Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

“She’s back here!” called Fancy, running through the thinning smoke, coughing, her hands raised above her. “Don’t shoot!” She tripped over a starfish and landed at Rakkim’s feet. “Don’t-” She realized who he was, blinked at him through the haze. I’m sorry, she mouthed. She got up, started forward again.

Bullets hit the wall beside him, sent shards of hardened epoxy flying. Rakkim headed toward where Sarah had gone. He saw her rush out from behind the sea tortoise, saw her launch herself at one of the SWAT team.

SWAT swung his rifle, clipped her across the jaw, and sent her sprawling. The man turned, grinning, had time to see Rakkim’s eyes before his neck was broken.

Rakkim was spun around. He thought he had been grabbed…until he heard the echo of gunfire. The sound so slow it was a funeral cadence. He was on the floor now. Flat on his back. He turned his head and saw Sarah. Tried to reach her, but he was so tired, and every breath made a gurgling sound. There was no air inside the shark. He was dying in a theme park. An abandoned theme park. It was funnier in the movies. He kept waiting for the rest of the SWAT team to come over and finish him off. They must have known he wasn’t going anywhere. He reached around for his knife but gave up. Across the way…far across the floor he could see the SWAT who had gotten shot in the legs. The man was pointing at himself. Then at Rakkim. Then back to himself. Ah…he was the one who had shot him. Good to see a man who took pride in his work.

Someone leaned over the wounded SWAT. Where was the man’s body armor? Where were his boots? He wasn’t part of the team. The man grabbed SWAT by the hair, pushed his head forward, and slipped his knee into the back of his neck. Same spot Rakkim had used on the first one. The man looked over at Rakkim and winked.

The assassin. Rakkim rolled around, found his knife. It was heavy. Almost as heavy as his eyelids. He could see dead SWAT all over the floor. No boots in sight. None standing anyway.

Sarah was bent over him. Her lips were moving but there was such a long interval between when she spoke and when he heard the words that it was as if she were on the other side of the world, speaking with a satellite delay. He felt her tears fall onto his face. He would like to take a long walk with her in the warm rain, but first he had to tell her about the assassin. He just needed to catch his breath. Sarah had torn a piece off her blouse and had put it on his chest, pressed down. He groaned and she eased up. That was a mistake. He wanted to tell her…but his mouth was filling up with blood.

Rakkim saw Fancy run up to the assassin. Saw her kiss his hand…both hands, the knife reversed, hidden along his forearm.

The assassin looked at Rakkim, maintained eye contact while he raised Fancy to her feet, comforting her.

Rakkim’s grip on the knife kept slipping. Not too far to make the throw. Surprise the assassin. Fedayeen never threw their knives. The lesson drilled in from the first day. A thrown knife kills one. A knife kept close…a knife in the hand can kill hundreds. Wisdom there…but not now. Rakkim clung to the knife, fighting to stay awake.

A peckerwood in the Carolinas had taught him how to throw a blade. William Lee Barrows. Sergeant, First Carolina Volunteers. Fine man too. Not many of the old-timers left. He had been happy to teach Rakkim his tricks after work at the plant, the two of them staying up late drinking beer and tossing Barrows’s pigstickers at an oak tree. Barrows amazed at how quickly Rakkim learned. Wasting your time here, boy, you should enlist in the Knights of Jesus, kill ya some towel heads. Rakkim taking another pull on the longneck. Heckfire, Willy Lee, I couldn’t hurt a soul if my life depended on it. Rakkim opened his eyes.

The assassin looked back at him, still nuzzling Fancy. Waiting for something…waiting for Rakkim. The assassin nodded, then drove the knife into Fancy’s ear. Drove it in to the hilt. Almost no blood that way. He must want to keep his nice suit clean. He laid Fancy down gently as a bridegroom. Then he started toward Rakkim and Sarah.

Rakkim thrashed harder, choking now.

The assassin turned Rakkim’s head to the side, let the blood run out of his mouth. Then he took Sarah’s hands, placed them back on Rakkim’s chest, and pressed. “That’s it. You had the right idea, but you have to keep the pressure on. Otherwise, he’s going to drown in his own blood. Good. That’s it.” He had a soothing voice. A kind voice. He looked down at Rakkim. “Don’t worry. We’ve got you.”

“Who…who are you?” said Sarah, pressing down with both hands.

“Don’t stop,” said the assassin. “Put all your weight on it. Steady pressure.” He flipped open his cell, hit a button. “Redbeard? It’s me.”

Liar, shouted Rakkim. No…he had only thought it.

“Thank God.” Sarah smiled at Rakkim. “It’s going to be okay, Rikki.”

“We had some trouble, just like I thought.” The assassin was a fit, middle-aged man with thinning brown hair, and a soft, clean-shaven face. A face you could trust. He could have been a loan officer in a bank. Or sold real estate. “You got the jet standing by?…Medical crew too?…Good. Rakkim has the classic sucking chest wound. Left lung is filling up with blood…I don’t know, I’m not a doctor.” He looked at Rakkim. “Redbeard wants to know if you’re going to survive.”

Rakkim struggled to sit up, but he couldn’t even raise his head.

“He’s going to be fine, Redbeard,” said the assassin. “Can’t kill a Fedayeen, you know that. Just have the jet ready to leave as soon as we get there…No, no time for a chopper…I don’t know-ten minutes.”

Rakkim tried to make eye contact with Sarah, to warn her, but she was intent on keeping pressure on the hole in his chest, and when she did look at him, she was too busy being brave to read his mind.

Still talking on the cell, the assassin strolled over to one of the dead SWAT. Started going through his pockets. “Yes, I know how far the airport is, but we’re not taking a taxi.” He held up a set of keys, jingled them for Rakkim’s benefit. “Tell the medical crew we’ll be there in ten minutes. I’ll put the siren on so they can hear us coming.”

“How is he?” said Sarah.

Darwin listened, a finger pressed against his earlobe. “How are you feeling?”

“My ears are still ringing from the gunshots, but I’m okay.” Sarah walked to the bulkhead of the private jet, stood outside the door to the makeshift surgical unit. She couldn’t hear a thing except for the faint throb of the engines. While the medical team operated on Rakkim in the main cabin, she and Darwin were crammed into the forward cabin. “Do they think he’s going to live?”

“He’s going to be fine.”

“What do the doctors think?”

Darwin shrugged. “You know doctors…they never want to commit themselves.”

Sarah slumped into the seat opposite him, put her face in her hands. She suddenly sat up, looked at her hands. They were smeared with blood. Her clothes…her hair…she was sprayed with blood. Rakkim’s blood. The blood of the policemen. All of those dead bastards. Darwin said there was a huge bounty on her and Rakkim. The Black Robes were willing to pay almost anything for her capture. He said Redbeard had only found out the extent of Ibn Azziz’s personal jihad in the last couple of days. Darwin had been sent to join them, to protect them with his life if need be. Sarah looked over at him, the cabin so cramped their knees brushed. “Have I thanked you yet?”

Darwin smiled. “Several times. It’s really not necessary.” His suit looked freshly pressed, with only a few small bloodstains. She didn’t know how he had done it.