Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

Darwin rested the side of his face in the palm of his hand as the headlights approached the guard shack. Beep-beep-beep went the tiny scanner on the counter. The rainstorm beat against the shack, sheets of water streaming down the glass sides, distorting the view. A blur looking out. A blur looking in. Bitter with the sweet.

He had waved Rakkim through about fifteen minutes ago, face down, pretending to read a newspaper. Sarah’s car drove past, not stopping. All Darwin got was a glimpse of the red taillights shimmering through the rain. They were both inside the car. Darwin had seen that much. He had watched them on the Cyclops. Watched them nuzzling in the front hallway, the two lovebirds finally reunited. Darwin had actually applauded at the tender moment, his clapping echoing off the walls of the guard shack. Sarah had discarded her chador, was garbed as a modern, a modern woman with all the modern desires. They would be inseparable now. Until Darwin decided to separate them.

Darwin still didn’t know if she had found what she had come back for, which was annoying. Very annoying. Sarah had been off-camera for ten or fifteen minutes in Marian’s bedroom, but she wasn’t carrying anything when she left. Neither was Rakkim.

There were those two boxes Rakkim and the fat detective had removed from the house a few days ago. That might be what she had come back for. Hard to know. Darwin could ask the Wise Old One about it, but the old man treasured his secrets. Ah, the mystery of it all…Darwin could hardly wait to find out what the old man was really up to. It would be interesting, that was for certain. In the early days he had done a few jobs for the Black Robes, but quickly grew tired of their narrow intentions, their joyless theological bickering. The thing about fundamentalists was, they had no curiosity. All they cared about was deciding where the line should be drawn, determining which side of the line was black, and which side was white. Right and wrong, good and bad…Darwin transcended all such categories. In spite of all the old man’s God talk, he was the same way. The two of them were unique.

Darwin whistled a happy tune as he peeled off the security guard’s lime green jacket. An ugly color for an ugly man. He tossed the jacket onto the floor, right next to where the guard lay curled beside the wastebasket, neck broken. Two guards killed in this same shack within a week. The homeowners’ association was going to have to pass a special levy to cover the increased cost of protection. An amusing thought. Death always brought so many surprises. So many unexpected consequences. A butterfly splatted against the windshield of a speeding car, and there went all hope of that typhoon in Japan that the philosophers were always prattling on about.

Some would call the killing tonight unnecessary. He had intended to talk his way past the guard, show his insurance-company ID, but then…then, instinct took over. A predator who takes no prey is no longer a predator. God had created Darwin to take pleasure in killing, and Darwin would not deny the wisdom of God. Darwin smiled at the blasphemy.

He slipped the scanner into his pocket, waved good-bye to the dead. It was a short walk to his car, the scanner beeping away. The microwave transmitter attached to Sarah’s car was working properly. Good timing on Darwin’s part. He had placed the device and gotten back to the shack just before Rakkim had driven up. Darwin slid behind the wheel, started his car. All things considered, things were working out perfectly.

Sarah turned around, looked back into the dark.

“He’s there. The bug’s range would have to be at least four or five miles to make it effective.” Rakkim kept his eyes on the road, the headlights cutting a corridor through the night. He could sense her concern. “The bug gives us an advantage. We know he’s back there. He’ll follow us anywhere now…anywhere we take him.”

“This man who killed Marian…you’re sure that’s him behind us?”

Rakkim shrugged. “The Black Robes don’t go in for such sophisticated technology, and bounty hunters wouldn’t bother with a bug-they would have grabbed you back at the house. No…this guy is more interested in what you’re up to than killing you. Not yet, anyway. He doesn’t care about bringing you in. He wants to know where you’re going, who you’re meeting. That’s why he killed Marian and the others the way he did. He wanted you to know. To scare you. To make you do something stupid.”

“It worked, didn’t it? Going back to Marian’s was stupid.”

They drove on through the rain and into the badlands at the foot of the Cascade Mountains, a nest of narrow roads cut through the forest. A route for smugglers and illegal timber cutters, a dangerous detour for out-of-staters who took a wrong turn. He had taken this same road through the foothills when he’d left Redbeard’s last week, but he was headed deeper into the badlands now. Outlaw country. The last refuge for crazies and losers and malcontents with a million grudges. The abandoned ones. Only forty miles from downtown Seattle and the seat of government, the badlands were off the map, beyond the reach of God or man.

“There’s just one man following us? One man who did all those things?”

“He’s a Fedayeen assassin. They always work alone.”

“Like you.”

Rakkim glanced over at her, then back at the road.

“I’m just saying, there’s only one of him and one of you. So why are we running away?”

“I’m not going to go hand to hand with him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to outsmart him.”

“I said, okay.”

“Are you disappointed? The flower of Islam refusing combat? It must shake your faith. I could call Redbeard, if you want. Ask him to send reinforcements.”

Sarah moved next to him, her face so close he could feel her warm breath. “Just kill him.”

“Assassinate the assassin?” Rakkim smiled. “What would that make me?” He couldn’t leave well enough alone. “You should have contacted me. You should have told me you needed to disappear.”

“I made a promise.” The only sound in the car was the beating of the rain and the slap of the wipers. “Did Redbeard tell you about the Old One? Is that how you knew what I was working on?”

“Redbeard would sooner share his left ventricle than share information. I didn’t need him.” Rakkim edged the car over, pines and cedar crowding the road, their roots cracking the pavement. “Once you open up a secret, it starts leaking out all over. There’s no way to stop it…unless you kill everybody even remotely connected to it.”

“Are you blaming me for Marian’s death? You don’t have to, I’ve already done it.”

“There’s enough blame to go around.”

The road took a hairpin turn, headlights flashing across a skeletal, burned-out truck at the bottom of the ravine. Rakkim relaxed his grip on the wheel, steering with his fingertips. The shocks on the car were lousy, the suspension mushy-it was all he could do to keep them on the road.

Sarah turned on the heater. Still broken. So was the defroster.

Rakkim wiped condensation off the inside of the windshield with the edge of his hand. Checked the rearview. “I’m surprised Redbeard didn’t put one of his own tracking devices in the watch he gave you.”

“He did. I had an electronics tech in the Zone remove it. Said it was Russian. Paid me a thousand dollars for it. Redbeard had to know what I had done, but he never mentioned it.”

“I brought the computer memory to a contact of mine. He pulled pieces of your book off it before the destruct-program was fully actualized.”