Al-Faisal stumbled on a patch of blackened sidewalk, the concrete cracked and uneven. A suicide bomber had blown himself up on this spot on Easter Sunday a year ago. The bomber had been trying to get into the Kitchy Koo Klub but the place was packed; he had to settle for taking out forty-three people waiting outside. A costly ticket to Paradise. It had been a bad spring in the capital, with suicide bombers targeting the Zone, the death toll in the hundreds. Officially, Bible Belt zealots had been blamed, but the grand mullah of the Black Robes in New Fallujah had been responsible. The president himself visited the Zone after the worst attack, cameras rolling, declaring the nation would not be intimidated. He also quietly ordered a Fedayeen commando team to infiltrate New Fallujah and blow up the grand mullah’s personal mosque. The suicide attacks in the capital stopped immediately.
Al-Faisal turned abruptly and Rakkim thought for a moment that he had been spotted, but the cleric turned back, ducked quickly into a tiny storefront, Eagleton Digital Entertainment. That was a surprise. A long-term resident of the Zone, Eagleton was a staunch modern, a Web hacker and freethinker. The tech wizard had spent many afternoons drinking khat tea at the Blue Moon, getting a pleasant buzz on. So what business did ibn-Azziz’s emissary have with him?
Rakkim turned into the next alley, lost himself in the darkness. A glance back to the street, and he free-climbed the vertical brick wall, using just his fingertips and the toes of his boots, swiftly working his way up to the roof of the building next door. From this position he could see if al-Faisal left by the front or back door of the store. Either way, he would follow. Later he would have a chat with Eagleton.
Rakkim waited. Watched as the bodyguards took positions nearby, pretending to window-shop. The trailing bodyguard stood in the doorway of the Crocodile Club listening to music, ignoring the three-hundred-pound bouncer who told him either to come in or move on. The bouncer took a closer look at the man and retreated inside the club.
Rakkim perched in the shadows, noted how the bodyguards carried themselves. He caught his breath, feeling the vibration of the transceiver implanted in his right earlobe. Two long, three short jolts. An emergency signal from Sarah. Three shorts was a call to meet her at the Presidential Palace. Two short meant at home. One short at their safe house south of Khomeini stadium. He waited for the repeal call that would validate the signal. There it was. He hesitated, hating to back off from al-Faisal. No, he should go. He clambered down the wall, slid down the last ten feet. Pulled out his cell. Maybe Colarusso could tail al-Faisal. It wasn’t a police matter, but Rakkim trusted Colarusso more than State Security. He took a look behind him as the phone beeped, saw al-Faisal hurry from the shop, going against the traffic flow now. The cleric patted his right pocket, reassuring himself. He had gotten more than information from Eagleton.
“What’s up, Rikki?” said Colarusso, the detective’s voice gruff.
“Later.” Rakkim slipped the phone away. Checked his watch. If Sarah was at the Presidential Palace, she couldn’t be in any immediate danger. Not likely, anyway. He walked after al-Faisal, slowed as he passed the storefront. The windows were one-way glass. LED CLOSED sign. He had intended to talk to Eagleton after following al-Faisal, but now…something had changed hands in the store, something important enough to draw al-Faisal out of New Fallujah. He reached for the door, saw blood on the knob.
Down the street, al-Faisal increased his pace. Whatever he had gotten from Eagleton made haste his primary concern. Two of his bodyguards fell in beside him, flanked him. The third led the way, breaking a path through the partygoers with his scowl and his shoulders.
Rakkim walked after them, keeping to the edges of the street, where he could make faster progress.
The taller of the bodyguards whirled around.
Rakkim shuffled along, hands waving, muttering to himself like another of the human gin blossoms that frequented the Zone, sloppy from bootleg alcohol. He sagged against a lamppost, pretending to breathe hard, sneaked a look toward al-Faisal.
The tall bodyguard stared right at him. Not taking his eyes away, he said something. The other flanking bodyguard stopped while the third bodyguard in front grabbed al-Faisal by the wrist and dragged him down a side street. The flankers followed slowly as Rakkim hurried to catch up, slipping through the crowd with barely any contact.
This side street must have been picked as their rally point beforehand. Narrow as an alley, its few shops closed for the night. A powerful German sedan waited at the end of the street, idling behind a yellow construction barrier that kept out other traffic. The black sedan was a common vehicle in the capital, easily lost among the evening traffic.
Al-Faisal was halfway to the car by the time Rakkim started down the narrow street. The two tailing bodyguards calmly took positions on either side. Their arms hung loose, knives glinting in the dim light. Like all Fedayeen they were trained to be ambidextrous. The one on Rakkim’s right kept his blade in his left hand, the one on his left held his knife in his right. That way they covered maximum space. Rakkim raised his own knife in a mocking salute. They didn’t react, which spoke well for them. He might have learned something from seeing how they handled their blades.
“What’s your hurry?” Rakkim called to al-Faisal. He had no idea where his own sudden good humor came from. “Stay and watch the fun, al-Faisal. I’m all alone.”
Al-Faisal stopped. Shook off his bodyguard. He seemed calm.
“That’s better.” Rakkim smiled broader. The two bodyguards slightly repositioned themselves, but he ignored them. “The last time I saw you it was Eid al-Fitr, two years ago. You were on the Bridge of Skulls.” He strolled closer. “There was a boy…maybe eight years old. He had broken his Ramadan fast. Ate an orange. Not a whole orange. Just one section.” He could see al-Faisal’s eyes narrow. “You remember the boy?”
“I remember a blasphemer,” said al-Faisal.
“You gave him three hundred lashes.” Rakkim rocked slightly forward. “The boy died after the seventy-third stroke of the whip. Must have been quite a…” Rakkim raced toward al-Faisal, his knife flicking out toward the two bodyguards as he sped past them. “…disappointment to you.”
Al-Faisal’s third bodyguard shoved him into the sedan. Dove in after him as the driver screeched away.
Rakkim grabbed for the door handle. Missed. He watched al-Faisal’s annoyed face pressed against the glass of the back window until the car turned a corner. Rakkim walked back to the two bodyguards.
One of the bodyguards lay curled on the pavement. The tall one stood unmoving, still planted in the direction Rakkim had come from.
Rakkim circled him. The bodyguard was in his late thirties, built strong, with dirty blond hair and a scar meandering along one cheek. Sweat rolled down his face. Rakkim marveled at the effort it must have taken not to move. To tense all of his muscles. All of his being. Rakkim had stabbed the two bodyguards in the upper abdomen as he passed. Stabbed them deep in exactly the same spot. The fourteenth ganglia, a cluster of critical nerves just above the solar plexus. Instantaneous death. Except in very rare instances, when the victim stayed perfectly still. So still that the nerve impulses still managed to make the leap across the cut tissue, the familiar pathways in service for a few moments longer.
The tall bodyguard blinked furiously, sweat glistening along his eyebrows. Fear bloomed in his eyes, but he kept that in check. His tongue moistened his lips. “How?”
Rakkim stayed silent. The bodyguards were combat Fedayeen, some of the best fighters in the world. Only one in a thousand qualified for Fedayeen—that was both a motto and the truth—but only one Fedayeen in a thousand qualified to be a shadow warrior or an assassin. Rakkim’s attack had been fast, too fast for the bodyguards to defend against, but that wasn’t the answer to the tall bodyguard’s question. Rakkim had always been fast, even for a shadow warrior, but it was knowing precisely where to strike that he couldn’t explain. Knowledge of the killing ganglia, the training required to deal the fatal blow…that was
reserved exclusively for assassins. Rakkim hadn’t even been aware of what he was doing until he was past the two bodyguards. He had acted instinctively.
A spot of blood appeared on the bodyguard’s shirt. A tiny spot…but growing. The bodyguard twitched. Impossible to hold still enough. Even if he could, there was no fixing the man.
Rakkim thought of asking him where al-Faisal had gone but didn’t. The man wouldn’t tell, and Rakkim wouldn’t insult him by asking. The bodyguard might not have done the terrible things that al-Faisal had done, but he had facilitated evil, protected evil. He had chosen. Fedayeen swore an oath to defend the president and the nation. When the grand mullah had declared the president an apostate three years ago, the great majority of Fedayeen held fast to their vows, but many had resigned, aligning themselves with the Black Robes. No, the bodyguard had made his decision. He alone was responsible.
The tall bodyguard’s bright blue eyes were wide now. Hairs in his nostrils waved with every breath. He clamped his jaw tight.
Rakkim held the bodyguard’s gaze. He raised his knife in salute and this time he meant it. “Salaam alaikum. Go with God, Fedayeen.”
Eyelids fluttering, the tall bodyguard exhaled slowly, weary now, as though settling down for a rest after a long race. He sank to the pavement, already dead.
Rakkim hurried toward the Presidential Palace.
Chapter 4
The bioscanner beeped, refused Rakkim entry to the secret passage that led into the Presidential Palace. First time for that. Nothing worked right anymore. He stood within a small alcove outside the walled complex, a utility shed concealed by thick shrubbery and the darkness. Seagulls screamed overhead. Trucks rumbled in the distance.
Rakkim kept his heart rate at a steady sixty-five beats per minute as the bioscanner swept over him again. ENTRY REJECTED. Rakkim adjusted the Fedayeen knife nestled against his forearm—carbon-polymer, impregnated with his own DNA, the knife didn’t register on any scan. He smoothed it flat anyway. A third failure would set off alarms and armed response. He tried again. ACCEPTED. He stepped inside, the vault-thick outer door sliding shut behind him. Another bioscan required to get past the interior door. He thought of the two bodyguards he had just killed, and the look in the eyes of the tall one as he acknowledged his own death. The bodyguard seemed less troubled by his dying than Rakkim was with his method of killing him. Assassin tradecraft? Where had that come from? He heard Darwin’s mocking laughter echo in his skull as the security door opened into the president’s private corridor, and hated himself for his memories.
Rakkim double-timed down the corridor, wondering why Sarah had called him to the palace. Had the Old One resurfaced? That evil bastard wasn’t going to stop causing trouble until someone killed him. Rakkim would happily volunteer. Maybe ibn-Azziz, grand mullah of the Black Robes, was stirring from his stronghold in New Fallujah, Rakkim’s sighting of al-Faisal part of some new offensive. Rakkim just hoped nothing had happened to General Kidd—the Fedayeen commander was the president’s most loyal, and most important, supporter. Without the Fedayeen backing him, the president was just a well-intentioned figurehead. General Kidd had survived two assassination attempts in the last year. If anything had happened to him…
Rakkim opened the door into the president’s wood-paneled library. President Kingsley slouched behind his cluttered desk, exhausted, his fine white hair sticking up on one side. Sarah and Spider stood studying a holo-graphic map of North America that covered one wall—the Islamic Republic shaded light green, the Bible Belt in red. Lights pulsed in the current trouble spots in the Mormon Territories, highlighted the incursions into California and Arizona by the Aztlán Empire, the Mexicans attempting to reestablish ancient boundaries. Spider held on to a chair for support—a short, stocky Jewish genius, hair everywhere, twitching from the disease that was slowly killing him. Sarah smiled at Rakkim, then went back to the map.
The president scowled. “Glad you could make it, Rakkim.”
Rakkim didn’t let his surprise show. Kingsley took pains to maintain a semblance of good humor, even when the cameras weren’t rolling. What had happened?
“You are late, Rikki,” soothed Sarah.
“Al-Faisal is in town,” said Rakkim. “I tracked him to a tech store in the Zone.”
“Al-Faisal here?” Spider looked at Sarah. “Have you heard—”
“I don’t give a shit about al-Faisal.” The president tossed a chunk of jagged, twisted steel from hand to hand, a treasured piece of wreckage from Newark, the climactic battle of the Civil War. “The Black Robes are the least of my concerns.”
“What’s wrong?” said Rakkim.
“Wrong?” said the president, his watery eyes sunk into a nest of wrinkles. “What could be wrong? Allah watches over us, guides our every action, does he not?” He set the paperweight down, then came from behind his desk, a handsome man, formerly robust but slightly stooped now, even with the back brace that no one was supposed to know about. “I want you to go back to the Bible Belt. Save the nation, noble Fedayeen. Be the hero again.” He started for the door. “Sarah will fill you in on the details.”
The door clicked shut. Deniability, that’s what this sudden exit must be about. The president had sent Rakkim on other covert assignments. New Fallujah. The Mormon Territories. Rakkim had air-dropped into Pakistan, to follow up on a sighting of the Old One; slipped into the Aztlán Empire to find out what the Mexicans were up to. The president had always briefed Rakkim himself. Not this time. Tonight Sarah got the job while the president kept his manicure clean in case anything went wrong. President-for-life Kingsley was a great man, a moderate who had almost single-handedly kept the Islamic Republic united, and kept the fundamentalists at bay. But he was still a politician.
“What’s al-Faisal doing here?” said Spider.
“Not now.” Sarah walked to the wall map, took the remote from Spider’s trembling hand.
She was still the same woman Rakkim had fallen in love with, but her responsibilities as secret advisor to the president had taken their toll. So had the covert existence they lived, her rarely going out in public, and the necessity of constant security measures. A brilliant historian specializing in the transition between the former and the current regime, she had been forced to eliminate all contact with friends and colleagues. The strain showed. Sarah was still slender, her eyes just as lively, but her playful instincts were muted now, reserved for moments when they were alone. She had cut her dark hair shorter a year ago, said it was easier. He missed it curling past her shoulders, brushing against him while they made love.
“Rikki?” Sarah nodded at the map. The central region of the Belt—Tennessee and the Carolinas—filled the wall. “You know who Colonel Zachary Smitts is, don’t you?”
“Yeah…I know the Colonel.” Memory carried the smell of bacon and coffee flavored with chicory. Twelve years ago Rakkim had been eating breakfast in a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. His second insertion as a shadow warrior. The Colonel’s picture hung over the counter, not the usual airbrushed glory of the fake warrior, but the Colonel in a filthy rebel uniform, unshaven, an unfiltered cigarette dangling from his lip. Portrait of a young man, hard and handsome under the dirt, a backwoods Elvis with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder instead of a guitar. The Colonel had looked back at him from the picture, tired but unbeaten…look what you made me do. A trucker had sat at the counter beside Rakkim, tugged at his hat toward the photo. Rakkim had done something similar a few moments later, raising his coffee cup to the photo before he drank—oblique mirroring, a way to bond with a subject without him being aware of it. “His people love him, I know that much. He’s a smalltime Tennessee warlord sitting on some prime real estate. Civil War hero. Brutal but smart. He stopped our advance along the eastern front. Saved Tennessee and the Carolinas. Did it outmanned and outgunned too.”
“He’s not small-time now, and he’s not outmanned or outgunned anymore either.” Sarah scrolled through the map, zoo
med in on Atlanta. Closer. The satellite imagery jerked, went to static. She toggled the remote. The image sharpened for a moment, then broke up. She threw down the remote, glared at Spider. “I thought you fixed the digital filter.”
“I tried,” said Spider. “The chaff’s slipping into lower orbits. Reception is getting worse across the board.”
“I’m…sorry,” said Sarah.
“I’ll keep working on it,” said Spider, “but for now, forget the real-time map.”
Last year, a weather satellite had exploded after hitting a chunk of space debris, probably an uncharted leftover from the Chinese fiasco of 2007. The effects of this recent strike were catastrophic—pieces from the weather satellite had struck another satellite, which had disintegrated, causing still more debris, and so on and so on. Within a week, nineteen satellites had been destroyed. Hundreds of remaining satellites had been moved into other orbits, but there was now a layer of fragments circling the earth, a spreading ring of metallic chaff disrupting the global grid. Television and telecommunications still functioned, if intermittently, but spy satellites had been rendered nearly useless.
“The president should be here, not dump this in your lap,” Rakkim said to Sarah.
“He had to leave for an emergency session in Geneva,” Spider said. “The big boys are getting restless now that they’re blind.”
Sins of the Assassin Page 4
