Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

Rakkim had gotten quiet after that, and Mardi knew him well enough not to try to engage him in conversation. He ate beef stew and thought of geology and earthquakes and load-bearing trusses. Marian’s father, Richard Warriq, had hundreds of textbooks in the library, but Marian said it was his journals that Sarah had been interested in. Warriq had traveled to China for over forty years, before and after the transition, one of the few Americans who had such access. Sarah had been looking for something in his journals. She must not have found it, because Marian said Sarah was supposed to visit and do more research last Saturday, the day after she had disappeared.

Three jocks in college letterman sweaters trudged down the alley toward him, half-slipping on the slick stones, wispy beards hanging from their chins like dirty icicles. The wind sent fast-food papers tumbling. Rakkim gave the jocks plenty of room, but they barely noticed him, arms around each other’s shoulders, singing some rah-rah song. He increased his pace as he zigzagged through the maze of alleys, the nearby tech shops shuttered this time of night.

Rakkim had no idea what Sarah was researching. Plenty of topics would be dangerous to write about, even for the niece of Redbeard. Any examination of the legal authority of the Black Robes could lead to trouble, and no publisher would dare print an exposé of the finances of the congressional leaders or the army high command. Rakkim kept coming back to Sarah’s interest in China and Miriam’s father’s work on the Three Gorges Dam-that was the only connection he had.

Although Russia had given refuge to the Zionists, China, the richest and most dynamic nation, had aroused the greatest concern among the Islamic high command. General Kidd, the Fedayeen commander, had been the most bellicose, particularly when he had a cheek full of fresh khat. Most Westerners preferred the distillation of the euphoric stimulant, but Kidd preferred the herb itself, flying it in daily from Yemen. In private, Kidd had stated that if the Chinese ever signed a pact with the Russian Bloc, or attacked nearby Muslim countries for their oil, he had a list of prime targets ripe for destruction. He had never named them, but the Three Gorges Dam had to be high on the list; six hundred feet high, it allowed ships direct access from the ocean to the interior. Its destruction would flood millions of acres and cripple the Chinese economy overnight.

If Sarah was writing a critical book on the Fedayeen, that qualified as dangerous, since most of their covert actions were in violation of the cease-fire with the Bible Belt. The pushpin in Sarah’s map would have been a visual cue for Sarah, one she had removed after she’d decided that Redbeard might see it and ask questions.

Rakkim had hoped to find evidence in Warriq’s journals, some indication that he was feeding the Fedayeen information about China, taking notes for a future attack, or some potential sabotage. Unfortunately, the journals were as impenetrable as the textbooks, Warriq’s handwriting neat but cramped, the words pressed together with barely a break. One shelf of the library was given to his private journals, thirty-eight of which were devoted to his work in China. Rakkim had barely skimmed two volumes this afternoon, before his eyes gave out.

Marian was right-her father’s journals were a laundry list, a travelogue of useless information. Warriq cataloged every meal, noted every landmark, accounted for every hour of his schedule. Page after page, the man’s disposition was uniformly foul. The meat was of poor quality, the tomatoes tasteless, the soup cold. His bed was too hard. Or too soft. Proper hygiene for his prayers was difficult. The roads were poorly designed. The weather was not to his liking. His descriptions of his Chinese employers were equally critical: they were dismissed as “ignoramuses,” “atheists,” “eaters of pigs and dogs.” His superiors fared no better, and the accounts of his engineering work yielded nothing of particular interest. Rakkim found no evidence that the man was a spy, but ample reason to conclude he was a supercilious pain in the ass. Rakkim had asked Marian if he might take a few volumes home, but she had politely refused, said she never let them out of her keeping, but invited him back at his leisure to spend more time in the stacks.

An aluminum can clattered across the alley behind him. Rakkim turned, but no one was there. He listened, but there was only the faint hum of cars on the freeways. He waited for another minute, immobile, then started walking. He was being followed, but whoever it was, wasn’t particularly adept. Accidents happened when shadowing someone. You were tempted to hurry so as not to be outdistanced, but in your haste you stumbled or knocked something over. It happened. The secret was not to go silent, but to make a great show of noise afterward, cursing to the moon, howling that you had hurt yourself. The one being followed would actually take comfort in the racket, consider you harmless, and go on his way. Silence was certain to rouse suspicion.

Rakkim could easily escape his pursuer; he knew every twist and turn of these alleys, every loose cobblestone and open manhole, but he waited. Knife in hand. A Fedayeen knife was a technological wonder, a carbon-polymer alloy infused with the DNA of its owner. At a half-inch thick, it was unbreakable, sharper than surgical steel, invisible to metallic and biological scans. Literally part of the fighter.

Two thugs in black trench coats scurried around the corner behind him, stopped when they saw him.

Rakkim beckoned them closer, then turned, hearing motion in the alley ahead of him.

Anthony Jr. and another kid, also in trench coats, slid down a fire escape, putting Rakkim between the four of them. Anthony Jr. wore a headset. He must have been following Rakkim from the roofs, where the light was better, coordinating the movements of the other two. Not bad.

“You shouldn’t have taken my goods at the Super Bowl.” Anthony Jr. slipped off the headset. “That ain’t kosher.”

Rakkim smiled. The kid was a lousy thief, but he had his father’s sense of humor.

All four of them took baseball bats from the slings inside their trench coats.

“Nice choreography,” said Rakkim. “I like the matching coats too. Whose idea was that?”

“That was Anthony,” said the one beside Anthony Jr. “Not bad, huh?”

“Shut up,” said Anthony Jr.

The first two closed in. They looked like brothers, overgrown hyenas with stringy blond hair and narrow, protruding foreheads. They tapped their bats on the stones as they approached. The tapping was probably supposed to scare Rakkim, but they looked like blind men testing the terrain with their canes.

Anthony Jr. assumed a batter’s stance about ten feet away and took a few practice swings. Rakkim felt the breeze on his face.

“You sure you want to do this, Anthony?” said Rakkim.

“Fuck yes,” said Anthony Jr.

Rakkim stood relaxed, watching them close in. If there had been only two of them, he might have kept a wall at his back, but in this kind of situation, he preferred mobility.

“He got a blade,” said the first hyena.

“You got us really terrified, mister,” snickered the one beside Anthony Jr., a bandy-legged punk missing a couple of front teeth. He blew balls of spit when he talked. “We took down some soldier boys last month. They had knives too. Lot bigger than that little bitty thing of yours.”

“Careful of this guy,” warned Anthony Jr. “He’s not like the other ones.”

“I hit a home run on one of them soldier boys,” said the first hyena. “Blew out his kneecap and he practically begged us to take his gear.” He held up his left wrist. “This here’s his watch. What time you got, mister?”