Sins of the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

“ROAST IN HELL, RIKKI.”

  “Who are you, Rikki?” whispered the Colonel.

  Rakkim didn’t have an answer.

  Eagle Two, this is Woodpecker Five, we’re good to go here, said Gravenholtz.

  The Colonel looked confused. “What’s Lester doing calling Royce?”

  Alpha Company reporting for duty, Tiger Six. Cheers over the com link.

  “Zebra Five?” The Colonel stood up. “How did you get here so fast?”

  Locals ferried us across the river in every boat, barge, and skiff they had. We didn’t even have to ask them. We’re here, Tiger Six, and we’ve got them on the run.

  The helicopter lifted off with a rush, flew low over the camp, hovered quietly overhead.

  “Good job, Eagle Two,” the Colonel said to Royce. “Light up the woods. Just be careful you don’t hit Alpha Company.”

  The chopper banked gently, then zoomed back across the camp. Rakkim watched, saw where it was headed.

  “Eagle Two! Where are you going?” the Colonel shouted into his throat mike. “Eagle Two! Get back here.”

  That’s a hearty fuck you, Tiger Six, said Royce.

  Rakkim was already gone, racing full out toward the Colonel’s house.

  Chapter 43

  Eight of Gravenholtz’s raiders ringed the Colonel’s dimly lit house, lean, capable men with cigarettes bobbing in their mouths and rifles at the ready. The same hard core that had attacked the Tigards’ farmhouse. The chopper idled nearby, whisper quiet, blades slowly turning, landing struts grazing the ground. Red and yellow landing lights spun erratically from the sides of the chopper, the colors sliding back and forth across the raiders as they waited. It reminded Rakkim of the dance floor of the Blue Moon back home, dancers swaying under the kaleidoscope. No music here, though, just the sound of distant gunfire and shouted commands as the Colonel’s men continued to force back Crews’s End-Times Army.

  Rakkim approached obliquely, unhurried, keeping to the shadows. To anyone watching, the house never seemed to be his destination, yet he kept getting closer and closer. The raiders kept glancing at the helicopter, eager to escape. Regular troops occasionally raced past the house on the way to the front, looked over, and were waved on by the raiders. Rakkim never drew attention.

  He spotted two uniformed bodies stuffed under the front porch, Baby’s guards, who hadn’t yielded their posts, or perhaps had been suspicious of the raiders’ suddenly taking over. He wondered what the inside of the house looked like, if Moseby and Leo were piled in a corner or stuffed in the crawl space. Baby would be fine for now—Gravenholtz would keep her as insurance, in case the Colonel was tempted to mount a full-scale assault. It was obvious what had happened. The Colonel trusted Gravenholtz too much. The redhead knew about the black-ice weapon. Knew what it was worth. The Colonel had forgotten that for a good Christian to survive in this world, he needed to be able to think like a devil.

  Woodpecker Five! What’s going on at my house? said the Colonel.

  Just taking care of business, drawled Gravenholtz.

  I want Eagle Two put under arrest for insubordination and failure to obey, said the Colonel.

  Rakkim heard laughter as Gravenholtz broke off his com link.

  A team of soldiers approached the house, serious fuckers too, the Colonel’s best, full-auto and fresh from the line, faces dirty, body armor scored with numerous hits. The lieutenant told the raiders to stand down and surrender their weapons, now, said the Colonel had ordered him to take control of the house and the chopper and the raiders too. The lieutenant’s men squinted in the flashing lights from the chopper, looked like they just wanted Gravenholtz’s team to give them an excuse to let loose.

  A beefy raider leaned against the front porch, staring up at the stars, barely listening. Rakkim remembered him…had seen the man tear the wedding ring off Florence Tigard’s finger that night. Nelson, that was his name. Gravenholtz had yelled at him, said, Come on, Nelson, get your ass in the bird. “Okay, Lieutenant, sir.” Nelson insolently set his assault rifle down, waved at the other raiders to do the same. He smiled at the lieutenant, flicked his cigarette at him, but it landed short, scattered sparks across the officer’s boots.

  The chopper rose a few feet into the air, its spotlight pinning the lieutenant and his men. Then its Gatling machine guns opened up, and the soldiers looked like marionettes dancing on invisible strings, hit so hard and so fast they couldn’t even fall over until the guns finally stopped firing.

  Rakkim put three shots from the sniper rifle into the windscreen of the chopper, but it was armored acrylic, bulletproof. The spotlight wasn’t.

  Blind in the sudden darkness, Nelson and the other raiders stumbled around, tripping over the dead. The helicopter moved higher, its motion erratic as Royce, surprised by the attack, overcompensated.

  Taking fire! shouted Royce.

  Rakkim put his next bullet through Nelson’s left eye. Shot four more men before the last three tumbled through the front door of the house. Rakkim raced to the porch, squatted beside Nelson’s body. The chopper’s thermal imaging system would be confused by the double image. For a few moments anyway.

  Royce, what’s going on out there? said Gravenholtz, using the man’s name now, abandoning all com discipline.

  Rakkim darted around the side, shot out the electrical relay, and the lights inside went out. As he rolled under the house, the chopper’s guns blasted away, tearing up the ground and the siding, shattering a window.

  Motherfuck, Royce, you trying to kill us all?

  Somebody’s making a move on your position, but I can’t see for shit, said Royce. You got some kind of radiation inside that’s fucking up my sensors.

  I’ll handle it, said Gravenholtz. You just be ready to get us out of here.

  Rakkim heard footsteps approaching overhead, the floorboards creaking. A chair was knocked over in the darkness, and Gravenholtz cursed. He heard Baby’s voice and others too, but not Leo or Moseby. Rakkim scooted farther under the house, the crawl space littered with mouse droppings, cobwebs veiling his face.

  No visuals yet, said Royce. He might be under the—

  Bullets tore through the floorboards, the raiders inside emptying their automatic weapons, then reloading and firing again and again. A couple of near misses but the only blood drawn was where a shard of wood cut his arm. He smelled gunpowder and heard coughing from inside the house, voices complaining they couldn’t breathe and couldn’t see, while Gravenholtz told them to shut the fuck up. Rakkim waited. Flashlight beams filtered through some of the gunshot holes in the floor, dust motes dancing in beams of golden light.

  A boot stomped on a section of floor that had been chewed up and weakened by gunfire. Kept on stomping until the boot crashed through and was quickly withdrawn.

  Rakkim bellied over toward the opening. He had left his sniper rifle outside—no room to use it under the house—but his knife was in his hand.

  “Do it,” said Gravenholtz.

  Mumbles from above. A flashlight beam flickered across the broken floor. Another round of gunfire tore chunks out of the floorboards.

  “Fucking do it,” said Gravenholtz.

  Rakkim lay in the darkness beside the hole, ears ringing, waiting. A spider crawled over his hand and continued on its way.

  A flashlight jiggled in the opening, then a pistol. A man’s head and shoulders followed.

  “See anybody?” said Gravenholtz.

  The flashlight swept under the house, its beam reflected back by sheets of cobwebs hanging from the old wooden supports. “No…not yet.”

  “Keep looking,” said Gravenholtz.

  Rakkim lunged out of the dusty shadows, jammed the knife into the side of the man’s neck, and pushed forward. The man died in silence, any last words lost in a gush of blood. Rakkim took the flashlight from his hand, tossed it toward the front of the house. He tucked the pistol into his belt, even though it wouldn’t be of any use against Gravenholtz, and he preferred the silent killing of a b
lade anyway. The personal touch it offered.

  Groups of the Colonel’s men are converging on the house, said Royce. Machine-gun fire echoed in the distance. Doing what I can to slow them down.

  “Well?” Gravenholtz demanded of the dead man. “Is somebody there or not?

  Rakkim retreated into the deeper darkness. He had heard Baby’s voice, surprised at how calm she sounded, but still nothing from Leo or Moseby. Gravenholtz would keep Baby alive to use as a bargaining chip, but he didn’t need them.

  “Hey?” Gravenholtz jerked the man back out of the opening. “I asked…Fuck.” The man’s body hit the floor. No one fired his weapon. No one made a sound. Listening.

  Their initial surprise and disorientation had passed; they were ready now. Rakkim heard fingers snap. Heard footsteps move cautiously toward where he had thrown the flashlight. The opening in the floor was dark now as the raiders gathered near the other end of the room, thinking he was using the flashlight to find his way.

  As the raiders blasted the floor with gunfire, Rakkim slipped up through the hole, lost in the noise. He moved low across the floor, the air thick with gunsmoke, almost impenetrable in the faint light from their flashlights. Slumped in the middle of the room were two bodies…Leo and Moseby.

  “Is he dead?” One of the raiders peered through the holes in the floor. “His light’s off…”

  All units not engaged, close in on my house, said the Colonel, his voice tired. My wife is in there, so avoid hostilities. Repeat, my wife is in there.

  Royce, get your ass down here for dust-off, said Gravenholtz.

  One of the raiders again unloaded his weapon into the floor.

  Baby put her hands over her ears.

  Through the security windows, Rakkim could see the flashing red and yellow position lights as the helicopter descended.

  Gravenholtz grabbed Baby’s wrist, pulled her toward the front door.

  One of the raiders hoisted the canister from the underground lake onto his shoulder.

  Rakkim started after Gravenholtz. He didn’t make a sound, but Baby turned…

  “Rikki!”

  Gravenholtz whirled in the open doorway, raised his assault rifle one-handed, sprayed the rear of the room until he emptied the clip.

  The helicopter touched down in the yard, tracer rounds from somewhere dinging off the canopy as the pilot struggled against the turbulence. Maintaining low ground clearance was the hardest part of any chopper pilot’s job.

  The raider carrying the canister raced past Gravenholtz and across the dirt, dove head-first into the passenger compartment of the chopper.

  The chopper rose six feet off the ground, Gatlings spinning as it tore through the Colonel’s men, then settled back down. The yellow and red position lights rotated slowly on either side of it, overlapping circles of concentric color.

  Gravenholtz hesitated, one arm around Baby as he glared at Rakkim. “I should have known it would be you. I’ve been wanting to—”

  “Lester, let’s go!” shouted the raider from the passenger compartment.

  Gravenholtz scampered toward the chopper, easily carrying Baby over his shoulder.

  Cease fire! said the Colonel. That’s Baby!

  Rakkim caught up with Gravenholtz halfway to the chopper, lunged at him, but the redhead used Baby as a shield and Rakkim backed off. They capered around each other, Gravenholtz’s free hand balled into a fist, while Rakkim circled, trying to find an opening.

  Royce fired the machine guns in bursts, keeping the Colonel’s men back as the chopper lurched and jerked.

  Rakkim slashed Gravenholtz’s shoulder, drew a cry of pain, but it was a light wound, Gravenholtz’s second skin stopping anything but a direct thrust.

  Gravenholtz shifted Baby to his other arm as he retreated closer to the chopper.

  Rakkim came in again, blinded for a moment by dust kicked up by the chopper’s rotors, and Gravenholtz swung at him. The blow barely grazed his jaw, but Rakkim felt his teeth rattle, his mouth filling with blood. A look of awful triumph distorted Gravenholtz’s face in the swirling red and yellow lights.

  “Lester!” bellowed the raider in the passenger compartment, his sweating face caught in the auxiliary lights of an approaching jeep. Bullets slammed into the compartment, and the raider screamed. The chopper pitched.

  I said, cease fire! said the Colonel, visible now at the edge of the yard, waving his arms.

  Gravenholtz snarled at Rakkim, hurried the last few feet, and threw Baby into the chopper. Put his hands on the edge of the open door and lifted himself up…

  Rakkim launched himself as the chopper started to rise, holding on to the metal door frame with one hand, stabbing Gravenholtz again and again. Most of his thrusts were deflected by Gravenholtz’s armored skin, but he heard the redhead groan at least twice.

  “Lester, you in?” shouted the copilot.

  Sprawled inside the chopper, Gravenholtz punched at Rakkim—he missed, but his fist shattered an unbreakable plastic jump seat. Rakkim again slashed at Gravenholtz, half severed his ear and the redhead screamed, rolled back inside. The chopper lurched about fifteen feet off the ground, rising slowly.

  “Lester?” called the copilot. “Deeks, what’s going on back there?”

  Rakkim put his knife away. Standing on the chopper’s skid, he held out a hand to Baby. “Come on.”

  “Baby!” the Colonel called from below, dirt swirling around him. “Let Rikki help you!”

  “Come on.” Rakkim could see Gravenholtz struggling to get upright, blood pouring down his neck from his ruined ear. He beckoned to Baby. “Give me your hand.”

  The chopper kept rising.

  “Trust me.” Rakkim grabbed Baby’s arm, drew her closer. He could see her pulse pounding at the base of her throat. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

  Baby kneed him in the face and Rakkim flew backward, landed heavily on the ground. He lay there, not moving. Above him the helicopter rose rapidly as Royce regained control. Still dazed from the fall and the shock, he saw Baby looking down at him from the passenger compartment, her long hair billowing in the breeze.

  “Baby!” The Colonel stood over Rakkim, looking up, and the sadness and longing in his voice carried clear to the stars. “Baby!”

  Baby waved to him.

  The Colonel sobbed. His troops clustered around the house seemed to take a step back, the night’s silence broken only by the rapidly diminishing sound of the chopper heading over the treetops, and the Colonel’s soft weeping.

  Rakkim rolled over, gasped. Slowly got to his knees, then his feet. It hurt to breathe. “Colonel…?”

  The bandage on the Colonel’s right hand was soaked with blood. “Joke’s on you,” he said gruffly. “Looks like you paid me two hundred million dollars for nothing.”

  “It was something,” said Rakkim, holding his ribs.

  The Colonel jabbed a thumb at the chopper and blood flew from the bandage. “There goes your something.”

  Rakkim watched the chopper disappear from view.

  “Why did you do it?” The Colonel looked at him. “You brought that End-Times scum here, and then you fought beside us instead of stealing the canister. You lied to me, then you saved my life. Why? Are you stupid or just confused?”

  “It’s worse than that,” said Rakkim. “I fell for my own cover story. Started seeing you as more than an honorable enemy—as an honorable man. The way you treated the Fedayeen, burying him with full honors…”

  “What are you talking about?” said the Colonel.

  Rakkim watched two of the Colonel’s men helping Leo and Moseby out of the cabin. “It doesn’t matter now. The weapon is on its way to the highest bidder. The Chinese probably…maybe the Brazilians. There’s going to be all kinds of trouble coming.”

  “There’s always trouble coming, and always people willing to face it.” The Colonel stared at the spot over the trees where the helicopter had disappeared. “Right now, I’m trying to decide which of us is the bigger fool.
You for changing your mind and standing beside me, or me for thinking that Baby loved me the way that I love her.”

  “I’d have to go with you, sir,” said Rakkim. “Unless, of course, you decide to execute me, in which case I’d be declared the winner.”

  “We’re going to have to have a long talk,” said the Colonel, still watching that patch of night sky.

  Chapter 44

  Rakkim sucked at the strawberry malt as the high-speed train raced across the Canadian Rockies and tried again to figure out why Baby hadn’t killed Moseby and Leo back at the house. It had to have been her decision—Gravenholtz would have killed them on general principles, beaten them to death just to hear their bones crunch. The maglev train rode smoothly four inches above the guideway, its magnetic propulsion system almost silent, but Rakkim felt a steady hum in his ears that gnawed at him, deepening his bad mood. So, why had Baby let them live?

  On the other side of the compartment, Leo snored peacefully as he had for the last three days, ever since he’d tried accessing the computer cores detailing the construction of a hafnium bomb. Three days, waking only to stumble to the bathroom or push food into his mouth. He barely spoke, and what he said was a soft muttering in some other language. They had been on the train for the last day, hurtling along at 285 miles an hour. While Leo slept, Rakkim thought about Sarah and Michael; he thought about Malcolm Crews backing into the forest, and the Colonel’s tears and the sight of Baby looking down at him from the ascending chopper…Most of all, he thought about his own failure.

  His mission had been simple. First, find the weapon. Then, steal the weapon from the Colonel and either bring it back or destroy it. Better to bring it back where it could be used to intimidate the Mexicans and the Mormons. Or even better, use it to establish trust between the republic and the Belt, start the reconciliation both nations needed. As a last resort, he was to destroy the weapon, so it couldn’t be used against them.

  Yesterday, he had contacted Sarah from Montreal. Told her that he had failed. Failed to secure the weapon, failed to destroy the weapon, failed to kill Crews or Gravenholtz. Other than that, the mission was a total success. Sarah said she was just glad he was alive. Glad Leo was alive too. He told Sarah that his best guess was that the hafnium weapon was probably on its way to a research center in China, and Baby and Gravenholtz were richer than anyone needed to be. Baby, anyway. No way would she stick with Gravenholtz after she no longer needed him. Sarah said she’d alert the president to the changing global paradigm. He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but he suspected the president wasn’t going to order a parade in his honor or give him another of those a grateful nation thanks you private dinners.