "I hope they don't," said Mrs. Harrison. "I most definitely hope they don't."

  Rakkim couldn't take his eyes off the holo of the three children. "They...they look like they fit right in to that fancy school."

  "You seen them a year ago, you wouldn't a' said that," said Darryl.

  "They had the usual problems...usual for around here," said Mrs. Harrison. "Then my husband made a big find about a year ago. Everything changed after that."

  "Eldon was always the lucky one," said Darryl.

  Mrs. Harrison blushed, turned to Rakkim. "With the money we got from his big strike we were able to send the children to the clinic in Montreal. Bought them new kidneys, new pituitary glands, complete blood wash, of course. I visited them in the hospital afterwards and hardly recognized them. They were as fresh and beautiful as the day they were born."

  "What did your husband find in the city?" said Moseby.

  Mrs. Harrison shook her head. "I let the mister take care of business, and he let me take care of the home. Worked out pretty well all these years."

  "He never told me either," said Darryl. "His own brother. Said it was none of my concern."

  "He never brought this treasure home?" said Moseby.

  "No," said Mrs. Harrison. "I guessed it was too big to carry."

  "And too valuable to share," said Darryl.

  "Why don't you take the Coca-Cola and go back to your room," said Mrs. Harrison. "Go on now." She waited until Darryl left. "He's not a bad man. Just always thought he got hind tit."

  "Did your husband ever tell you what he was looking for on that last trip?" said Moseby.

  "I told you, he kept his business to himself," said Mrs. Harrison.

  "We know he made several trips for Sarah, before he found what she wanted," said Rakkim, looking over the other photos, trying to imagine the man who would leave all this and go into the dead city, time after time, even as his children sickened and died, even as he was eaten up with death. The sense of history and place that held them here...Rakkim didn't have it. Neither did Moseby; he had left the Republic and the Fedayeen for love and never looked back.

  "He must have at least told you what he
saw along the way...some building, some landmark," said Moseby. "We just want to know where to start looking, Mrs. Harrison."

  "I'd help you boys if I could," she said. "Your wife...she's been a blessing to our family," she said to Rakkim. "She done things for us we could never repay. Getting the kids into the Bush Academy, that wouldn't have happened without her. So, you'll have to believe me when I tell you, when the mister left that last morning...all he said was he was going somewhere bound to break his heart."

  "The whole city makes me want to cry," said Moseby.

  "That's you, and your outland ways, bawlin' over a stubbed toe or a runover kitten," said Mrs. Harrison. "My husband was made of stronger stuff. We lost our first three babies...I never seen him shed a tear when he broke ground for their graves, just cursed the earth for taking them. I can't imagine what it would take to break his heart, but that's where he said he was going."

  If burying your children didn't break your heart, Rakkim didn't know what would...but Eldon Harrison had found it in D.C. Rakkim stared at the soldier in the jungle. Eldon Harrison the first. The best of them, Darryl had said. The noble dead. He took a deep breath, then walked over to Mrs. Harrison, embraced her, and she was all sharp bones and startled femininity. "Thank you for all your help, ma'am."

  Mrs. Harrison nodded. "You give our love to your wife."

  They were almost at the war wagon before Moseby spoke. "Why are we leaving?"

  Rakkim turned and waved to Mrs. Harrison, who stood on the porch watching them. She didn't wave back, instead turned and went back inside. "She told us enough," said Rakkim. "I think I know where the safe room is."

  CHAPTER 37

  "Look, Mama, Elvis is shaking," said Steve, mimicking the King's movements.

  Betty Grassley looked up and Steve was right, the cloud sculpture of Elvis was moving his hips, a cloud sculpture of the young Elvis, slim and sexy in rolled blue jeans and a dark shirt, floating five thousand feet above Graceland, the light breeze animating him.

  Steve shook his hips like Elvis, the fake sideburns he had bought in the gift shop curling slightly from his pink cheeks. The black pompadour was his own. He wore his favorite jumpsuit, the red, white and blue bicentennial version that Elvis had worn for the first time at the Charlotte Coliseum, March 26, 1976. Steve had been born on March 26, and Betty considered it a sign from God.

  Two blue-haired ladies beamed as Steve shimmied. "He's got the moves," one said.

  "He's nine years old and consecrated in the blood," said Betty. "Elvis lullabies were the only thing that put him right to sleep."

  "Amen," said the two ladies.

  Betty sat down on one of the many benches in the Meditation Garden while Steve stared up at the sculpture in the clear blue Memphis sky. Her feet hurt. She waitressed six days a week, and on the seventh day she went to Graceland. There was a beautiful limestone chapel on the grounds, but that was booked up for years with weddings. No, she considered the whole thirteen-acre site to be one big church, and the Meditation Garden was where she liked to pray. Steve liked the Jungle Room and the two lions beside the main gate, but there was nothing like sitting here in the open air, smelling the blooming jasmine. Most of the tourists stayed in the Heartbreak Hotel across the street; they congregated around the crypts where Elvis's mama and daddy, Gladys and Vernon, were buried, but she preferred this spot, the most tranquil place in the garden.

  She quietly slipped off her shoes, massaged her arches as she listened to Elvis singing "How Great Thou Art," one of her favorite hymns.

  Presidente Argusto guided his JX light bomber into a vast, puffy white cumulus cloud over southern Tennessee. He glanced at the display on his windscreen, noted his precise position, accelerating now, leaving his two wingmen behind. This was to be his mission, and his alone. Mano a mano, a killing stroke to avenge the insults visited on him and Aztlan, a harsh lesson but a necessary one. The murder of his oil minister had been bad enough, but now these Belt peons had blown apart an Aztlan cruise ship, killing almost everyone on board. The Aztlan people demanded vengeance and Argusto was more than happy to oblige.

  He delighted at the centrifugal pressure as he banked sharply--even in his G-suit he could feel his chest pressing toward his spine as the JX surged forward. Magnificent aircraft. Chinese stealth design, Swiss avionics, Aztlan laser-guided missiles. Invisible, fast and deadly.

  They had left from the El Paso airfield, he and his wingmen, headed off across the Gulf as though on a normal training mission. Fifty miles off New Orleans they had dropped into stealth mode, depending on the mission control center outside Tenochtitlan to take the helm and zigzag them through the overlapping maze of Belt radar installations. If he wanted, the digital display on his windscreen would reveal the current position of every plane in the Aztlan air armada, and mission control could deploy each of them as needed.

  The integrated control system was a force multiplier--Argusto's tactics against the Central American Union had been brilliant, but it had been the Nigerian integrated system that allowed him to destroy the enemy's air defenses within the first twenty minutes of the war. Not that Argusto feared being intercepted by the decrepit Belt fighters, or even the new Russian antiaircraft missile systems President Raynaud had installed around key sites. The JX could take care of itself. It was the surprise that mattered to Argusto. Let the Belt peons realize that at any moment, day or night, their world could be set ablaze. Let them understand their position in the new world order.

  Argusto blasted out of the cottony cumulus cloud, the cockpit nearly silent, only the faint whoosh of air rushing past as he headed into the deep blue sky. From the ground the plane would be a flash of light, a flare of sunlight.

  Morales had been appalled when Argusto informed him what he intended. The secretary of state begged him to reconsider, saying the attack would inflame the Belt beyond all reason. What did he call it? "A gross overreaction," mio presidente. Por favor, por favor. Argusto had expected such a reaction from Morales; it was the response of his air marshal, Bettencourt, that had surprised him. Bettencourt counseled against the presidente himself leading the attack, arguing that he was too valuable to the empire, his loss in combat disastrous to the nation. Argusto had heard the marshal out, then asked him a simple question: Do you doubt the superiority of your aircraft, or do you doubt the skill of your presidente? Bettencourt had stepped back from the precipice and saluted.

  Radar confirmed Graceland seventeen miles away. What Morales hadn't appreciated was that it was precisely because of Graceland's spiritual and cultural significance that it had to be taken out. Kill the heroes and you kill the soul of a nation. Twelve miles. The vibration surrounding him was pure music, a symphony of power overwhelming everything in its path. Five miles. He shot directly into a rockabilly Elvis cloud sculpture floating above the shrine, slightly roiling the interior. Two miles. He burst into the sunlight, bathed in glory, the tears of Huitzilopochtli, god of the sun, god of war. At the peak of his acceleration, Argusto released the bomb...the egg of death.

  Steve arched his back slightly, the nine-year-old a little confused as he watched the cloud sculpture. "Mama?"

  Last week Betty's best customer had given her two tickets to the special prayer service that Pastor Malcolm Crews led on the south lawn. She and Steve had shown up at dawn, shown up in their Sunday best, and the line stretched for a half mile. Even Jinx Raynaud, the first lady, was there. Although she didn't have to wait in line, of course. It even looked to Betty like the first lady had spotted Steve's white jumpsuit and smiled, but she couldn't be sure.

  The service, on the anniversary of Elvis's death, was focused on resurrection and renewal. Pastor Crews stalked the stage, white suit gleaming in the August sunshine. He said Elvis wasn't dead, but was seated at the right hand of God, up there with all the saints, a Tennessee boy made good. One of God's favorites. God loves us all, Pastor Crews said, but who could blame him for loving Elvis just a little bit more than the rest of us? The crowd laughed, applaud
ed so hard it sounded like a thunderstorm on Judgment Day. He had preached for five hours straight, people fainting, people talking in tongues, people jerk-dancing in the aisles while the ushers tried to calm them down.

  Betty had bought Steve a Hawaiian Punch snow cone; he made a mess of it on his white jumpsuit, but she didn't care. The stains would wash out, that's what she always told herself. Pastor Crews said this was a time of great tribulation, the big show, brothers and sisters, the moment when the chosen will be separated. God's lambs will enter into heaven and the goats will be slaughtered.... There's gonna be barbecue in heaven, Crews had shouted, best barbecue you ever ate, and the crowd roared with laughter.

  Steve swiveled his hips, the white cape of his jumpsuit swaying with him as he played an invisible guitar. Sometimes, when she looked at him, Betty could see the King himself, reborn. He suddenly stopped playing, his hands falling to his sides as he looked up.

  Today is August sixteen, brothers and sisters, Crews had said at the sermon last week. The unbelievers will tell you that Elvis died on this day, but we know better, don't we? Shouts of agreement. Testifying. Elvis could no more die than you or I, said Crews. He's merely gone ahead, to set a place at the table for us. The band kicked in with "Are You Lonesome Tonight" and the whole crowd sang along, Pastor Crews too. Resurrection Day, he kept saying, it's a comin', can't you feel it, brothers and sisters?

  Betty could certainly feel a change coming, and not a minute too soon. She was tired. Not just tired of working the long hours, and hardly enough time for Steve, she was tired of the news, bad news added to bad news, layoffs and payoffs, and damn Aztlan beating at the door, heathens demanding land that God gave to the Belt. Those Muslims in the Republic were looking less like the Antichrist, and more like kinfolk all the time. Just like Pastor Crews said.