Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

Rakkim watched her stride around the room, clicking through her plan of attack. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“You want to run away?”

“It’s not a dirty word. Your mother did it.” Rakkim thought Sarah was going to slap him. “Redbeard and the Old One have been playing against each other for twenty years. Maybe we should stay out of their game.”

“Could you run away?”

“With you? Sure.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Even if you find this fourth nuke, that doesn’t prove the Old One is responsible. Maybe Safar Abdullah was working for the Israelis.”

“Tell that to Marian. You think the Israelis murdered her?”

“What happened to Marian is just the beginning,” said Rakkim. “You need to be ready for that. You have to decide if it’s worth it.”

“I’m not some ivory-tower intellectual. Not anymore.” Sarah stalked over. “I killed a man last week. I drove a chopstick through his eye. It made this moist popping sound that I’m going to remember the rest of my life. I look in the mirror and I hardly recognize myself.”

Rakkim watched her slip into one of his clean white shirts, her legs bare. “I just want you to realize you may not get the result you’re expecting. History books get written after the war, after the dying. I’m on the outside, Sarah. I don’t care about the president or Martyrs Day or any of the rest of it.”

“If I knew things wouldn’t get worse, I might be tempted,” Sarah said quietly, “but history is never static, there’s always a rise and fall. The fundamentalists are getting bolder, and the moderates just want it to all go away. Four professors at the university have been dismissed this year. Insufficiently Islamic.” She chewed on her pinkie, forced herself to stop. “Last week I had an encounter with a Black Robe…” She shook her head. “You can run away. I won’t.”

“I don’t like Canada anyway.” Rakkim took a couple of cans of coffee out of the cabinet. Shook them. Popped and poured them each a hot cup. He sat in the window seat, placed her coffee on the sill. She sat beside him. “I know a hack who can run down Safar Abdullah’s work history.” He smiled. “I might have to marry one of his daughters though.”

“I don’t share, you know that. I’m Redbeard’s niece.” Sarah sipped her coffee, one leg tucked against her chest, content to drowse in the late-afternoon sun.

Rakkim peeked through a gap in the curtains. He had chosen this office suite, chosen this window seat. The perfect vantage spot. The glass front of the building opposite allowing him to see both sides of the street. The market must be shutting down for the day. Housewives trudged down the sidewalks, string bags bulging with produce. Two workmen argued with each other as they walked, hands waving, the collars of their jackets turned up. A kid on a blue bicycle dodged through traffic. The trick in active observation wasn’t to look for someone dangerous, but to sense things that were out of place. A parked car with the engine idling. The wrong shoes. The wrong gloves. An old woman who squared her shoulders. A man reading a newspaper who never turned the page. If you wait to see the knife, you’ll be dead, his Fedayeen instructor had taught him-better to notice the empty scabbard and live.

This morning Rakkim had seen a long-haired modern hanging around the entrance to his building, sheltered under an overhang, shifting from one foot to the other. Probably thought himself invisible. Rakkim had been about to wake Sarah, tell her to get dressed, when a young woman had shown up, kissed the modern, the two of them clutching each other in the shadows before hurrying away.

“Did you call Redbeard?” asked Sarah. “I hate worrying him.”

Rakkim watched the street. “I told him.” A line of cars idled at the corner, waiting for the light to change. Blue exhaust drifted on the wind. New cars, old cars, it didn’t seem to matter-they were all rusting, paint peeling, mufflers rumbling with corrosion. “Do you want to go out and get something to eat?”

“Don’t you have anything here?”

“Canned tuna…bottled water…beer, artichoke hearts, apples and oranges.” A man with a gray beard crossed against the light and a horn blared. “I think I have some crackers.”

She put her foot on his leg, squeezed him with her toes. “Let’s stay here. I’m tired. I just want to eat and read and make love.” Her eyes were playful. “I’d like to take a shower first. If you’re good, I’ll let you wash my back.”

“What do I get to wash if I’m bad?”

Sarah started unbuttoning the white shirt, taking her time. “Your prospective father-in-law…he won’t mind me coming with you?”

“He won’t. You might, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you still afraid of the dark?”

“Refrain from gawking, Omar,” Ibn Azziz said to his Yemeni bodyguard as they were led down the corridor by the two Fedayeen. “It makes you seem like a kaffir at mosque.”

Stung, Omar straightened to his full height, throwing his broad shoulders back as he kept pace with the Fedayeen.

Ibn Azziz maintained his slow, steady walk, and Omar fell back beside him. Omar’s swagger was a sign of weakness, as was the way he rested his hand on his dagger. The dagger had been in Omar’s family for three hundred years, a double-edged blade, ten inches long, made of the finest Damascus steel. Ibn Azziz had expected the unarmed Fedayeen officer who had greeted them outside the academy to ask Omar to disarm, but he had merely glanced at the weapon, smirking as he bowed to Ibn Azziz. Pig.

His advisers had warned against visiting General Kidd at the Fedayeen training academy, the seat of his power, but Ibn Azziz had dismissed their concerns. He needed to make it clear to General Kidd that in spite of Ibn Azziz’s youth, Kidd was dealing with an equal, a spiritual warrior and master tactician. In the week since Ibn Azziz had seized power, he had disappeared dozens of Oxley’s loyalists, used his contacts in the media to sugarcoat his ascension to power, and begun a campaign against the Catholics. On this twelfth day of fasting, his breath was foul, but his heart was pure as a blowtorch.

Two Fedayeen escorts proceeded ahead, almost ignoring Ibn Azziz. They walked with the long gait typical of Fedayeen, a pantherlike glide that was nothing like the crisp cadence of army personnel. Even their uniforms were somehow…unmilitary. Plain, light blue uniforms with dull brass buttons. No epaulets, no medals, no insignia. The Fedayeen stopped at the end of the corridor, knocked once, and threw open the door, flanking the doorway.

Omar started through first, as was proper, but one of the Fedayeen placed a hand on his chest.

“Just the mullah,” said the Fedayeen.

Omar slapped his hand aside, started to draw his dagger…and then he was on the floor. He bolted up to his feet, but Ibn Azziz waved a hand.

“Wait outside, Omar, and keep our brother Fedayeen company,” said Ibn Azziz, affecting boredom. “I will see General Kidd privately.” He passed through the doorway, though not before noting the insolent gaze of the Fedayeen as he passed. Sooner, rather than later, General Kidd would see the wisdom of deepening the alliance with the Black Robes. He would see the value in treating Ibn Azziz as an honored ally. To seal the bargain, Ibn Azziz would ask only one thing…the eyes of these two Fedayeen.

General Maurice Kidd looked over as Ibn Azziz entered the balcony, then turned back. Tall and lean, Kidd stood casually beside a railing, middle-aged now, his face unlined and gleaming like obsidian. A devout Muslim, fiercely loyal, he had four wives and twenty-seven children, but lived simply. His rise to power began when, a mere Fedayeen captain, he had taken command of the decimated Islamic forces at the battle of Philadelphia, leading a counterattack that stopped the rebel advance. For the last twelve years he had commanded the Fedayeen, eager to send his troops abroad in furtherance of Islam or battling the Bible Belters on their common border. Today, as always, he wore the same unadorned uniform as the other Fedayeen, with only a tiny gold crescent on each shoulder denoting his rank. “Welcome, Mullah Ibn Azziz.”