The first book in the Assassin series, 2006

Strange to be lying in the parking lot of a looted Wal-Mart, one leg twisted under him as he stared up at the sky. Jason used to shop at Wal-Mart for jeans and DVDs and Frosted Flakes. Now he was dying here. Crows drifted down from the light poles, black wings fluttering across his field of vision. They seemed to be getting bigger every day. Bolder too. Dying wasn’t so bad. There had been pain at first, terrible pain, but not anymore. A blessing, because he wasn’t brave. He was scared of spiders and dentists and pretty girls, and most of all, being alone, but he wasn’t scared now. Dying in a holy war meant he would immediately enter Paradise. That’s what Trey had said, and he knew the Qur’an lots better than Jason. Trey said all that mattered was that Jason make his declaration of faith-there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger-and everything would be taken care of.

Trey was already dead. Shot through the chest three weeks ago by a rebel sniper as they approached Newark. Jason had bent over him, held his hand, and begged him not to die, but Trey was gone, only his startled expression left behind. The sergeant had ordered the unit to keep moving, but Jason refused, said he wanted to make sure that Trey’s body was properly attended, and the sergeant, a former accountant for H & R Block, had given up and moved the platoon out. They were all new Muslims, just like Jason, and unsure of themselves. Jason had waited until the morgue detail had wrapped Trey’s body in white cloth, then helped them dig his grave. By the time he rejoined his unit, the sergeant was dead, and now Jason was dying, and there wasn’t enough white cloth left for all of them. Allah would understand. That was something else Trey would say when Jason worried because he still liked his pork chops and his bacon too-read your Holy Qur’an, Allah would understand.

Jason could barely see now, but it didn’t matter. He had seen enough. The parking lot was littered with bodies, all of Newark a graveyard. Civilians and soldiers, Muslims mixed with rebels from the Bible Belt. Americans against Americans. Both sides battling on their home ground, fighting for every freeway and minimall, cities burning all across the country. Two or three times this last week, the rebs would have taken Newark if it hadn’t been for Major Kidd rallying the troops, a black giant leading the attack himself, ignoring the bullets flying around him, utterly fearless.

Jason was just glad that he hadn’t been ordered to the Nashville front. His people had moved from there to Detroit years ago to work in the auto plants, and he still had kin in Tennessee, folks who were probably fighting on the other side.

Times had been as tough in the Bible Belt as anyplace else in the years before the transition-people out of work or worried they would be, factories and schools shut down, kids hungry. That hadn’t changed their minds though. They just dug in harder. The only places offering comfort during the hard times…the only places offering answers were the mosques. Anybody could see that. The rest of the country had come around, had converted or at least gone along with it, but not the folks down South. They kept to their old ways, their old-time religion. That’s why in spite of everything, Jason couldn’t bring himself to hate the rebs. He understood them. They loved a country that had let them down, a country that no longer existed…but they still loved her. Holy war and all, you had to respect that.

Even Redbeard would have agreed. The deputy director of State Security was a righteous warrior, but he understood. The rebs’ loyalty was misplaced, but Redbeard said such loyalty was honorable and made their future conversion all the sweeter. Jason had seen him all over TV. The grunts liked him almost as much as Major Kidd. Plenty of politicians wanted to burn the Bible Belt down to the dirt, but Redbeard bellowed them into silence. Built like a bull, with angry eyes and a beard the color of a forest fire…no wonder Redbeard’s enemies were scared of him.

It was pitch-black now. Jason wasn’t alone though. He heard the beating of great wings and silently made his declaration again. Dying for the faith meant he got all kinds of virgin brides in Paradise. Jason wasn’t one to argue with Allah, but he kind of hoped at least one or two of them had some experience, because he sure didn’t have much. Would have been nice to graduate from high school too. He would have been a senior this year. Go, Class of 2017. Picture in the yearbook wearing his letterman’s jacket…that would really have been something. Oh, well, like Trey said, inshallah, which meant, like, whatever. Jason smiled. The sound of wings was louder now, the fluttering of angels come to carry him home.

The second half of the Super Bowl began right after midday prayers. The fans in Khomeini Stadium had performed their ablutions by rote, awkwardly prostrating themselves, heels splayed, foreheads not even touching the ground. Only the security guard in the upper walkway had made his devotions with the proper respect. An older man, his face a mass of scar tissue, he had moved smoothly and precisely, fingers together, toes forward, pointing toward Mecca. The guard noticed Rakkim Epps watching him, stiffened, then spotted the Fedayeen ring on his finger and bowed, offered him a blessing, and Rakkim, who had not prayed in over three years, returned the blessing with the same sincerity. Not one in a thousand would have recognized the plain titanium band, but the guard was one of the early converts, the hard core who had risked everything and expected nothing other than Paradise in return. He wondered if the guard still thought the war had been worth it.

Rakkim looked past the guard as the faithful hurried back to their seats. Still no sign of Sarah. A few aisles over, he spotted Anthony Jr. making his way up the steps. The new orange Bedouins jacket he was wearing must have cost his father a week’s salary. Anthony Sr. was too easy on him. It was always the way; the toughest cops were soft at the center.

From his vantage point, Rakkim could see domes and minarets dotting the surrounding hills, and the Space Needle lying crumpled in the distance, a military museum now. Downtown was a cluster of glass skyscrapers and residential high-rises topped with satellite dishes. To the south loomed the new Capitol, twice as large as the old one in Washington, D.C., and beside it the Grand Caliph Mosque, its blue-green mosaics gleaming. In the stands below, he saw the faithful stowing their disposable prayer rugs into the seat backs, and the Catholics pretending not to notice. He could see everything but Sarah. Another broken promise. The last chance she would get to play him for a fool. Which was just what he had told himself the last time she’d stood him up.

Thirty years old, average height, a little heavier than when he’d left the Fedayeen, but still lean and wiry. Rakkim’s dark hair was cropped, his mustache and goatee trimmed, his features angular, almost Moorish, an advantage since the transition. Black skullcap. He turned up his collar against the Seattle damp, the wind off the Sound carrying the smell of dead fish from the oil spill last week. He felt the knife in his pocket, a carbon-polymer blade that wouldn’t set off a metal detector, the same hard plastic in the toes of his boots.