Sins of the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

  “I didn’t know,” blubbered Yusef. “I had no idea…”

  “It is done.” Al-Faisal tossed the silvery strand of razor wire aside. His white shirt was splattered with red. He turned at the sound of Bartholomew vomiting. “Bring the young brother something to settle his stomach, Yusef, and fetch me a clean shirt.”

  Amir stared at Sulayman’s body. “Who was he working for?”

  “Your father.” Al-Faisal enjoyed the look on Amir’s face. “Not directly, of course, but Sulayman has appraised him of your…more questionable activities in the past. I’m sure our new association would be of great interest to the general.” It was a lie, of course. Sulayman was as innocent as any man could be. No matter. His death had served its purpose. He nudged Sulayman’s head, rolled it facedown so that it lay in a black nest of his beard. “Don’t worry. We are brothers now. Your enemies are my enemies.”

  “Two thousand, three hundred and fifty-seven, with a five percent margin of error,” Leo said softly.

  Rakkim stood with one foot on the wooden railing, looking off at the gleaming skyscrapers of the small metropolis in the distance. Columbia City. College town, one of the small tech centers in the Belt, exporting gadgets and expertise around the globe. The last time he had been there, he had been amazed at how clean it was, how well dressed and happy the people seemed. Churches on every block, but folks didn’t beat you over the head with it. The town should have been a target for every bandit and warlord within a hundred miles, but Columbia had a first-class militia. Every citizen—man, woman, and child—had formal military training and kept up their skills. Best equipment too, and willing to use it. Eager to use it. The Colonel had put Columbia under his nominal protection, but they paid him no tribute, which spoke well of them. And the Colonel.

  The melting root-beer Popsicle ran down across Rakkim’s hand. He licked the sweetness from his fingers. They had stopped for gas about an hour after leaving Crews, bought clean clothes and threw away the others. After all the time spent shampooing their hair in the bathroom sink, scrubbing their hands and faces, scraping the grit from under their nails…the stink still clung to them.

  He watched the town again, trying to keep his mind occupied. He used to like to quiet his thoughts, stop the words, the anticipation. The time of no thinking, that’s what the Fedayeen called it. One of the secrets to going days without sleep. Weeks, even. Now, though, Rakkim kept his mind active. Vigilant. Not out of concern of what might happen to him and Leo, some external threat. No, he was afraid that if he quieted his thoughts, he’d hear Darwin scuttling around in there.

  “Two thousand, three hundred and fifty-seven, five percent margin of error,” Leo repeated.

  Rakkim glanced over at him, sucked the last of the Popsicle into his mouth. Made his teeth ache but it tasted good. Leo’s own Popsicle had fallen off the stick, untouched.

  “I thought…I thought calculating the dead would help,” said Leo, “but…it didn’t help.”

  “I’m sorry, Leo. I didn’t know what they were going to do with you.”

  “The satellite antenna was fifty yards across with a five percent slope to a depth of fifteen feet.” Leo’s voice sounded distant. “The bodies…the bodies were stacked about a foot above ground level. Assuming an average height of five feet ten inches, and an average of three months decomposition—”

  “You said it was dark. You said you didn’t even know what you were looking at until the white phosphorus grenade went off.”

  “The grenade lit things up.”

  “Just for an instant. You couldn’t have come up with those calculations.”

  “That’s all I needed. I remember things. Shapes and angles, extrapolations and measurements…Archimedes said if he had a lever long enough he could move the earth. Well, I can calculate the exact length of the lever required, and the size and weight of the fulcrum too, and—”

  “Who’s Archimedes?”

  Leo’s head slumped forward. “I’m just saying, I wish I could forget the things I saw last night.”

  “You will. Give it time.”

  “No, Rikki…” Leo’s tears fell onto the ground, beside the melted Popsicle. “That’s not the way my mind works.”

  Rakkim put his arm around the kid.

  “I…I don’t want to tell Leanne about this,” sobbed Leo. “My father says…he says when you love somebody, really love them, you can’t have secrets, but—”

  “That’s bum advice. Spider’s plenty smart, but he’s wrong about that.”

  “You don’t tell Sarah everything?”

  Rikki laughed.

  They stood there for a long time, Rakkim patting his back, listening to him blubber. Softhearted, that’s what Crews had called him. Rakkim liked the kid even more for it.

  Leo wiped his nose. “Why…why did Crews think you didn’t go inside the church?”

  “Because that’s what I told him.”

  “Oh. Oh.”

  “Man like Crews, you can’t let him think you’re one up on him.” Rakkim finished the Popsicle, tossed the stick away. Columbia City gleamed in the distance. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to make sure Crews and his men don’t make any more additions to the body dump. Say what you want about the Colonel, he’s a solid military tactician. If his mountain camp has got any points of vulnerability, it won’t matter. I’m going to have Crews and his men charge straight into the killing zone. Let the Colonel wipe them out. I just need Crews to create enough of a diversion so that you and I can take possession of the weapon. Assuming that Moseby has found it by now.”

  “Sarah said…” Leo sniffed. “She said Moseby was very good at his work.”

  “He’s a shadow warrior, what do you expect?”

  Leo saw him grinning. “I didn’t like you at first, but now…now I think maybe I was wrong.”

  “Don’t get carried away. First impressions are usually pretty reliable.”

  “Not always. I hated the Belt in the beginning,” said Leo. “Hated the danger and the violence and the ugly accents. Hated the heat and the bugs and the ignorance…then I met Leanne. None of that other stuff matters now.”

  “You can tell Moseby all about your honorable intentions when this is over.” Rakkim watched the sun glinting on the solar panels along the Columbia City waterfront. He wished there was time to take Leo there, give him a sense of the best of the Belt. There wasn’t time, though. “Right now, we should get moving.”

  “What if Moseby doesn’t want to help us?”

  “Moseby’s not working for the Colonel willingly. Gravenholtz took him at gunpoint, left a group of armed men holding his family hostage. You think he’s going to want to put some new, powerful weapon in the hands of people like that?”

  “Not that I blame him, but Moseby went renegade. He betrayed his oath and his country. He doesn’t owe the republic anything.”

  “John didn’t stay behind in the Belt because he turned against the republic. If he had, I would have killed him when I was supposed to. Moseby was no traitor—he just found someone he loved more than his country.”

  Leo nodded. “I can understand that.”

  Rakkim looked over at him. The kid was growing up.

  “The church…” said Leo. “You said it was real quiet inside. Peaceful.”

  “That’s right.” Rakkim smiled. “I couldn’t wait to leave.”

  Chapter 35

  It was almost 3 a.m. when Rakkim stumbled into the mess tent, head down, the collar of his army jacket turned up against the cold, his assault rifle slung over one shoulder. He stamped his feet, used the movement to case the place. Five soldiers sat on benches facing the electric fireplace. A potbellied cook with a dirty apron leaned against the counter reading a magazine, hitchens stitched on the breast of his uniform. Ashes drifted down from the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

  “I need a couple pots of coffee and some cups for the Colonel’s guards,” said Rakkim.

  The cook looked up from a well-t
humbed Political Insider Quarterly. “What am I, the fucking welcome wagon?”

  Rakkim shrugged. “I’m just following orders, chef.”

  The cook raised an eyebrow. Pleased. Probably the first time he had ever been acknowledged by that term. He picked up a dented coffeepot from the back burner. Hefted it and handed it over. “This should be plenty for those assholes. Grab some cups off the rack.”

  “Thanks.” Rakkim hooked a couple of cups with his thumb. Started to leave.

  “I’m serving French toast at oh-six hundred,” the cook called after him. “I’ll save you a double order for five minutes, then it’s up for grabs.”

  Rakkim took a right outside the tent, walked over the rocky ground. Good light discipline from the troops; only starlight illuminated the landscape. Plenty for Rakkim to make his way.

  It had been almost two days since Rakkim had left Malcolm Crews, and the memory was still raw. He and Leo had reconned the area, hanging out in cafes and main-street shops, picking up news and rumors, trying to decode which was which. Most folks in the area thought the Colonel was opening up the coal mines again, others thought there had been a secret strike of gold or silver or diamonds, whatever their imaginations could come up with. Everyone was happy for the military presence nearby. The Colonel paid his bills immediately and in full, his men obeyed the laws and respected the women. No complaints, other than the occasional traffic jam when the rock- and earth-moving equipment inched along the local roads.

  Rakkim had left Leo back at a small motel in the busiest part of the nearest town, made him promise not to call Leanne, no matter how safe it seemed. Maybe the kid would keep his word. Rakkim had other worries at the moment.

  The Colonel’s base camp was two thousand feet up the mountain, a few hundred tents and outbuildings spread out along a rocky plateau, the camp reachable by at least a dozen trails and a two-lane blacktop from the small town below. At the edge of the trailhead, jeeps, trucks, and mining equipment were parked beside a skein of logging roads that led higher up the mountain. As Rakkim had figured, the major access points were well protected, armored personnel carriers and machine gun emplacements ready for any attack from the north, south, or east. The westerly approach to the camp was straight up a sheer wall.

  Up ahead, Rakkim watched three irregulars standing around a heater, passing a bottle. He walked toward them carrying the cups and coffeepot, with the tired, steady cadence of soldiers everywhere, neither hurrying nor lollygagging. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself,” said one of the irregulars, hiding the bottle under his coat.

  “I’m all turned around,” said Rakkim. “Which way is the Colonel’s bivouac? I just got in from Murfreesboro and they sent me to fetch and carry and I can’t hardly see shit.”

  One of the irregulars pointed. “Keep going past the outhouses, then make a left and go…maybe another hundred yards.” He spit tobacco juice. “It’s a nice clapboard house. Used to be a park ranger station.”

  “Obliged.” Rakkim kept walking.

  Good directions, he thought fifteen minutes later when the house came into view. He circled the Colonel’s place at a distance. Two sentries, one in front, one in back. Wide awake, from the way they carried themselves. Cold too, the icy wind howling off the mountain. He made plenty of noise as he approached, pretending to stumble, cursing, banging the heavy ceramic cups against each other.

  “Who goes there?”

  Rakkim stared at the barrel of the shotgun pointed at his chest. “I love you too.” He hoisted the coffeepot. “Hitchens sent this over. One of you two must have blown him or something, because I never seen that sumbitch do a favor for anybody.”

  “Amen to that.” The sentry lowered the shotgun. “Had to been Meeks, ’cause I don’t get along with Hitchens a-tall.” He took a cup, waited while Rakkim filled it. Blew across the top before he drank. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll hit Meeks with a cup, then come by again in a couple hours.”

  The sentry toasted him, then pulled his neck deeper into his coat.

  Rakkim walked slowly around to the back of the one-story house, noting the windows, the side door. The cellar door wasn’t visible from either sentry position, but the back side would be particularly blind because the rear sentry had his back turned to the wind. He clattered along toward the rear.

  “Halt!”

  “Jesus H., Meeks,” said Rakkim. “You want coffee or not?”

  The sentry smiled in the starlight, a faint Cheshire grin.

  Rakkim handed him the cup, filled it.

  “Is it Christmas already?” said Meeks.

  “I figure either Hitchens seen the light or maybe the Colonel told him to get off his fat ass and do something for real soldiers.”

  Meeks took a swallow of coffee. Winced. “Tastes like he put pennies in the pot.”

  “What did you expect? Only thing worse than Hitchens’s cooking is his coffee.”

  “Ain’t seen you around before,” said Meeks.

  “Let me top that off for you,” said Rakkim, filling his mug. “Stay warm.” He walked toward the side of the house.

  The Colonel struggled to wake from one of his recurring dreams—he was fourteen or fifteen, wearing shorts and a flag T-shirt, standing on the sidewalk sweating as he watched the Fourth of July parade make its way down Main Street. Floats from the car dealerships draped with bunting moved slowly past. Slim Johnson, who owned both dealerships, and cheated everyone equally, tossed plastic-wrapped peppermint candies to the kids in the crowd. Probably left over from Halloween. The high school drill team followed, pretty girls in short skirts and white boots with tassels, high-stepping to the rat-a-tat-tat of the drumline. The crowd stirred and the Colonel tossed in his bed, caught in the cobwebs of time. The dream went silent, no birds, no drums, no sound at all as the main float inched forward. The Colonel’s hand flew over his heart. Veterans of the Gulf War II stood at attention on a flatbed truck, waving listlessly to the crowd…no, the crowd was gone. The crowd was always gone. It was just the Colonel standing on the sidewalk and the vets melting in the heat. The Colonel awoke with tears streaming down his grizzled cheeks. He was not alone.

  “It’s all right,” said the man standing beside the bed, his face lost in the dimness.

  The Colonel turned his head. Baby slept beside him, her night breath sweet as fresh hay.

  “Hate to interrupt your beauty sleep, Colonel,” the man said softly, “but I thought it best this way.”

  The Colonel nodded. Mississippi, that was the accent. Gulf Coast. He wondered if it was one of Moseby’s crew come to take him home. Moseby seemed the kind of man to inspire that kind of loyalty, and this fellow, he was a cool, hard customer, just the type to dive for baubles in New Orleans. “You mind if I sit up?” he asked, one hand snaking under the pillow for the pistol he kept there. Dark as dust in the bedroom, but the man saw what he was up to.

  “No need for that, Colonel. I don’t mean you any harm.”

  “Of course you don’t.” The Colonel kept his hands in sight. Just as well. His shoulder was stiff for the first hours after getting up. Dying was bad enough—getting Baby hurt because he wanted to play the hero was worse. “How much did you pay my guards? I’m just curious what my life is worth.”

  “Your guards are tried and true, Colonel, and only God knows what your life is worth.”

  “I see. My guards are steadfast but incompetent.”

  The man had a nice laugh. Sincere. Confident. “That’s one possibility, sir.”

  Baby rolled over in her sleep, one bare leg sliding out from the covers.

  “Why don’t we go in the other room and you can finish things,” said the Colonel.

  “If I wanted things finished, you’d already be dead,” said the man. “Let’s stay right here for now.” He pulled over a straight-backed chair. “May I?” He sat down.

  The man wore the uniform of one of his irregulars and smelled of campfires and tobacco. He sat beside the bed, seemed utterly at ea
se, as though he were going to tell the Colonel a bedtime story. Who was he?

  “I apologize for giving you a start, Colonel, but I wasn’t sure if the Chinese fellah was still in camp. I’ve got a business proposition and I wanted to keep things private.”

  The Colonel didn’t respond, stunned at the mention of the Chinese liaison. This man’s information wasn’t perfect—Ambassador Fong had never been at the camp, had contacted him through the church in Jackson where the Colonel was a deacon—but the mere fact that he knew of a Chinese connection was unnerving. Had to be that damn chopper. Monsoon 4, state of the art, but a giveaway to someone who recognized it hurtling overhead. Word must have leaked out. The Colonel had almost refused when Fong offered the Monsoon as a sign of good faith, not wanting to obligate himself to the Chinese. Almost. He gave himself a dozen reasons not to, then he had accepted the chopper, thanked that little Chinaman, and toasted him with sour mash. The Monsoon 4 was some sweet ride, but it wasn’t a world changer. No, the world changer was at the bottom of the underground lake, waiting for Moseby to find it.

  “Zachary?” Baby yawned, stretched, one strap of her pink slip sliding down her arm. “What’s going on?”

  The man bowed slightly. “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but me and the Colonel have some talking to do. Hope you don’t mind.”

  The Colonel patted Baby, as always, aroused by the warmth and electricity of her firm flesh. “It’s okay, darling. Go back to sleep.”

  “You want me to make you boys some coffee?” said Baby.

  “That’s all right,” said the Colonel.

  “Actually, ma’am, if it’s not too much trouble…”

  “No trouble at all,” cooed Baby, sliding out of bed.

  The man averted his eyes as Baby put on the silk robe the Colonel had given her for their first anniversary. A gentleman. He held out his hand. “Rikki.”

  The Colonel shook hands. “Zachary Smitts.” He nodded toward his uniform hanging in the corner. “You mind if I get dressed…Rikki?”

  “It’s your house, sir.”