Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

General Kidd turned back to his cheering recruits. “Any understanding that existed was between me and Oxley. If you can bring him back from the dead, we will have something to talk about.”

Ibn Azziz turned on his heel, fuming. Omar, his bodyguard, was beside him again.

The Fedayeen stayed beside the door to the balcony, leaving them unescorted. Another insult. Their voices echoed down the corridor, garrulous as Jews’.

Let them laugh. Ibn Azziz had been mocked before, but the dead no longer laughed. His head pounded, though from the effects of his fast or his anger he could not tell. Regardless of the general’s lack of cooperation, Redbeard’s niece would be found. No matter what it took. No matter what it cost. The whore would be brought in, shown in all her debased squalor on television, perhaps even made to confess her uncle’s role in her fall into sin. Yes. Help from the Fedayeen would have been a blessing, but Ibn Azziz had learned not to rely on anyone but himself…and Allah.

Ibn Azziz felt excitement course through him. The niece was said to be obstinate, but there were men in his employ skilled in the arts of persuasion. Given enough time, they could get the niece to confess to anything.

At great cost, Ibn Azziz had purchased a photograph of the niece and distributed it to every Black Robe in the country. The photo was several years old, taken on campus while she hurried to class, but her features were clear, as was the supple harlotry of her limbs. Word had come that Redbeard had enlisted his orphan to help him find his niece…Rakkim Epps. Another Fedayeen renegade. The photo of him was equally out-of-date, but his face showed the serene insolence that marked so many of the Fedayeen. Perhaps when Ibn Azziz was finished with Redbeard, he would start working on the transformation of the warrior elite.

He pushed past Omar, threw wide the doors to the outside. The wind buffeted them, sent his robes flapping. There had been good news this morning. A nest of Zionist vipers discovered. He had intended to invite General Kidd to the festivities. His loss. Ibn Azziz held his head high, barely aware of the cold. Last night he had dreamed for the third time of the city transformed. The streets of the capital like sheets of beaten copper, the gutters running red with blood. White doves flew overhead, a vast flock of doves, their wings beating like thunder. Ibn Azziz had awakened, weeping with joy.

“What was that comic book you used to talk about?” Rakkim’s hand ached from Sarah’s gripping him so tightly. He kept talking, anything to keep her mind off where they were. “The man who was half bat. He’d be right at home here.”

“He wasn’t half bat.”

Rakkim felt her stumble in the utter darkness, kept her from falling. She had almost refused when he’d told her they were going to have to enter the tunnel without any kind of light. He had formed a mental map of the path to Spider’s underground lair, a map formed in darkness. Light would only confuse him. Sarah had taken a few steps inside, but when he’d closed the door to the outside, she had clawed at him. He had sat down with her on the stone floor, let her get used to the darkness, the cool air of the tunnels, the sounds. It hadn’t worked. She was still terrified of the dark, just as when she was a kid, but she didn’t let it stop her. “This man-bat, he could see in the dark, though, right?”

“His name was Batman.” Sarah’s voice trembled, her nails digging into him. “And, no, he couldn’t see in the dark. He just wore a costume so he looked like a bat.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could he fly?’

“No, he just had the costume.” Sarah stifled a cry as something skittered away in the distance. “There…there was another one, though. Superman. He could fly.”

Rakkim felt for the wall, found the intersection, and took the right-hand tunnel. “They had a lot of gods in the old regime.”

“They weren’t gods. Not exactly. Movie stars were more like their gods.”

“You want to go back to that?”

“No,” snapped Sarah, voice echoing, and Rakkim was glad that she couldn’t see his smile. “I want to go back to freedom to travel, to study and explore, to share information, to improve on what we have. I want to go back to making mistakes and trying again. Islam has nothing to fear from new ideas.”

“Don’t say that in the Grand Ali Mosque, you might get your tongue cut out.”

“Ayatollah al-Hamrabi is an ass who doesn’t know his Qur’an.”

“Definitely going to get your tongue cut out.”

Sarah laughed, swinging hands as if they were children on a walk in the park. They splashed through a puddle where water had seeped in. “Marian and I…”

“What?”

“Marian and I used to discuss the fact that the nation is coasting on the intellectual capital amassed by the previous regime, and we’re running low on reserves. Islam dominated western intellectual thought for three hundred years, a period when Muslims were most open to the contributions of other faiths. This is the caliphate that should be restored, not some military-political autocracy like the Old One envisions.”

The floor of the tunnel gradually sloped downward. Another 312 paces and they would turn left into another, even more narrow tunnel. Sarah was squeezing his hand again.

“Once the power of the fundamentalists is broken, once the Old One has retreated back to wherever he’s hiding, then maybe we can build a nation that reveres innovation and intellectual inquiry. Faith-driven inquiry, but intellectually rigorous.”

“I’d settle for loud music, cold beer, and coed beaches.”

Sarah’s laugh bounced off the stone walls of the tunnel. “I’ll make sure we include that in the new constitution.”

Rakkim made another turn, pulling her along. “It’s not much further.”

“You sure Spider won’t mind me showing up unannounced?”

“No more than he’s going to mind me showing up unannounced.” Rakkim had tried to give Spider warning. He had gone by the restaurant where Spider’s daughter Carla worked, but the manager said she had called in sick.

“Why have we stopped?”

“I’m feeling for something.” Rakkim ran his hands around the door-frame set into the tunnel, trying to find a latch. There was a click and the door swung open. It was just as dark. He led Sarah into the storage room that served as a transition area. “Spider! It’s Rakkim!” No response. He fumbled along the wall, found a light switch. The two of them blinked in the sudden glare.

“Thank, God,” said Sarah, basking in the light.

Rakkim hugged her. “You did good.”

“I’ve been fighting back a scream the whole way.”

Rakkim washed his hands in the sink, took off his shoes. He waited while she did the same, then opened the door to the main room. “Spi-” He clipped off his greeting, walked inside, looking around.

The room was empty. Worse than empty. It was a mess. Tables were overturned, carpets half-rolled, museum-quality tapestries hanging unevenly, as though someone had thought of taking them and decided at the last minute against it. The bank of computers had been stripped, memory cores removed and the sides hammered in. Cardboard boxes had been filled to overflowing with clothes and then abandoned. Beds had been overturned, drawers hung out of dressers. Toys were scattered about-a stuffed rhinoceros, a baseball, a single chess piece…a black knight. The two refrigerators were wide-open, discarded food lying in a puddle of spilled milk. No blood, though. No blood. Spider and his family had left in haste, but they had gotten away unharmed.