Robert Ferrigno - Heart of the Assassin

"You were right, Amir. Something does eat at me." Hussein sat cross-legged in the garden at the rear of his villa, an iron-haired Fedayeen, one of the heroes of the war against the Belt. The empty left sleeve of his uniform was folded back to his shoulder, his posture rigid. "I have painful news."

The holographic display disappeared with a wave of Amir's hand.

"Your father…your father has made a secret recording to be released only in the event of his death," said Hussein. "The Old One used all his wiles to get a copy."

Amir waited. For Hussein, the most merciless of the early Fedayeen commanders, to be so shaken…

"Yes." Hussein turned his gaze on the orange and yellow koi gliding slowly back and forth in the pond beside them. Metallic green flies darted across the surface of the water. He looked at Amir. "Your father has passed you over."

Amir didn't react. He already knew the answer but he asked the question anyway. "Who has my father favored over me?"

"Rakkim."

Amir nodded.

"So much for your hope that you can convince your father to join us."

Amir felt the ache in his heart radiating out to the rest of him.

"You know what you're going to have to do, sooner or later." Hussein gripped his shoulder, squeezed. "I'm sorry."

Amir looked past Hussein, past the high walls of his villa, past the years… He was a child again, no more than five or six, walking besidehis father, and everyone they passed lowered their eyes, blessed his father, feared him. Amir had slipped his hand into his father's as they walked, taking in his strength, promising himself that he would be just like him when he grew up. His father had seemed so tall in those days, his skin a deep black, pure black, his voice like thunder-Amir had grown even taller than his father, but in his mind he was always reaching up for his father's hand.

"Amir? Have you not been listening?" said Hussein. "I said, the Old One says you must take action to minimize the damage of your father's last request."

"Tell our master not to worry," said Amir. "I'll gladly kill Rakkim."

"No," said Hussein. "That has been expressly forbidden."

"Does our master also favor Rakkim over me?"

"Lower your voice," said Hussein. "I am not privy to our master's deepest thoughts, I am only telling you what he has told me. He wants Rakkim alive."

"Then what am I to do?"

"Your father's statement is a request for his successor, and a request only." Hussein snatched a fly out of the air with his good hand, shook it back and forth in his fist. "Trust me, young one, the dead do not have nearly the authority they think." He released the fly, tossed it toward the pond, the insect disoriented, its flight erratic. A golden koi leaped high and snapped it up.

Colarusso watched Leo follow Marie out, then sat down on the sofa next to Rakkim. "Interesting playmates you got, troop. Leo said it was ibn-Azziz sent the triplets, which is bad enough, but I recognized the fella got his head chopped off-that's Senator Chambers's bodyguard."

"Ibn-Azziz had his heart set on Chambers being defense secretary," said Rakkim, "but it's the Old One who's pulling the strings."

"You know that for sure?"

"Chambers told me."

"I bet that was an interesting conversation," said Colarusso.

"It would have been more interesting if Chambers knew who suggested his name to the president," said Rakkim.

"President gets lots of advice," said Colarusso.

"He only listened to one person in this case," said Rakkim.

"You're certain Chambers didn't know?" said Colarusso.

"I'm certain."

"Yeah, got to believe a man with his pecker in the wind…" Colarusso pressed his finger to his earlobe, listening. "When?" He nodded. "Who's on-scene?" He looked at Rakkim. "Keep me posted. I'll expect a full report in the morning." He released the com-link set to his ear. "Senator Chambers was found dead at his country house an hour ago. Looks like suicide, which is bullshit, of course."

"What about his family?"

"They're safe. On holiday, according to the servants. Grand Canyon." Colarusso picked at a tooth with his pinkie nail, wiped it on his necktie. "Always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. Probably should do it sooner rather than later, before it's part of Aztlan."

Rakkim heard a car coming down the street.

A few seconds later, Colarusso heard it too. He glanced at the security screen above the fireplace, saw a car pull up out front.

"Thanks again, Anthony."

"No problem, troop." Colarusso watched Sarah and a plainclothes cop walking up the front drive, Sarah carrying Michael in her arms. "How soon until you leave for New Fallujah?"

"You can read minds now?"

Colarusso shrugged. "Just basic police work. You can't kill the Old One; you don't even know where he is. So you'll have to settle for killing ibn-Azziz, right?" He lumbered to the front door. "Besides, maybe ibn-Azziz knows who put the bug in the president's ear." He looked at Rakkim. "So, when are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow."

Colarusso opened the door. "Sarah, come on in. You look beautiful. Who's that big boy with you?"

The Old One had a cold. He sat in an oceanside cabana in Miami, watching the young couple playing on the sand with their toddler, and he hated them for their smooth, healthy pinkness. He wanted to drown the three of them in the shallows, hold their heads under while they thrashed, hold them under until their mouths stopped moving.

The Old One sneezed. The worst possible time to catch something. Ibrahim would be waiting for him inside the suite, wanting to watch the festivities in the Gulf with him, but the Old One didn't want to move. He wrapped his thick terry-cloth robe around himself, pulled the hood lower. The sun beat down on the cabana as he shivered, feeling ice form in his marrow. For the first time in decades, the Old One was sick…and the sickness was a sign of the change that had befallen him.

When his personal physician had first told him that he was dying, the Old One had been stoic at first, then oddly elated, toying with his new-found mortality, the delicious friction of risk. It didn't last. He felt every passing day, every waning moment as a subtraction, a loss. After all these years to finally be this close to success, and have it taken from him…

The Old One coughed, set off a rattling in his chest. He gently touched his cheek, felt the roughness where the shotgun blast at Malcolm Crews's mansion had scorched his skin. That pimply kaffir had almost killed him, ended his life in that overheated, run-down mansion with flies buzzing against the screens and garbage strewn on the lawn. So close to death…as though Allah had taunted him, given him a reminder of the muddy end men came to. The Old One tasted mucus in his mouth, a slimy lozenge that disgusted him.

The toddler in her frilly yellow bathing suit frolicked along the tideline, splashing as the waves trickled toward her. Her hair was as yellow as her bathing suit, a mass of tight curls like a sunflower. Her whole life lay before her, all those endless possibilities, while the Old One's life was winding down. Every breath she took, every joyous coo and tumble, was an insult to him.

The Old One rubbed his arms, trying to bring the blood to the surface, to get warm. It didn't help. He had caught the cold right after the near miss at Crews's mansion. The Old One had risked death before, dozens of times, but this was different. None of those other brushes with death had frightened him. If anything they had affirmed his identity as Allah's chosen one, the Mahdi. All gone now. Catching a cold, a common cold, was just a harbinger of things to come. Worse was on the way, age and infirmity riding toward him across the sands, a pale rider urging his mount on, faster, faster, faster. The Old One felt his cells slowly breaking down, toxins building up, his luck running out.