Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

Sarah stared…and…finally…saw him.

“I guess we’ll have to mark that down on the list of eternal mysteries.” Darwin seemed happier now. Satisfied, now that she knew. “It’s a problem, isn’t it? Deciding how you feel about me.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I mean, in spite of those other things, I did save your life. Yours and Rakkim’s.”

“It’s no problem.” Sarah was surprised at her calm. It was as if she had taken something from Darwin and used it to anchor herself. To protect herself from her terror. “I feel the same way about you as I do about any other hired killer.”

“I prefer the term assassin.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Why don’t you just call me Darwin and we’ll let it go at that?”

“Darwin? Is that your real name?”

“I know, I know. Named after a blasphemer. Don’t think that didn’t cause a world of trouble growing up. Ah, well, we all carry the burden of history, don’t we?”

The engines shifted tone, higher pitched now as the plane banked steeply.

“We won’t be landing in Seattle. I’m afraid that’s something else I lied to you about.” Darwin smiled. “Do you appreciate irony?”

Sarah watched him.

“Rakkim is AB negative. A rare blood type. There were only two pints available on such short notice.” Darwin leaned closer, and Sarah saw scuttling things in his eyes and wondered how she could have missed them. “I’m AB negative too. If the doctors needed more in-flight, they were going to give him a transfusion of my blood. Wouldn’t that have been something?”

Sarah fought to keep herself from trembling. She didn’t succeed.

“My blood.” Darwin rocked with laughter. “I bet you would have thought about that every time he fucked you up the ass.” He was howling now, head thrown back, teeth bared.

“Thanks again for meeting me, Director,” said Colarusso.

“I wanted to talk with you anyway.” Redbeard didn’t take his eyes off the metallic fuselage rising from the waters of Puget Sound. The tail section of the downed 977 superjumbo jet jutted fifty feet into the air. The engines of the ferryboat throbbed, sending a vibration through the deck. The rest of the tourists were inside, watching the monument through the double-paned windows, but Redbeard and Colarusso stood outside in the elements, the cold wind whipping their clothes.

Salt stung Colarusso’s nostrils. “My chief seems to think you and me are close because of you insisting I handle the murders at Marian Warriq’s house,” he said, uneasy hearing of Redbeard’s interest in him. “That’s how I drew this assignment.”

“What was it the chief of police didn’t want to ask me himself?”

“We’ve had all these dead bounty hunters turn up in the last few days,” said Colarusso. “All of them affiliated with the Black Robes.”

“And Chief Edson thinks State Security is responsible?”

“You got it.”

“State Security is responsible.”

“I see. Well…the chief is concerned things may escalate between you and Ibn Azziz, and it’s the police who are going to look bad. I mean, we’re supposed to keep the peace.”

“Jerry Edson doesn’t care about the peace, he only cares about keeping his job. Which he shall, as long as his father remains head of the Senate Appropriations Committee.”

Colarusso rubbed his forehead. “I can’t argue with you there, sir, but I have to work for the asshole. Could I maybe tell him that you deplore the violence and are going to do what you can to find out who is responsible?”

“Headache, Detective?”

“Off and on.”

“I have them all the time. I wake up in the middle of the night lately…I think it’s raining because I hear thunder, and it’s my head. My housekeeper says I should go to a doctor, but once you start going to doctors, there’s no end to the tests.”

“Why don’t we go inside?” said Colarusso, shivering. He had buttoned his topcoat unevenly and ignored it. “I’m freezing my ass off.”

“I prefer it out here,” said Redbeard, comfortable somehow in a plain woolen robe. He pointed to the downed jumbo jet. “Were you living in Seattle when the plane hit?”

“My wife and I were in Hawaii celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary. Seems like a long time ago.”

“It was twenty-three years in March. Eleven hundred on board, most of them still right there.” Redbeard’s expression was unreadable. “We put out the story that it was hijacked by a Brazilian end-times cult, but, of course, that wasn’t true.”

“Hijackers weren’t trying to ram the Capitol dome? Or that it wasn’t an end-times cult?”

“I used to come out here all the time with Rakkim and Sarah,” said Redbeard, eyeing the wreckage. The metal was still shiny, at least from a distance.

Colarusso didn’t ask any more questions about the hijacking. Redbeard was using a bait-and-switch tactic to knock him off-balance, offering secret information, withholding it at the last moment.

“The first time Sarah saw the plane, she asked me why all the national monuments seemed to be celebrating death. Where were the monuments to scientific discoveries or poetry or medical breakthroughs? That’s what she wanted to know. She was seven at the time. Rakkim was twelve. You want to know what he said? He looked at the tail assembly jutting out of the water at almost a ninety-degree angle and told me the pilot had taken too steep a descent. He said it was impossible to maintain rudder control that way. Rakkim said the pilot should have come in low, almost horizontal, and then rammed the Capitol.” Redbeard shook his head. “Twelve years old.”

Colarusso wondered if he dared to go back inside and leave Redbeard out here.

“I hear your son has been accepted into the Fedayeen?” said Redbeard.

Colarusso nodded. Surprised.

“Stings a little, doesn’t it?” said Redbeard. “I felt the same way when Rakkim was accepted. It’s a great honor, of course, but I’m sure you had other plans for him. Following you into the force, perhaps.”

“There’s no future for a Catholic in the department. Catholic’s lucky to make detective.”

“Still, I’m sure you had your dreams for Anthony Jr.” Redbeard looked past the tail assembly. “I had dreams for Rakkim. Dreams for Sarah too. Dreams for myself. Getting older…mostly it entails accepting the unacceptable.”

“Ain’t that the God’s honest truth?” Colarusso caught himself. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be so familiar.”

“No offense taken, Detective. We’re just a couple of old men here, talking about things that might have been.”

Colarusso kept quiet. He had been a cop too long to trust a powerful man going all soft and sentimental.

“Rakkim is fortunate to have a friend like you,” said Redbeard. “It’s been quite some time since he’s confided in me.”

Colarusso stifled a smile. When you think the worst of people, you’re rarely disappointed.

“I sent Rakkim to find my niece. He succeeded. With all the men at my disposal, with all my experience and connections, he found her when I couldn’t.”

“You trained him well. Must give you comfort.”

“To hell with comfort, I want my niece. Where are they?”

Colarusso leaned against the railing, watched the waves break against the fuselage of the jumbo jet. “I don’t know.”

“I could threaten you, Detective. I could tell you that with a nod of my head, drugs would be found in your house. Or evidence that you had been colluding with Jews. There’s an infinite amount of ways to destroy a man’s life, and I know them all.” Redbeard stood with his feet wide. “I wouldn’t do that though. I have too much respect for you. If Rakkim considers you a friend, it’s because he knows you won’t yield to threats. I just have to look at you and I can see that.”