“Don’t worry.” Anthony Colarusso switched off the police cordon around Eagleton Digital Entertainment, the electrical field crackling as it went down. “Rakkim’s fine.”
“If he was fine he wouldn’t have gone to the doctor.” Sarah stepped over the threshold after the deputy chief of detectives. “He wouldn’t have asked for all those tests.”
Colarusso closed the door after her. Checked the street. The Zone wasn’t busy on a Thursday afternoon, just a few well-dressed moderns on their way to the Tarantino retrospective, and a band of Catholic workmen heading into the Kitchy Koo Klub across the street. He waved a hand and the defense blinds clicked into place-Eagleton had good security in his shop, able to protect against a determined burglar or a suicide bomber in the street. But his security hadn’t protected him from al-Faisal’s knife thrust.
Sarah pushed back her hood. She was dressed casually: jeans and sweatshirt, looking just like the college kids who frequented the Zone. Except she looked older and more tired, her hair needing a good brushing. Other than that…
He pointed at the blackened bloodstains on the floor. “This is where it happened, obviously. I’ve been all over the crime scene, but I was hoping a fresh set of eyes-”
“I’m worried about him, Anthony,” said Sarah.
“He seemed perfectly healthy before he left.”
“That’s what the medical report showed,” said Sarah. “In fact, he’s better than healthy. The Fedayeen doctor checked his current reaction times against when he graduated from the Academy. They’re faster now. The doctor said he’s never seen it before. That’s how I found out. The doctor called and wanted Rikki to come in for a retest.”
“I’d like to get quicker reflexes as I get older.” Colarusso patted his substantial belly, his baggy gray suit spotted with dried egg yolk from breakfast. “I’m fast with a fork, but not as fast as I used to be.”
“Don’t patronize me. Rikki wasn’t due for a checkup. He went in and asked for his DNA to be tested.”
“So he was worried about his genetic boosters.”
“He asked the doctor if it was possible to get cross-contamination from being cut with a Fedayeen knife. Not his own. A Fedayeen knife-”
“I know, it’s made with the owner’s own DNA.”
“The doctor told Rikki he was looking at things backwards-it’s all about the blood, not the blade. You can get hepatitis or plague or any number of diseases any time there’s blood, but DNA doesn’t get passed on,” said Sarah. “Rikki insisted on being tested anyway.”
“And the tests cleared him, right?”
Sarah nodded.
“Rikki never mentioned his concerns to you?”
“Does sharing his concerns seem like something Rikki would do?”
“Well…if his leg was cut off he might ask for a Band-Aid, but that’s about it.” Colarusso spread his arms around the small shop. “I need your help. I kind of hit a dead end here.”
“I thought the investigation had been completed. Al-Faisal and his bodyguard blew themselves up at the roadblock on I-90. Case closed.”
“That’s State Security’s version. Me, I’m a stubborn old Catholic.”
“I heard you’re a stubborn old Catholic who almost got himself taken into custody at the I-90 site.”
“I found something there, something State Security missed.”
“I didn’t hear that. What did-”
“An ear.”
“How nice for you.”
“Yeah, it was,” said Colarusso, annoyed. “The shape and whorls of an ear are as good as fingerprints for making an ID. The bodyguard was exFedayeen, every hair on his head’s in the files. The ear’s not his. The surveillance footage from the shop gave us a good view of al-Faisal’s ears-”
“So was it his ear or not?”
Colarusso shrugged. “The ear was in pretty bad shape. Forensics said it was an unlikely match, but that was as far as they would go.”
“What did State Security say when you told them that?”
“I didn’t bother. I think al-Faisal is alive and well, that’s all that matters.” Colarusso handed her a thumb drive. “I’ve got all my files here. Full photo array. I wanted you to walk the scene, look around, see if you spot something I missed.” He nodded at her. “Redbeard’s niece…between the two of us, something’s got to pop.”
Sarah slowly circled the room. Bins of electronic components, laser-etching tools, high-magnification glasses, nanocircuit boards, all of it neatly organized. One side of the room was filled with children’s toys-antique mechanical cars and airplanes, an Etch A Sketch, new handheld games, and zero-grav dioramas. She picked up a faceted Fly’s-eye viewer, looked through it. The whole room was broken into a thousand identical pieces. Colarusso waved at her, his face upside down and right-side up and all around. She put the viewer aside.
“All I know for sure was that it would have to take something big to get al-Faisal up here,” said Colarusso. “It’s just too risky for him.”
Sarah walked over to one of the identical nonconductive metal tables that lined the walls. “Is this Eagleton’s main work area?”
“Yeah. How did-”
She pointed to the floor. “More scuff marks here than by the others.” She sat down in the elevated chair, fitted her hands into the remote-control gloves Eagleton had used to manipulate minute objects-a good glove stud could tie a double-loop bowline hitch in an eyelash. She removed her hands, wiped them on her pants. “Was this the height the chair was set at?”
“Yeah.”
She swiveled the chair from side to side. Redbeard always said if you wanted to know what a man was thinking, check the view from his favorite spot. The facing wall was covered with images: sexy, pretty girls, sexy, pretty boys, sleek Japanese electronic gear, Italian sports cars. A publicity photo of a Russian astronaut who had died last year, hit by a tiny piece of debris while on a space walk. A postcard from a surfing beach in South Africa.
“Had he visited South Africa recently?” said Sarah.
“Not according to the State Department or Border Control. It was evidently a fantasy of his, according to the bartender at the Kitchy Koo. He was going to emigrate, surf all day, and live on coconuts.”
“There’re no coconuts in South Africa.”
“He didn’t surf either. I guess that’s why it was a fantasy.”
She removed the photos and postcards. Nothing on the back. She tilted each one in the light. No bumps. No microdots. Nothing. She replaced them exactly where they had been. Then she turned to the one untouched card, a five-by-seven holographic display card placed in the upper-right-hand quadrant of the wall. Key spot, according to Redbeard. The place where the eyes wandered during a pleasurable reverie. Most men would have put up a photo of their wife or sweetheart there, maybe their kids or a sports figure. Eagleton had a pornographic image of himself with his penis jammed deep into a woman’s mouth. Eagleton’s back was arched, his head turned to the camera. Leering.
Colarusso cleared his throat. “Yeah, that…that one’s a real prize.”
A very expensive holo, the image amazingly crisp. Flawless. She took it down from the wall, touched the controls on the side: 360-degree view and every inch of it high-definition. So clear she could see the reflection in the young woman’s eye. She zoomed in on the reflection, hoping to see something…
“That thing’s been checked out by experts,” said Colarusso. “Experts and nonexperts. Everybody wanted to take a peek.”
The reflection filled the screen…a small, half-lit room, night sky visible through the window.
Colarusso looked at the screen. “Never saw that before.”
Sarah rotated the image, zoomed farther in, trying to see what was out the window of the room. Just lights…a line of yellow lights. Freeway…or airport runway maybe. She zoomed back out to the main image, aware of Colarusso shifting from one foot to the other beside her. She looked past Eagleton’s triumphant expression, stared at the young woman’s face. Noted a small blemish on her cheek, pushed out from the pressure of Eagleton’s penis. She touched a tab, sent the image into full motion, Eagleton grinding slowly away for the camera, holding the young woman’s head in place with both hands.
“I seen enough,” said Colarusso.
Sarah kept her eyes on the screen. “I met him once. Did I tell you that?”
“Eagleton?” Colarusso looked shocked. “No…”
“I was seventeen or eighteen. The Zone was exciting and nasty, and I wasn’t supposed to go anywhere near it.” She watched as Eagleton wiggled his scrawny hips, tiny black hairs covering his thighs. “I went to his storefront to buy a satellite descrambler. He had the best, that’s what my girlfriends said. I was the only customer that day. He didn’t know who I was, of course. I remember…I remember him showing me how to install the descrambler, standing right behind me, and I suddenly realized he had his penis out and was rubbing his erection against me. I slapped him so hard my whole arm went numb, ran out the door. I remember looking back at him, and he was watching me like nothing had happened, just stroking himself and smiling.”
“You never told anybody?”
Sarah shook her head. Switched off the full-motion mode.
“No offense, but you might have gotten off easy,” said Colarusso. “Cops working the Zone told me this perv was as sick as they come.”
“He needed to be one up on everyone.” Sarah swiveled back and forth in the chair. “That was his real perversion. Fooling me into thinking he was helping me…that’s what really got him off.”
“Didn’t stop the Black Robes from coming to him for help when they wanted something,” said Colarusso. “Guardians of public morality-”
“You take photos of everything on this wall?”
“They’re in the thumb drive.”
“I’m going to take this holo home with me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I do.” Sarah touched the desk. “Where’s the computer console? Had to be one here.”
Colarusso grimaced. “Eagleton had it booby-trapped with magnesium switches. Soon as our techs attempted a download, the whole thing went up. Almost burned the police lab down.”
The Old One dismissed his acolyte with a wave of his hand, stared out through the observation deck of the Star of the Sea. Better to watch the approaching storm than another pink-cheeked novice back away, head bowed, eager to impress him with his piety and manners. The Old One distrusted piety in the young and was bored to his very bones with proper manners. Times like this he missed Darwin. The assassin reeked of death, reveled in his bloody impulses, but he was a man. No excuses. No regrets. No fear. Contemptuous of everyone, regardless of status or station, Darwin wore his insolence like a badge of honor, a mark of his rejection of good and evil. No God, no devil…just death and Darwin as far as the eye could see.
Now Darwin was gone and the Old One felt the loss as a dull ache. Phantom-limb pain. The world was different without the assassin. Without spice or savor. Darwin was the only man who dared to laugh at the Old One. And the only one who had made the Old One smile. No…there was another. Rakkim. The Old One had offered Rakkim the world and Rakkim had turned it aside with a laugh, said what value was there in the world if it cost him his soul? Give him time, the Old One had thought, and let Rakkim live. All these long, long years and just those two had deeply touched him-and Darwin was dead and Rakkim was missing. But perhaps not for long.
The Old One’s increased surveillance in Seattle had paid off. Five days ago, Sarah had been spotted at a Saint Sebastian Day fair dressed as a modern. Consorting with Catholics, doubtlessly planning more trouble. She wore a gauzy veil at the fair, but there had been an altercation with a Black Robe in his employ, and her features were momentarily exposed. A blessing, to be sure. The whore, a child, and another, older woman had managed to elude his men, disappearing into a nest of abandoned buildings in an industrialized part of the city. His men continued the hunt.
Dark clouds rolled toward the Star of the Sea, black thunderheads across the Pacific, pushing him closer to the coast of North America. The promised land. To have been so close to success. The bitch would have undoubtedly led his men to Rakkim, or failing that, her capture would have drawn Rakkim from hiding. Instead, she had somehow disappeared into the crowd, clutching a small boy. A child. That was good news. She would stick close to home now, wherever that was. Good luck and bad, as though Allah himself could not decide whether he favored the Old One at this most crucial hour.
The Old One braced himself, knees slightly bent. The massive luxury liner could weather any storm, but old habits died hard. He had been caught once in a sudden squall off Djibouti, caught in a leaky boat, the small sail of the dhow ripped to shreds as he rode the waves…
Still no sign of Rakkim. Whether he was in hiding or on a mission, the Old One didn’t know. Even his most trusted spies, men planted twenty years earlier and privy to the most intimate secrets, remained in the dark about Rakkim. And so did the Old One. It rankled. No, worse than that, it made his joints ache, as though he had slept badly, restless as a woman. Once before Rakkim and Sarah had upended his plans. Ruined decades of work. The Old One had been cautious in those days, slowly moving men into position, believing in the inevitability of his ascension. A one-world caliphate under the green banner of Islam, the Old One’s destiny at last complete. Yet those two had ruined his plans, and these last two years, the Old One had found himself hurrying, taking chances. He knew now that even he could run out of time.
The Old One felt light-headed for an instant at such a thought-it felt like champagne bubbles rising, toasting a New Year’s Eve a hundred years ago. He might as well have been a mayfly, doomed to die with the dawn, a small, buzzing creature unaware of tomorrow. He and the rest of his companions had counted down the seconds until the New Year, mindless pleasure seekers, fallen from grace. All of them gone now. Long gone. Returned to the dust, no wiser than when they became flesh.
He put such thoughts away, tucked them into a quiet corner of his mind with the rest of his ancient memories. Wives and children gone, fortunes won and lost, friends abandoned. Nothing remained now save his goal and his purpose, the path lit by glory, his footsteps guided by God. A solitary path to be sure, but the Old One had long since gotten used to that.
The Old One felt the Star of the Sea shift slightly as the edge of the storm reached it, and wondered yet again if he should have had Rakkim killed when he had the chance.
“How are you doing?” asked Colarusso. “Everything going on, I forgot to ask.”
Sarah ignored him. She had a line of welts across her back where the Black Robe had flailed her last week, and even worse, a nagging suspicion that she had been seen, her presence noted. She had used every precaution getting back home from the Saint Sebastian Day fair, even had her mother take Michael a separate way so that she could observe them approach the house and see if they were followed. They weren’t, but the welts on her back still burned so badly she could hardly stand to take a shower. She would have liked to have stayed and given the Black Robe a few jolts from the stunner. Set it to max and made him sizzle. She shook her head, amused. Such language, Sarah. The price one pays for keeping company with infidels.
“Sarah?”
“I’m good,” said Sarah, finishing her walkabout of the shop. She had taken plenty of her own photos. “Keeping busy.”
Colarusso peered at her, probably noting the bags under her eyes. He took her hand, ran a thumb over her chewed-short fingernails. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’m a gentleman and all, housebroken after twenty-eight years of marriage, but, Sarah…you don’t look good.”
She swatted him. He laughed but it didn’t help. It didn’t help either of them. “I miss him, Anthony.” Her voice shook slightly. “I hate going to bed alone. I hate waking up alone. I miss him. And I’m scared for him.”
“He’s good. He’s the best.”
“Those other shadow warriors who disappeared…they probably thought they were the best too.”
Colarusso held her, the two of them standing there, just breathing.
“You’re his friend, his best friend,” said Sarah, hanging on, her voice muffled against his beefy chest. “He asked me…before he left, he asked me if I thought he was different lately.” She pressed her cheek against him, hiding. “I lied to him, Anthony. I love him, but he’s not the same now and I don’t know why. I couldn’t tell him. Not when he was leaving for the Belt. He’s got…he’s got so much to worry about.”
“Marriage changes a man,” soothed Colarusso. “Most ways for the better, but there were times after Mary Elizabeth was born, I’d get off work and couldn’t decide whether to drive to Canada and not look back, or just drive off the nearest dock.”
“It gets better, though, doesn’t it?”
“Sure.”
“He’s not going to be like this forever, is he? I’m sorry, Anthony…I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
“He loves you, girl, that’s all I know. You just hang on a little longer. You’ll see. He’ll be his old self again. Then, being a good wife and all, you can complain about that.”
They finally broke the clinch. Sarah wiped tears from her cheeks, still feeling Colarusso’s comforting, bearlike heat.
“No sign…” Colarusso cleared his throat, embarrassed. “No trace of explosives in the shop, but plenty of exotic materials and metals, titanium, Carborundum, lithium, palladium…man could have been building anything.”
“Did you run a radiation scan?”
“Jesus, lady, you got a dirty mind.” He grimaced. “State Security must have checked, but I’ll get right on it and make sure.”
“We should go. I’ll let you know if I have any ideas.”
“How about coming for dinner tonight?” Colarusso rubbed the back of her arm. “Bring your mom and the boy and we’ll have a barbecue. Marie’s a lousy cook, but even she has a hard time screwing up a steak.”
Sarah smiled. “Thank you, Anthony, but I’m working late again.”
“The president?”
She sighed, half closed her eyes. Wished for a moment she was back home…not her home now, but her home when she was a girl. Home with Redbeard, her uncle…her protector after her father was murdered. The head of State Security, Redbeard was harsh but loving. Always demanding, turning every incident from spilled milk to a misplaced book into a damned learning opportunity. The training never ended in that house. People like us can’t afford to be surprised, Sarah. We don’t have the luxury of making mistakes or being caught unaware. We have to sense who’s on the other side of the door before they knock, and we have to know if they’re a friend or enemy. Then Redbeard would kiss her hair…or get down on the floor and play dolls with her, until he was called away on business.
“Sarah?”
Sarah put her hood up. “The official state visit to Mexico City is a nightmare. Amistad por Siempre! Friendship forever, my ass. Every senator up for reelection is begging for a spot on Air Force One and the president wants to minimize the political footprint. He’d leave the vice president here if he could, but it’s best to have a Mexican-American beside you when you’re groveling before the Aztlán Empire.”
“It’s that bad?”
“It’s worse. The president’s using the visit to try to negotiate a compromise-giving Aztlán all gas and mineral rights from Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico, in return for them renouncing all claims to the territory itself.”
Colarusso stared at her. “That’s the best we can do?”
“That’s the best we can hope for. It’s going to take all of Kingsley’s skills and Mendoza’s folksy barrio stories to convince the Mexicans to accept the deal. They don’t need to compromise. They could take the territory if they really wanted to.”
“What about General Kidd? His forces-”
“The Fedayeen are already stretched thin. We have to choose our battles.”
Colarusso gnawed at his lower lip. “Plane full of politicians…president and vice president…seems to me that’s just asking for trouble.”
“Air Force One is safer than the Presidential Palace. Redbeard used to pack Rakkim and me along when he rode with the president,” said Sarah. “Amazing technology. The freeways may be crumbling, but Air Force One gets every security upgrade. Microwave chaff generators, triple redundancies, complete system assessment prior to takeoff…”
“I had no idea.”
“You’re not supposed to.” Sarah opened the door. “Raincheck on the dinner invitation? Rakkim and I will come by as soon as he gets back.”
“Just bring your antacids.”