Heart of the Assassin (26 page)

"Look, Mama, Elvis is shaking," said Steve, mimicking the King's movements.

Betty Grassley looked up and Steve was right, the cloud sculpture of Elvis was moving his hips, a cloud sculpture of the young Elvis, slim and sexy in rolled blue jeans and a dark shirt, floating five thousand feet above Graceland, the light breeze animating him.

Steve shook his hips like Elvis, the fake sideburns he had bought in the gift shop curling slightly from his pink cheeks. The black pompadour was his own. He wore his favorite jumpsuit, the red, white and blue bicentennial version that Elvis had worn for the first time at the Charlotte Coliseum, March 26, 1976. Steve had been born on March 26, and Betty considered it a sign from God.

Two blue-haired ladies beamed as Steve shimmied. "He's got the moves," one said.

"He's nine years old and consecrated in the blood," said Betty. "Elvis lullabies were the only thing that put him right to sleep."

"Amen," said the two ladies.

Betty sat down on one of the many benches in the Meditation Garden while Steve stared up at the sculpture in the clear blue Memphis sky. Her feet hurt. She waitressed six days a week, and on the seventh day she went to Graceland. There was a beautiful limestone chapel on the grounds, but that was booked up for years with weddings. No, she considered the whole thirteen-acre site to be one big church, and the Meditation Garden was where she liked to pray. Steve liked the Jungle Room and the two lions beside the main gate, but there was nothing like sitting here in the open air, smelling the blooming jasmine. Most of the tourists stayed in the Heartbreak Hotel across the street; they congregated around the crypts where Elvis's mama and daddy, Gladys and Vernon, were buried, but she preferred this spot, the most tranquil place in the garden.

She quietly slipped off her shoes, massaged her arches as she listened to Elvis singing "How Great Thou Art," one of her favorite hymns.

Presidente Argusto guided his JX light bomber into a vast, puffy white cumulus cloud over southern Tennessee. He glanced at the display on his windscreen, noted his precise position, accelerating now, leaving his two wingmen behind. This was to be his mission, and his alone.
Mano a mano,
a killing stroke to avenge the insults visited on him and Aztlan, a harsh lesson but a necessary one. The murder of his oil minister had been bad enough, but now these Belt peons had blown apart an Aztlan cruise ship, killing almost everyone on board. The Aztlan people demanded vengeance and Argusto was more than happy to oblige.

He delighted at the centrifugal pressure as he banked sharply--even in his G-suit he could feel his chest pressing toward his spine as the JX surged forward. Magnificent aircraft. Chinese stealth design, Swiss avionics, Aztlan laser-guided missiles. Invisible, fast and deadly.

They had left from the El Paso airfield, he and his wingmen, headed off across the Gulf as though on a normal training mission. Fifty miles off New Orleans they had dropped into stealth mode, depending on the mission control center outside Tenochtitlan to take the helm and zigzag them through the overlapping maze of Belt radar installations. If he wanted, the digital display on his windscreen would reveal the current position of every plane in the Aztlan air armada, and mission control could deploy each of them as needed.

The integrated control system was a force multiplier--Argusto's tactics against the Central American Union had been brilliant, but it had been the Nigerian integrated system that allowed him to destroy the enemy's air defenses within the first twenty minutes of the war. Not that Argusto feared being intercepted by the decrepit Belt fighters, or even the new Russian antiaircraft missile systems President Raynaud had installed around key sites. The JX could take care of itself. It was the
surprise
that mattered to Argusto. Let the Belt peons realize that at any moment, day or night, their world could be set ablaze. Let them understand their position in the new world order.

Argusto blasted out of the cottony cumulus cloud, the cockpit nearly silent, only the faint whoosh of air rushing past as he headed into the deep blue sky. From the ground the plane would be a flash of light, a flare of sunlight.

Morales had been appalled when Argusto informed him what he intended. The secretary of state begged him to reconsider, saying the attack would inflame the Belt beyond all reason. What did he call it? "A gross overreaction,"
mio presidente. Por favor, por favor.
Argusto had expected such a reaction from Morales; it was the response of his air marshal, Bettencourt, that had surprised him. Bettencourt counseled against the presidente himself leading the attack, arguing that he was too valuable to the empire, his loss in combat disastrous to the nation. Argusto had heard the marshal out, then asked him a simple question:
Do you doubt the superiority of your aircraft, or do you doubt the skill of your presidente?
Bettencourt had stepped back from the precipice and saluted.

Radar confirmed Graceland seventeen miles away. What Morales hadn't appreciated was that it was precisely because of Graceland's spiritual and cultural significance that it had to be taken out. Kill the heroes and you kill the soul of a nation. Twelve miles. The vibration surrounding him was pure music, a symphony of power overwhelming everything in its path. Five miles. He shot directly into a rockabilly Elvis cloud sculpture floating above the shrine, slightly roiling the interior. Two miles. He burst into the sunlight, bathed in glory, the tears of Huitzilopochtli, god of the sun, god of war. At the peak of his acceleration, Argusto released the bomb...the egg of death.

Steve arched his back slightly, the nine-year-old a little confused as he watched the cloud sculpture. "Mama?"

Last week Betty's best customer had given her two tickets to the special prayer service that Pastor Malcolm Crews led on the south lawn. She and Steve had shown up at dawn, shown up in their Sunday best, and the line stretched for a half mile. Even Jinx Raynaud, the first lady, was there. Although she didn't have to wait in line, of course. It even looked to Betty like the first lady had spotted Steve's white jumpsuit and smiled, but she couldn't be sure.

The service, on the anniversary of Elvis's death, was focused on resurrection and renewal. Pastor Crews stalked the stage, white suit gleaming in the August sunshine. He said Elvis wasn't dead, but was seated at the right hand of God, up there with all the saints, a Tennessee boy made good. One of God's favorites.
God loves us all,
Pastor Crews said,
but who could blame him for loving Elvis just a little bit more than the rest of us?
The crowd laughed, applauded so hard it sounded like a thunderstorm on Judgment Day. He had preached for five hours straight, people fainting, people talking in tongues, people jerk-dancing in the aisles while the ushers tried to calm them down.

Betty had bought Steve a Hawaiian Punch snow cone; he made a mess of it on his white jumpsuit, but she didn't care. The stains would wash out, that's what she always told herself. Pastor Crews said this was a time of great tribulation,
the big show, brothers and sisters, the moment when the chosen will be separated. God's lambs will enter into heaven and the goats will be slaughtered.... There's gonna be barbecue in heaven,
Crews had shouted,
best barbecue you ever ate,
and the crowd roared with laughter.

Steve swiveled his hips, the white cape of his jumpsuit swaying with him as he played an invisible guitar. Sometimes, when she looked at him, Betty could see the King himself, reborn. He suddenly stopped playing, his hands falling to his sides as he looked up.

Today is August sixteen, brothers and sisters,
Crews had said at the sermon last week.
The unbelievers will tell you that Elvis died on this day, but we know better, don't we?
Shouts of agreement. Testifying.
Elvis could no more die than you or I,
said Crews.
He's merely gone ahead, to set a place at the table for us.
The band kicked in with "Are You Lonesome Tonight" and the whole crowd sang along, Pastor Crews too.
Resurrection Day,
he kept saying,
it's a comin', can't you feel it, brothers and sisters?

Betty could certainly feel a change coming, and not a minute too soon. She was tired. Not just tired of working the long hours, and hardly enough time for Steve, she was tired of the news, bad news added to bad news, layoffs and payoffs, and damn Aztlan beating at the door, heathens demanding land that God gave to the Belt. Those Muslims in the Republic were looking less like the Antichrist, and more like kinfolk all the time. Just like Pastor Crews said.

A group of tourists stood staring at the sky, Atlanta people from the fancy-pants look of them. One of them pointed, jabbing his finger. You'd think they had never seen a cloud sculpture before. Not that Graceland's Elvis wasn't better than anything they had in the big city, but still, they should have some respect. This wasn't some tourist trap. This was where Elvis had lived and died, where he rested his weary head when the world got too heavy for him. This was hallowed ground.

Betty tried to slip her shoes back on, but her feet had swollen. She wiggled her toes in the cool grass, enjoying the sensation. She liked to imagine Elvis walking on this grass, this very same grass, barefoot, just like her, 'cause Lord knows, he carried his own burdens, that man did. She wiped her eyes, grateful to be here in this blessed spot, thanking God for this moment.

"Mama?" Steve pointed at the sky. "Mama, what's happening?"

Something...something had busted out of Elvis's chest, stirring the cloud sculpture beyond its ability to maintain itself. Betty shielded her eyes with her hand.

Steve scampered beside her, held on to her hip. "What...what is it?"

Betty squinted up at the sky. Yes...she could make it out now. An airplane. Someone was going to be in big trouble for disturbing Elvis.... She sucked in a breath as the plane released a silvery egg. No, not an egg.

People walked quickly from the Meditation Garden, started running.

"Mama?"

"Hush, now." Betty picked Steve up in her arms, felt him warm against her, hair smelling sweet with his boy sweat. "It's all right. Everything's fine."

Steve craned his head, trying to get a better look at the plane, but Betty kept him turned away, gently bouncing him like she did when he was a baby. Lord, that boy could eat.

He put his arms around her neck. "What is it?"

"Nothing." She ran her hand through his hair, the bomb hurtling right toward them, so close now she could practically read the serial number on the devilish thing. "I just love you, child, that's all."

Rakkim accelerated onto the sidewalk; the reinforced front end of the van shoved aside a wrecked car, sent it slewing back into the street.

"You could slow down, wind your way through the cars," said Moseby. "You pop a gasket, or burn out the transmission, game over."

Rakkim drove on, tires crunching over broken glass where the storefronts had blown out from the shock wave of the suitcase nuke. Thirty years later and the glass still glittered like diamonds in the morning sun. The van did what it had been built for--the seals kept the radiation level inside low enough that they didn't need to wear the helmets of their rad-suits, and the air scrubbers kept things breathable. Outside...nothing could fix outside.

"I already checked that area, by the way," said Moseby. "I checked the whole ellipse."

Rakkim downshifted, the puncture-proof tires rolling over a flattened sedan. Other scavengers had come this way, Pennsylvania Avenue a regular zombie thoroughfare. It had been late afternoon when they left the Harrison house--they had driven to the outskirts of D.C., checked the rad-detector until they found a relatively cool spot among a grove of stunted trees and parked, waited for daylight. Moseby had slept, his breathing erratic, but Rakkim stayed awake, making sure they hadn't been followed. The city had been completely dark except for a dim glow near the Capitol building.

"I hope you're right," said Moseby. "Doesn't seem much to go on, though."

"You saw the photos of Eldon the first in Vietnam. He's their bright and shining star," said Rakkim. "Like you said, the whole city is a heartbreaker, but for that family, for Eldon in particular, it's the Wall that's going to make him ache." The van hit a pothole, but he maintained control. "I've seen pictures of the Vietnam Memorial...that long expanse of black granite would wring tears from a stone." He slowed...stopped, the engine rumbling, the air compressor banging away on the roof.

Moseby didn't ask why Rakkim had stopped. He had done the same thing on his first trip into D.C.

Rakkim stared out the leaded windshield. Most of the major buildings in the city looked untouched, but the suitcase nuke must have gone off near Pennsylvania Avenue because the White House wasn't white anymore. Paint scorched. Windows melted. The iron picket fence surrounding the mansion twisted from the heat of the blast. Rakkim finally put the van in gear, drove on. He had no idea how long they had been there.

Moseby coughed into his fist, "Two more blocks...make a right onto Ninth and then another right onto Constitution."

"How are you feeling?"

"I've been worse," said Moseby.

Rakkim could see the Washington Monument tilted but still standing, which Sarah would probably find deeply symbolic. Give her the chance she'd put the image on the new money once the country was reunited.

"Watch out." Moseby pointed. "Zombies dug a tank trap just past that bench. See it?"

Rakkim guided the van over the curb and onto the grass, circling around the tank trap. Somebody had gone to a lot of work, digging a trench across the street then covering it up with painted cardboard. Any vehicle speeding down the road would bust an axle for sure. He drove back onto the street. "I didn't know zombies scavenged each other."

"They don't," said Moseby. "The tank traps are more to stake a claim, warn others off." He blotted his face with a forearm. "Same thing happens in New Orleans. You dive the French Quarter, you spend more time watching out for hook lines than moray eels."

Rakkim glanced at the sniper rifle on the floor between them. "I saw lights on the other side of the Capitol building last night."

"They were working that site when I was here too. They saw me, but kept their distance. Most zombies don't go looking for trouble. It's dangerous enough just
being
here." Moseby rested his hand on the butt of his flechette pistol. "They don't usually work nights, though. Too easy to trip and cut your suit on a piece of rebar. If they're going twenty-four/seven...they might have found something good." He checked the rear screen. "Could be bad luck for us. If they found something valuable, they'll be nervous about company." He looked down the side streets. "This van isn't going to help things. Mrs. Harrison recognized it. Zombies might too."

"They think we're Corbett and his boys, they might keep their distance," said Rakkim.

"They think we're Corbett and his boys, they might feel they have to take us out before we steal whatever they've found."

Rakkim accelerated.

Moseby hung on as they bounced along, Rakkim changing lanes, driving up on the sidewalk, anything to avoid a pattern and make them an easy target. They passed the Jefferson Memorial...the Lincoln Memorial, empty now, Lincoln moved in pieces to a place of honor in Atlanta. Moseby steeled himself as they drove up the National Mall and approached the Wall. He had told Rakkim that he had gone over the site, but in truth his exploration had been cursory. It was just too grim--that expanse of heroes, their names etched in black granite with no one to read them, none but the dead.

Rakkim drove on to what was left of the lawn, the armored van sinking slightly. He pressed the accelerator, the four-by-four digging in, as he continued down a winding slope and finally parked. The van was hidden now as much as possible. He turned off the engine, looked at Moseby and slipped on the hood of his rad-suit, put on his gloves while Moseby did the same. Rakkim slipped the small, radiation-proof container for the cross into a side pocket of his suit, then the two of them eased into the back of the van. It was a tight fit, but they managed to squeeze into the decontamination area, then sealed the inner door, opened the outer. Rakkim was first out, stepped onto the ground as though he were landing on the moon. The sound of his own breathing unnerved him.

"Relax," said Moseby. "Most of the suits the zombies use allow in five or six times the rads. Just breathe slowly. You don't want to burn through your air filters too fast."

Rakkim walked past him, drawn to the wall that gleamed in the sun. He stood there staring, the names superimposed on his own reflection, seemingly part of him now. Moseby stared too. All those names...Rakkim never knew any of them, all of them dead seventy or eighty years, but they were warriors, just like he was. It was telling, somehow, that the zombies, who had no compunction about hammering off pieces of the Capitol or the Supreme Court or the White House itself--not one of them had ever tried to sell a chunk of the Wall. There would have been buyers too, there were always buyers, but no zombie would do the dirty work.

"We should go, Rikki," said Moseby, his voice muffled.

"I know," said Rakkim, not moving. A few minutes later he placed a hand on the cool granite, said a silent prayer for the men who died in service to their country.

Then they started looking, each taking a different direction around the Wall, keeping their eyes out for any irregularities, any sign of recent activity, a bit of torn rad-suit, a hidden door, a smudge on the Wall itself. They crossed paths after two hours, started another circuit, expanding their area of interest.

It was late afternoon, the sun slanting through the petrified trees, before Rakkim spotted an indentation in the ground where rainwater had collected. The spot was along an inconspicuous outbuilding, where the old government stored mementoes left by mourners at the Wall. Not much of an indentation, but when he stuck a gloved finger in the water, it was deeper at one point than another, as though someone in a hurry had stepped there. He pressed himself against the side, sighted along the outbuilding...and saw an edge, a lip where the facing didn't fit properly. He looked under the facing, made sure there wasn't a nail or anything sharp, and lifted. A small section slid up, revealing a narrow escape tunnel leading down into the darkness. Someone had burned off the steel hatch to the tunnel with a laser torch.

"John...?
John!
"

Rakkim was standing there when Moseby ran over. Moseby patted him on the back. "You've got the makings of a real finder." He took out a small digital camera, held it at arm's length toward himself. "My name is John Moseby. I'm a deep-water Baptist, Church of the Redeemer, Sumner, Louisiana." He turned the camera on Rakkim. Waited. "Rakkim?"

"I...I'm Rakkim Epps. Fedayeen. I'm Muslim...but I don't have a regular mosque. Except maybe the Horn of Africa mosque I attend sometimes with General Kidd."

Moseby stopped the camera. "What's wrong? You claustrophobic?"

Rakkim couldn't take his eyes off the darkness. "Evidently." He slipped into the tunnel headfirst, inching forward on his hands and knees, his shoulders brushing the sides. The flashlight helped.

"You all right?"

Rakkim was breathing so fast his face mask fogged up, the respirator unable to keep up. He closed his eyes, slowed his heart rate, waited until his mask cleared and then continued. He could hear Moseby enter the tunnel behind him, narrating their descent for the camera as they continued. Sarah wanted complete documentation to show the world what they had found. He couldn't wait to get back out into the open air.

Up ahead the flashlight showed where the zombie had cut the interior steel hatch away, the safe room beyond. He could also see the raw edge of the opening that had snagged the zombie's suit. "We're almost there," said Rakkim, fumbling out his own laser torch. "I just want to clean up the edge."

"Careful."

Rakkim popped on the torch, flinched at the sudden bright light. Took just a few sweeps to smooth out the jagged metal. A few minutes more for it to cool. He slowly eased himself through the opening, dropped onto the floor of the safe room. "I'm in."

Moseby peeked through the opening. Lit up the room with his camera, panning from one side to the other. He was bigger than Rakkim, but somehow entered the room gracefully, barely making a sound. "This room was first discovered by a brave man named Eldon Harrison. Mr. Harrison gave his life trying to recover what was hidden away in this sacred place. Both Rakkim and I, and all Americans, honor his memory."

Rakkim leaned against the heavy desk, panting. He hadn't heard the word
Americans
used outside of a historical context within his lifetime. He walked around the desk, his footsteps raising a fine dust. The piece of cross lay on the floor, barely eight inches long, just outside the reach of the skeletal dead man who had come to fetch it. There were even more flowers on the wood now. He bent down, gingerly touched a blossom, half expecting it to shatter, but it bent and then sprung back.

Moseby moved into position, still filming. "As you can see, what we think is a piece of the true cross has sprouted in the toxic air of this city, sprouted in total darkness. I don't know why this has happened now, but maybe because its healing powers are needed now more than ever." He glanced at Rakkim, still keeping the camera on the cross.

"As a Muslim I don't attach the same religious significance to the cross as Christians," said Rakkim, "but seeing it covered in flowers...it's amazing."

"It's a
miracle,
" said Moseby. "I don't care what you believe, this is a miracle."

Moseby stopped the camera, put it away, then fell to his knees. Bent his head in prayer while Rakkim looked away.

When Moseby was done praying, Rakkim laid the piece of the cross in the small, white pine box it had originally been stored in, careful not to crush the flowers, then slid the box into a rad-proof pouch. Moseby filmed the whole procedure.

"Anything else--?"

"Shhh." Rakkim moved toward the entrance to the crawl space, listening. He heard whispered voices echoing. Then the sound of something bouncing against the metal walls of the crawl space. "Down!"

Rakkim dived behind the desk, the pouch with the cross under him. Moseby moved a little slower, the concussion from the explosion blasting him against the wall.

Baby saw the Colonel in his dress uniform as she walked from the barn and knew he had gotten the call from Malcolm Crews. She swatted dust out of her jeans. "What is it?"

"I have to leave for Atlanta," said the Colonel.

"What happened, Zachary?"

"Graceland happened," said the Colonel. "Aztlan crossed a line, now the whole country's raging for war."

"You're not?"

"I've seen war."

"Then why go? It's the army's job anyway, not yours. General Paulson--"

"Paulson's lost the confidence of the officer corps," said the Colonel, standing stiff as a saber, "and President Raynaud's useless. He's ready to resign, go back to Leesburg and breed bulldogs." He looked past her. "Never liked bulldogs myself, but I have to admit, the president's got an eye for bloodlines."

"I don't want you to go."

The Colonel kissed her, but it was the kiss of a man already gone. "I just got a call from Malcolm Crews. Man's crazier than a shithouse rat, but he defended me when Aztlan was calling for my head, defended me at great risk to himself. Crews says he's got twenty million listeners who think it's time for me to step forward, including half the generals and the first lady herself."

"What you're doing...some folks might call it treason."

"There is that," admitted the Colonel, "but then, that's what the British said about George Washington." He tugged at his jacket. The Congressional Medal of Honor bobbed around his neck. "If it comes down to it, I'll choose treason over abandoning my duty."

He looked at her with such regret that she feared he was going to change his mind and stay. It had taken her ten minutes to convince Crews to call the Colonel and tell him to get his ass to Atlanta--preacherman was getting used to doing things his own way.

"I leave for Atlanta in an hour," said the Colonel. "Taking the men here with me. The rest will be following shortly. I've made arrangements for you to take refuge in Canada."

Baby stamped her foot. "I'm not leaving. You think you're the only one gets to be brave? I'll wait here until Rikki and Moseby come back from D.C. Those two boys may need a hot meal and a cold beer."

"More likely they'll need a doctor."