Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

“What’s wrong?” said Sarah.

Andalou looked at Rakkim.

“Our friend here just told me that you’ve been keeping secrets,” said Rakkim. “When were you going to tell me?”

They waited for the signal to travel the long way around the world to Seattle, a small packet of information among the flood of anonymous words and images. Waited for Sarah’s response to make the same journey. Indirect, and slower than satellite feeds, but landlines were safer. Not safe. Data mining by both the Belt and the republic filtered all communication channels, searching for useful intelligence, but Andalou must trust his connection. It was his head at risk. Safer, but not safe.

“I know you’re angry, but I was waiting for the right moment. Waiting for things to be bad enough. Conditions desperate enough.” Her image broke up for a second, reconstituted itself. “I knew how you would react. You have to trust my judgment. It’s the only way we’re going to survive as a nation.”

“What do you think Redbeard would say? Would he trust your judgment?”

“I think…I think he saw where things were going for a long time before he died. I think he did his best to make things work…to give the nation time to grow, but if he saw what was happening now, he’d say do what you need to do. That’s the most basic rule of statecraft. Do what has to be done, regardless of the consequences. If a nation torn apart can’t survive, then the nation has to be put back together.”

“Who rules this new nation once you put it back together?” said Rakkim.

Her response seemed to take forever to reach him. “A candidate acceptable to both parties. North and South. There will be a vote…that’s certain.”

“So you don’t really know,” said Rakkim. “You’re just hoping it will all work out. You’re praying, they’re praying, and God, oddly enough, will come down on the side of the one with the most guns and most willing to use them. God always does.”

Sarah shook her head. “We don’t have time to work out the details. The president came back from Geneva with very bad news. The Aztlán Empire has put in a claim for the whole Southwest and half of Texas. Greater Cuba wants to annex the rest of Florida and south Georgia. The Canadian government, using the Indigenous People’s Doctrine, is demanding the return of most of New England, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Both the Belt and the republic are being eaten away. Reunification is risky, I don’t doubt that…but it’s our only chance.”

Rakkim stared at her on the screen. Wished he were there.

“Rikki?”

“How’s Michael?”

“He misses you. So do I.”

“You’re going to have to tell the president. He’s the only one who can sell reunification to the people.”

“I know.”

“And General Kidd. The president’s going to have to work on him. Even Kingsley might not be able to do it, but you won’t have a chance without Kidd, and he’ll never listen to a woman.”

“You sound like you’re already convinced.” She waited.

“Any word about al-Faisal?”

“State Security concluded he blew himself up rather than be captured. Anthony…he’s not so sure. Neither am I. You didn’t tell me he was a strangler.”

“I’m a bad boy. I wish I was there so you could put me to bed without my supper.”

“I’d like that.”

“Kiss Michael for me. Tell him Daddy loves him.”

“You tell him.” Sarah wiped her eyes. “Come back and tell him yourself.”

“So you’re just going to stroll into the Colonel’s camp?” said Leo. “That’s your big plan?”

Far in the distance, Rakkim could see the Atlanta skyline in his rearview. They had left Getty’s suite after breakfast, driven away in the vehicle he had secured for them-a battered four-by-four Mao safari wagon with rusted door panels and a solid suspension. Reliable, built for the back-country, but not worth enough to attract hijackers or the authorities. Sarah would have liked it, a car they could use to explore for dinosaur bones in Utah or to take Michael to Mount Rushmore, let him see the dynamited faces of the old presidents, maybe buy him a replica of the original from one of the street hawkers.

“What, I don’t deserve an answer?” Leo waited. Little fucker was patient. “Well?”

“Yes, I plan to just stroll into the Colonel’s camp. Trying to infiltrate didn’t work out so well for the other three shadow warriors sent in.”

“I hate to break it to you,” said Leo, “but in terms of game theory, the opposite of a failed tactic is not necessarily success.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“Would you at least tell me why you want Dad to bury your identity in the KGB files? How does that help?”

Rakkim watched the road. “Because no one believes what they’re told. They believe what they uncover. What they dig up on their own. And the harder it is to find, the more they believe it when they do find it.”

Leo thought it over. “So you want the Colonel to crack your KGB file?”

Rakkim smiled. “If he doesn’t, I’m dead.”

Leo yawned.

Rakkim kept driving. Traffic had thinned out after their leaving the vicinity of the capital, the roads getting progressively more run down, the ditches overgrown with weeds. A stake-body truck loaded with pianos raced past, changing lanes erratically-battered uprights and grand pianos shifted from side to side, sounding like thunder. Rakkim tailed the truck, moving when it moved. Sometimes outlaws mined the main roads, looting the wreckage. He imagined ivory keys scattered across the asphalt like teeth, wondered what they would be worth.

Carefully cultivated fields of peanuts and soybeans gave way to pine forests and dense underbrush as the miles passed. Rakkim spotted an abandoned car nearly swallowed up by the greenery, creepers twined through broken windows, upholstery furry with moss and mildew. He took an unmarked road toward North Carolina, the car bumping over potholes.

“Could I see the shekel again?” said Leo. “I’ll be careful.”

Rakkim handed it over. He knew how Leo felt. He found himself fingering it at odd moments, or just touching the pocket he kept it in, reassuring himself that it was still there. Crazy to rely on an old silver coin to win over Malcolm Crews, but they needed Crews and his ragtag army, and faith was the most powerful force in the universe.

Leo cupped the coin in the palm of his hand. “You ever wonder if maybe it’s real?”

“’Course it’s real.”

“No, I mean…what if it really was one of the thirty pieces of silver paid out to Judas?”

“You’re the math whiz, you figure the odds of that.”

Leo rubbed the profiled face on the coin with his thumb, caressed the pitted surface. “Probability’s one thing…but there’s no such thing as zero possibility.”

Rakkim took the coin back. It felt warm. He likely wasn’t going to have it much longer. Judas probably felt the same way. You could buy anything with money; that hadn’t changed in two thousand years. Problem was, what you bought didn’t last.

“I liked Getty,” said Leo. “He said I could visit him in Atlanta anytime.”

“Getty’s a politician. You’re supposed to like him. Doesn’t mean you turn the country over to him and trust that he’s going to do right.”

“Dad trusts him. So does Sarah.”

“If Sarah trusted him she would have told me about him before we left Seattle. She thinks she needs Getty. Doesn’t mean she trusts him.”

Leo stretched out his legs. “I still don’t know why we don’t just go see this Malcolm Crews guy now, instead of taking another detour.”

“It’s not a detour. I told you, I have business in Addington.”