Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

Sarah’s horse sneezed, and she spurred it forward, hanging on tight. Horses made her nervous. “I just want you to know what you could be getting yourself into.”

“Let me tell you a secret,” said Jill Stanton, their horses side by side as they trotted through the outskirts of a neighbor’s ranch. “I’ve been out of the public eye for fifteen years, but when you’ve been famous, really famous, you can get away with almost anything. Rape, drugs, theft…even murder sometimes.” Green grasshoppers flew around them as the horses barreled through the brush. “After the Oscars next week, I’ll be interviewed on every network. I’ll lead every special report. You watch me, honey, I’ll be the best innocent victim you ever saw. Don’t worry about me.”

Sarah barely had control of her horse. She had approached Jill’s neighbor earlier, rented a horse, then had him call Jill for her. Rakkim had checked the area, hadn’t found any lurkers, but he was cautious, as always.

“You’re holding the reins too close,” said Jill. “Give the horse room or you’ll spook her.”

Sarah loosened the reins. She was itchy and sweaty and couldn’t wait to get off. “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen that night…it’s going to be very big though.”

“I wouldn’t want to know. I’m the innocent victim, remember?”

“Jill, this is important. Everything is going to change.”

Jill laughed, and her face in the setting sun showed every crease and wrinkle. “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that…”

“Idolatry!” Ibn Azziz shrieked to the tens of thousands milling in front of Crown Prince Auditorium. Most of them were moderns and moderates, here to cheer the movie stars inside on Oscar night, the movie stars shown on the three-story-high screens outside the auditorium. Thousands though were hard-core supporters of Mullah Ibn Azziz, bused in from mosques all over the country. “This is a celebration of idolatry!”

“Idolatry!” responded his supporters: women in black burkas clacking smooth stones together, men in jellabas, flogging themselves with chains. They surged around Ibn Azziz’s bodyguards trying to touch him, seeking his blessing. “Idolatry!”

The moderates and moderns in the crowd roared whenever their favorite stars appeared on camera, but their voices were drowned by the rage and intensity of Ibn Azziz’s supporters. A police line five deep surrounded the entrance to the auditorium, a phalanx of uniforms staring straight ahead through their face shields. Dozens of helicopters circled overhead, searchlights playing across the crowd. The Academy Awards were always televised from Los Angeles, but this year, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic, the president had decided to host the event from the capital. To not only show the whole world the tolerant face of Islam, but also lend his political support to one of the republic’s largest economic drivers.

The rage of the fundamentalists was largely manufactured by Ibn Azziz for political gain. As usual, most of the nominated films told uplifting stories of good Muslims overcoming temptation through moral strength. Flesh or Faith, considered a shoo-in for Best Picture, was the tale of a beautiful Muslim girl from a poor family engaged to marry a rich Catholic who owns the home they rent. At the final hour, a visit from an angel turns the girl back to the true faith and leaves the groom alone and humiliated at the altar. Miracles Inc., another highly acclaimed film, used state-of-the-art computer imagery to suggest the holographic wonders and delights of heaven itself. Like all Hollywood creations, the production values were flawless, the acting mesmerizing, the message trumpeting modest devotion. Rather than assuaging Ibn Azziz, Hollywood’s piety was seen as a threat, the cleric declaring that time in movie theaters would be better spent in mosques.

“To hell with these immoral images! To hell with the false gods of Hollywood!” shouted Ibn Azziz for the cameras as he was bumped and jostled. His face was still swollen and scratched from Angelina’s fingernails, his ruined eye a ragged hole in his skull. “Tonight we show the world that Muslims will not abide such sacrilege in the capital itself!”

The crowd of fundamentalists moved forward, chanting, the crashing of stone on stone providing a potent beat. A tremor ran through the line of uniforms, the rows of armored police squaring up.

Rakkim and Stevens easily passed through the first three checkpoints, but they hit trouble at an unexpected one deep within the amphitheater. Two presidential Secret Service agents refused to accept Rakkim’s credentials without further confirmation. A potentially disastrous delay. He and Stevens should have had a half hour to get into position, but the top box-office actress in the world had thrown a fit at Jill Stanton’s career retrospective bumping up against her own musical number. The star, who had a marginal voice in spite of all the audio engineers, had insisted the retrospective be moved ahead a segment so Jill’s superior talents wouldn’t overshadow her. They had no more than fifteen minutes to get into the main control room.

Rakkim held out his credentials. “Check my ID. Do an iris scan to confirm my identity. I’m cleared. Redbeard himself signed off.”

The agent with the sandy hair shook his head. “I didn’t clear you.”

The bald one had moved into perfect position, back a few paces, hand on his pistol.

“Stevens, you can pass,” said sandy hair. “Mr. Epps, wait here for my supervisor.”

Stevens stood his ground. “You two shouldn’t even be here. Interior of the amphitheater is State Security’s responsibility. You don’t have jurisdiction.”

“We don’t have to explain anything to you,” said sandy hair.

“The president requires at least six possible exit routes, fellas,” said the bald one. “We have to secure each and every one of them.”

The live-feed screen at the checkpoint showed the mass of fundamentalists stopped three feet away from the police line. Chains were flying, faces contorted as the hard core shouted for the police to join them.

“Give me your cell,” said Rakkim. “You can talk to Redbeard himself.”

“Fuck Redbeard,” said sandy hair.

“Come on, Marx,” said the bald one, still keeping a watchful eye. “What can it hurt?”

“Is Redbeard the fucking president, Beason?” said Marx. “No, he’s not. Do we work for the fucking president? Yes, we do.” He looked at Stevens. “You going or staying?”

“Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you when their supervisor shows up.” Rakkim tugged at Stevens’s jacket as though straightening it, passed him the digital download.

“Are you sure you have enough men deployed, Chief?” Redbeard said into the limo’s phone.

“As I told you-”

“I know what you told me, I also know what I’m seeing on TV, and it looks to me like you don’t have enough men.” Redbeard could feel Sarah’s tension as she sat beside him, watching the chaos in front of the auditorium.

“I guess I could call in the overflow-”

“I thought you would have already done so. I gave you intel yesterday that Ibn Azziz was going to make trouble.” Redbeard slammed down the phone, looked at Colarusso. “Your boss is an ass.”

“Never had a boss who wasn’t,” Colarusso said from the jump seat facing them.

Anthony Jr.’s voice came over the intercom from the driver’s seat. “Anything I can do?”

“Stay put,” both Redbeard and Colarusso said at the same time.

Colarusso shrugged. “The kid hears there’s trouble, he wants to be first in line.”