Sarah’s mother had turned on the television, stared at the image of Air Force One dropping out of blue, blue sky. She sobbed, trying to distract Michael with a stuffed bear.
“Pay attention, Sarah,” chided the president. “With the vice president and I gone…Sarah, please, don’t cry…”
Sarah heard the background noise from the plane getting louder through her ear link, heard people shouting and the rush and rattle of wind.
“Sarah…tell Rakkim-”
Sarah’s earpiece went dead.
Leo covered his mouth as the television showed a fireball…the tail structure of Air Force One scattered among the fields of red tulips just north of the city…then cut back to the studio news anchor, a handsome man with gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He couldn’t speak, lips trembling, finally shook his head, and walked off camera.
Assalaamu Alaikum. A state of national emergency is now declared, said a deep voice, as the other anchor and the weatherman exchanged stunned glances. Until further notice, all forms of communication within the capital are now blocked in the interests of national security. Please go to your homes and await further word from the Office of the President. The screen went to an image of the flag billowing over the Presidential Palace.
Sarah heard pounding at the front door. She wiped her tears, checked the security monitors. Yelled to Leo and her mother.
Chapter 48
Rakkim’s throat tightened as he saw the security shutter to their apartment half-raised. “Stop the car.”
“What’s the-?” started Colarusso, but it was too late.
Rakkim had already rolled out the door of the moving vehicle, sprinting toward the abandoned storefront below their apartment, terrified at what he would find inside.
The raised security shutter was Sarah’s signal for danger. With communications down throughout the capital, even the presidential com link, he hadn’t been able to get through to her, and she hadn’t been able to reach him, but she was still able to warn him. She had time for that. Maybe time enough for her to grab the baby, for her and Katherine and Leo to escape through one of the emergency exits. Time enough to reach their rally point, their prearranged meeting place. Maybe.
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.