Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

Another ten minutes and the Colonel parked outside the entrance to one of the many tunnels into the mountain. He got out, saluted the guards inside the entrance, and kept walking. Rakkim and Leo followed. The tunnel was barely lit, rock debris everywhere. It smelled like sweat and engine grease.

“Hang on,” said Leo, voice reedy as he struggled to keep up.

Neither the Colonel nor Rakkim slowed his pace.

Leo was gasping for breath when he finally caught up with them a hundred yards later, the two of them waiting for him outside a cleft in the rock. He clung to the wall, bent over. “I…I’m claustrophobic,” he wheezed, shaking his head.

Rakkim grabbed Leo by the hair, dragged him into the opening.

“Intellectuals,” snorted the Colonel as Leo banged his head against a rock outcropping. “Always a reason they can’t do something. The porridge is too hot, the porridge is too cold, but it’s never just right.”

Rakkim dropped Leo on the other side. “Careful, Colonel, he’ll give you some fancy math problem, then laugh at you when you can’t solve it in your head.”

“I wouldn’t waste my time,” said Leo, scrambling after them. “Might as well try to teach a chimp particle physics.” The kid did okay. He kept up, even though he’d put his shirttail over his mouth, trying to cut down on the dust they were breathing.

It took longer than Rakkim anticipated to get there, the barely lit tunnel gradually sloping, down, down, down, until even he found himself slowing his steps, feeling the weight of the mountain closing in on them. The Colonel felt it too.

“Almost…almost there,” said the Colonel, his voice too loud.

They rounded the bend and there it was…the lake. Even with the floodlights spread along the rocky shore, the surface was the color of an oil slick. They approached cautiously, stood blinking as they looked out.

“This is what the hour before creation must have been like,” Rakkim said quietly. “Darkness moved across the face of the water…” He took in the oxygen bottles littering the shore, the single thermal blanket. “You let him dive alone?”

“Moseby insisted,” said the Colonel, not taking his eyes off the black lake. “I told him to wait…he’s been pushing himself for days and-”

“I see something.” Leo wiped his nose. Pointed.

Rakkim saw a light deep below the surface, coming closer…brighter now.

A diver burst out of the water, sent spray into the air. He paddled toward shore, almost invisible in a full black dry suit and black dive hood. Only the flickering halogen penlights on either side of his face mask made his position clear. The diver paddled crookedly, exhausted, his gloved hands barely clearing the water. He left a wake…he was towing something.

Rakkim splashed into the shallows, immediately felt his legs go numb from the cold. He stayed there, took another step. “Moseby!”

Moseby turned his head awkwardly, barely able to stay afloat.

“This way!” shouted Rakkim, teeth chattering as he moved to deeper water. “Here!”

Moseby swam toward him, arms flopping as he kicked himself forward.

Rakkim reached for him, dragged him closer; then he fell backward, head underwater for just an instant, but his ears felt like they were going to burst from the cold. He scrambled up, pulled Moseby partway onto the shore, slipped on the wet rocks. He tore off Moseby’s face mask. “J-John…” he gasped, shivering. “It’s…it’s okay now.”

His eyes bright red from exploded capillaries, Moseby tried to speak but couldn’t. He just lay there, trembling like a hooked fish.

Leo ran over, looked down at both of them, unsure what to do.

The Colonel bent down, grabbed Rakkim and Moseby by the collar, and pulled them farther up onto the stones, then sat down beside them. The sound of their breathing echoed off the rocky cavern. Echoed. Echoed.

Rakkim raised himself up and stared at the gray graphite canister resting along the shoreline, “72/106” stenciled on the side. He was looking at both the past and the future, and it gave him no pleasure. None at all.

Rakkim hit the front door with his shoulder and carried Moseby inside.

The Colonel and Leo followed him in, the Colonel hefting the graphite cylinder. A dozen guards took up positions outside the Colonel’s house, squinting in the midafternoon sun.

Rakkim gently laid Moseby onto the sofa. Worked the dry suit off him, Moseby shivering uncontrollably, eyes fluttering and unresponsive, his lips blue. Water dripped off his short hair, beaded along his chest-diving that far underground had increased the pressure exponentially, far beyond the limits of the suit, allowing the frigid waters of the lake to seep in.

The Colonel put the canister on the floor, Leo elbowing him aside to get at it. The canister was smaller than Rakkim thought it would be, maybe four feet long, and twice the diameter of Moseby’s oxygen tank. Sixty, seventy pounds tops.

Rakkim rubbed Moseby’s bare arms, his legs, the skin cold and rubbery-he cursed the man for his stubbornness and bravado. There was a deep tear along the back of the suit where he had brushed up against something sharp. Moseby had to have known the suit was compromised, yet he had stayed down in the icy depths, feeling the numbness spread until he could barely breathe. It must have been the Colonel’s decision to split his troops that had forced Moseby to continue-he had realized the danger they were in and gone after the canister without waiting for Rakkim.

“Go on about your business,” said Baby, bustling in with fresh thermal blankets, ignoring Moseby’s nakedness. “Shoo, Rikki.” She slipped heat socks onto Moseby’s feet, patted his bare thigh before covering him with a thermal blanket. “I’ve got water boiling for tea,” she said to Moseby, as though he could hear. “You’re going to be just fine, John.”

Moseby jerked, teeth chattering.

“I’ve seen Baby just about raise the dead, boys,” said the Colonel.

There was nothing Rakkim could do for Moseby. He turned away, watched as Leo studied the canister, wincing as the kid tapped it with his knuckle.

“That thing’s safe to have here, isn’t it?” The Colonel rested his hands on his hips. “Got to say it looks kind of disappointing after all the trouble we went through to find it.”

“It’s not the package, it’s the toy inside that counts.” Leo pressed his fingertips against a small panel at the end of the cylinder, eyes closed, intent as a safecracker.

“What’s he up to now?” said the Colonel.

“No idea.” Rakkim lied. Leo said he could directly access computers using the natural conductivity of his skin, plus those genetic maximizers…an epidural interface, he had called it, which sounded like something Sarah had gotten when Michael was born. He smiled at the memory. The first time he held Michael, he’d started crying. Sarah had laughed, exhausted, said if he felt that way, they could always trade Michael in for a baby more to his liking.

The Colonel walked over to the sofa, watched as Baby slid heat packs under Moseby’s covers.

Baby looked up at him. Her hair curled around her face, her expression as angry as it was tender. “I hope whatever you boys got there is worth practically killing this poor man.” She placed her slim white hand on Moseby’s forehead.

The Colonel touched the communicator on his earlobe. “Son of a bitch.” He started pacing. “Tell the men to get ready because we’re sure as shit going to get hit tonight. Any updates from the scouts?” He checked his ivory-handled pistols, slid them back into their holsters. “Send out another team and then set the perimeter for maximum sensitivity, thermal as well as motion detection. I don’t care if we get false readings, I’d rather be wrong than surprised.” He turned off the earpiece with another touch.