Robert Ferrigno - Heart of the Assassin

Then they started looking, each taking a different direction around the Wall, keeping their eyes out for any irregularities, any sign of recent activity, a bit of torn rad-suit, a hidden door, a smudge on the Wall itself. They crossed paths after two hours, started another circuit, expanding their area of interest.

It was late afternoon, the sun slanting through the petrified trees, before Rakkim spotted an indentation in the ground where rainwater had collected. The spot was along an inconspicuous outbuilding, where the old government stored mementoes left by mourners at the Wall. Not much of an indentation, but when he stuck a gloved finger in the water, it was deeper at one point than another, as though someone in a hurry had stepped there. He pressed himself against the side, sighted along the outbuilding…and saw an edge, a lip where the facing didn't fit properly. He looked under the facing, made sure there wasn't a nail or anything sharp, and lifted. A small section slid up, revealing a narrow escape tunnel leading down into the darkness. Someone had burned off the steel hatch to the tunnel with a laser torch.

"John…? John! "

Rakkim was standing there when Moseby ran over. Moseby patted him on the back. "You've got the makings of a real finder." He took out a small digital camera, held it at arm's length toward himself. "My name is John Moseby. I'm a deep-water Baptist, Church of the Redeemer, Sumner, Louisiana." He turned the camera on Rakkim. Waited. "Rakkim?"

"I…I'm Rakkim Epps. Fedayeen. I'm Muslim…but I don't have a regular mosque. Except maybe the Horn of Africa mosque I attend sometimes with General Kidd."

Moseby stopped the camera. "What's wrong? You claustrophobic?"

Rakkim couldn't take his eyes off the darkness. "Evidently." He slipped into the tunnel headfirst, inching forward on his hands and knees, his shoulders brushing the sides. The flashlight helped.

"You all right?"

Rakkim was breathing so fast his face mask fogged up, the respirator unable to keep up. He closed his eyes, slowed his heart rate, waited until his mask cleared and then continued. He could hear Moseby enter the tunnel behind him, narrating their descent for the camera as they continued. Sarah wanted complete documentation to show the world what they had found. He couldn't wait to get back out into the open air.

Up ahead the flashlight showed where the zombie had cut the interior steel hatch away, the safe room beyond. He could also see the raw edge of the opening that had snagged the zombie's suit. "We're almost there," said Rakkim, fumbling out his own laser torch. "I just want to clean up the edge."

"Careful."

Rakkim popped on the torch, flinched at the sudden bright light. Took just a few sweeps to smooth out the jagged metal. A few minutes more for it to cool. He slowly eased himself through the opening, dropped onto the floor of the safe room. "I'm in."

Moseby peeked through the opening. Lit up the room with his camera, panning from one side to the other. He was bigger than Rakkim, but somehow entered the room gracefully, barely making a sound. "This room was first discovered by a brave man named Eldon Harrison. Mr. Harrison gave his life trying to recover what was hidden away in this sacred place. Both Rakkim and I, and all Americans, honor his memory."

Rakkim leaned against the heavy desk, panting. He hadn't heard the word Americans used outside of a historical context within his lifetime. He walked around the desk, his footsteps raising a fine dust. The piece of cross lay on the floor, barely eight inches long, just outside the reach of the skeletal dead man who had come to fetch it. There were even more flowers on the wood now. He bent down, gingerly touched a blossom, half expecting it to shatter, but it bent and then sprung back.

Moseby moved into position, still filming. "As you can see, what we think is a piece of the true cross has sprouted in the toxic air of this city, sprouted in total darkness. I don't know why this has happened now, but maybe because its healing powers are needed now more than ever." He glanced at Rakkim, still keeping the camera on the cross.

"As a Muslim I don't attach the same religious significance to the cross as Christians," said Rakkim, "but seeing it covered in flowers…it's amazing."

"It's a miracle, " said Moseby. "I don't care what you believe, this is a miracle."

Moseby stopped the camera, put it away, then fell to his knees. Bent his head in prayer while Rakkim looked away.

When Moseby was done praying, Rakkim laid the piece of the cross in the small, white pine box it had originally been stored in, careful not to crush the flowers, then slid the box into a rad-proof pouch. Moseby filmed the whole procedure.

"Anything else-?"

"Shhh." Rakkim moved toward the entrance to the crawl space, listening. He heard whispered voices echoing. Then the sound of something bouncing against the metal walls of the crawl space. "Down!"

Rakkim dived behind the desk, the pouch with the cross under him. Moseby moved a little slower, the concussion from the explosion blasting him against the wall.

Baby saw the Colonel in his dress uniform as she walked from the barn and knew he had gotten the call from Malcolm Crews. She swatted dust out of her jeans. "What is it?"

"I have to leave for Atlanta," said the Colonel.

"What happened, Zachary?"

"Graceland happened," said the Colonel. "Aztlan crossed a line, now the whole country's raging for war."

"You're not?"

"I've seen war."

"Then why go? It's the army's job anyway, not yours. General Paulson-"

"Paulson's lost the confidence of the officer corps," said the Colonel, standing stiff as a saber, "and President Raynaud's useless. He's ready to resign, go back to Leesburg and breed bulldogs." He looked past her. "Never liked bulldogs myself, but I have to admit, the president's got an eye for bloodlines."

"I don't want you to go."

The Colonel kissed her, but it was the kiss of a man already gone. "I just got a call from Malcolm Crews. Man's crazier than a shithouse rat, but he defended me when Aztlan was calling for my head, defended me at great risk to himself. Crews says he's got twenty million listeners who think it's time for me to step forward, including half the generals and the first lady herself."

"What you're doing…some folks might call it treason."

"There is that," admitted the Colonel, "but then, that's what the British said about George Washington." He tugged at his jacket. The Congressional Medal of Honor bobbed around his neck. "If it comes down to it, I'll choose treason over abandoning my duty."

He looked at her with such regret that she feared he was going to change his mind and stay. It had taken her ten minutes to convince Crews to call the Colonel and tell him to get his ass to Atlanta-preacherman was getting used to doing things his own way.

"I leave for Atlanta in an hour," said the Colonel. "Taking the men here with me. The rest will be following shortly. I've made arrangements for you to take refuge in Canada."

Baby stamped her foot. "I'm not leaving. You think you're the only one gets to be brave? I'll wait here until Rikki and Moseby come back from D.C. Those two boys may need a hot meal and a cold beer."

"More likely they'll need a doctor."

The Colonel kissed her, holding her so tight she felt the silver buttons of his jacket pressing against her, and she kissed him back just as passionately, wishing she really were a simple girl, with simple dreams and simple desires. A girl like that could be happy with the Colonel.

Ears still ringing from the explosion, Rakkim stood up, wobbly, disoriented from the shock wave. Dust and reinforced concrete drifted from the crawl space. He shone his flashlight into the opening. Saw the tunnel collapsed at the first bend, the metal blackened. His face mask was misted with blood. He felt the weight of the earth on his chest. Could…could have been worse, though. Whatever it was, a grenade, percussion round…it had gone off too soon. Or maybe the zombies who had sent it down the crawl space knew just what they were doing-seal the place up but not destroy anything valuable in it. Come back at their leisure, reopen the tunnel and see what they could see.