Heart of the Assassin (9 page)

The Old One watched Gravenholtz from the command center of his pleasure yacht, watched the redheaded brute pace the hundred-year-old Tabriz in the main salon, undoubtedly aware that he was being observed but unable to hide his restlessness. A beast barely able to restrain itself carried a risk to its master, but the Old One had worked with beasts before. Back and forth Gravenholtz walked, but he avoided the large glass-bottomed area of the cabin offering a view of the ocean depths below.

It had been three days since Gravenholtz killed the oil minister, and the Old One had let him stew in a cabin belowdecks, without any contact or acknowledgment of what had occurred, letting time do the work for him, unsettling the creature, poking and prodding him like a sharpened stick through the bars of his cage. Patience was alien to Gravenholtz. Patience, the most useful of tools...but ever since his conversation with his personal physician, the Old One realized that there were limits to such virtues. Tickety-tock...that's what Darwin used to say, smiling, that most jovial assassin. Tickety-tock, tickety-tock. The Old One was not amused.

Baby stood beside him, resplendent in a flowery yellow sundress that bared her tanned shoulders and legs. She smelled of summer.

He could see desalinization plants a mile offshore through the main windows of the control center, dozens of them strung all along the coast, new ones being built all the time to keep up with the ever-increasing demand. On the outer decks sixty or so revelers danced in the late-afternoon sun, half naked most of them, bronzed and beautiful as they bumped to the afro-salsa beat. The Old One's white-jacketed aides roamed through the crowd carrying aloft silver trays of tiger prawns and octopus. The sweet life, which was the name of the Old One's yacht,
La Dolce Vita,
a sleek, 240-foot party boat flying a pina colada flag. The last place anyone would be looking for him.

In his white jacket and white linen trousers with gold piping, the Old One looked like a weekend commodore out for a cruise. The faux-nautical trappings were pure camouflage, as much a part of the charade as the music and the dancers. The World Court had cleared him of responsibility in the nuke attacks on the U.S. and Mecca, but he had learned caution over the years.

"Father?"

The Old One looked at Ibrahim, his oldest son and counselor.

Ibrahim tapped his earpiece. "John Moseby received a transmission two days ago from Seattle."

"Moseby is contacted regularly, is he not?" said the Old One. "I have other things to concern myself with."

"Moseby evidently left shortly after receiving the most recent one," said Ibrahim.

The Old One glared at him.

"Our...our men on the scene didn't realize Moseby's absence until moments ago," said Ibrahim.

"Moseby was a shadow warrior once upon a time...it should have been expected that he would retain his skills." The Old One pursed his lips. "Have our technicians been able to decipher the code Leo uses to communicate yet?"

"Sadly, no."

"A team of supposed computer experts defeated by one nineteen-year-old boy," said the Old One. "I should hire
him
and get rid of the rest of you."

"Father, the men who let Moseby slip away...shall I have them punished?"

"Why not have them continue to monitor Moseby's home?" interrupted Baby. "Allow them to redeem themselves, Daddy, they'll work themselves harder than ever."

"This is
not
your concern, woman," said Ibrahim.

"Leave the men in place, Ibrahim," said the Old One.

"
Father
--"

The Old One waved him away.

Baby waited until Ibrahim had left. "A weak man's always in a hurry to punish somebody, so he can show how tough he is." She stroked her throat. "Moseby's a family man, Daddy. He won't be gone long without wanting to talk to his wife and girl."

The Old One loved looking at her. She didn't even make the attempt to hide her ambition. "We're
all
family men, my dear."

Onscreen, Gravenholtz clawed a hand through his scraggly hair, ridiculous in his tourist clothes--madras shorts and a bright orange silk shirt decorated with images of old automobiles. The prosthetics he had worn to kill the oil minister had made him look only a bit more grotesque. Gravenholtz stared directly into the camera lens. Not the obvious one, but the camera inside a clear glass geometric sculpture. "You done playing games?"

The Old One looked at Baby. "
Are
we done?"

"It's time," said Baby. Ibrahim would have taken a moment to consider, to gather his thoughts so as not to embarrass himself. Not her. "Lester's hot enough to boil away the lies, but not so hot that somebody gets burned. Just right, I'd say."

"Hold this position, James," the Old One said to the captain, "a slow drift to appreciate the view." He offered Baby his arm and she immediately slipped her hand above his elbow. A few minutes later they strolled into the main salon. "Rested, are we, from our labors, Mr. Gravenholtz?"

"Okay, say it." Gravenholtz glared at them. "I freelanced the hit, and I ain't apologizing either. I'm supposed to open the door for your human bomb, and close it afterward? I look like a fucking doorman to--?" He jerked as a wallscreen flashed on, showed the Aztlan oil minister recoiling in shock. Even with the sound turned down, the minister's voice cracked, a cascade of Spanish pleading for his life as Gravenholtz's freckled hand grabbed his platinum necktie. The oil minister swatted at Gravenholtz's huge hand, mouth twitching as blood ran from his eyes.

"No, Mr. Gravenholtz, you most certainly are
not
a doorman," said the Old One.

Gravenholtz seemed to vibrate slightly, set the silk shirt in motion, the cars seemingly to race across his broad chest. "How'd you get that footage?"

The Old One slipped off his loafers, walked barefoot across the intricate pale blue and gray carpet, slightly clenching his toes with every step, remembering the Persian girl who had woven it, a tall, beautiful girl with small breasts and eyes like fire. It had taken her two years of work, the Old One stopping by every few months when he passed through on business, drinking tea with her father while she labored over her loom in the corner, stealing glances at him when her father wasn't looking. The Old One had been young then, and when he took possession of the carpet he had taken the girl as his third wife, given her something better to do with those strong, nimble fingers than weave carpets. He swayed on the Tabriz, eyes half closed, remembering her aroma.

"I asked you a question," said Gravenholtz.

The Old One gazed at him. "Is that a demand, Mr. Gravenholtz?"

"Could you
please
tell me how you done that?" said Gravenholtz.

"I had a pinpoint camera installed in your right eye," said the Old One. "It transmitted--"

"When you do that?" The cars on Gravenholtz's chest raced faster.

"Do you remember our discussion of Sultan Murad and his janissaries the first time we met?" said the Old One.

"Yeah. You said this sultan didn't give a shit whether his guards were Muslims or not, he just cared that they were the best," said Gravenholtz.

"He cared that they were the best, but also that they were
loyal,
" said the Old One.

"So I didn't follow the plan," said Gravenholtz. "Now what?"

"Oh, quite the contrary, you met all our expectations," said the Old One. "I wasn't sure what you would do, but Baby..." He soundlessly applauded his daughter as she curtsied. "Baby assured me that you would adapt the plan to your own...needs. She was quite confident that you would take the initiative, and so you did."

"So...you ain't mad?" said Gravenholtz.

The Old One walked over to the glass-bottom area. "Join me, Mr. Gravenholtz. Come on, no need to worry. It's quite safe."

Gravenholtz edged along the margins of the glass, keeping one foot on the carpet.

The morning sun sent shafts of light through the clear water, illuminating the cityscape below--Little Miami, the sunken city off the coast of Nueva Florida. A fake tableau, ten miles of illusion for the tourist trade peering into the abyss. The city was a perfect construct of South Beach at the turn of the century, bright pastel hotels and dance clubs and movie theaters, long lines of convertibles and Italian speedsters, all of it covered with starfish and barnacles, purple and red sea anemones waving in the currents. New Orleans had sunk into the Gulf, killing hundreds of thousands, and the best the idiots in the Belt could do with the site was declare it jinxed, off-limits for development. The Cubans, meanwhile, created a fake sunken city as an homage to the cocaine cowboys of yesteryear and drew free-spending visitors from all over the world. The Cubans were brilliant capitalists. Infidels destined to roast forever in hell, to be sure, but great and creative moneymakers.

The Old One watched schools of iridescent orange fish veer across the city, darting into the open windows and out again, a synchronized, hypnotic ballet. "You
really
should see this, Mr. Gravenholtz."

"I'll take your word for it," said Gravenholtz.

"I must insist, Mr. Gravenholtz."

"I told you before, call me Lester. Mr. Gravenholtz was my father, and if he was alive today, I'd kill him all over again."

"Come
here,
Lester."

Haltingly, careful as a fat man on thin ice, Gravenholtz stepped across the glass floor. A few feet away from the Old One, he glanced down, then turned away. Stared at Baby, a single bead of sweat rolling down from his left sideburn. "Ain't...ain't no big deal. I been to New Orleans. You seen one sunken city, you seen them all."

Baby tossed her soft hair. "It's all right, Lester honey." She picked up a compressed-air speargun, checked the balance.

"Yes, Lester
honey,
" said the Old One, "it's all right."

"Watch yourself, pops," said Gravenholtz, his face the color of boiled pork. "Go ahead, whistle in your guards; let's see who's dead and who's alive afterwards."

Baby sighted down the speargun at Gravenholtz, tossed it aside. Shooting him with the speargun would have been as dangerous to the redhead as pelting him with a marshmallow.

The Old One observed a translucent jellyfish undulate past, the jellyfish a delicate, pulsing umbrella trailing acid tendrils. He plucked the fountain pen from the pocket of his white cotton shirt, looked up at Gravenholtz. "May I have your autograph?"

Gravenholtz wrinkled his brow.

"You must be a great and powerful man to speak to me in such a rude manner." The Old One held out the pen. "I'd like your autograph as a memento of our meeting."

Gravenholtz moved toward him, hands balling into fists.

The pen sprayed a stream of clear strings at Gravenholtz, the strings wrapping around his legs, tripping him, Gravenholtz's face slamming into the glass floor. He tried pulling himself up, but the Old One sprayed his torso now, the strings pinning his arms, tightening around him like a cocoon, tightening...tightening until he couldn't move. Gravenholtz lay there looking up at the Old One. "What...what did you...
do
to me?"

The Old One held up the pen. "An aerosol polymer with molecular memory. Heat activated. Amazing what they're coming up with in laboratories these days. I sometimes wish Allah had led me to a career in the sciences." He cupped an ear. "Did you say something?"

Gravenholtz's face puffed out as he tried to pull his hands free, but the strings only tightened further. "I...I didn't mean..." His voice was high-pitched and wheezy as the strings squeezed around his rib cage, compressing his lungs.

"I understand completely," said the Old One. "You're reevaluating your comments. Perfectly understandable. It does hurt, does it not? Not so much the physical pain, but a man like you...it's the sense of helplessness that truly stings." He watched Gravenholtz flop about on the floor, sweat dotting his forehead. "A man such as you, serene in your brutality...yet here you are." He bent down on one knee, gently dabbed Gravenholtz's forehead with his handkerchief and tossed it aside. "I could just as easily have one of my servants wipe and diaper your ass and you couldn't do anything about it. Not. A. Thing."

Gravenholtz tried to bite at the strings, but couldn't reach. "Get...me...
out
of here."

"Patience, Lester. Patience and humility and obedience are the lessons I have to teach you. Obedience most of all." The Old One tossed the pen to Baby. "Go ahead, my dear."

Baby bent down, lightly circled the inside of Gravenholtz's left nostril with the tip of the pen as he tried in vain to squirm away.

"My daughter finds you entertaining, Lester. Amusing even, but she's dutiful and obedient above all else. Would you like to see what would happen if I ask her to shoot the snare string into your nasal passages?"

"No."

"Shhh, Lester," said Baby as she eased the pen deeper into Gravenholtz's nostril. "Don't you fret now," she cooed, pushing it in still deeper as he struggled, bound like a mummy.

"No!" said Gravenholtz, rolling against Baby. "Please.
Please.
"

"I think we've gotten Lester's attention," said the Old One. He watched as Baby slowly slid the pen free. The Old One chuckled, seeing her disappointment. The girl raised his spirits. He looked toward the geometric sculpture. "Yusef, come here."

A few moments later one of his aides entered the room, bowing, a slender young man in white shorts and shirt. He fell to his knees, pressed his forehead against the carpet, and the Old One thought again of the Iranian girl he had married so many years ago. He could remember everything about her from the downy hair at the base of her spine to her long toes...but he could no longer remember her name.

"How may I serve you, Mahdi?" said Yusef, his forehead still pressed against the carpet.

"Rise," said the Old One.