Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

“Let’s take ’em in for questioning until the Rangers turn up,” said the other cop. “Everybody’s guilty of something.”

“The gimp and the retard?” said the bald cop. “Waste of time.”

“You want to show up empty-handed at the end of the shift?” said the short cop. “Fine. You listen to the sergeant give that same lecture on casting a wide net and the big one that got away. Not me.”

The bald cop sighed, beckoned to Rakkim. “Come along, boys. Duty calls.”

Rakkim stood up. His fingertips itched with excitement. No way were they going to the station or anywhere else with these three cops.

“Oh, nooooooooo,” wailed Leo, squirming.

“What’s his problem?” said the short cop.

“I…I pooped my pants,” blubbered Leo.

The bald cop grimaced. “Goddamnit, stay here…stay here and do something with yourself.” He grabbed the tall hunter, jerked him off the stool. “You and your buddy are coming with us.” He glanced at the short cop. “Unless you want to change the retard’s britches.”

The short cop reached for the other hunter.

Rakkim watched the cops brace the hunters, banging them around good. Their sergeant would appreciate that. Probably tell them it builds character. As the door closed behind them, Leo went back to wolfing his pie. Melissa McQ returned, humming a happy tune. Rakkim finished his strawberry malt, ordered another one, feeling good. He should check, see if the oceans had caught fire or the earth had spun off its axis, because for the first time since he dragged Leo’s ass ashore, the kid was earning his keep.

Leo slapped at the mosquito on his neck. “I hate it here.”

Rakkim watched the tops of the office buildings sticking out of the Gulf, the remnants of the New Orleans skyline silhouetted by moonlight, the satellite dishes and helipads reduced to aviaries for seagulls, their cries echoing across the water. A hundred years from now the buildings would have crumbled under the waves, and it would have been as if the city had never existed, just a peaceful lagoon with oil slicks. Moseby had chosen a house on the bayou with a dramatic view-maybe he figured he better enjoy it while he could before it was destroyed by the next monster storm. Typical shadow warrior philosophy. Everything in life was transitory, enjoy the moment.

More mosquito slaps. “I can’t see anything,” said Leo.

It was just before dawn, the haze from the burning offshore rigs making the night even darker. Plenty of light for Rakkim, though. More than enough to see the sentry sleeping in front of the outbuilding in the distance, the man curled in the dirt beside a glowing hotbox in the evening damp.

“Stay here.” Rakkim moved forward, crawling through the weeds for ten minutes. Elbows and knees, elbows and knees. Gigantic blue land crabs scuttled past, reeking of decay, clacking their claws at him as they thronged toward the mudflats. Rowing over into the bayou, Rakkim had spotted an anaconda close to shore, had to have been twenty feet at least. All kinds of critters were migrating up from South America since the big warm-caimans, piranha, sea snakes, and pure white carnivorous orchids no one had ever seen before. He peeked from the grass.

The sentry didn’t move. Closer now. Close enough to hear the man snoring, his chest rising and falling. One of the Colonel’s irregulars, probably. No uniform, but he had an insignia of some kind pinned to his collar and a jackhammer shotgun cradled under one arm. Best of the Belt small arms. Gas-operated, drum magazine, 240 rounds a minute at full auto. A man with a jackhammer could take out a charging rhino or a full platoon. The Colonel might forgive a sleeping sentry, but laying the jackhammer in the dirt, that was a firing squad offense. So the Colonel trusted the men left behind to guard Moseby’s family, trusted them enough to give them good equipment…but a couple weeks of baby-sitting and they were already getting sloppy.

Rakkim and Leo had reached the little town of Kenner yesterday afternoon. Just a speck along the Gulf, filled with dive bars and hangouts for the men who made their livelihood recovering artifacts from New Orleans. Plenty of Idents in Kenner, working the boats and doing the heavy lifting. Nobody paid any attention to Leo. By nightfall, Rakkim was buying beers for some of Moseby’s old crew, tough guys with salt-hardened hands and faces. Rakkim said he was looking for Moseby, wanted to hire him and the crew-I hear you’re the best. The crew nodded, ordered more beer, then said Moseby was out of town, no telling when he was coming back. A few hours ago Rakkim had helped the crew boss stumble home, a skinny Cajun named Hampton, complaining about four armed men staying out at Moseby’s place on the edge of Blue Bayou. Four soldiers, they called themselves, and sure as shit not from around here. Might as well be Yankees the way they bitched about the weather and the bugs. Hampton and the rest of the crew would have damn sure done something about it, soldiers or no, damn sure run them out of the barn and off the land, if Moseby’s wife hadn’t insisted that she didn’t want trouble. Said Moseby himself had left instructions for them to keep their distance, promised he’d be back before the hurricanes started up again.

Rakkim skirted the perimeter of the outbuilding, a refurbished barn. He made less noise than the breeze through the banyans. The wind billowed the Spanish moss that hung from the branches, and Rakkim thought of pennants at medieval tournaments, knights charging, lances pointed straight ahead. Ancient war, ancient warriors, ancient tactics. Direct attacks were foolhardy. The circumspect survived. And the deceitful prevailed.

The rear door of the barn hung off the hinges. Rakkim approached, knife in one hand, the pistol in the other. More snoring from inside. He took a position beside the door. He couldn’t smell any animals inside, which was good-hard to sneak up on an animal. Glance and back. Three more men inside. Two sleeping on straw. The nearest to the door a muscular hillbilly with half his face blistered. He got the only mattress. Had to be Jeeter. Three inside, one asleep on guard duty, all four accounted for. Assuming that Hampton was right.

A light went on in the house nearby and Rakkim froze. A few moments later he moved forward, retraced his steps, making sure he hadn’t left any indication of his passing. Leo was right where Rakkim had left him, shivering with the chill. He didn’t see Rakkim. Rakkim left it that way, eased his way to the house.

Rakkim heard the clink of silverware, the rattle of pots and pans. He glanced in the window. Saw Annabelle Moseby alone in the kitchen, busy at the stove. The screen along the side was latched, but the thin blade of his Fedayeen knife lifted it up. The spring on the door was a problem. Everything rusted in the damp air. He listened to Annabelle’s movements in the kitchen, learned her rhythm, the unconscious pace she set for herself as she stirred something thick, a wooden spoon going round and round a heavy crock, the rush of water into a metal pot. Rakkim internalized her rhythm, moved with it, opening the door as a cast-iron skillet slid back and forth across the burners. He heard the faint squeak of the screen door spring as he stepped inside the house, but she didn’t.

Cypress planking underfoot, and the smell of bacon cooking and sourdough biscuits in the oven. Someone stirred in the next room, stifled a yawn and then turned over, sheets rustling. This was his favorite part of a mission. Insinuated into a subject’s routine. Inside their private moment. His solitude. Silent as a kiss. This ability to absorb another person’s pattern, to slip between the spaces of his routine, was the essence of shadow warrior training. Impossible to teach, the training was only able to improve an innate capacity to slow down the warrior’s own consciousness, to lose one’s self for a time.