Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

Redbeard’s dictum: Plan for the day when all your plans fail, when those you trust betray you, when your certainty cracks like a rotten egg and you are alone in the storm. That’s the place he was right now. The president dead, the government in turmoil, helicopters buzzing over the city, and the Fedayeen on high alert. None of that meant a thing right now.

Rakkim kicked the boarded-up door open, still running, breathing hard. He took the rickety wooden stairs two at a time, three at a time, kicking up dust as he accelerated. His foot broke through one of the termite-ridden steps, but he pulled it free, kept running, the knife in his hand. He turned off at the sixth-floor landing, raced down the deserted corridor, tearing through cobwebs.

The door to Rakkim and Sarah’s closet looked like part of the plasterboard wall. He pressed a recessed button along the floorboard, looked into a knothole for the iris scan, and the section of wall slid noiselessly back.

He could smell Sarah’s perfume on her clothes, saw them bunched underfoot where they had been ripped from their hangers. He felt the softness of her pale blue dress brush against his face as he peered through a gap in the doors. Sounds from the other rooms. Glass breaking. Furniture being knocked over. Loud voices, as though they didn’t care who heard them. He eased the doors apart, padding forward. Their bed had been slashed apart, Sarah’s antique dresser kicked to pieces, all her pretty things scattered. His heart beat quietly now, steadily, calm as milk as he closed in on the strangers in his home.

Michael’s room was empty. A few toys scattered, his rocking horse decapitated. Sarah’s office ransacked. The bathroom door tilted open, the lock broken. Someone had taken refuge behind that door. He moved closer, looked inside. Oh, Katherine…He stepped inside, bent down beside her on the floor, shaking his head, aching. Her eyes bulged, the whites red with burst capillaries. Her neck was swollen and purple, her blackened tongue extended. A strangler had killed her slowly, painfully. Her crucifix had been torn off. He found it resting at the bottom of the toilet and retrieved it. He returned to Katherine, gently turned her head. Two slight indentations were on the back of her neck, two indentations where the strangler had knotted his killing cord, a signature. Rakkim had seen two indentations in exactly the same spot in the photo of Eagleton’s body. Al-Faisal’s calling card on his return from the dead.

Rakkim stroked Katherine’s hair. Closed her eyes. Did you run in here as death closed in? Did you call out to the killers, buying time for the others to escape? Did you beg for mercy as they beat at the doors, a smile on your face? Please, we’re all alone in here. Take what you want, just leave us in peace. Is that what you said? May God wrap you in his loving embrace for telling such a beautiful lie, Katherine. He kissed her forehead and stood up. He eased into the living room.

Two men in moderate street clothes ransacked the room, clearly ex-Fedayeen from the determined way they moved. The reinforced front door hung by one hinge, the door frame chopped away. The two Fedayeen cut into the walls with their knives, looking for hidden compartments, slashed open the sofas. A Black Robe examined the books on Sarah’s bookshelf, stroking his fine, dark beard, disgusted. A fourth man stood with arms crossed monitoring the security screens-circular drive, underground garage, the two elevators, the main entryway. Army Special Forces according to the notch in his right nostril. Fedayeen, Special Forces, and Black Robe, a classic strike team, a mixed crew of professional killers in his living room, waiting for Rakkim to show up.

No sign of Sarah or Michael. Or Leo. No sign of al-Faisal. Just these four men. Al-Faisal must be with the rest of the strike team, in pursuit of his family…or in possession of them. Rakkim felt his heart turn to ice-no fear, no forgiveness. He moved slowly across the living room, very slowly, a half glide to avoid alerting the Fedayeen.

The transition was instantaneous. One moment Rakkim barely moved, the next he had driven his blade into the ear of the first Fedayeen, killed the second with a single thrust under the jaw. Special Forces rushed over from the security screens, just missed him with a low strike, an assassin tactic to bleed out the femoral artery. A good move, but the man hadn’t learned his lessons well enough. He should have rolled as he slashed at Rakkim’s thigh, come up fighting from a tuck position. Rakkim dodged the strike, sliced the man’s carotid with a flick of his blade. Rakkim didn’t wait to see him die, instead chased down the Black Robe, who scampered toward the front door in a billow of black fabric. The cleric almost reached the doorknob before Rakkim threw him back into the living room.

Rakkim stared at the tiny red crescent on each of the Black Robe’s earlobes, a sign of his elevated rank. A tall, scrawny man with a sharp nose…and a mouth full of crooked teeth. Just as Sarah had described the Black Robe who had beaten her at the Saint Sebastian street fair.

The Black Robe scuttled to his feet, grappled with him, but Rakkim dashed the man against a decorative pillar, beat him down.

Rakkim walked into the kitchen. Came back a few moments later with a couple of Sarah’s carving knives. The Black Robe saw the look on his face, got halfway up. Rakkim pushed him back with a foot, sat on the man’s hips. The Black Robe slapped at him, but Rakkim held him by the right wrist, drove the carving knife through the palm, pinning him to the hardwood floor.

The Black Robe arched his back, screaming.

Rakkim held the left hand down, drove in the other knife.

The Black Robe groaned, bit his gristly lips shut. Blood welled in his palms.

“Where’s my family?”

The Black Robe spit in his face.

Rakkim wiped his face. “Does al-Faisal have my family?”

The Black Robe’s eyes widened, surprised at Rakkim’s mention of the name.

Rakkim flicked the handle of the knife pinning the Black Robe’s right hand, the blade vibrating in the pooled blood. “I’m in a hurry.”

The Black Robe ground his teeth. “Do you think I fear death, apostate? Whatever you do to me, this day I shall be in Paradise.”

Rakkim sliced open the man’s robe, cut away his undershirt. His flesh was hard and sinewy, mottled with self-inflicted wounds-another masochist convinced that Allah took pleasure in the mortification of his divine creation. Brutalizing him for the truth would be fruitless; the Black Robe considered suffering a badge of honor.

“You see the marks of my faith?” preened the Black Robe. He tugged at the knives holding down his hands, deepening the cuts. “Go ahead. I’ll show you how a good Muslim dies.”

Rakkim blotted sweat from the Black Robe’s forehead with the edge of the man’s hood. “When did al-Faisal and the others leave?”

“If you hurry, perhaps you can catch them. Al-Faisal will welcome you.”

“Be careful what you wish for.” Rakkim traced the man’s smile with the tip of his knife. “You see how easily I killed these three.”

“See how well you do against twice that number.” The Black Robe clamped his mouth shut at what he had revealed, but quickly recovered, his bravado returned. “You should see what al-Faisal’s capable of when he has time. You’ll feel the cord slowly tighten around your neck until you’ll piss yourself for a single breath-”

“My family is everything to me.” Rakkim lightly ran the tip of his blade down the man’s nose, brought a drop of blood to the tip as the Black Robe squirmed. “Duty, honor, country…those are just words. I’d burn down heaven for my family.” The knife sliced one nostril, the Black Robe’s panting breath setting the membrane flapping. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my family. Nothing I wouldn’t do to someone trying to hurt them. Do you understand me?”