Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

He took a hit on twelve and caught the other one-eyed jack. Busted by the jack of spades. The betrayer betrayed. A bad sign. In keeping with the bad news of these last weeks. Mullah Oxley, nurtured for years by the Old One, had been murdered by Ibn Azziz, a fiery ascetic barely old enough to sprout whiskers. Even now Ibn Azziz was stirring up trouble with the Catholics. Give him enough time and he would fracture the country.

More cards. Anna humming softly to herself. A lullaby to the son she would never have.

Meanwhile Redbeard’s niece was creating her own mischief. Although…there was still a chance that the Old One could use her to his advantage. She and Rakkim might even become the pivotal pieces in the game. Rakkim was a shadow warrior, one of the invisible men. Darwin wanted to kill him, kill the both of them, but that was just another indication of Darwin’s strategic limitations. The great challenge now was to reunite the country, to reclaim the old boundaries of the United States. In spite of its current malaise, the nation was still the best place for a truly vibrant Islam to take root, a transformational Islam. Rakkim’s knowledge of the Bible Belt would be invaluable.

Anna swept away his chips with a clatter.

The Old One realized he had lost track of the cards played. So intent on his successes and failures that he had stopped paying attention. He stood up. Pressed a $1,000 chip into her hand and offered her his blessing.

A faint beep sounded in his ear as he walked through the casino. What did Darwin want now?

Rakkim flattened himself against the wall of the giant shark, listening. At least four or five of them were outside. The candles were out, the interior in darkness. Moonlight visible through the open mouth, jagged teeth hanging down. A figure darted across the opening. Rakkim loosened his grip on his knife. The figure that he had glimpsed had been wearing a shock helmet and body armor. Bulbous, old-style night-vision goggles. SWAT. No way they were here for Fancy. Oh, Pernell, what did you do? Figures moved past the opaque window toward the rear exit. Bad luck that they knew about the exit, but good luck in that they stumbled in their haste.

Sarah and Fancy were crouched where he had left them. “Who is it?” asked Sarah.

“Police. Is there another way out of here, Fancy?”

“Front and back door, that’s it.” Fancy primped herself. “What do the cops want scaring us like this? They know they just got to ask.”

“It’s SWAT. They don’t ask.” Even in the darkness, Rakkim could see that Sarah understood. “They’re going to hit us from both sides. If you had to hide in here, where would you go?”

Fancy looked around. Pointed. “Under the sea tortoise. There’s room for all of us.”

“Go on then. Both of you,” Rakkim said quietly. “When you get settled, I want you to keep your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears. It’s going to get very loud and very bright in a few minutes. Stay low and take shallow breaths. Now, go.”

Sarah squeezed his hand as she and Fancy moved into deeper darkness.

Rakkim found a spot beside an octopus with only two unbroken tentacles. In an alcove off the main room, it offered good protection from both entry points.

“This is Anaheim SWAT. Come out with your hands raised.”

Rakkim heard the plywood being torn away from the rear entrance. He slipped his fingers in his ears, but he kept his eyes open. He’d have time to close them.

“YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO COME OUT.”

Rakkim pushed his fingers deeper into his ears. A flash grenade bounced through the open mouth of the shark. Another came in from the back. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth to equalize the pressure when the-

BWAM. BWAM.

Two quick explosions, two bursts of light so bright he saw stars even through his clenched eyes. Opening his eyes wasn’t much better. The room was filled with opaque white smoke. Just what he had hoped for. Pernell had said SWAT was in love with their flash grenades. They were used to detonating them in houses and apartments where the glass windows blew out, and the smoke quickly dissipated. The shark was poured concrete with a sloped roof and thick plastic windows. The smoke stayed. Rendering their night-vision goggles worse than useless.

The SWAT team entered quickly, took up positions on either side of the doorways, just as they had been taught. They clattered when they moved, their body armor unsecured. Sloppy. Rakkim stayed low, below the smoke, belly pressed against the filthy floor. They were carrying standard SWAT machine guns, short-barreled, folding stock. Forty-round clip. A lead man moved in from the front, another from the rear, but they were waving at the smoke, shouting to each other. Their voices echoed, disorienting them. The one in the rear took off his goggles, advanced farther into the room in a half crouch. The smart one.

Rakkim moved slowly toward the smart one, trying not to eddy the smoke.

“You see anything?” shouted the man in the front, standing on the shark’s tongue.

“Shut up!” said the one in the rear. “Take off your-”

Rakkim drove his knife into the back of the man’s neck, right into the gap between his armor and his helmet, drove the blade into the notch between the first cervical vertebra and the brain stem. A Fedayeen knife could punch through body armor in a single thrust, but it wasn’t a guaranteed kill, and sometimes the blade hung up. A cervical strike was instant death and there was almost no blood. He dragged the SWAT down as quietly as he could. White smoke billowing around them.

“Do what?” called one of them.

“He said shut up.”

The smoke was at knee level. Rakkim squatted, watching them continue to advance into the room. He counted six…make that seven sets of boots. Not counting the dead man on the floor. Someone should have taught them how to make a tactical retreat. To wait until they had regained advantage of the terrain.

One of the team passed right by Rakkim, but he waited. The next man started coughing, and Rakkim stood up, cut his throat, kept coughing himself to cover it up. He quietly lowered the man to the floor, warm blood pouring across his hands.

“You sure they’re in here, Cleese?”

Silence. Then the sound of coughing from all parts of the room. From behind the tortoise too, probably. At least Sarah and Fancy had an excuse. SWAT had come on with flash grenades and no masks. Terminal stupidity or supply-officer high jinks.

“Cleese?”

“Fuck. Okay, everybody, stay where you are.” More coughs. “Goggles off. Take ’em off! We’ll wait for the smoke to clear.”

Rakkim found a crushed soda can, tossed it toward the last voice. Machine-gun fire briefly illuminated the smoke. A man screamed, thrashed around on the floor, below the smoke, clutching at his legs. Rakkim moved, screened by a concrete puffer fish.

“Don’t shoot unless you see what you’re aiming at, assholes. We need to take the girl alive. That’s where the money is. Kill the man. Don’t think twice, don’t let him talk, just kill him. He’s Fedayeen.”

“You didn’t tell us that, Emerson.”

“Yeah, what’s with that shit?”

“Any man who doesn’t want the reward is free to leave,” said Emerson.

No one left.

Rakkim would have liked to make his way toward Emerson, but too many pairs of boots were between them. And the smoke was starting to thin out.

“Harris, you still in position?” said Emerson.

“Roger that.”

“On my count we shoot out the windows. One, two, three.”

Rakkim moved as they fired, used the sound and fury to cut down another of the team. And another. Smoke poured out the broken windows, pushed out by the cooler outside air.