Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

He looked down at the thin blue veins running along the backs of his hands. The deep creases in his palms. Allah used time to grow the Old One, to train him, to harden him for the struggle, but so much time had passed. Even he grew weary. Not now…not after his treatment, his blood cleansed, his cells rejuvenated. A glance back to the bed, Alisha’s hip a soft mound under the sheets, and the Old One felt himself stirred again. No…best not to waste his reborn vitality, there were other, more pressing needs. His body felt no weariness now, but there were other signs, indications of a fatigue that no amount of medical procedures could cure. His priorities were clear.

The plan, the game, the Old One’s grand design, encompassed hundreds of men across the globe, thousands even, men in all walks of life, commoners and kings, men who did his bidding without even knowing they were in his employ, or, rarest of all, men like Rakkim Epps, surprising adversaries whose challenge to him only furthered the Old One’s ambitions. An intricate skein of men and money spread out across time and space, decades of planning, minute shifts in the political landscape, everything designed for a single moment when it would all fall into place.

The Old One saw his reflection in the window, thought of all the faces that had passed before him, the mighty and the seemingly insignificant, all useful tools in proper hands. Sowing seeds, the Old One called it, thousands of seeds spread across the globe, quietly sprouting in the cracks and gutters, waiting to be harvested. A West Point graduate with an ailing sister, a liberal Muslim whose daughter was engaged to an air-traffic controller, a low-level accountant in the Brazilian Budget Office who needed an excuse for his lack of success, a Russian television executive with a taste for young boys…weeds and flowers blowing in the wind of time.

He stared into his own eyes and remembered the droopy right eyelid and coarse black hair of Kamal Hakimov, a Tajik tailor he had met just once sixty-five years ago, saw him lying in a medical tent outside Quetta, half his beard burned away from the blast of a Russian mortar. Through his spies, the Old One helped Kamal immigrate to Hamburg, loaned him the money to open a shop. Years later, Kamal befriended Mohamed Atta, an acolyte of Osama bin Laden’s, taking him into his home and his mosque. Atta was an idiot, and bin Laden a pampered Saudi dilettante-it had been the Old One who fine-tuned bin Laden’s clumsy plan, intercepting the Saudi’s communiqués, using Kamal as his go-between. When Atta asked Kamal to make a martyrdom garment, the Old One flew to his house outside Paris and waited-after shorting the American stock market through his proxies. By the afternoon of 9/11, the U.S. economy was staggering, bin Laden was scurrying for cover, and the Old One had made approximately $23 billion. The invasion of Iraq two years later was a bonus.

The U.S. military won every battle, but they had no voice, no message that could be heard. The Old One’s servants monitored every TV station and never saw a hero, only the dead. A war without heroes, without victories. Only petty atrocities inflated for all the world to see, clucked over by millionaire news anchors and fatuous movie stars. Their president himself apologized. We must show that we are more humane than the terrorists, he said. As though the wolf should apologize for having sharper teeth than the rabbit. Good fortune beyond the Old One’s wildest dreams, an enemy who wanted to be loved. Be ashamed of the war and soon you will be ashamed of the warriors-the warriors got that message soon enough. Just as blowing the levees in New Orleans broke the bond between the government and the people, the Iraq debacle broke the nation’s spirit, hobbled its ability to defend itself. The former regime never recovered. Those on the Old One’s payroll, knowingly or unknowingly, made certain of that.

Alisha called to him from bed, her voice thick and sleepy, but he ignored her, thinking again of his strangler, Tariq al-Faisal, and how close they had come to failure at this most crucial time. A simple pickup, risky to be sure, but…Instead al-Faisal had been intercepted, the electronic device almost lost, this whole phase jeopardized. The Old One rubbed his fingertips. The device was safe. The plan intact. Still, he found himself curious about the man who had killed al-Faisal’s two Fedayeen bodyguards. Two of his best, al-Faisal had insisted, yet the man had killed them easily. One man. Darwin could have done it in the blink of an eye. So could the man who had killed him, whoever he was. The Old One made a mental note to send word to his agents in Seattle to use all available resources to locate Rakkim or that bitch Sarah. Full surveillance, every informer and covert sympathizer activated. No excuses. Rakkim and the woman were probably not involved in the near intercept of al-Faisal, but the Old One was not going to risk underestimating either of them ever again. Not now.

The Old One watched a seagull buffeted by the rising wind, the bird hanging in space directly in front of the window, all its efforts failing to move it forward…and the gull slowly, ever so slowly fell behind until it disappeared from view. The Old One felt an ache in his belly, a terrible void, worse than hunger.

There were moments now…moments when the plan was too vast, when he lost the tread of the skein for an instant, the faces blurring, connections blurring, before he regained his focus. The duration of his confusion was irrelevant; it was the confusion itself that kept him awake at night. Those lost moments seemed to be occurring more often lately. More than once, the Old One had fallen to his knees, prostrated himself, begging Allah for a little more time to fulfill his divine mission, just a few more years to bend the world to a true and perfect Islam. Many times over the long years the Old One had heard the voice of God, heard it more clearly than the beating of his own heart, but lately…Allah had remained silent. Silent as a stone. Time was running short, that much the Old One was certain of. Even for him.

The Old One placed his hands on his hips, faced the gathering storm. Let it come. Let it huff and puff and blow his house down. He didn’t blame Allah for his silence. God had been patient enough. So had the Old One.

“Are you listening?” said Sarah. “This is important.”

Rakkim played with Michael, holding an index finger in front of the wobbling toddler, pulling it back as the boy grabbed for it. Michael, one of the four archangels, captain of the heavenly host, the angel most beloved of Allah, but this Michael was a chubby infant, not quite two, with his mother’s eyes, dark and bright, his gaze steady. He almost fell over, then one hand darted out and pinched Rakkim’s finger. Michael squeezed, delighted, and Rakkim kissed his shaggy curls. Michael might have his mother’s eyes but he had his father’s quick reflexes. Maybe even his guile. Rakkim still wasn’t sure if the boy had really almost lost his balance or was just distracting him. It worked, whatever the cause. Michael clapped his hands, wanting to play again.

“Rakkim?”

“The Colonel has become more aggressive in the last two or three years,” repeated Rakkim, watching Michael as the boy watched them, head cocked. “He’s expanding his territory, buying weapons, consolidating his support.” He lightly tapped Michael’s nose, retreated. Michael giggled. “Tactically brilliant, generous and popular with the locals, threatening to attack the republic…” Another tap on Michael’s nose. The boy swatted at Rakkim’s hand, missed. “…although the anti-Muslim invective may be just a recruiting slogan.” He looked at Sarah. “I read the data file General Kidd gave me.”