Sins of the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

  “He wants to get married. He wants to move to the Belt and marry some girl he spent less than twenty-four hours with.”

  “Leo’s a man now, and he made a man’s decision.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Spider slumped in his chair, wrapped the blanket tighter around himself. “Wait until Michael grows up and wants to marry a stranger.”

  Rakkim turned his face toward the sun. Not a cloud in the sky. “That’s a long way off.”

  “Not as far away as you think.”

  Rakkim heard a dog barking, the sound setting off others. “Where is he? Have you checked on him today?”

  Spider started to speak. Stopped. Waiting for the shakes to subside. His eyes were clear now. “He’s at your place, talking with Sarah. I thought you knew.”

  Rakkim straightened up. “I thought we decided he was to stay put.”

  Spider’s hand twitched. “I can’t stop him anymore. He’s a man now, remember?”

  Al-Faisal checked his watch for the hundredth time, glanced out into the cloudless sky. A beautiful day. From the minaret of the Grand Saladin mosque he could see the whole city spread out before him, helpless as a kafir on Judgment Day.

  He had met last night with Amir Kidd, reassured the Fedayeen that today’s actions were in complete accordance with the Quran. That obedience to the Old One superseded all of his previous oaths and commitments.

  Pigeons circled the minaret, wheeled off to more inviting perches in nearby buildings. Filthy birds, may Allah strike them from the sky and shatter their eggs in the nest.

  Al-Faisal had sensed uncertainty in Amir last night. After all this time, the young officer still felt the gossamer strands of loyalty to his father, the Fedayeen commander. Such weakness disgusted al-Faisal. He had spent over two years getting close to Amir. Two years of the most gentle persuasion…a comment uttered by a trusted fellow Fedayeen, a sermon by a battlefield imam, a rumor shared by a concubine during a night of lust that questioned the president’s judgment. Al-Faisal had waited a long time before making direct contact with Amir. He had played the youth masterfully, appealing to his youthful idealism, his passion, his faith and courage…and, most of all, to his mixed feelings about his father. Love and ambition were dangerous weaknesses, and al-Faisal had exploited them mercilessly.

  So this is the famous Lion of Boulder, al-Faisal had greeted him, kissing Amir on both cheeks, after his Fedayeen unit beat back the Mormon attack into Colorado. Amir had dismissed the phrase, credited his men for the victory, but al-Faisal could see it pleased him.

  Even after Amir swore allegiance to the Old One, he insisted that his father not be harmed. His father was no apostate, he assured al-Faisal, but a noble warrior whose piety was beyond dispute. General Kidd’s only failing was that his devotion to the president had left him blind to the man’s deficiencies. Against al-Faisal’s counsel, the Old One himself had decreed that General Kidd’s sin would be overlooked, and the warrior allowed an honorable exile in his native Somalia with his wives and estates.

  Two years al-Faisal had worked on Amir. The Old One had spent even longer turning al-Faisal from the Black Robe’s hierarchy. Al-Faisal had no regrets. He would stand at the right hand of the Old One in this life and the right hand of Allah in the next. The Old One had assured him that nothing would be denied the righteous warrior. Al-Faisal glanced at his watch. Turned his face into the blinding sun. A glorious day, inshallah.

  Sarah touched the remote, did a rapid turn behind Eagleton’s straining thighs, then darted out the open window. Nothing. The line of headlights had been transformed to a line of flaming torches, Eagleton’s leering face was a cubist nightmare, but there was still no hint of what had drawn his attention for all those hours as he sat at his desk.

  The control chip for the Digi-Sketch was compatible with Eagleton’s holo display card, of course, and one of the twelve screens from the Digi-Sketch keyed perfectly to the card’s program. It was a whole new porno show. Some joke. Sarah had been chasing her tail for days trying intricately engineered screens to search for clues, but the answer had been in the opposite direction: using the simple, basic graphics chip of a baby’s toy. Somewhere in hell, Eagleton was amused.

  Since downloading the Digi-Sketch screen, Sarah had spent a half hour scanning the card without success, looking in all the corners, inside out and upside down. The screen showed Eagleton with a barbed penis, a monstrous member that drove through the back of the young woman’s skull, spurting flowers from the tip. She followed each bud of the flower, expanding the frame farther and farther, until she was certain there was no useful information there.

  “Is everything all right?” called Leo through the closed door.

  “Not now.” Sarah’s fingers hovered over the control pad. She needed to slow down. Unpleasant as it was, she had to think like Eagleton. She let the image run, Eagleton’s barbed penis pistoning back and forth.

  She closed her eyes, opened them, taking in the whole wall that Eagleton had looked at, the porno card the most important part, but not the only part. High-gloss cars…motorcycles…speed and reflected light…a surfing beach, waves stacked up…a young man with his eyes rolled back in pleasure…a college girl with a charm bracelet. The bracelet was the first thing she had gone over, looking for some symbolic meaning in the charms. It was just a photo, her innocence the basis of her appeal. She forced herself to relax…looked down, then up. Eagleton was supremely arrogant. What would confirm his sense of superiority? What could he see on the wall that no one else would notice? It would have to be obvious. Everyone would have to be proven a fool for Eagleton to be as brilliant as he knew he was.

  She went back to the holo card, looking for patterns, light and dark. The young woman’s face drew her attention…but she had already studied it from every angle. She looked at the face again, forced herself not to stare, but just look, the way Eagleton had. What was that? Sarah tilted the holographic image, saw a tiny gold gondola among the strands of the woman’s hair. Just like the gold gondola on the college girl’s charm bracelet. It had been a bead of sweat on the original, without the toy screen. Sarah’s excitement faded as she inspected the gondola without seeing anything.

  There. Another gold charm in the young woman’s hair, this one a tennis racquet. A car. A heart. An airplane. A seashell. A rose. All of them in the exact order as the charms on the college girl’s wrist. All of them so artfully placed among the hair that Sarah hadn’t noticed them before. She zoomed in on them one by one, blowing each of them up until they filled the screen, turning them over and around, making sure no surface was unexamined. Halfway through the hidden charm bracelet, she came to the gold airplane.

  “Oh…shit.”

  Bartholomew held his systems analyzer in the palm of his hand, tapped into the main terminal of the aircraft while a dour Secret Service agent peered over his shoulder. His fingers flew over the keys, making minute adjustments, aligning the computer interfaces. There were fifty-one individual electronic systems on Air Force One. Seventeen separate systems with triple redundancy. Any failure immediately initiated a backup. In the rare event that the backup failed, there was the third system. It had never been needed. He monitored the readouts on the systems analyzer, a Beck-Dibden DB9. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn it was his own.

  Bartholomew had no idea how Eagleton had done it, but the man had made an exact match of Bartholomew’s DB9, even down to the serial numbers etched into the microscopic components. Same wear patterns as his old one. Same digital history. His own DB9 had been a gift from his father upon his graduation from advanced training five years ago. Cost enough to buy a house, enough to put his father in debt for years, but his father never looked happier than when Bartholomew opened the box. Bartholomew had prostrated himself in gratitude before his father, his tears soaking the carpet. A week ago…a week ago, after getting this one from al-Faisal, he had taken the ferry to Bainbridge Island and tossed the gift from his father overboard halfway across the Sou
nd.

  The DB9 beeped. Bartholomew showed the screen to the Secret Service agent, then disengaged the unit. He bowed to Peterson, then sat in the jump seat, while the other inspector did his own check, watched over by another Secret Service agent. Peterson wouldn’t find anything amiss. Allah willing.

  Bartholomew belted himself in, then looked out the window at the refueling trucks on their way back to the terminal. He was astounded at how calm he was. From the other side of the curtain, he could hear the president telling a joke to the assembled reporters. Their laughter disgusted Bartholomew. He turned back to Peterson. The man was utterly serious. Focused. He might be an idolatrous modern looking forward to the sins available in Mexico City, but at this moment he was a dedicated, superbly trained professional.

  Peterson showed his DB9 to the Secret Service agent and sat down in the jump seat opposite Bartholomew. He clasped his seat belt. Nodded at Bartholomew as the plane started moving.

  Bartholomew watched the tarmac roll past, faster and faster, the big jet rapidly gathering speed. He felt as though he were beginning his ascent into Paradise.

  Rakkim pointed and Spider turned, the two of them watching the president’s jet rising above the city. Not a plane in the sky other than Air Force One and the six fighter jets providing an escort. People in the surrounding houses walked out into their backyards, shading their eyes with their hands. Most of them crossed themselves. Even with all that had happened, the constant religious tension and steady decline in the quality of life, President Kingsley was the only politician that drew support across all classes and faiths.

  Rakkim clasped his hands toward Air Force One. “Salaam alaikum.”

  “Shalom,” said Spider.

  “Mr. President!” Sarah pressed a finger against her ear link. Static. “Sir!” She was one of only a dozen people who had a direct link to the chief executive. Day or night she should have been able to reach him on this emergency frequency. She stared at the holographic image of the gold airplane on the screen. “Sir!” The gold airplane’s cockpit was filled with fire, and the frightened pilot looked just like the president. “Mr. President?” Static. Sound of electronic snow drifting higher and higher.

  Bartholomew stared out at the city below, the neat grid of streets and skyscrapers, the lush green parks…the golden dome of the Great Mosque. It was never more beautiful than now. The great engines of the jet thrummed all around him, the power of man, dwarfed only by the will of Allah.

  He slipped off his watch. Time was irrelevant now. He saw Peterson watching him and turned again to the window. Faint static filled the air, every electronic device in the plane overwhelmed by the chaff—Air Force One generated a stream of jamming frequencies across the spectrum on takeoff and landing to prevent a missile attack.

  Bartholomew thought of his mother and father down below…in a small house off Green Lake with a neatly trimmed yard and a rusting basketball hoop over the garage. He hadn’t lived at home for years, but his father kept the hoop up anyway. Said he liked to look at it as he left for work in the morning. Bartholomew was their only son, their greatest joy. He hoped they were not looking up in the sky right now, following the president’s progress. He should have been proud of his handiwork, his small part in the vast design, but Bartholomew was weak. He hoped his parents were busy with other things.

  “Mr. President!”

  “Sarah?” More static. “—that you?”

  “Mr. President, thank God.” Tears rolled down Sarah’s cheeks. She could see her mother in the doorway, holding Michael in her arms. Leo stood beside her. “Mr. President, order your plane to land, now.”

  “Sarah…” Static crackled, then cleared. “What’s wrong?”

  “Please order your plane to land, sir. I don’t care where, just put it down.”

  “Yes…yes, of course.”

  Sarah heard the president order the pilot to land, his voice steady. Then she heard…silence. All the static of the transmission was gone. All that remained was the president’s voice, perfectly clear, saying, “That’s odd.” And the pounding of her heart, getting louder.

  “Mr. President? What’s happening, sir?”

  The president cleared his throat. “It seems…we seem to have lost power.”

  Bartholomew listened to the nervous whispers from the rear of the plane. The prayers.

  A Secret Service agent jerked him from his seat, pushed him toward the main console. “Fix it.”

  Peterson was already at work with his DB9, trying to make a connection.

  Seventeen separate networks, triple redundancy. Yet, exactly eighteen minutes after Bartholomew had run his preflight diagnostic, every system went dead. Irrevocably dead. The secret was a molecular timer inserted with Eagleton’s DB9. Perfectly normal until eighteen minutes later, at which point the whole system fried.

  The floor of the plane tilted down. The pilot performed brilliantly of course, but he had no stabilizers, no engines, no wing flaps, no communications. He had nothing…but a heavy piece of metal, and gravity was calling. The floor tilted farther…farther.

  The Secret Service agent kicked Bartholomew in the ass. “Do something.”

  Bartholomew fell to his knees, pressed his forehead against the cool carpet, and offered his devotion and praise to Allah, and the Wise Old One who served him.

  And as for him who was outrageous and preferred the life of this world, verily, hell is the resort!

  But as for him who feared the station of his Lord, and prohibited his soul from lust, verily, Paradise is the resort!

  “I saw…I saw it on TV,” panted Colarusso, out of breath. “You know what’s going on?”

  Spider shook his head, focused on the small, silver shape that was the president’s plane. He watched as it rolled over, spinning slowly as it fell.

  Rakkim ran down the stairs.

  “It’s quite all right, Sarah.” The president sounded relaxed. At peace.

  “Send out a Mayday—”

  “We have no communications at all.” The president chuckled. “It’s just you and I, dear girl.”

  Sarah could hear weeping in the background. “The ejection pod—”

  “A total systems failure, according to the pilot,” said the president. “There may be some mechanical explanation…or it could be our enemies have finally succeeded.”

  Sarah’s mother had turned on the television, stared at the image of Air Force One dropping out of blue, blue sky. She sobbed, trying to distract Michael with a stuffed bear.

  “Pay attention, Sarah,” chided the president. “With the vice president and I gone…Sarah, please, don’t cry…”

  Sarah heard the background noise from the plane getting louder through her ear link, heard people shouting and the rush and rattle of wind.

  “Sarah…tell Rakkim—”

  Sarah’s earpiece went dead.

  Leo covered his mouth as the television showed a fireball…the tail structure of Air Force One scattered among the fields of red tulips just north of the city…then cut back to the studio news anchor, a handsome man with gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He couldn’t speak, lips trembling, finally shook his head, and walked off camera.

  Assalaamu Alaikum. A state of national emergency is now declared, said a deep voice, as the other anchor and the weatherman exchanged stunned glances. Until further notice, all forms of communication within the capital are now blocked in the interests of national security. Please go to your homes and await further word from the Office of the President. The screen went to an image of the flag billowing over the Presidential Palace.

  Sarah heard pounding at the front door. She wiped her tears, checked the security monitors. Yelled to Leo and her mother.

  Chapter 48

  Rakkim’s throat tightened as he saw the security shutter to their apartment half-raised. “Stop the car.”

  “What’s the—?” started Colarusso, but it was too late.

  Rakkim had already rolled out the door of the moving vehicl
e, sprinting toward the abandoned storefront below their apartment, terrified at what he would find inside.

  The raised security shutter was Sarah’s signal for danger. With communications down throughout the capital, even the presidential com link, he hadn’t been able to get through to her, and she hadn’t been able to reach him, but she was still able to warn him. She had time for that. Maybe time enough for her to grab the baby, for her and Katherine and Leo to escape through one of the emergency exits. Time enough to reach their rally point, their prearranged meeting place. Maybe.

  Redbeard’s dictum: Plan for the day when all your plans fail, when those you trust betray you, when your certainty cracks like a rotten egg and you are alone in the storm. That’s the place he was right now. The president dead, the government in turmoil, helicopters buzzing over the city, and the Fedayeen on high alert. None of that meant a thing right now.

  Rakkim kicked the boarded-up door open, still running, breathing hard. He took the rickety wooden stairs two at a time, three at a time, kicking up dust as he accelerated. His foot broke through one of the termite-ridden steps, but he pulled it free, kept running, the knife in his hand. He turned off at the sixth-floor landing, raced down the deserted corridor, tearing through cobwebs.

  The door to Rakkim and Sarah’s closet looked like part of the plasterboard wall. He pressed a recessed button along the floorboard, looked into a knothole for the iris scan, and the section of wall slid noiselessly back.

  He could smell Sarah’s perfume on her clothes, saw them bunched underfoot where they had been ripped from their hangers. He felt the softness of her pale blue dress brush against his face as he peered through a gap in the doors. Sounds from the other rooms. Glass breaking. Furniture being knocked over. Loud voices, as though they didn’t care who heard them. He eased the doors apart, padding forward. Their bed had been slashed apart, Sarah’s antique dresser kicked to pieces, all her pretty things scattered. His heart beat quietly now, steadily, calm as milk as he closed in on the strangers in his home.