Sins of the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

  “It’s a mistake, sir,” said Gravenholtz. “You’re giving this towelhead way too much credit.”

  “Hey, Lester, let’s keep it civil,” said Rakkim. “I mean, I could call you a pasty-faced, freckle-assed, thimble-dicked mother—”

  Gravenholtz swung on him. Rakkim slipped the blow, but slowly, not wanting to reveal his own speed. Might have been a mistake. One of Gravenholtz’s fists just barely grazed him, but drew blood and laid a welt along the side of his jaw.

  “That’s enough, Lester,” said the Colonel. “Now, I’m showing Rikki the ravine. You can either accompany us or find something else to vent your spleen on.”

  Rakkim walked beside the Colonel. Touched his fingertips to his jaw. Now he had a good idea of how fast Gravenholtz moved.

  “I warned you,” muttered the Colonel. “Lester’s a dangerous man to provoke.”

  Rakkim heard Gravenholtz start after them, the redhead slipping on the loose rocks.

  They climbed on for another ten minutes, one switchback after another, when Rakkim heard it. The other two kept climbing, oblivious. A few minutes later, when they reached a large, flat area near the summit, even they could hear it. The call to noon prayer, the voice weak but insistent.

  “Lester?” The Colonel glared at Gravenholtz. “Goddamn it, Lester, you try my patience.” He stalked into the woods, Rakkim and Gravenholtz following. The Colonel’s two guards trailed behind. The forest was sparse, the soil rocky and poor, the ground littered with broken whiskey bottles and empty cans of beef stew and Spam and creamed corn. The call to prayer was coming from a lean-to the size of an outhouse. A grimy man dozed beside a nearby tree, an assault rifle resting on his knees.

  “Open the door!” the Colonel barked as the grimy man woke up.

  The man got to his feet, fumbled in his pocket, and stuck a key in the padlock on the lean-to.

  The Colonel pushed him aside, opened the door. He looked back at Gravenholtz.

  “I can explain, sir,” said Gravenholtz.

  “No, you most certainly cannot,” said the Colonel. He extended his hand into the lean-to, helped a man inside stagger out, the man half blinded by the light, blinking, his arms bound behind his back. “Give me your canteen,” the Colonel ordered.

  The grimy man reluctantly handed it over.

  The Colonel held the canteen to the prisoner’s mouth, water pouring down the man’s chin in his eagerness. “Easy, soldier,” urged the Colonel, giving him time, making him slow down. They stood there, the two of them, until the Colonel finally tossed the empty canteen aside. “I gave orders before I left last week that this man was to be executed,” he said to Gravenholtz.

  Rakkim recognized the prisoner—a Fedayeen named Hodges, first in his shadow warrior class two years ago. Rakkim had been at the small graduation ceremony as a guest of General Kidd. It was Hodges, but his face was wrong…the planes of his cheeks were misaligned, his jaw unhinged, one eye swollen shut, his chin caved in. So broken he could never be made whole again.

  The pain must have been agonizing, but Hodges stood there calmly, legs spread slightly, to the limit of the short chain around his ankles. His arms were strapped behind his back, bound at the wrist and elbow. At the Academy, Rakkim had seen a Fedayeen commando tied hand and foot like this, watched him jump and snap his knees into an instructor’s forehead. Knocked the instructor out. Nice move, but the commando didn’t have a broken ankle. Hodges did. Rakkim made eye contact with him, saw a glimmer of acknowledgment, a moment of relief, then resignation. Hodges had to have guessed what Rakkim was doing here. There was nothing Rakkim could do for him without jeopardizing the mission. They both knew it.

  The Colonel’s two guards had joined them, their weapons trained on Hodges.

  “You disobeyed my direct order, Lester,” said the Colonel.

  Gravenholtz’s face was the color of a rotting orange. “Well, sir…the boys get so little entertainment, stuck up here, that I decided to do what I could to lighten their load.”

  “Your boys, not mine,” said the Colonel. He gently turned Hodges’s head, noted the filth and scars along the side of it, the places where his broken bones had not healed properly. He unbuttoned Hodges’s shirt, saw his busted ribs sticking out like pickup sticks. The Colonel buttoned him back up. Smoothed his blood-crusted hair. “You have my apology, soldier.”

  “He’s a damn spy, Colonel,” said Gravenholtz.

  “Yes, he’s a spy. That’s why I sentenced him to be executed,” said the Colonel, his eyes still on Hodges. “He’s also a soldier operating under orders and one hell of a brave man, which is why he deserves to be put in front of a firing squad and executed with full military honors, not abused for the pleasure of cowards.”

  Gravenholtz’s voice was a raspy whisper. “Sir, you got no call—”

  “You disobeyed my order, and you disgraced yourself,” said the Colonel. “Torturing a man like this…If I didn’t need you, I’d put you down like a rabid dog, Lester.” He rested his hand on his sidearm. “You’re dismissed. Take this piece of shit with you.”

  Gravenholtz gave a sloppy salute and ambled off, the grimy man following.

  “Shall…sir, shall I put the prisoner back?” said one of the Colonel’s guards.

  “Let him bathe first. You know where the freshwater spring is. Let him take all the time he wants, but don’t get too close and keep your weapons on him at all times. Every moment,” said the Colonel. “After he’s clean, give him time to pray and then bring him back here. We’ll put him out of his misery.” He stepped closer to Hodges. “Are you ready to meet your maker, soldier?”

  Hodges nodded.

  “Sorry I don’t have your holy book so you could read—”

  “No need, sir,” croaked Hodges, “I’ve memorized the holy Quran.”

  “It would be defiled by my touch anyway. That’s the way it works, right?”

  Hodges looked straight ahead.

  Rakkim watched Hodges limp away, the two guards following behind, weapons ready. The wind rose up from the lowlands, and he smelled pine and cedar, clean smells, earth and eternity. He hoped Hodges filled his lungs before he died. Strange business. Rakkim had been warned that the Colonel had become a ferocious Muslim-hater, preaching vengeance and genocide, but it wasn’t true. The Colonel had no qualms about executing his enemies, but there was no cruelty in the man, only a harsh justice. Gravenholtz was a beast—even worse, he slipped his leash from time to time.

  The Colonel looked out over the hills and valleys below. The breeze blew through his long hair, his eyes squinting, as though waiting for some phantom army to appear, the heavenly host in all its glory.

  Rakkim remembered seeing the new president of the Belt on TV in the diner. A grinny-Gus, that’s what the hunters at the Piggly Wiggly Diner had called him, forks scraping over their plates as they mocked the president. You would never hear anything like that in Seattle, not in public anyway, but politicians were the same everywhere. Most of them weak, preening word merchants eager to accommodate whoever was in front of them. Lip service. It sounded obscene. Even President Kingsley wasn’t immune to making the most repugnant compromises, playing off the conservative ayatollahs against the modern technocrats, watering down a proposed travel ban on unmarried females and trumpeting it as a victory. Maybe it was. All Rakkim knew was that if someone had to rule, he preferred a leader who was hard but honorable, with spine and a sense of decency. A man like General Kidd. Or the Colonel.

  “Who were those men we saw on the way up?” said Rakkim. “The ones whose tents were falling down around them.”

  “Those are Lester’s men. He brought them with him when he joined up about five years ago. Border raiders, one step ahead of the noose. Scum for the most part, and no field discipline, as you noted, but fierce fighters. Like Lester himself. He lacks charm, and he’s got a mean streak, but when the bugle blares…”

  “It’s when the bugle goes silent that I’d worry, if I were you.”

  “
Lester’s a good ol’ boy.” The Colonel looked past him. “I think the prisoner recognized you.”

  Rakkim was impressed. So much so that he didn’t trust a lie to go undetected.

  “We were introduced the last time I was at the Academy.”

  “Seeing you here with me…he must realize you’ve gone renegade,” said the Colonel, face turned to the wind. “’Bout to break his heart, I imagine.”

  “A Fedayeen has to travel light, Colonel. A heart would be an unnecessary burden.”

  The Colonel looked at him. “Betraying your country might not have been all that hard for you, but I suspect there’s plenty like that young prisoner who would never consider it. Not for love or money. The Russians are God-fearing people, just like you said, so I’ll consider doing business with you, mister, but make sure you stay downwind of me.”

  It was an hour later when the two guards brought Hodges back, freshly scrubbed now. His clothes were rinsed clean, still wet. His chains clinked with every measured step, his hands bound in front of him.

  “You ready, soldier?” asked the Colonel.

  Hodges pulled back his shoulders as the wind rippled around him.

  The Colonel waited until the guards walked Hodges over to a wall of rock. He gestured and they pointed their weapons, facing the Fedayeen.

  “Colonel?” said Hodges. “Might I ask a favor?”

  “Don’t worry,” said the Colonel. “You’ll be buried with the other Muslim war dead at the cemetery in Jackson Ridge by noon tomorrow. I know your procedures.”

  “That’s not it, sir.” Hodges nodded at Rakkim. “I’d like to request that he be the one to execute me.”

  The Colonel stared at Hodges. “You want a renegade to carry out the sentence? You mocking me, soldier?”

  Hodges came to attention. “Sir, with all due respect, I would prefer to be executed by a renegade Fedayeen than a couple of pork-chop-eating kafir bastards.”

  “With all due respect?” The Colonel laughed. Shook his head. “I will never understand you people.” He glanced at Rakkim. “You have a problem with this?”

  Rakkim looked at Hodges. “It would be an honor, sir.”

  The Colonel took out his sidearm, removed the magazine, left a single bullet in the chamber. He held it out to Rakkim.

  Rakkim ignored the gun. He walked slowly over to Hodges, his Fedayeen knife concealed in his hand.

  “Thank you,” Hodges said, barely moving his lips.

  Rakkim watched him, saw no fear in the man. None at all. Hodges didn’t ask for Rakkim to revenge him. Didn’t ask for reassurance that their mission would be completed. He didn’t need to. “I’m sorry,” Rakkim said softly.

  “Don’t look so sad, brother,” said Hodges. “Today I shall lie upon a golden couch in Paradise.”

  Rakkim stabbed him in the heart, withdrew the blade before the man had time to blink.

  Chapter 39

  “Shouldn’t we be hiding or something?” said Leo.

  “The idea is for Malcolm Crews’s men to find us.”

  Leo ducked into the shadow of the abandoned Stuckey’s, the former restaurant and tourist stop now a collection of burned cinder blocks, broken windows, and a collapsed yellow roof. A rat scurried around in the dark interior and Leo quickly joined Rakkim.

  “Why don’t you sit down and relax?” said Rakkim. “I’ll let you know if I see anybody coming.”

  “I’m tired of sitting down,” said Leo. “You spend three days on the mountain having fun, while I’m stuck in that lousy motel listening to trucks race past my window.”

  “You should have gone for a walk, gone to a movie.”

  “People looked at me funny every time I went out. ‘Where you from, buddy? What kind of accent you talking there, pard?’” he mimicked. “Nothing for me to do all day except sit in my room, watch TV, and think about Leanne.”

  Rakkim walked past the gasoline pumps, looked down the highway. No lights anywhere. The Stuckey’s had been abandoned even before the war, left behind by the tourists and the new interstate. He looked up at the sky, saw only stars and a thin slice of moon.

  Leo unwrapped another candy bar, gnawed at the end. “What did Leanne’s father say when you told him about me? Was he impressed?”

  “Oh, yeah, I definitely sensed tumescence.”

  “Ha-ha, very funny.”

  The kid had screwhead priorities—merely nodded when Rakkim had told him that Moseby had found the black-ice canister, more interested in Moseby himself. A half-hour drive to Stuckey’s and all he talked about was Moseby and what did he think about Leo’s offer of marriage, and was Leo’s religion a problem, because if it was…and did you tell him how much Leanne and I have in common and how we really, really love each other? Well, did you, Rikki? Yeah, I told him you were regular soul mates, Rakkim had said, which didn’t even slow the kid down; he went right back to the questions. Did Moseby think they were too young? Should Leo pretend that he and Leanne had never made love? The kid never shut up.

  “I’m taking you back up the mountain with me when we’re done here tonight,” said Rakkim. “You ready for that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I made it easy for you. I told the Colonel you’re an arrogant Jewish odd-ball who can look at the weapon and tell us what it is, and if it works and—”

  “I said yes.”

  Rakkim squeezed through the entrance of the tourist trap. He let his eyes adjust to the dim light, then moved forward, glass crunching underfoot, past the overturned racks of singed postcards. He bent down, picked up one that showed a leering crocodile biting a half-naked woman on the ass. TASTES LIKE CHICKEN, read the postcard. He tossed it aside. Christian humor.

  “Hey! I thought we were supposed to stay out here,” said Leo.

  Rakkim listened to the rats scurrying over debris. Mushrooms sprouted in the corners where the rain got in.

  “I don’t like being here by myself,” called Leo.

  “Then come inside.”

  “I don’t like it in there either.”

  Rakkim’s laughter echoed among the melted bottles of suntan oil and shattered bisque lawn jockeys. He heard Leo cursing as he darted inside, tripped.

  “Where are you?” asked Leo.

  “Right here,” said Rakkim.

  “Right here,” said Malcolm Crews at the same time.

  Rakkim turned slightly as Crews detached himself from a darkened corner of the structure, dressed all in black, a shadow among the shadows, his own darkness deeper than any natural phenomenon.

  “Surprised?” said Crews.

  “Very,” said Rakkim.

  “Rikki?” said Leo, hands outstretched as he stumbled forward. “Who’s there with you?”

  “Malcolm Crews.” Crews clicked his heels.

  Rakkim looked around, half expected a dozen skeleton men to emerge from the gloom.

  “It’s just me,” said Crews. “My flock can’t keep quiet to save their necks, and truth be told, they weary me.”

  “How long have you been waiting?” said Rakkim.

  “Since yesterday.” Crews stretched, his arms extending until they almost touched the ceiling. “Just kind of hibernating until you arrived.”

  Leo held a butane lighter up, the tiny flame flickering as he found his way beside Rakkim. “Why…why don’t we talk outside?”

  “Your Ident buddy’s afraid of the dark,” said Crews.

  “I think he’s more afraid of you,” said Rakkim.

  “Ah, well…who can blame him?” Crews settled back into the shadows, his back against the wall. “Sit down, I prefer talking in here.”

  Rakkim picked his way over the debris to Crews, his knife back where it belonged, resting against the inside of his right forearm.

  Crews reached out, pretended to pluck something from Rakkim’s ear. Showed him the shekel of Tyre. “Has the Colonel found the rest of these yet?”

  “No, but we know where they’re hidden,” said Rakkim. “They’re at the bottom of an�
�”

  “Underground lake.” Crews enjoyed Rakkim’s surprise. “Word’s leaked out that he’s searching for something, but we’re the only ones who know what it is.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, strolled around under that sliver of moon. “It’s peaceful here.”

  Leo tripped over something, the lighter sliding across the floor. He fumbled around on his hands and knees looking for it.

  “There’ll be a new moon in four days,” said Rakkim. “The Colonel will have brought up the shekels by then. You and your men should attack from the south—it’s a tough climb, but the Colonel’s defenses are thin in that area. You don’t have to launch a full-on assault, he’s too dug in for that—forty or fifty men should do it. Just a raid…something to distract them long enough for me to grab the pieces of silver. I’ll slip through the lines during the firefight and meet you back here.”

  “My own little homing pigeon,” said Crews.

  “Where else am I going to go?” said Rakkim.

  “Indeed…” Crews stared at the brand on his hand. “Does your mark burn?” He looked up at Rakkim. “Mine does. Sometimes it hurts so bad it wakes me up at night.”

  “No…it itches a little, that’s all.”

  Crews smiled in the darkness. “Give it time.”

  Rakkim rubbed his hand, stopped himself. “Can you have your men in position in four days?”

  “They’ll do whatever I ask.” Crews stepped back, seemed to settle deeper into the darkness. “What about you, Rikki? Will you do what I ask?”

  “I want what’s in that underground lake just as much as you do.”

  “That’s not what I asked.” Crews leaned his head back, faced the sky. Lost in the immensity. “I was a full professor once upon a time. Chairman of the department. Hard to believe, isn’t it, considering the company I keep these days. Don’t think for a moment I’m not aware of that.” His head bobbed. “American literature, that was my specialty. Huck Finn. Moby-Dick. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Ah, the stories I could tell you, the depth of my insights…Do you read much, Rikki?”