Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

“I need to sit down for a minute,” said Leo.

“You going to throw up again?” said Rakkim.

“No.” Leo tossed his shovel aside, flopped onto the ground. Sweat ran down his smooth, beardless cheeks. “I’m just tired.”

“I told you, I’ll finish,” said Rakkim. “Just relax and-”

“I want to help. I have to help.” Leo sat at the edge of the grave he was digging for James Tigard. He had barely gotten past the topsoil. “I owe it to them.”

“It’s not your debt. It’s mine.” Rakkim kept digging, piling the dirt onto the grass; Florence Tigard’s grave was four feet deep now. Right alongside the one for her husband. “I was the one who brought us here.” Another shovelful tossed up. “I lied to them.” He worked faster, a smooth, steady motion in the soft earth. “I used them.” Dirt and pebbles flying. “You made a phone call you shouldn’t have, but I was the one who got them killed, Leo, not you.”

Honor, revenge, hospitality-the three hallmarks of the tribal man, according to one of Sarah’s former academic associates, a fussy sociology professor who considered rationalism to be a sign of superiority. Yes, honor was a burden, as was revenge, and Bill Tigard and his family weren’t the first or the last to be killed by their own hospitality, but the world was dead without such virtues. A place of musty books and empty promises.

Rakkim shoveled more dirt beside the grave. Almost deep enough now. The two of them had been working nonstop since the helicopter left. They had rinsed off the mud and pig shit, then Rakkim had gone to the bunkhouse, gathered bedsheets from storage, carefully wrapped the four bodies, and carried them over to the hill overlooking the river. A good spot to rest until the Day of Judgment. Leo sobbed quietly as they worked-the shovel was awkward in his hands, and he already had blisters, but he kept at it.

“Why don’t you get some wood and wire in what’s left of the barn?” said Rakkim. “You make some crosses for the graves, and I’ll keep digging.”

Leo hesitated.

“The Tigards are good Christians. Can’t bury them without a cross to mark the spot.”

Leo nodded, ran toward the shed.

Rakkim got back to work, digging steadily at the moist earth, eager to lose himself in the effort. When they got to the next town, he would call the minister at the Tigards’ church. Tell them where the bodies were buried, so they could give them a genuine Christian burial. A Muslim and a Jew digging graves for devout Christians, saying their own prayers over the dead…say what you want, God might not be merciful, and he had way too many rules, but he did have a sense of humor.

Rakkim had half expected the neighbors to show up, but the next farmhouse was four or five miles away, and with the storm and the lightning…if the neighbors had heard the guns and the explosions, maybe they just thought it best to wait until morning.

Terrible what had happened to the Tigard family. Beyond terrible. The things he had seen tonight would never be erased, but Rakkim had learned something important from the attack. The stealth helicopter was Chinese built, a Monsoon-class, Model 4. The best bird in their arsenal-fast and maneuverable, with laser-sighted Gatlings, and quiet as a nightmare. It hadn’t been the noise of the approaching chopper that had awakened Rakkim, but the minute perturbation in air pressure.

Rakkim took a breather at the bottom of the grave. Deep enough now. He walked up the narrow incline he had left himself, picked Florence Tigard’s body off the ground, and started back down. She was heavy, but he laid her down gently, held his hands out in silent benediction. Then walked back up and started shoveling in dirt.

The Chinese didn’t export the Model 4. The president of the Belt himself only had a Model 2, a gift from the Chinese premier on his last official visit. If the Colonel had a Model 4, then the Chinese wanted to do business with him in a very bad way. Which meant they were convinced there was something in that mountain, something worth currying favor with the Colonel. The Chinese connection gave Rakkim just what he was looking for. An opportunity. A way in. A cover story that would grant him access to the Colonel. There were problems, of course…but after the price the Tigards had paid, there was no way Rakkim wasn’t going to act on this new information.

Leo wandered back as the sun started steaming the wet ground, the kid carrying four crosses as Rakkim smoothed a mound of soil over Florence Tigard’s grave. Leo had rinsed himself before making the crosses, but his face and hands were still scratched and bruised from his being trampled in the pigpen. He offered Rakkim the crosses that he had made from pieces of white picket fence. “Are these going to be okay? I scratched their names-”

“They’re fine. Really nice.”

“Honest?”

“They’re fucking crosses. Just stick them in the ground. If there’s a heaven they’re already there. If not…it doesn’t matter if the crosses are nice or not.”

Leo stared at him.

“I’m sorry, Leo. I’m…I’m stretched a little thin right now.”

“Gee, that’s too bad, because me…I’m just having a great morning.” Leo pushed the cross for James into the ground at the head of his grave. He thumped the cross in with the flat of the shovel, drove it in deeper. “If it doesn’t stretch you even thinner”-another whack-“I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Gravenholtz…Mr. Tigard slashed him with a scythe, but he didn’t die. He didn’t even seem hurt very bad,” said Leo. “How could that be?”

Rakkim had wondered the same thing. He took one of the crosses from Leo; meticulously made, the crossbars wired into place, the name and date etched in.

“I saw him get cut,” said Leo. “He wasn’t wearing body armor. He bled. Mr. Tigard was strong. The scythe should have cut Gravenholtz in half, but it barely broke the skin.”

Rakkim tapped in Matthew Tigard’s cross. He could have told Leo the scythe was old and dull. Could have told him that Tigard was weak and dying when he swung the scythe. People believed what made them comfortable. What fit with their preconceptions of how the world worked. The kid would have probably believed him, but Rakkim couldn’t lie to Leo. Not today.

“Redbeard told me a story once. A rumor, really.” Rakkim tapped the cross in, the sound echoing in the still morning. “We were in his water garden, drinking Coca-Cola. The real stuff, the stuff that gets you thrown in prison for breaking the embargo, not that Jihad Cola shit.” The memory warmed him. Redbeard had contempt for substitutes of any kind. Or maybe the State Security chief just liked being bad once in a while. He straightened the cross, gave it a few more taps with the shovel. “Redbeard said that about ten years earlier he got reports that the Belt had started a secret program to counter the Fedayeen. Soldiers of Christ, their own elite warriors, that’s what they wanted. Never panned out, or at least we never encountered them. General Kidd said Christians didn’t have the discipline for the training required. Or the genetic boosters. Said it was just another tall tale from the Belt, more disinformation, but Redbeard wasn’t so sure.”

Leo worked a cross into Florence Tigard’s grave, listening. He winced, pulled a splinter out of his thumb.

“The subject remained a point of contention between Redbeard and General Kidd, an academic discussion…until a Fedayeen forward combat patrol in Missouri lost contact one night. All eight Fedayeen were found murdered the next morning. Beaten to death. Skulls crushed, ribs stoved in. They had followed standard procedures, secured the perimeter. Three contacts from the Belt had been ushered into camp the previous evening, renegades with information to trade. The renegades had been scanned for weapons, but the scanners must have missed something. For three renegades to kill eight Fedayeen, at close quarters…nothing like it had ever happened before. General Kidd ordered a full investigation. The ground at the camp was soaked with blood, almost none of it matching the Fedayeen-so they hadn’t gone quietly. No trace of drugs in the blood, no genetic anomalies, nothing to indicate how the Fedayeen had been overpowered.”