Prayers for the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

  “What did you find on the computer cores?”

  “When you first started the club, I was curious to see what would happen when the local goons showed up.” Spider twisted his neck from side to side. “The Hammer Trio were the first to call…and the last. Vicious bastards. Those three left a trail of cripples all over the Zone. Not anymore though, right?” His smile jerked. “Two former army special forces and a retired Fedayeen—”

  “He wasn’t Fedayeen. He washed out the first month.”

  “Really? Everyone said…” Spider nodded. “Not that it matters anymore. The three of them came around…and then they were gone.” He blinked at Rakkim. “Is it true you left their hammers on the bar for a week afterwards? Three ball-peen hammers?” Rakkim shrugged. “I deplore violence, but no one tried to collect from you again, did they?”

  A couple of Spider’s children, twin girls about eight years old, burst through the curtains, giggling. They pointed at Rakkim, whispered to each other, laughing now.

  Rakkim waited until the children had darted away. “How many kids do you have?”

  “Not enough,” said Spider, completely serious.

  “What am I doing here, Spider?”

  “Yes. Of course.” Spider blinked. “The core from the university computer had nothing of interest on it, but the one from Sarah’s home unit contained a very ingenious security system.” He folded his arms around himself. “I’d love to know where she got it.”

  “I’ll ask her when I find her.”

  Spider’s fingers twitched. “There was a dual memory on her personal core. One was readable to anyone able to crack her access code, which was no great difficulty, but behind that primary memory was a second, a ghost memory much more difficult to penetrate. Even more interesting, the ghost memory had an autodestruct timer. If a code word wasn’t typed in every seventy-two hours, a virus would tear through the files, but leave the primary memory intact. So, someone examining the core would find it filled with nothing but the usual academic clutter. No one would even know that there had been anything to delete. Impressive. I have no idea who created it, but it’s not Russian, or Chinese, or Swiss. None of the usual suspects for top-flight code. It was an individual. An individual using backwater code…but with a very high-level intelligence. Just like me.” His fingers fluttered. “Maybe that’s why I was able to crack it.”

  “You cracked the ghost memory?”

  Spider’s smile jerked.

  “Could you tell if anyone else had read the files?”

  “Like Redbeard?” Spider snorted. “No, I was the first to pop them.” He pulled at his lip, flashed nubs of white teeth. “If you had been able to get the core to me sooner, I could tell you a lot more. The virus wiped out most of the files, but there was enough left for me to reconstruct certain parts. I saved the prologue of a book she was working on. It must have been one of the last things she entered. First in, first wiped, that’s the way the virus worked.” A tic started under his right eye, lifting his cheek several times before subsiding. He leaned forward, stared at Rakkim as he recited:

  “‘The Zionist Betrayal was the pivot point of modern history, the axis on which the world shifted. The story is taught to every schoolchild, marked by a moment of silence at noon on the anniversary of the attack. We all know that on that terrible day, renegade elements of the Israeli government struck targets in the United States, and the holy city of Mecca, attempting to blame the actions on radical jihadis and discredit all of Islam. We all know that their plan was discovered, Israel itself overrun, while the forces of Islam spread their beneficence across the globe. And yet…what if all that we know of these attacks was wrong? What if the Zionists were not behind the Zionist Betrayal?’”

  Rakkim shrugged. “I’ve heard dozens of conspiracy theories about the Zionist attack. Did she have any evidence?”

  “The book’s unfinished, and I was just able to retrieve bits of it, but her conclusion is obvious. The Zionist Betrayal was another blood libel against the Jews. The worst yet.”

  “Obvious to you. No evidence, but the Jews are innocent. How convenient.” Rakkim saw he had hurt the man’s feelings. “Who did Sarah think was really behind the attacks?”

  “Her r-r-research,” Spider stuttered, “her research wasn’t definitive. She mentions an unnamed Saudi or a Yemeni…maybe a Pakistani. He’s referred to usually as the Old One. She doesn’t even know if he’s still alive. He was evidently in his sixties at the time of the attack, which would make him in his nineties today, but—”

  “The terrorists confessed. They were born and raised and trained in Israel, and they confessed on live TV. You’ve seen it. The whole world has seen it.”

  “The man works on an incredibly long-range time frame. He must have spent twenty or thirty years putting the operation into place.” Spider’s hands flapped from the sleeves of his pajamas. “According to Sarah, he seeded his operatives into Israel as Jewish immigrants. It was the children of these deep sleepers, raised and educated in Israel, who rose within the political and military establishment—”

  “The terrorists were executed. You think their parents raised them, loved them, knowing the whole time they were going to be sacrificed? And the children agreed?”

  “I know, I know, but the Old One occupied some sort of cultural and religious sweet spot. The devotion he inspired…” Spider’s fingers wriggled. “He’s taken on the mantle of a Muslim figure of antiquity, the old man of the mountains, an eleventh-century mystic—”

  “Yeah, Hassan-i-Sabah. I’ve read the story. He supposedly inspired such loyalty that his followers willingly threw themselves off cliffs if he merely beckoned.”

  “The stories are true. Hassan-i-Sabah believed that God had anointed him to unite all Muslims, and he acted on that belief. His acolytes assassinated dozens of Muslim monarchs in his day, including the caliph of Baghdad.”

  Rakkim remained skeptical. “So the Jews are blamed for the attacks, and Damon Kingsley becomes president-for-life of the new Islamic Republic. You think he was part of the deception? Sorry, but Kingsley is no extremist.”

  “Yes, Kingsley is a moderate, a grave sin to a true believer. In fact, if the Old One is anything like the original old man of the mountains, he’s as hostile to other Muslims as he is to Jews. Kingsley’s election means that the Old One didn’t completely achieve his goal.” Spider twitched. “But that doesn’t mean the plan isn’t still going forward, whether or not the Old One is still alive.”

  “Why didn’t Sarah tell Redbeard about this?”

  “Maybe she didn’t trust him to help her…or maybe she knew he didn’t have the power to do anything about it.” Spider blinked. “I cracked the congressional budget code eight years ago. Follow the money, and you’ll find the truth.” He blinked faster. “In the last three years, Redbeard’s budget has been cut forty percent. Recruitment and training have been crippled. The money is going to the army and the religious authorities…Fedayeen, of course. No one outside the Select Committee knows. I thought it was the Black Robes outmaneuvering him with Congress. Now I wonder.”

  “You see a lot from bits and pieces.”

  “That’s what I do. That’s what you do too, Fedayeen.” Spider watched Rakkim trying to process the new information. “Hard work to reimagine the world, isn’t it? It’s kept me busy too.” He handed Rakkim a flash-memory wafer. “This is everything I pulled off the core so far.”

  Rakkim slid the wafer into the port of his watch. “Who contacted Sarah at the Mecca Café? Did you find out who she’s working with?”

  Spider shook his head. “It was sent through a feed in Las Vegas, but that doesn’t help. Vegas is a hub. There are so many satellite uplinks over that city that the sender could be anywhere in the world.” A baby was crying again. “So many of us killed. Homes burned. Businesses looted. Civil war…and it was all a lie.” His tics were like mild electric shocks. “You were lucky, Rakkim. Being an orphan allows for certain…opportunities.”


  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “All those records lost during the transition. Databases infected…I couldn’t find you anywhere. Just another displaced person. Who could blame you for rewriting your own history?”

  “I’m a Muslim.”

  “A Muslim who risks his life to save Jews? I’ve never met such a creature.”

  “Jews and homosexuals, apostates and witches too—I’ve led them all to the promised land. Does that make me Moses?”

  “It makes you too good to be true.”

  Rakkim ignored it. “Any mention of China on the core? Or the Three Gorges Dam?”

  “No, why?”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “We’ll settle when I’m done.” Spider’s expression smoothed out. Serene almost. “What did you think of my daughter?”

  “Carla? She seemed…” Rakkim laughed. “I wondered why you didn’t just have Elroy bring me here right off. I didn’t need to go to the restaurant. You could have told me everything she did. I’m flattered, Spider, but you didn’t need to run your daughter past for my approval—”

  “Your approval?” Spider’s face crinkled with restrained laughter. “I sent you to the restaurant to see if you met with her approval.”

  “She can do better.” Rakkim stood up. “Ask Elroy to take me back.” He didn’t need help, but there was no need to advertise it. “Keep working on the core.”

  “Shalom, Rakkim.”

  “Salaam alaikum.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Dawn prayers

  Rakkim used the call to prayer to hurry past the No Admittance sign to the upper level of the House of Martyrs War Museum. The uniformed army sergeant at the top of the stairs was busy with his prayer mat—Rakkim stayed at the edges of the guard’s peripheral vision, silently mirroring the man’s posture as he slipped past. Fedayeen training, shadow warrior training, the closest thing to invisibility. Rakkim could walk through a crowd of devout women, barely grazing their chadors, and if questioned afterward, none of them would remember him, they would merely have a fleeting impression of someone urging them forward, a nagging sense that they were late to mosque. He could trudge along with a flood of coal miners in the Bible Belt, part of the conversation and the weariness, until a grimy peckerwood looked around and the man he had been talking to about the price of hogs would be gone. Shadow warrior training.

  “In the name of Allah.” The collective whisper…“In the name of Allah.” From the balcony, Rakkim could see the early-morning visitors lined up on their mats below, beginning their ablutions. The air in the museum was purified; according to the grand mufti, believers were not required to perform ritual cleansing with water. Most still followed the proper forms, rubbing their hands, then mouth, nose, face, ears, forehead, head, and feet in the sanctified atmosphere. Finished, they stood in neat rows, hands raised to the level of the face. Men in front. Women behind them. Modesty and subordination, moderns and moderates and fundamentalists, wheels within wheels before Allah. Rakkim watched, calmed by the rhythmic movements of their devotions. Bowing forward from the waist, hands resting on their knees. Prostrate, hands flat, foreheads grazing the mat. Returning to the upright position, to start the process again and again, to finally end seated on their heels.

  Unlike the rote prayers at the Super Bowl, the cycles of the believers here were graceful, hands and feet perfectly positioned. Something about the majesty of the War Museum, the somber minimalism of the interior, the wreckage of the shattered Space Needle visible through the windows, made even the moderns cleave to their faith. He listened to the believers reaffirm the power and protection of Allah, their voices echoing in the great hall—“Glory be to our Lord the Most High.”

  Rakkim moved on. Redbeard was here already. Rakkim had spotted his advance team about twenty minutes ago—four men dressed as tourists, gawkers with nametags. He had watched them split up, ambling toward the choke points, the narrow areas of the museum where an ambush would be most effective.

  Rakkim had barely slept after seeing Spider last night, but Redbeard had insisted on meeting this morning, eager to discuss Rakkim’s progress. You have made progress, haven’t you, Rakkim?

  Of course, I have, Uncle, it just depends on what you mean by progress. Rakkim wandered over to the Devil’s Chamber, stepped aside as a mother quickly led her children out. The little boy was weeping. The chamber seemed five or ten degrees colder than the rest of the museum, a darkened room where a wall screen played an endless loop of Richard Aaron Goldberg’s confession. This year would be the twenty-seventh anniversary of his public confession to the Zionist attack. The newspapers and television would run round-the-clock coverage as they did every year on this date, billboards and cell phones flashing 5-19-2015 NEVER FORGET.

  Rakkim watched Goldberg on-screen, the man thin and frightened as he sat facing the cameras. The sound was nearly off, but it didn’t matter. Everyone in the country could repeat his confession verbatim.

  My name is Richard Aaron Goldberg. Eleven days ago my team simultaneously detonated three nuclear weapons. One destroyed New York City. Another destroyed Washington, D.C., and the third left the city of Mecca a radioactive death trap. Our intention… Goldberg placed a hand on his shaking knee. The plan was for radical Islamists to be blamed. To drive a wedge between the West and Muslims, and to create chaos within the Muslim world itself. I think…I believe we would have succeeded had it not been for some bad luck. He lifted his chin. My name is Richard Aaron Goldberg. My team and I are part of a secret unit of the Mossad.

  Rakkim watched the confession again. Then he walked back into the main hall. Spider might believe the bits and pieces he had pulled off Sarah’s flash-memory. Sarah might even believe what she had written. Rakkim didn’t. For Sarah to be right about the Zionist Betrayal meant that Richard Aaron Goldberg and the other confessed Mossad agents were lying their way to a date with the executioner. It meant Richard Aaron Goldberg and the others, born and raised in Israel, had turned against their country and their religion. Nothing was impossible, but Rakkim had just watched the confession the second time ignoring everything being said. Concentrating instead on Goldberg’s posture, his involuntary muscular movements, the look in his eye…the bastard was telling the truth. Sarah was wrong.

  There might still be an Old One, some Arab eager to assume the mantle of Mahdi, some sworn enemy of Redbeard. Fine, get in line, Redbeard had plenty of enemies, but the Israelis were solely responsible for nuking New York and D.C. and Mecca. Sarah’s alternative history was wrong, but it didn’t matter. She was still in danger. If Redbeard was losing influence, though, as Spider said, then his ability to protect Sarah was compromised, and the Old One, or some other enemy, was in ascendance. An ominous power shift. Maybe that was the real reason Redbeard had asked for his help.

  Rakkim kept walking.

  The War Museum was a modest, understated dome built beside the crumpled Space Needle, the old monument lying on its side, rusting in the weather. The exterior of the museum was surfaced with small tiles made by schoolchildren, each one inscribed with the name of a martyred soldier. The interior was sparsely decorated and dimly lit, the walls lined with blue-veined lapis lazuli. Visitors, even the young, found themselves walking slowly, adding to the somber elegance of the site. At the center of the museum rested a simple, Arabic edition of the Qur’an. 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 Qur’an was untouched by the atomic blast, the cover pristine, its pages shiny and white.

  Taking photographs inside the museum was not permitted, nor were reproductions available. This was sacred ground. Open to all, regardless of religion. The Black Robes had long sought to restrict the site to devout Muslims, but by presidential decree, the federal government maintained sole responsibility for the museum, with army personnel in charge of operations, and army imams responsible for prayer
s.

  After the civil war, both sides had claimed Washington, D.C., fighting over the dead streets, hoping to recapture the glory of the former capital. The D.C. Qur’an had been the great prize for the Islamic Republic, while the Bible Belt carted off the statue of Thomas Jefferson from its memorial, installing the scorched marble in their new capital of Atlanta. Rakkim had actually seen the statue, waiting in line for hours to file past, silent, staring at the president’s solemn face through lead glass. New York City had remained largely untouched, its crumpled skyscrapers mute, the dingy Hudson lapping through Manhattan, the waters rising as the ice caps slowly melted.

  Rakkim had been to New York only once, part of a recon team of Fedayeen dropped in to search for financial records rumored to be under the Stock Exchange. Three days in full containment gear and he never saw a bird. Or a rat. Or any other living thing. Except cockroaches. The roaches carpeted the basements, shimmering in the flashlight beams, wings aflutter, and he didn’t want to think about what they fed on. Three days…if there was anything under the Stock Exchange it remained safe and secure from the living. He was never so happy to leave a place.

  Rakkim strolled toward the wall maps showing the great battles of the war. Chicago, reduced to cinders. Detroit’s auto works gutted by terrorist bombs. Sante Fe. Denver. The St. Louis arch collapsed. Newark, the deepest penetration into the Islamic states by the Christian armies. Newark fought block by block, a city given up to the flames. Newark, where Islamic reinforcements, most still in high school, had finally stopped the Christian advance. Bloody Newark. The photos of the dead went on for fifty yards. Rakkim had visited the museum hundreds of times, and the photos of the war’s leftovers always affected him the most. A single shoe, a black lace-up dress shoe, still so shiny you could see the photographer reflected. A crushed bicycle. An upended mailbox, letters spilling out onto the mud: phone bills and love letters and birthday cards.