“What are you thinking?” said Sarah.

“Nothing…just, sometimes I wish we had a simpler life.”

“I don’t,” said Sarah.

“I know.”

Illuminated by floodlights, the Grand Saladin mosque loomed ahead, the largest fundamentalist mosque in the city, a delicate, turquoise blue domed structure built with Saudi money and the labor of the faithful. The side of the mosque facing the freeway was adorned by an eighty-foot mosaic of a hook-nosed Jew with cloven hooves carrying a nuclear bomb into a New York City cityscape. Ugliest thing Rakkim had ever seen. The mosaic itself formed from Quranic script, neatly sidestepping the prohibition against depictions of the human form. Although in this case the human was debatable. The mosaic had been ordered bricked over after the revelation of the truth behind the atomic attacks. Last month the Supreme Court finally ruled that the mosaic was protected religious speech. The grand unveiling had drawn a crowd of over 200,000 and was broadcast around the country.

Exposing the Old One’s responsibility for the suitcase nuke attacks had exonerated the Israeli Mossad, and by extension, all the Jews. Within a year, well-funded scholars published articles challenging the evidence against the Old One, and once again, politicians again blamed Zionists for the ills of the world, claiming that even the crafty Redbeard had been taken in. Six months ago, the top-rated late-night comedian made a joke about the attacks, blaming mermaids and leprechauns. There was silence…then wild applause. The international police agencies still searched for the Old One, but the average citizen in the Islamic Republic wasn’t even sure he existed.

Rakkim turned away from the mosque. It had been Sarah who first suspected the Old One’s role in the attacks, Sarah who persisted in spite of the danger, Sarah who insisted they had a responsibility to history. Rakkim didn’t care about history. He had wanted to simply slip out of the country, move to Canada or Brazil and start a new life. Sarah said he could leave anytime he wanted. Made him feel like a coward for even suggesting it. He saw the floodlit mosque in his rearviews. “You ever wonder if it was worth it?”

“No.”

“All the people who died so we could prove the Old One-”

“I said no. That filthy mural is just a setback, a minor-”

“I thought we had changed the world.” Rakkim drove faster, the edges of the freeway overgrown with weeds, the asphalt crumbling. “The truth will set you free? What a joke.”

“You don’t have to go,” said Sarah. “General Kidd wanted to send in another shadow warrior team, three of them-”

“I said I’d do it.”

“If you feel it’s not worth it, just say so,” Sarah said gently. “No one would blame you.”

“You would.”

She stroked his arm. “No…I wouldn’t.”

He glanced at her. She was telling the truth. “Nah, I could use a vacation. Besides, after two years of marriage, I’m getting a little tired of your cooking.”

“Oh, really?”

“Southern food can’t be beat. Something as simple as grits and eggs, sunny-side up…it’s the bacon grease they fry the eggs in that makes all the difference.”

“Sounds yummy. Perhaps when you come back you could bring home a hawg.”

“Sure. We could put a leash on him, tell the neighbors he was a pit bull.”

“Dogs are filthy animals, pets fit only for Christians. We’d have to tell the neighbors we converted to Catholicism.” Sarah crossed herself, mumbled something in Latin.

“I really will come back.”

“I know.”

“I will, Sarah.”

Sarah looked straight ahead as Rakkim accelerated.

Sarah flopped back on the bed, exhausted, hair lank, their bedroom steamed with sex. She stared at the ceiling, eyes half closed. “Wow.”

Rakkim curled himself around her, watched her breathe. Captivated by the steady rise and fall. Her breasts were fuller since the baby. He liked them before. He liked them now. He lightly raked his nails across her belly, and she shivered. His kissed the warmth back into her.

Sarah threw a leg across him, pinched him. Laughed as he yelped.

They still hadn’t talked about John Moseby. They had driven through the gates of their fortified home, walked inside, stopping only to peek in on Michael. Sarah had adjusted the baby’s covers, and Sarah’s mother, Katherine, grumbled from the next room, said if Sarah woke him up, she was going to have to put him back to sleep. Rakkim and Sarah kissed their son on the forehead. They lingered, listening to him snore and wondering what he dreamed of.

Afterward, they made love in silence. Time enough for words later. Rakkim lost himself in her as always, lost himself in the process, relieved at the absence of his own thoughts, the awful weight of knowing what he had to do. There were times making love with her that he couldn’t remember his name, and was grateful for it. He played with her hair while she rested her cheek on his heart. The two of them spent and exhausted, content for a moment, drifting…Of course he had to ruin things.

He raised himself on one elbow. “Do I…do I seem different to you?”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. Just…different.”

“You’re more playful lately. More fun. Not so serious. I like that.” Her fingers traced the scars on his chest. She kissed the biggest scar, a pale, thick knot where Darwin had plunged his knife in. It should have been a killing strike, but Darwin had stopped the blade an eighth of an inch short, wanting to draw out the fun. Another kiss and she looked up at him. “You’re a better lover.” Her eyes creased, teasing. “Not that you weren’t always wonderful, but lately you’ve been a real maniac.” She must have seen his expression. Laughed. “I mean you’re just…unstoppable.” She kissed him. “I’m flattered, if you really want to know. I was worried after we had Michael that…that you might not be so interested in-”

“I killed two men earlier this evening.”

Sarah pulled back slightly.

“Al-Faisal’s bodyguards.”

“I’m…I’m sure they were trying to kill you.”

Rakkim nodded.

“Then they made their choice.” She reached for him. “What is it?”

“They made their choice…that’s just what I said afterward.”

She pulled the sheet over them, cooling their bodies as it fluttered down. “Well, they did.” She yawned. “Are you complaining?”

“No.” Since he had killed Darwin, Rakkim had been scanned, poked and prodded, every few months. The doctors said he had been lucky, his recovery miraculous. Most Fedayeen, in spite of their genetic boosters, would have died in that abandoned church in New Fallujah, bled to death from a hundred cuts, or gone into shock. Instead the two of them had circled each other, covered in each other’s blood, jabbing and slashing. Darwin chattered away the whole time, pale and rat-faced, but his hands, those beautiful hands, long-fingered as a concert pianist’s, and fast…faster than Rakkim…Yet it was Darwin who had died in the abandoned chapel, Rakkim’s knife driven into his open mouth, silencing his taunts, severing his brain stem. Darwin was gone, but there were times, late at night, while Sarah slept beside him…There were moments when he held up his hands and didn’t recognize them as his own. Moments when he closed his eyes and saw Darwin’s arrogant leer, heard his voice echoing in the church-Don’t die on me, Rikki. Not yet. Come on, don’t you want to play some more? It was all a game to Darwin. Until Rakkim killed him. Rakkim still wasn’t sure which one of them had been more surprised.

This wasn’t the first time he had closed his eyes and seen the dead. Heard the voices of men he had killed. Taking a life put one in God’s place for an instant, and with that role came the burden of ghosts. Killing Darwin had been different. Rakkim, the shadow warrior, had a new shadow now. Today he had killed two men in the Zone. Trained men flanking the choke points of the alley. At best he should have attempted a series of asymmetrical feints, hoping to draw them out of position, but instead, he had killed them without breaking stride. Killed them so quickly he wasn’t even aware of how he did it. Killed them as though they were cobwebs to be brushed aside.