Robert Ferrigno - Heart of the Assassin

Gravenholtz covered his penis with both hands.

"I couldn't believe it when I saw you in church. I thought, Just maybe there is a God."

She switched on the photo display with a remote. An image appeared of Karla Jean in a white wedding dress, a skinny young man in a badly fitting suit beside her. The young man was looking at her with the same expression Gravenholtz had got when he'd thought about Karla Jean these last few days-like how did he get so lucky? And maybe…maybe everything that had gone before could change now. Karla Jean and the young man were dancing inside a small church now, round and round, dizzy with a secret joy.

"You recognize him now?" said Karla Jean.

"Should I?"

"I guess you killed too many men to remember them all. Well, I remember him. His name was Bryce Lee Johnson and you killed him three years ago outside of Harrisburg. He was a gunsmith, traveling the back roads to save money so we could start a family. Way I heard it, you wanted his personal weapon, the one he used to show off the quality of his work, and he didn't want to sell it. So you snapped his neck like a chicken bone and tossed him aside."

Gravenholtz still didn't remember him, but he remembered the gun, a beautiful.41-caliber Colt with an etched barrel, silver inlays and a soft trigger pull.

The pistol never wavered. "It's coming back to you now, isn't it?"

"Karla Jean…I'm sorry about your husband."

"I bet you are."

"Shooting me won't bring him back. If you can forgive me, maybe the two of us-"

"The two of us?" She stepped closer, snarling. "The two of us?" She fired the pistol and he staggered backward, feeling like he had been punched in the heart. She advanced, fired again and again and again, each shot knocking the breath out of him, the house echoing with the sound.

She fired again, just inches from him, and Gravenholtz saw her gasp, put her hand to her neck. In the dimness, something black was leaking through her fingers.

"Karla Jean?"

She wobbled, sat down heavily.

Gravenholtz bent down beside her, moved her hand and clamped his own over the wound. A bullet fragment had ricocheted off his subdural body armor and nicked her carotid artery.

She clutched at his bloody shirt. "Why…why didn't you die?"

"Don't talk." Gravenholtz tried to apply pressure on the artery, but his hand was slippery.

"I shot you. You should…you should be dead."

"You didn't know what you were doing. You were just angry, that's all."

Her eyes looked sleepy.

"Please…please don't go," said Gravenholtz, losing his grip on her neck. Her body jerked, blood spurting. "I…I forgive you, Karla Jean."

She turned her head away.

Gravenholtz thought she was trying to avoid looking at him, then realized she didn't even know he was there anymore. She was trying to get one last glimpse of her husband.

Rakkim gritted his teeth as Marie Colarusso cleaned his wounds. He lay on a white sheet covering the sofa in their living room, his leather jacket in bloody tatters on the floor. "It's not as bad as it looks."

"It's bad enough." Marie, a middle-aged woman with a doughy middle and gray roots showing in her reddish hair, reached for a piece of fresh gauze. "I'm so tired of tough guys."

"You're lucky Leo called me," said Colarusso, his uniform unbuttoned. "Got me on my private number…" The chief of detectives glanced at Leo. "Someday you're going to have to tell me how you did that."

"You wouldn't understand," said Leo.

Colarusso belched into his meaty fist. "He always like this?" he said to Rakkim.

"Pretty much," said Rakkim. "You should have seen him in the Belt. Half the folks thought he was retarded, the other half wanted to hit him with something."

"Sit still," ordered Marie, bending over the gash in his side. She tenderly dabbed at the wound. "Big brave Fedayeen," she snorted.

"You keep up this attitude, I'm not bringing you any more of my business, Marie," said Rakkim.

"Figured I better bring you here instead of a hospital," said Colarusso. "Too many questions, and too much paperwork there. Four dead men, one with his head cut clean off…" He shook his head. "Never a cop around when you need one."

"Thanks, Anthony," said Rakkim.

"What about me?" said Leo. "I saved your life."

Rakkim winced, shifted slightly on the couch. "Thank you, Leo."

"You're welcome." Leo grinned. "I could get used to this hero stuff."

Colarusso rolled his eyes. "Kid brains a miscreant and wants a medal."

"You told me the triplets were as dangerous as anybody in the city," said Marie, still bent over Rakkim. "You said they were implicated in dozens of murders."

"Well…yes," said Colarusso.

"Killed even Fedayeen, that's what you said." Marie sprayed antibiotic on the open cuts.

Colarusso pretended not to hear.

"So that would indicate to me that if this young man wants a medal for braining one of the triplets, he certainly deserves one." Marie pursed her lips. "Anthony?"

Colarusso walked over to where Leo waited. He moistened his thumb, quickly made the sign of the cross on Leo's forehead. "Happy now?"

"No." Leo wiped his forehead. "That's disgusting. What is it with you people?"

"Who's hungry?" Maryellen, one of the Colarusso girls, stood in the doorway with a plate of sandwiches. She was curvy like her mother, with pale white skin and sandy hair. "I made the roast beef with horseradish, just like you asked for, Leo."

Leo took three of them.

"A healthy appetite is a sign of virility," said Marie.

"Don't get any ideas, Marie," said Colarusso.

Marie checked Rakkim's body, crisscrossed with welts and cuts. "I still think you should let me stitch you up. Some of those are deep."

"Just the zip clamps are fine," said Rakkim. "They'll close up by tomorrow."

Marie shook her head. "Anthony Junior heals overnight too. Now, at least. Those Fedayeen injections…I worry about what they'll do to him in twenty or thirty years. Give him cancer or something."

"Don't worry, most Fedayeen don't live that long," said Rakkim.

"Well, I'm glad Anthony Junior is done with it," huffed Marie. "I thought having a Fedayeen in the family would bring more suitors for the girls, but-"

"Mother," said Maryellen.

"I'm…I'm engaged, Mrs. Colarusso." Leo looked at Maryellen. "Sorry."

"No skin off my nose." Maryellen set down the plate of sandwiches with a clatter.

Leo watched her hips as she left.

"Did you call Sarah?" asked Rakkim.

"She's on her way now, her and the boy," said Colarusso.

Rakkim sat up on the sofa, held his side. "It's late, Anthony."

"You try talking Sarah out of something she wants to do," said Colarusso. "I sent an unmarked car for them. The detective's a good Catholic, knows to keep his trap shut. I'll take you all back home when you're ready to travel."

"I'm ready now," said Rakkim.

Marie gathered up her first aid supplies. "I'll leave you men to your shop talk. Leo, if you want to come into the kitchen, Maryellen's got a fresh cherry pie just aching to be cut."

Amir looked up from the holographic re-creation of the sweeping cavalry attack of the Northern Alliance fighters and U.S. Special Forces that had crushed the Taliban in 2001. "Are you going to tell me what is gnawing at you?"

Hussein glared at him, unmoving in the evening.

Amir went back to the battle display, repositioning the Allied forces, light infantry, armed with swords and rifles. As always, his attention was drawn to American CIA agent Mike Spann, who fought on horseback beside the Northern Alliance as they charged dug-in Taliban equipped with Russian T-55 tanks and mortars. Amir watched as the Taliban forces fled, leaving their weapons behind. Spann was a kaffir, but he was a warrior above all else, a warrior who had died in battle for what he believed in, died in combat against great odds, and Amir admired him.