Prayers for the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

  Sarah watched him, her eyes silky.

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  Sarah reached down between his legs, drew the hardness from him, squeezed him harder still, her fingers gently working. “My sweet assassin.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Sarah kissed him. “You’re too modest.”

  Afterward, Sarah lay on top of him, dozing. He rested his hand on the downy patch at the base of her spine. A moist patch. He had licked every inch of her in the last couple of hours. Salty and sweet…warm as summer…Sarah.

  She raised herself up. Braced on her elbows, looking down at him, still sleepy-eyed. Her small breasts brushed his bare chest. “I missed you, Rikki.”

  He felt her nipples thicken against him. “I can tell.” She rested her face against him as he cupped her ass, pulling himself deeper inside her.

  They were entwined on the pullout sofa in the half-empty office building, their clothes abandoned. Dropped beside the cardboard boxes filled with Warriq’s journals. The snapshot of Sarah as an infant in her father’s arms lay on the coffee table. Traffic sounds filtered from below. Horns and engines, faint conversation from the street. A perfect moment. Too perfect to last.

  “Do you think he’s still alive?”

  “Assassins are hard to kill.” He stroked her flanks, raised goosebumps. “All I know is that he’s not here. There’s just us.”

  Sarah rolled off him, rested on her side, one leg across his thigh, and he stiffened yet again. “I keep thinking about Marian. I didn’t even tell her what I was looking for in her father’s journals.”

  “You haven’t told me either.”

  Sarah yawned. “Lose the tone. We’re not married yet.”

  “Yeah, that’ll change everything. You’ll be a good wife who never contradicts me, and I’ll be bored out of my skull.” He got a smile out of her, and she put her hand on his chest. “What are we looking for in the journals?”

  Sarah’s hand on his chest trembled. “A fourth bomb.”

  Rakkim sat up.

  “New York City, Washington, D.C., Mecca…” Sarah winced. “The fourth bomb was supposed to detonate in China.”

  “You know this?”

  “If the fourth bomb had gone off, China wouldn’t have stayed neutral. They were never going to become an Islamic state, but a billion and a half Chinese would have shared our grief and anger. Russia would never have dared offer the Zionists sanctuary. The whole world dynamic would have shifted. From a strictly academic view, the Old One’s plan was really…quite brilliant.”

  “Is the bomb supposed to be under the Three Gorges Dam?”

  She covered her surprise. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? What, you stuck a pin in a map and figured it was a good place to start?”

  Sarah stared at him. “You were in my bedroom? You noticed that?” She shook her head, seemed to consider whether she should keep talking. “My father learned of the existence of a fourth bomb shortly before he was murdered. It was somewhere in China, that’s what he told my mother. She still thinks it’s in Shanghai, but I’m convinced the Three Gorges Dam—”

  “Your mother?” Rakkim stared. “You’ve met her?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Katherine contacted me a couple years ago, right after my book came out—”

  “You haven’t seen her since you were a child—”

  “It was her. The first e-mail…she called me ciccia. It’s Italian. It’s means little fatty. I was chubby as a baby.” Sarah was crying, embarrassed, laughing too. “My mother was the only one who ever called me that. It’s one of the few things I remember about her.”

  Rakkim held her, felt her sobbing against him. Sarah had never talked about her mother, even when they were children. Redbeard had forbidden any mention of her, but that wasn’t it. Sarah did what she wanted. No, it was her way of pretending her mother’s absence didn’t matter. If Sarah believed she was in contact with her mother, he trusted her instincts. It made sense. Katherine Dougan had fled after her husband’s assassination. If anyone would have delved deeper into the Zionist attack, it would have been the first head of State Security. The Old One had him murdered, but James Dougan had talked to his wife first. Pillow talk, the oldest means of communication.

  Sarah wiped away a tear. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone. Not Redbeard. Not you.”

  “Redbeard probably already knows.” All those men Redbeard had interrogated after his brother’s murder…even if they didn’t know about the fourth bomb, some of them would have talked about the Old One before they died. No telling the extent of Redbeard’s knowledge. “Where is she?”

  “I have no idea. I’d go there if I did.”

  “Why involve you after all this time? She had to know it could get you killed.”

  “She didn’t have a choice. She’s been searching for the bomb for twenty years in Beijing and Shanghai, the political and financial centers, just like D.C. and New York. She had people she could trust, but they couldn’t find anything because they were looking in the wrong place. She wanted me to use my research skills to help her pinpoint the location in Shanghai, but I told her she had made a mistake.”

  “Just like that, you knew she was wrong?”

  “Not just like that.” Sarah yawned again. It was as though sharing her secrets had drained the last of her energy. “My specialty…my research specialty is aberrant data collection and interpretation. Do you even know what that means?”

  “It means you use comic books and country music to write history.”

  Sarah smiled. “It means you find treasure in places most people don’t dig.” She nestled against his chest. “Katherine’s basic premise was suspect. The Old One nuked New York and D.C. because he wanted to bring the country to its knees, but he couldn’t hope to take over China. Besides…wiping out Shanghai would have brought down the global financial community and crippled China for a generation. Destroying the dam and blaming the Jews would have been wiser. The dam is a source of national pride as well as a vast industrial engine. Its destruction would have made the Chinese part of the Old One’s new world axis and set them back twenty years economically.”

  “Sarah…this is an interesting academic exercise—”

  “In 2012, fissionable fuel rods from a new Tajik reactor were stolen. The reactor’s technology was risky,” Sarah muttered into his chest, “the rods made from a rare isotope, supposedly much more powerful than plutonium. Highly unstable. Half the workers at the plant died of radiation poisoning within a year. The theft of the rods was never publicized. My father only found out…a few months before his murder. That’s why…why he suspected there was another bomb.”

  “The material used in the other bombs was standard plutonium,” said Rakkim.

  “The dam was designed to survive a 9.5 earthquake. Chinese military provided security, so no way would the Old One’s men be able to get close. Bringing down the dam required a big bang, five megatons at least. That’s why the Tajik fuel rods were needed.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t humor me.” Sarah’s eyes fluttered. “I went through so many people before I found Marian. A Chinese folk dance expert in Los Angeles…geologist in Chicago…this retired politician from the former regime who attended the dedication of the dam in 1995. The old letch smacked his lips describing the pickled fruits they ate at the celebration afterward, but he was the one who told me about Marian’s father. Called him an ‘odd duck, always writing everything down.’ Marian was on campus, and I had to go to a trailer park outside of Barstow to find out about her.”

  “I’ve skimmed a couple of the journals. Richard Warriq was a nut.”

  “The journals gave me my first real clue.” Sarah breathed heavily. “Three years after the nuke strikes, Warriq was in a tavern near the main reservoir. He wrote about some travelers complaining about the poor fishing in one of their favorite lakes. Not that the fish weren’t biting, but that the shore was littered with dead carp.”

/>   Rakkim stroked her hair. “What was the name of the lake?”

  “Warriq was more interested in describing their foul odor.” Sarah yawned. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “No…not at all.”

  “I track little things…small details that add up. Radiation detector at the airport in northern Laos went off a month before the attack. Town was a known smuggling center. The staff logged it in, but didn’t follow up.” Sarah dozed off for a few seconds, suddenly spoke. “See…the fourth bomb was leaking before it even got to China.”

  “Go back to sleep, I’ll—”

  “Article in a ten-year-old Journal of Aviary Science Online. There’s a species of arctic tern that rests in the wetlands around the Yangtze on their annual migration south. The broods have declined every year since the nuke strikes, and many of the chicks that did hatch were deformed. That’s interesting…don’t you think?”

  “Where are the wetlands this flock used? Did the article name a specific spot?”

  Sarah closed her eyes again. “There are wetlands for a hundred miles along the river. No one even studies arctic terns anymore. Virtually extinct. Pollution and global warming.” She yawned. “I’m so tired, Rikki. I’m tired, but I’m right.”

  Rakkim kissed her. “You’re onto something. You scared the Old One, Sarah. That’s why he sent the assassin to dog you. He’s hoping you’ll lead him to Katherine.”

  “Katherine said she missed me. I know I missed her. You miss your parents, don’t you?”

  “It’s been a long time.”

  “I know you, Rikki, you can’t fool me.” Sarah clung to him. “Let’s go to sleep. Let’s lie down and wake up in each other’s arms.”

  “You sleep. I’m not tired.”

  “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t. No telling the kind of trouble you’d get yourself into without me.”

  Sarah smiled…drifting now. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I left home.”

  “You’re home now.”

  “We’re safe here, aren’t we?”

  “We’re safe.”

  Rakkim waited until her breathing evened out, then stepped into the privacy room off the main office, and closed the door behind him. It had been a state-of-the-art facility ten years ago, the builders dreaming of redevelopment profits, but the economy had remained stagnant. The office complex was largely vacant, but the privacy units were still working, signal diffusers built into the walls and windows. Even under the best conditions, no one could pinpoint their location.

  Redbeard fumbled the phone before answering, his voice hoarse. He sounded half-asleep.

  “It’s me.”

  “Have you found her yet?” barked Redbeard, gruff as ever now.

  “I want you to check on a werewolf encampment. I assume you still have contacts—”

  “Do they have Sarah?”

  “No. It’s approximately eight miles east of Green Briar Estates. Do you know it?”

  “The werewolves are bad business, Rakkim, even for you. If you’re asking them for help in finding Sarah, I’d be very careful—”

  “The encampment is located on a lane logging road that jogs off from Green Briar. From the air, you should be able to spot a burned-out car at the site. Recently burned-out. I want to know what else you find there.”

  “You think Sarah was in that car?”

  “A Fedayeen assassin was tracking me through the badlands last night. A rogue Fedayeen—”

  “So you sicced the werewolves on him?” Redbeard’s chuckle was warm. They could have been discussing a practical joke played on a member of an opposing team.

  “Contact the werewolves. I need to know if the assassin is dead.”

  “Is he working for Ibn Azziz?”

  “You know who he’s working for.”

  Silence from Redbeard.

  “I’ll call you in a day or so.”

  “Do you know where Sarah is?”

  “She’s in the next room. I found her, just like I promised.” Rakkim broke the connection.

  Sarah was still sleeping, one arm cocked under her head. He could see the pulse beating in her throat and wondered if she was dreaming about her mother.

  At times, walking through a crowd, Rakkim would hear a woman laugh, and it was his mother’s laugh. He would find himself wondering if she wasn’t really in New York when the bomb went off. Wondering if maybe she was outside the city that day. He imagined her adrift after the attack, the communications grid crashed, lost on the opposite side of the country. Better to be lost than to be dead. She could still laugh if she was lost.

  Sarah stirred. He wanted to curl into bed beside her. Instead he went over to the box of journals and started reading.

  CHAPTER 34

  Before noon prayers

  Angelina answered her phone on the first ring. A throwaway phone, bought an hour ago. Untraceable. Hopefully. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a white dove. “Y-yes?”

  “What’s wrong? Is Sarah all right?”

  Angelina forced herself to catch her breath. Katherine had responded to her posting quickly—she must have been monitoring the message site they used to make contact. Or she had set up some automatic alert. Angelina never asked. The less she knew…Sometimes weeks would pass before Katherine responded. Months. Years.

  “Angelina?” There was the familiar echo in Katherine’s voice, the signal routed back and forth to disguise its point of origin. “Has something happened to Sarah?”

  “No, there’s no word yet.”

  “Don’t scare me like that.”

  It would have been easier if Katherine had given Sarah the means to contact her directly, but Katherine limited such access to Angelina alone. Compartmentalization of information. No exceptions. There were moments, and she always felt guilty afterward, when Angelina thought that if only James Dougan had been as disciplined and cautious as his wife, he would not have been assassinated.

  “There was a new imam at dawn prayers this morning…Imam Masiq. One of the disciples of Mullah Ibn Azziz, sent round to the major mosques to deliver their foul sermon. Barely old enough to grow a beard and he lectures us as though we were children.” Angelina ground her teeth. “You should have seen Imam Jenk’s face.” She drew her chador around her as the wind kicked up. “This new imam told us that we have been too tolerant of the Catholics, said they are a viper in our midst and we must be on guard against their apostasy. We were all looking around…I was, at any rate. Most of the faithful were too stunned. Or too fearful.”

  “The Black Robes trot out the Catholics whenever the need arises,” said Katherine. “Oxley did the same thing when it suited him. It will pass. We have greater concerns—”

  “A monastery outside of Portland was burned to the ground two days ago. A dozen monks were trapped inside while the fire department stood around and watched.”

  “Portland has always been a backwater—”

  “Yesterday, three churches in Seattle were vandalized. Stained-glass windows broken, altars overturned. This was Seattle, not some fundamentalist backwater.”

  Angelina sat on a bench across from a large building site. A skeleton of steel, six stories high and rising. Jackhammers blasted the air. Trucks and concrete mixers rumbled past. Workmen shouted to each other. The noise from the site insured that Angelina and Katherine’s conversation would not be monitored. A tall man on the second floor took off his hard hat, wiped his forehead. Showed off his beautiful red hair. He went back to work with a vengeance, beating on a beam with a large hammer, the muscles of his arms clearly defined as he pounded away. Dust floated in the air, gray and white specks settling on her black chador, but she made no move to brush herself clean.

  “Does Redbeard suspect why Sarah left?” asked Katherine.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you think? You’ve been sharing his home for twenty-five years, woman.”

  “Redbeard doesn’t reveal himself to me or anyone else,” s
aid Angelina, annoyed at Katherine’s tone. After all these years Katherine still thought of herself as the lady of the house. A place for everyone, and everyone in her place.

  “Forgive me, Angelina. I…I get frustrated being so far away. Having to ask you to be my eyes and ears. It’s unfair of me. I’m sorry.”

  Angelina let her wait a few seconds before responding. “All I know is that Redbeard is preoccupied. Last night he scraped his spoon on an empty bowl five times before realizing that there was no more soup. He is worried about Sarah, of course, but it’s more than that. He is not well, Katherine. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

  “What’s wrong with him is what’s wrong with all of us. We’re getting old.”

  Angelina clicked her prayer beads. “I still think you should have gone to Redbeard with your suspicions, not Sarah.”

  “They are more than suspicions.”

  “All the more reason for you to have gone to Redbeard. Sarah is just a girl.”

  “You raised her, Angelina. You will always see her as a girl. I didn’t get that privilege.” No hint of reproach was in Katherine’s voice. “Sarah is the daughter of James Dougan. She may be young, but she will do what is required.”

  “Redbeard has resources. If you had gone to him, he would have already found out the truth. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Redbeard would have buried the truth and told himself he was only doing his duty. He still believes in the dream of a pure Muslim state.”

  “So do I.”

  There was a long silence. “You didn’t have to help me, Angelina.”

  Angelina worked her prayer beads faster and faster. Click-click-click-click. “How could I not?”

  Katherine sighed, and it was so clear that Angelina looked around, expecting to see Katherine standing beside her.

  “Be careful, Katherine. Ibn Azziz, he is not of God. The monastery in Portland…it will not be the last to be fed to the flames. We are in for dangerous times.”

  “The times have always been dangerous.”

  “Not like this.”