Sarah rested her hand on his neck, kneading out the knots.
Rakkim smiled, but there was no joy in it. “You should have seen the mother, this good Muslim woman who prayed five times a day and had been putting aside quarters for her hajj since she was five. This good mother killed one of the werewolves, a skinny little psycho with his hair in braids—she split his head open with a rock and she never even blinked. Allah be praised, right?”
“Without the assistance of Allah, we cannot save ourselves from any evil,” Sarah recited.
Rakkim shook his head. “I found an animal path, a path so faint even I could barely see it, but it was all we had. I told the father to take his family and not look back. Said I’d stay behind and pick them off as they followed. I told him to run, but he was gasping, and there was blood running from his nose and into his little girl’s hair. The blood was black as oil in the moonlight.” He could feel Sarah’s touch. It felt as if she were inside him. “I kept telling him to go, but he handed me his little girl and darted off into the brush. Deliberately making noise, crashing and thrashing, and the werewolves…they went after him. He saved us. Nervous man with a potbelly and glasses, he lured them away. I took his little girl, and I carried her against my chest, and I led her mother and brother down the path, all of us running, and when we heard the father screaming in the distance…we kept running.” He looked at Sarah. “That’s what happened.”
Sarah kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
“I told them I would get them to Canada. I said I would protect them.”
“Where are they now?”
“The little girl…she died in my arms. I took the mother and son to Green Briar and left her with the squatters. I came back a week later, but they didn’t want to leave. The squatters had accepted them. Made them welcome. Both of them, and the daughter was buried there…”
They must have driven another mile before Sarah spoke. “You’re going to snare the assassin in one of the werewolves’ traps. You thought of it back at Marian’s house. That’s why you didn’t get rid of the tracking device.”
Rakkim nodded. He loved a smart woman.
“How are you going to work it so he gets trapped and not us?”
Rakkim slowed, let the car come to a complete stop. Turned off the lights. Wind whipped the trees, sent dead leaves skittering. The road was a slight downhill, running straight through the trees. Perfect place for a trap, the traveler eager to get past the dense forest, accelerating, taking advantage of the terrain.
“Oh.” Sarah sounded sick. “I see.”
Rakkim got out. “Get behind the wheel. If something happens…if this doesn’t work—”
“It’ll work.”
Rain streamed down his face. “If I get ambushed, drive on the shoulder and keep going. Don’t stop for me, or anything else. Go back to Jill’s. I’ll find you.”
“I’m not scared.” It was a lie, but he was glad she made the attempt. She slid behind the wheel. “Bombing the Holy City, blaming the Jews…the Old One is cursed. That’s why his plan has been frustrated. We’re instruments of God, Rakkim. Allah has power over everything. He won’t allow us to fail.”
Rakkim kissed her on the lips, savoring her warmth. “If you say so.”
Sarah reached for him, but he was already gone, trotting down the road. The wind gusted, made his clothes flap, but it felt good to be outside, good to be cold, battered by the storm. A few minutes later, he heard gravel crunching far behind him. Sarah slowly followed him, engine off, coasting, lights out. He would have preferred she stayed put, but he didn’t think it likely that the werewolves kept patrols out all night. The squatters had to be alert to attack, but no one was going to go after the werewolves. He kept his eyes open anyway, staying to the edge of the road, and when a tree limb cracked in the darkness, he crouched for an attack.
It was another mile before he saw the spike strip laid across the road. Painted flat black, nearly invisible, so well hidden that he nearly stumbled on it. He dragged it into the underbrush, listening. No one was there. He closed his eyes, waited, then opened them. No one other than Fedayeen would have spotted it, but there, through the trees…a light flickered. A candle lantern probably. Rakkim ran a couple of hundred yards past where he had found the spike strip. There were no other traps. The werewolves figured rightly that the spike strip would be enough to blow out the tires of cars going in either direction, send them careening into the ravine or crashing into a tree.
He ran back to Sarah, had her drive forward, then pulled the spike strip back into place behind the car. He tried to get into the driver’s seat, but she waved him around to the other side and started the engine. He kept expecting the werewolves to break from the underbrush, howling, face paint dripping in the storm.
“I want you to drive very slowly away—”
Sarah floored it. The tires spun, churning up gravel as they roared down the road. She hit the high beams.
“What are you doing?”
“You said the assassin would stop when we stopped and drive on when we did,” said Sarah, still accelerating. “I’d rather he was speeding when he hits those spikes.”
Rakkim looked behind him. It was a good plan. “Just stay on the road.” Far behind them, at the turnoff from the logging road, Rakkim thought he saw a glimmer of headlights through the rain, but it was just lightning flashing. He kept watch anyway.
CHAPTER 32
Before dawn prayers
Darwin sat in the car, headlights off, listening to the patter of rain on the roof and thinking of the handsome young police officer. He remembered the way the man had washed his feet in the bathtub prior to prayers, his long toes, and the care with which he had prepared himself for his devotions. They said that a good Muslim was always ready for death. So, in this case, Darwin had been an instrument of divine instruction, a reiteration of the need for—
The tracking receiver suddenly started beeping, startling Darwin out of his metaphysical musings. With his night-vision goggles the flashing diodes of the receiver seemed bright as shooting stars, the beeping a high-pitched keening now. What’s your hurry, lovebirds? Darwin tromped on the accelerator, wheels spinning for a moment on the wet road, leaving tire patches as he raced after them.
Smart move on Rakkim’s part, speeding off after another fifteen-minute stop, a near surefire way to shake anyone tailing them. Anyone without a receiver. Darwin doubted that they knew he was following them, but it was a clever tactic. Just what he would have expected from Rakkim. That was the unique thing about this assignment…the challenge.
Not that his previous jobs had been without risk or difficulty. That was to be expected. That’s why the Old One used him. Darwin had once assassinated a powerful, liberal ayatollah within his own mosque, killed him as he was getting ready for dawn prayers. The ayatollah’s bodyguards and acolytes were just outside the door of his office when Darwin struck, the killing perfectly timed, the call of the muezzin drowning out the cleric’s dying groans. Darwin smiled, remembering how he had carved a Star of David on the ayatollah’s chest, the man still alive, struggling silently, his screams blocked by the head of a fetal pig Darwin had shoved into his mouth. It was those kinds of creative touches that Darwin took the most pride in. Oh, planning the operations was interesting, and the killings themselves were often done under perilous circumstances…but it was those jazzy little riffs that he remembered so fondly afterward.
Yes, when the time came to kill Rakkim, Darwin was going to make sure the method of his dying was worthy of the man. The girl…Sarah, she would have to figure in somehow. Was it turtle doves that mated for life? When one died, so did the other? Or was that just a story? Darwin accelerated, tires squealing around the curves, his hands loose on the wheel, steering with his fingertips. Most people thought that love was as close to immortality as we got in this corrupt and material world, but Darwin knew better. Love was the first tentative step into death, the toe-touch into the cold, infinite night. Darwin drove the
curves, thinking of the way Rakkim and Sarah had clutched each other in the foyer of Marian Warriq’s house, one last touch before braving the dark. Rakkim and Sarah sitting in a tree…k-i-s-s-i-n-g. They could keep their love, sweet love. Darwin was going to live forever.
Darwin accelerated through the storm, heedless of the bad road, his goggles turning the darkness gold and glowing. The road dipped down into a series of switchbacks, and he was forced to slow, the beeping from the tracking device still faster now—Rakkim had obviously found a straightaway. Must have chosen that particular stretch of road to make his run. Should have known he had driven it before. Rain and leaves pelted the windshield, but the wipers swept it clear. He was tempted to discard the goggles and turn on his headlights, but Rakkim and Sarah would be looking back, looking to see if lights were following them. No, better to keep them guessing. The tracking device had a ten-mile range. They weren’t going to get away.
Darwin was driving a modified black Cadillac, a roomy, luxury sedan appropriate for his role as a real estate salesman, but the car had four-wheel drive and advanced steering and suspension. It handled like a race car. Darwin punched it down the slick road, exhilarated, tiny beads of sweat rimming the back of his ears. The car hit a pothole, but the heavy shocks absorbed the impact with barely a bump. Faster now, the road beginning to flatten out. The beeping from the receiver slowed slightly. He was gaining now. No danger of them outrunning the range of the unit. He intended to get close enough to see their red taillights and then back off.
Darwin raced through the night, lights off, thinking again of the handsome young policeman and the way he kept trying to raise the pistol, even at the very end. The persistence of the common man, the ones who knew they were overmatched and yet still kept fighting…it was a source of wonder and delight, as inspiring as the aurora borealis or an ancient Al Green gospel song. When this business was all over, when the dead were buried and the Old One was satisfied, Darwin was going to visit the handsome young policeman’s grave. He would return the policeman’s badge to him. Leave it resting against his headstone with a bouquet of red roses. It was the least he could do.
The car was doing sixty-five down the straightaway when Darwin caught a gleam of light on the road. A mere shimmer, but he knew what it was. Knew too late what Rakkim had done. He didn’t even try to brake. Not at that speed. Not on the wet road.
The spike strip blew out all four tires, the sound like distant fireworks within the thick-insulted interior of the Cadillac. Pow-pow-pow-pow. Rakkim was having a regular celebration. Darwin gripped the wheel, trying to maintain control as the car fishtailed. The tires had a solid core, a secondary tire able to be driven on…just not in these conditions. Not at this speed. The Cadillac veered to the right, caught the soft, rain-soaked shoulder, and flipped. Darwin relaxed, settled back in the seat cushion as the car landed on its roof, sending pain shooting through his neck.
The air bags deployed as the car rolled again and again, Darwin bouncing from side to side, over and over as the car tore through the tree line and down the embankment. Branches snapped against the frame, glass shattering, and with each bone-jarring impact, he drifted farther away. His last idle thought before the car came to a halt was whether the gas bladder would leak. It was designed like the fuel tank of a high-performance aircraft. Sheathed in a spark-resistant titanium alloy…but, still, one had to question. Technology was always prone to human error and the optimism of the engineers who had designed it. That’s why the Fedayeen always said the most reliable technology, the ultimate weapon, was a trained warrior left naked in the snow.
Darwin awoke to shouting. Men with flashlights and torches were outside the car. Lots of men. Beating on the sides of the car. Drumming on the dented metal. Men with painted faces. Teeth filed to points in the torchlight. Did he really see that? He pulled off his night goggles. The car was on its side, tilted downhill. The air bags deflated, sagging across the interior of the car like jellyfish. His right eye was swollen. His neck hurt. His knee too. The tracking receiver beeped steadily. So Rakkim and Sarah had stopped again. Were probably watching him from some vantage point. A picnic in the rain. Enjoy yourself, Fedayeen. In the rearview mirror he saw men popping open the trunk with crowbars, hooting and hollering, howling. Darwin tasted blood in his mouth. How nice to be the life of the party.
A shirtless fat man waved a golf club outside his window. Hairy teats like a sow. Taking a full windup.
Darwin covered his eyes with his arm as the golf club blasted through the window. He cupped his knife as they dragged him out the window, a shard of glass cutting a swath across his torso. A ribbon of flesh. Darwin gently eased the knife into the fat man with the golf club, slipped the blade into his belly button, slipped it in and out, with just the right twist at the deepest penetration.
The men around him didn’t even notice the sound the fat man made, too intent on kicking at Darwin, shouting in his face, tearing at his suit and patting his pockets for money. A boy swatted Darwin across the ear with a flashlight, and Darwin’s hand flew out, greeting him. A bulbous fellow in a soggy army jacket kneed Darwin, and Darwin thanked him with the edge of his blade. More men arrived, torches high, sliding down the steep slope. They didn’t even notice when man after man fell in a gush of blood, torches guttering on the wet ground. They just assumed the men had lost their footing and were eager to take their place, already arguing over how much ransom Darwin would bring.
Some people thought Fedayeen assassins moved outside of time, either too quickly or too slowly for the laws of the universe to apply. Of course, it wasn’t true. Assassins knew the moment to strike, the instant of vulnerability, the minute interval between attention and inattention.
Darwin let the men pass him around, his head ringing from their blows, his knife dancing among them as though looking for a partner. When they finally realized what was happening, when the mud was thick with them, Darwin threw back his head, rain beating against his face and laughed at the little trick that Rakkim had played on him. It had been a long time since he had been fooled so badly.
The men stopped for an instant, looking at each other. Filthy men. Bleeding. Hair matted. Beards full of dirt and leaves. Dead men. They raised their weapons, hefted their bats and chains and clubs and knives. They screamed and cursed, and they charged.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Sarah shielded her eyes from the rain with her hand. Pointed at the lights flickering in the distance. “The werewolves got him.” She sounded giddy.
Rakkim hefted the tracking device he had removed from the undercarriage of the car, sailed it into the night. “Maybe.”
Sarah looked at him. “You said the crash alone would probably kill him.”
“The car didn’t explode. The gas tank should have gone up. Even in the rain, there should have been a fireball…something big enough to set the trees ablaze.” Rakkim watched the torches bob in the night. Torches up and down the ravine. If Rakkim were alone, he would drive back and see for himself if the assassin had survived the crash. And if he had survived, see if he had survived the werewolves. Rakkim wasn’t alone though.
“Let’s go back and make sure,” said Sarah. “What’s so funny?”
“I love you, that’s—”
There was a blast of light brighter than all the torches as the gas tank exploded.
Rakkim counted the seconds until the echo reached them. About four miles away. In that instant when the gas tank blew, Rakkim thought he had seen bodies flying through the air. The fire was shrinking, going out in the downpour. There were still torches, but they were fewer and scattered now. Two or three pine trees around the site crackled, their lower branches going up.
Sarah stood beside him, the two of them holding hands as though they were watching fireworks at their wedding. “You did it, Rikki. You killed him.”
Rakkim watched the trees burning in the rain.
“Can we go now?” said Sarah. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Rakkim kissed her, f
elt the warmth of her lips. “We can go now.”
CHAPTER 33
After dawn prayers
Watching Sarah sleep in the morning light…a pleasure he had thought he had lost. Her face was half covered by her dark hair, tangled ringlets damp with sweat. Even with the curtains pulled, he could see her skin glowing from their groaning lovemaking, beyond words. Locked together afterward, eyes closed, still seeing the fireball as the assassin’s car exploded in the rain. Candy and flowers were fine, but fear was the ultimate aphrodisiac. Rakkim watched her breathe, fascinated by the way her lips parted, the shape of her mouth—the gate to heaven and hell. Ripe with promise.
For all their talk of fire and brimstone, the Christian vision of Hades was a pale reflection of the Muslim’s hell. Those who rejected Allah were burned alive throughout eternity, their skin instantly replaced so they could be incinerated again and again. If the Christian hell offered half-measures of pain, their heaven offered equally dilute joys—an afterlife of wings and clouds and harps. Muslims expected the full measure of ecstasy in Paradise, virgin lovers and perfect mates, the joys of the flesh in rapturous and infinite varieties, a suitable reward for devotion in this life.
Rakkim ran the tip of his tongue across Sarah’s lower lip. Paradise might not await him in death, but he was grateful for the glimpse that Sarah offered him. Her heat, the curve of her hips…he was never closer to God than when he was inside her. At moments like this, Rakkim could almost forgive himself his sins. He thought of Colarusso in the basement of his church, asking Rakkim if he wanted Father Joe to hear his confession. Catholics. Their God forgave everything. What a pushover.
Prayers for the Assassin Page 24