“What you did…it doesn’t bother you, does it?” said Leo.

“I guess I’ve got a moral deficiency. Maybe I should eat more green leafy vegetables.”

“Why do you keep making jokes about it?” said Leo. “Dad said you weren’t like that. He said I could trust you.”

“You can trust me.”

“Trust you to do what? Kill people?”

“Yeah, that’s right, when it’s needed.”

“It wasn’t needed.” Leo sounded like he was about to cry. “You went out of your way to kill those men. You jeopardized our mission.”

“Our mission? You little shit, this whole thing is on me. You’re only here because Sarah said to bring you.”

“Murder is a sin. It’s a sin in Judaism, it’s a sin in Christianity, it’s a sin in Islam and every other-”

“I’ll decide what’s a sin.”

“You’ll decide?” Leo stared at him, mouth open. “You’re going to get me killed.”

“Don’t worry,” said Rakkim. “Guys like you always die in bed. Clean sheets and a cup of warm cocoa in your hand, that’s how you’ll go out.”

Leo wiped his eyes. “Liar.”

Rakkim turned off onto a still smaller road, unlit and unmarked. Country and western drifted from the radio, love songs even sadder and more plaintive than the crickets. A huge wooden cross tilted by the side of the road. He raced on, pebbles kicking up in their wake. Disturbed by their passing, an owl flapped off from atop a tall pine, wings fluttering briefly across the moon. An omen, that’s what most Southerners would call that, a bad omen. Rakkim didn’t need an owl to tell him that they were fucked forever. He smiled to himself. Everything seemed amusing lately. It wasn’t that his sensations were muted, the fear and pain blurred. Exactly the opposite. The world never seemed more clear, an awful clarity frozen in his heart. I’ll decide what’s a sin. So now Rakkim had added blasphemy to his long list of transgressions.

Leo cleared his throat, afraid to disturb Rakkim’s thoughts. “Shouldn’t we…I mean, after we put some space between us and…what you did back there, shouldn’t we find someplace to sleep?”

“I’m not tired.”

“Right. That shadow warrior thing.”

“Why don’t you go to sleep? Give your mind and your mouth a rest.”

Leo yawned. “I’m not tired either.”

Rakkim kept watch for movement in the darkness ahead as he drove down the road, looking for a light, a signal, anything that would indicate an ambush. Leo didn’t know anything about death, but he was right about at least one thing: Rakkim had gone out of his way to kill the two Rangers. No real explanation for it either. Sure, they were murderous bastards, but the world was full of murderous bastards with and without badges. Yeah, the Rangers had groped the young nun back at Mount Carmel, but that was no capital crime, and besides, the nun would have been horrified at their deaths, preferring to pray for their forgiveness. No, the killing had been for Rakkim’s satisfaction and no one else’s, and that bothered him more than anything else.

“I thought shadow warriors avoided confrontation,” blurted Leo.

“You just can’t let it go, can you?”

“I’m just trying to understand.” Leo balled his chubby fists. “Shadow warriors are supposed to be invisible, that’s what Dad told me. Unnoticed and under the radar. They don’t look for trouble. They don’t kill without cause.”

“I’m not a shadow warrior anymore,” Rakkim said.

“Then what are you?”

Rakkim didn’t answer. Didn’t have an answer. All he knew was that he had told Leo the truth-he had changed. Transformation was an occupational hazard for a shadow warrior. And for assassins. Given time, shadow warriors always went native and assassins always went mad dog, but Rakkim was neither.

Like shadow warriors, assassins worked alone, beyond any boundary or authority. No such thing as an old assassin…but Darwin had proven them all wrong. He was in his forties when Rakkim tracked him to the abandoned church in New Fallujah, Darwin at the height of his powers, a devout atheist, welcoming Rakkim to his private sanctuary. The two of them cut and bleeding, knives dancing as they gasped for breath.

I recognized you the moment I saw you, taunted Darwin. I knew what you were.

Rakkim lunged. Drew blood. I know who you are too. I know how you think.

I feel sorry for you then, Rikki. Darwin slipped slightly, but Rakkim wasn’t fooled. Knowing how I think…Darwin’s expression sagged-he looked in pain. Rikki, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

Even now, Rakkim wasn’t sure if the sadness on Darwin’s face at that moment was genuine or another ploy. Ultimately it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Darwin had died, and Rakkim had lived. Last laugh, motherfucker.

Rakkim followed a curve in the road, still thinking of Darwin, and the sudden silence in the church as the assassin’s mouth had worked around Rakkim’s blade, pinning him in place. No last words. Rakkim had stood there watching Darwin’s eyes grow wider and wider. He almost missed the man’s soft, mocking voice, the way it insinuated itself into their parry and thrust, wrapped itself around him…Rakkim slammed on the brakes, skidding.

“What’s wrong?” shouted Leo.

Up ahead a mass of vegetation had engulfed the surrounding fields and rolled on, a thicket thirty or forty feet tall now covering most of the narrow road. Rakkim hit the high beams. The light gleamed off the glossy leaves and thick vines, the interior of the undergrowth too dense to see into.

“What is that?” said Leo. “Some kind of jungle?

“Kudzu.”

Leo whistled. “I…I thought it was just a fast-growing weed.”

“Used to be. Before the big warm.” Rakkim turned off the headlights, kept the engine idling. “Kudzu was always a problem, but since the weather changed it seems like all our natural enemies got stronger. More tenacious.” He stared into the darkness. “Fire ants nesting in the cities, killer bees so bad in Savannah and Birmingham that kids don’t play outside in summer. Farmers in the delta calling in napalm strikes to keep the kudzu from taking over the best bottomland, hundreds of people dying every year from poison ivy…it’s like Mother Nature knows we’re on the ropes.”

Leo snorted. “Spare me the melodrama.” He looked over. “Rikki?” He turned around, peered into the night. “Rikki?”

Rakkim scooted silently across the road and into the underbrush, moving at a forty-five-degree angle from the idling car. The ground felt spongy underfoot. He heard Leo’s calls faint in the distance and kept moving. The kid was more trouble than he was worth, just like he had told Sarah. Civilians. She was the woman he loved, the woman at the right hand of the president, but she was still a civilian.

Starlight shone in the eyes of a squirrel watching from a low branch. Rakkim eased deeper into the brush, not making a sound. A deep gully ran along the other side of the road. He walked across a narrow plank half hidden by tall grass, circling around to the treeline, keeping low, staying quiet. He settled in, closed his eyes, let his night vision kick in and then opened them.

From his vantage point Rakkim could see a mile or so in either direction. No lights. No movement. No sound but the wind in the trees and small animals skittering overhead. No one waiting in ambush on the other side of the kudzu. No need to wait. The roadway fronting the kudzu, that narrow half lane of cracked asphalt, had been dug away for ten feet, replaced with a scaffold of wood and black plastic, a false front sprinkled with dirt. Cars approaching from either direction would see the encroaching kudzu and drive onto the shoulder; the embankment would give way, flipping them into the ditch. Next morning, the folks who laid the trap would check for survivors and any other loot that fate had sent their way, then winch out the wrecked car so as not to alert the next victim.

Gnats buzzed around his ears as Rakkim stared into the gully. He picked out a couple of glimmers among the rocks-a piece of shattered windshield maybe, or a hubcap that the locals had missed. Hard to make it on farming alone in this part of Texas, what with the drought and the kudzu sucking up all the groundwater. The survivors probably got ransomed or sold off. People did what they needed to survive. Then went to church on Sunday, said their prayers, and laid it in the lap of God.