Robert Ferrigno - Heart of the Assassin

"I'm sure you remember your Bible, Mr. Crews," said the Old One. "John the Baptist was given the honor of announcing the coming of Jesus. It was he who first proclaimed him the Messiah."

"Well, you ain't Jesus and John the B. got his fucking head chopped off." Crews glanced at Baby. "Chopped off and put on a silver plate for Salome, the dancing girl."

Baby spun faster, laughing.

C.P. was almost to his feet, but Gravenholtz tripped him, sent him sprawling.

"We done yet?" said Gravenholtz.

"Are we done, Mr. Crews?" said the Old One.

Crews walked over to C.P.

"Hey!" said C.P., one hand raised. "Hey!"

"You remember Hecklenburg?" said Crews.

C.P.'s eyes darted. "That little town? S-sure."

"We hit them at dawn," said Crews. "It was late fall, but we got an early snow, and it crunched under our boots as we approached the houses? Snow coming down, big fat flakes in the early morning light…like it was raining blood."

C.P. nodded.

"Couple weeks before we found all these Halloween costumes in an abandoned warehouse, and the officers were wearing skeleton costumes, scampering across the snow like they were in some damned cartoon." Crews shook his head at the memory. "We start knocking down doors and the townspeople 'bout pissed themselves, screaming before the shooting even starts…but you, C.P., you crazy son of a bitch, you went one better." He glanced over at Baby. "Afterwards, we're checking for survivors, and I spot C.P. here wearing nothing but a purple wig and a gold lame jockstrap, dragging a teenage girl down Main Street." He looked down at C.P. "Where in hell did you find a gold jockstrap?"

As C.P. smiled, Crews shot him in the face.

"C.P… he was a good ol' boy," said Crews. "Always coming up with something to crack me up." He tossed down the gun. Looked over at the Old One. "You want to bring the whole place down around our ears, call forth fire and brimstone…you want to drown the world like a box of kittens, well, then, I'm your man, pops."

Baby winked at the Old One. "Told ya."

Gravenholtz nudged C.P.'s body with his shoe.

"This whole place is going to have to be scrubbed," said the Old One. "Bodies removed, buried someplace where they won't-"

"No…no. Let's leave everything as it is," said Crews. "I'll call a news conference, say we were attacked by end-times remnants angry at me for embracing the light."

"And you were saved by the grace of God," said Baby.

"Yeah, walked right through a storm of bullets untouched," said Crews. "Let's see John the Baptist try that."

"Throw away your black suits," said Baby. "Become the man in white…transformed."

The Old One stared at her. Nodded.

Gravenholtz snorted.

"Call your news conference first thing in the morning," said the Old One. "Sometime soon, Aztlan will formally charge the Colonel with ordering the assassination of their oil minister two weeks ago. I want you out there ahead of the story."

"What am I-?" said Crews.

"The politicians will equivocate, ask for time to go over the indictment, but not you," explained the Old One. "In the Colonel's hour of need you're going to stand by his side. Offer him your total support."

"The Colonel ain't gonna want his help," said Gravenholtz.

"Things are happening quite rapidly now, Mr. Crews," said the Old One, ignoring Gravenholtz. "I think you're going to enjoy yourself. Baby and I will be leaving shortly, but Lester's going to stay with you."

"You didn't say nothing about that to me," said Gravenholtz.

"There's a great deal I don't tell you, Lester. More than you can possibly imagine."

"Lester, honey, it's just for a little while." Baby stroked Gravenholtz's arm. "I bet you and Mr. Crews gonna be real good friends."

Gravenholtz pulled away.

"You want to know a secret?" Crews said softly. "Not all my healing is fake. Oh, most of it is suggestion and reinforcement, no doubt, but sometimes…sometimes I feel something flowing from me into them, a heat pouring out from my hands and it…it does something to folks." He glanced at C.P. then back at the Old One. "I don't know why it happens, or how it happens, but sometimes I cure people, mister. Me, Malcolm Crews. I cure people and they stay cured. Arthritis, diabetes, heart trouble…I cured cancer a couple of times, cured it right out of them."

"This is a time of miracles, Mr. Crews," said the Old One.

Gravenholtz spit onto C.P.'s ruined face. "You're so good, let's see you raise that asshole from the dead."

Rakkim knelt on one of the large, flat rocks in the water garden, picked a piece of broken glass out of the stream and put it in his pocket. The water garden had been Redbeard's favorite spot on his estate, a full acre of lush greenery under a clear, protective dome. Redbeard prayed here, planned and plotted here, taught Rakkim and Sarah the basics of statecraft and political survival here. He plucked another piece of glass from the stream.

Through a jagged gap in the shattered dome, Rakkim could see the villa where he and Sarah had grown up. Last year someone had driven a stolen car through the plasti-glass, tearing through several panels. The car had been hauled away but the break in the dome remained, along with another dozen breaches. No matter. The vegetation in the dome thrived, the bamboo actually growing through the holes in the roof in parts. He and Sarah and Michael had come here regularly, weeding the garden, cleaning out the streambeds, hauling away trash. Colarusso and his family joined them sometimes, picnicking among the yellow hibiscus blooms beside the waterfall. He picked another piece of glass out of the water. The late-afternoon sun slanted through the dome, bathing the lush greenery with soft, golden light. Cool mist from the waterfall floated across his face.

"I thought you'd be happy," said Sarah.

Rakkim took in the construction cranes around the villa, the workers gone for the day. "You should have told me."

"I wanted to surprise you…and I suspected how you'd react."

After years of vandalism and targeted attacks by followers of the Black Robes, Redbeard's villa was being renovated by the news network in conjunction with the planned retrospective of his life. The outer walls had been rebuilt, the main structure braced, and new landscaping designed. Sarah said Redbeard's office, smaller than most people expected, had already been fully restored. Evidently this was going to be the focus of the documentary, Sarah seated near the great man's desk, talking about his life and the effect he'd had on the fledgling republic.

"It's not the network's job to restore the villa," said Rakkim. "You and I would have gotten to it eventually. Look what we've done with the water garden."

"The villa was falling apart, Rikki."

"Maybe that's the lesson. A great man lived here. Slept fitfully here. Taught the people he cared about here…and when he was gone, when he died…it fell into ruin. Men who hated him in life burned it down, broke the windows, knocked over walls, but the things he did, the people he taught…they endured. Is that so bad?"

"We want to inspire people, Rikki." She leaned closer. "If we don't, somebody else will. Would you rather ibn-Azziz or the Old One captured people's imagination?"

Rakkim didn't answer.

"Redbeard's life is the story," said Sarah. "Head of State Security, never married, Redbeard devoted his life to protecting the nation from terrorist attacks during the early days of the Republic. His partnership with President Kingsley is seen as part of the golden era of the Republic. His peaceful death from a heart attack is part of his mystique, called to heaven by Allah with a whisper-"

"Okay, okay, enough," said Rakkim. "Just tell Legault to leave the water garden alone."