Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

Beautiful landscape through the windows, snowcapped mountains and blue vistas, but Rakkim wasn’t interested in sightseeing. He just wanted to be home.

He looked over at Leo lying there, mouth open, a trickle of drool crusted along his chin. Another of Rakkim’s great successes. When they’d left, Leo was the pride of his family, a human computer, a vast step up the evolutionary ladder. At least according to Leo. Now…now he was a glorified gort, one of those lobotomized clones that Swiss billionaires kept on ice for organ transplants.

Moseby had recovered fast, probably as much from Baby’s efforts as his Fedayeen recuperative powers. Another question Rakkim wanted to ask her someday. Moseby looked after Leo, sat beside him, praying, night and day. It couldn’t hurt. Moseby didn’t have much to say to Rakkim, too many bad memories between them maybe, but Moseby did have questions about Leo and his daughter. Not the kind of questions Rakkim would have anticipated, nothing about appropriate or inappropriate contact, of family honor violated. Moseby wanted to know if Leo was a good man. An honest man. He wanted to know if he made Leanne laugh. If he understood her when she said things like numbers were God talking to us in his own voice. He wanted to know if Leo made her happy. Then he drove off in Rakkim’s old car, drove off to join his family, giving the eye in the pyramid hanging from the rearview a spin for good luck.

Rakkim and Leo left the next day. The Colonel had actually embraced Rakkim at the airport in Nashville. Hugged him hard, said he wished all Muslims were like him, the world would be a better place. Rakkim didn’t have the heart to tell him it wouldn’t make any difference. Probably make things worse. The Colonel never said a word about Baby the whole drive to the airport, Leo bundled in the back of the armored personnel carrier while they rode up front. Not a word. They talked about Malcolm Crews, and the likelihood of wiping out his remaining forces. They talked about Leo and what various doctors might be able to do for him. They didn’t talk about Baby. Not until Rakkim was about to walk onto the plane, pushing Leo, who sat sleeping in a wheelchair. The Colonel laid his hand on Rakkim’s shoulder.

The Colonel tugged down his gray uniform, his posture perfect. “Young people…young women particularly…they’re easily led astray,” he said, not making eye contact.

It would have been easy to nod his head and agree, go along, but Rakkim respected the Colonel too much for that. “I’m sure that’s true, sir, but I don’t think there’s a man or woman alive who could lead Baby anyplace she didn’t want to go.”

The Colonel nodded. A sad smile on his face. “Yes…I always loved that about her.” He turned on his heel and stalked across the airport lounge.

The flight from Nashville to Montreal took the plane in a looping curve out into the Atlantic and then north over Canadian airspace. Service was only once a week, and space was reserved months in advance, but the Colonel had made a phone call. Rakkim and Leo had fake Belt passport chips, and a couple of Belt bank accounts-the flight went smoothly, the plane packed with businessmen, most of them foreign nationals intent on staking their claim to the Belt’s resources.

The Colonel said the new president had been selling concessions to the highest bidder since his inauguration, auctioning off chunks of prime real estate and mineral rights. There was even talk of turning the sunken city of New Orleans into a tourist destination. Japanese honeymooners were considered a particularly lucrative market. That’s what happens when you elect your presidents every few years, Rakkim had told him, turns politicians into shortsighted whores. You people and your president-for-life are just as bad, the Colonel had answered-what happens when Kingsley dies? The next one might be a despot, then what are you going to do?

The train hummed along, floating above the guideway, no noise, no friction, no pollution. Sarah said Canada used to be considered the little brother of the United States, slower paced, slightly backward. Today it was a leader in applied technology and research, a pristine ecological storehouse blessed with one of the highest standards of living in the world, ironically fueled by the wealth of its oil sands and natural gas deposits. Rakkim stared out the window as a vast herd of caribou champed listlessly at the tundra.

He kept expecting to hear Darwin’s whisper break the silence. Where’s the gratitude, Rikki? Maybe turn his head and see the assassin standing among the whirling dust motes or lying there when the bed opened up in the train cabin. He was alone, though, just he and Leo. Rakkim had sensed his presence a couple of times, thought of an enormous crab scuttling along the ocean depths…He rubbed the crucifix branded into the palm of his hand. That was real. It was fading by the day, but it was real. It had happened. Leo had asked why Rakkim was allowed into the Church of the Mists and Malcolm Crews left outside. Rakkim still didn’t have an answer.

A bell chimed softly and a small gate in the wall lifted. Rakkim pulled a tray out of the auto-waiter, set it on the table in the compartment. Lunch was beef bourguignonne, sourdough rolls, and green salad. Full-size, heavy silverware. English china plates. Linen napkins monogrammed with the crest of the Canadian Rail System. He had ordered a vanilla milk shake in a cold-pak for Leo, in case he woke up later, and another strawberry malt for himself.

He lifted the silver lid off the plate, inhaled the fragrant steam.

Leo sat up. Yawned. “That smells good.” He rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”

Rakkim put his fork down. “Canada. Just past Calgary. Are you…really awake?”

“What are we doing in Canada?”

Rakkim waited for him to lie back down and drift off again.

“What do you keep looking at me for?” Leo slid the plate of beef bourguignonne closer, picked up Rakkim’s fork. “Did you already tell me why we’re in Canada?”

“We’re going home.”

Leo stuck a chunk of beef into his mouth. “What if I don’t want to go home?”

Rakkim put a hand on Leo’s arm, stopped the fork halfway. “Leo, do you have any idea what’s happened?”

Leo shook his head. “All I know is I’m on a train in Canada and I’m really, really hungry.”

Rakkim let Leo eat, the kid gobbling down the beef stew until it was all gone, sopping up the remains with the sourdough rolls. He left the wine and the salad untouched.

“I’m smarter too.” Leo removed the vanilla milk shake from the cold-pak, flipped up the straw. “Smarter than anybody’s ever been, I bet.”

“You’ve been asleep for the last three days,” said Rakkim.

Leo gave up on the straw, spooned up the milk shake. “Processing. Not sleeping, processing. Big difference.” He chased down some errant crumbs with his pinkie, plopped them in his mouth. “Where’s the hafnium isotope?”

“The canister? It’s gone.”

“Not the canister, the isotope.” Leo looked back at the auto-waiter. “Can you order me some more food?”

“It’s all gone. The canister and everything in it.”

Leo knocked over the glass of wine. Didn’t seem to notice. “That’s bad.”

Rakkim tossed a napkin on the spilled wine. “I know.”

“You don’t know.” Leo blinked rapidly. “Without…without the hafnium isotope, all…all…all the information from the computer cores is useless. It would take years to refine more-”

“It’s worse than that. Baby and Gravenholtz took the canister. Probably sold it to the Chinese. They have everything-”

“They don’t have everything.” Leo stood up. Ran a hand through his wild hair. “I have to pee.”

Just as Rakkim was about to knock on the door, see if Leo was okay, the kid came out. He walked over to the auto-waiter, scrolled through the menu.