Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

Rakkim sat opposite Stevenson, stretched out his legs while Leo lumbered around the room, touching everything.

Stevenson poured whiskey into a couple of cut crystal glasses, handed one to Rakkim. A glance at Leo. “You want a soda pop, junior?”

Leo ignored him, stood before the flag. He put a hand over his heart. The wrong hand.

Stevenson clinked glasses with Rakkim. “Sorry about Redbeard. Damn shame.”

“Yeah.” Rakkim took a swallow from his glass, felt fire slide down his throat. He saw Leo slip the tank’s remote into his pocket. “You’re doing well.”

“A man can’t make money off tourists, he’s too stupid to breathe, but it ain’t all gravy.” Stevenson sucked his teeth, his incisors as yellow as his nicotine-stained knuckles. “Got ten thousand acres outside of San Antonio about to dry up and blow away, and a car dealership with more salesmen than customers. I’m thinking about buying into a savings and loan in Houston. Banking’s near as good as the tourist trade when it comes to easy money.” He took another long swallow, his bony Adam’s apple bobbing. “Muslims ever get past their stupidity about charging interest, they’ll really take over the world.”

Rakkim sipped his whiskey. “Quran forbids it, that settles it.”

“Adapt or die, that’s as true for religion as it is for people.” Stevenson shook out a cigarette from a pack of Virginia broadleaf. The hand-rolled ones must be for the benefit of the tourists. He watched Rakkim from behind a veil of fragrant smoke.

Stevenson had been State Security during the early days of the republic, one of the few non-Muslims in a position of authority, testament to the respect Redbeard had for him. Stevenson had disappeared around twenty years ago, after a problem with the imam of the largest mosque in Seattle. It wasn’t a religious dispute. Stevenson didn’t believe in Christ on the cross or virgins waiting in Paradise. Stevenson didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t taste or touch. The imam had ordered a young woman picked up by the Black Robes. Jewish woman. Esther. Maybe she caught the imam’s eye, or maybe someone turned her in. Whatever, she died before Stevenson could spring her. The next day the imam and his two bodyguards were found dead and Stevenson was gone.

Rakkim had run into Stevenson on one of his first reconnaissance missions into the Belt, saw him working a small stand at Mount Carmel. They kept each other’s secrets without ever discussing the matter. The Belt paid a million dollars for a captured shadow warrior, and even after all this time, the Black Robes still offered a man’s weight in gold and the blessing of the grand mullah himself for the return of Stevenson. Maybe Rakkim and Stevenson both thought they had enough money and enough blessings. The second time they met, Rakkim brought Stevenson a microphoto of Esther’s grave. The Black Robes had intended to shove her into one of their mass graves, but Redbeard had intervened, had her placed in a non-Muslim cemetery and paid for a small marble stone. They continued their contact after Rakkim retired from the Fedayeen, after he had turned renegade, helping moral criminals escape from the republic: accused witches and Jews, apostates and homosexuals. Rakkim slipped them over the border and into the Belt. Stevenson passed them along, out of harm’s way. Neither of them charged for their services.

Stevenson nodded at Leo. “The Ident collar is a nice touch.”

“I’ve got a businessman up the way needs a Brainiac,” said Rakkim.

“If you say so.” Stevenson sipped his whiskey. “Always a market for a Brainiac. Don’t matter whether it’s here or in your neck of the woods, there’s never enough smart folks. Not when being smart can get you in trouble. Asking questions…that’s dangerous in the best of times, and these ain’t the best of-Would you take your cotton-picking hands off my things?” he barked at Leo.

Leo jerked, dropped the view globe of the sunken city of New Orleans. It rolled across the desk. Rakkim grabbed it just as it was about to fall.

“What do you want from me?” said Stevenson.

“I’m taking him to Tennessee, and wanted to get the lay of the land. That warlord still running G-Burg? What’s his name? The one growing opium for the South Americans.”

“Name was Bates, but he’s dead now. Him and all his troops.” Stevenson swirled his whiskey. “Gatlinburg’s deserted, not a soul left. The new honcho runs a ragtag outfit called the ETA. End-Times Army. Bunch of psychos living in the woods like savages.”

“What’s their game? They want to take over the dope trade?”

“Hell, no. They burned every poppy they could find. Burned every opium farmer too, roasted them on bonfires like ears of sweet corn. Their boss is a lunatic named Malcolm Crews. Pastor Malcolm Crews. A full-on born-again, and crazier than a shithouse rat.” Stevenson took another swallow of whiskey. “I heard Crews survived a night in the Stone Hills, and got the brand to prove it.”

Rakkim was impressed with that, if it was true. “I think we should let all these messiahs duke it out. Your guys, my guys, put them all in a steel-cage death match, and the one who walks out alive gets the crown of creation.”

Stevenson laughed. “Not used to you talking like this.”

“A few years ago I killed a man. A Fedayeen assassin.” Rakkim shook his head. “I haven’t been right since.”

“You killed an assassin?” Stevenson squinted over the rim of his glass. “By yourself?”

“No…I had help.”

“I thought so. Must have taken a whole strike force unit.”

“It was an angel,” said Rakkim. “An angel, close enough that I could feel its wings against me. Softest thing imaginable…” He stopped, embarrassed. “You believe me?”

“You say an angel buddied up, I got no problem with that.” Stevenson grinned, shook his head. “It’s you killing an assassin that I’m having a hard time with.”

“I’m having a hard time with it too.”“Angels?” Leo snorted. “The only god I see is the infinite elegance of mathematics.”

“The kids’s smart, but he’s got a lot of stupid in him too,” said Rakkim.

“It’s good to see you, Rikki.” Stevenson chewed his lip. “Things here are going to shit.”

“You seem to be doing okay.”

“Man like me, you set me down on a desert island buck naked, come back in two years and I’ll have hot and cold running water and a machine that gives hand jobs for a couple seashells. I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about the rest of these peckerwoods. Enough people get miserable enough, we all got problems.”

Rakkim watched Leo unscrew the base of the army tank with a bent paper clip.

“You heard what the Mexicans done?” asked Stevenson.

“I know they’ve put in all kinds of land claims.”

“Claims?” snapped Stevenson. “They’re way past claims. They diverted the damn Rio Grande six months ago, used the runoff to turn the desert into farmland. Meanwhile, South Texas is about to dry up and blow away. Governor bitched and moaned, president called in the Mexican ambassador, who laughed right in his face.” He shook his head. “Never would have happened before. Before the war.”

“You sound like my wife.”

“Your wife sounds like the brains of the family.”

Rakkim turned at the sound of screaming from outside.

“Let’s get on the roof,” said Stevenson, crossing to a small door in the corner of the room. “It’s showtime.”

Caught in the last rusty light of the sunset, the tanks idled fifty yards from Mount Carmel, diesel engines belching gritty exhaust as the engines revved. The deep, throaty sound almost drowned out the screaming from the nearby sound trucks.