Carnifex

second later came the report of a large caliber gun. This was followed, thirty seconds later, by another flash and another boom. Again: flash . . .  boom. It went on through twenty-one blank shots, a custom that had followed man to the stars.

The speakers on the bridge barked, 'Barco del Legion Dos Lindas, this is BdL Tadeo Kurita. We're escorting your elevator. And we've got ten six-inch guns. Let's get you up to one hundred percent. And then, let's go hunting.'

10/7/468 AC, Wilcox's Folly, FSC

Micah Fen was fat. That was the one thing everyone noticed about him. Indeed, it was the one thing impossible not to notice about him. At least, it was the one thing impossible not to notice until one came close. Within ten feet, perhaps even twenty-five if downwind, one was subjected to the foul odor of obesity necrosis that hung about him like a cloud of gnats about a dead dog's anus.

Khalid had spent, oh, a lot of time on the GlobalNet researching his targets. And I never suspected how much the filthy swine would just plain stink. I wonder if his mind is half so rotten as his skin.

For the first several months in the Federated States Khalid had done nothing but research and planning. He already had hit plans for most of his potential targets at obvious places, their homes, their offices, their lovers' homes. He still worked on those, but spent more time now looking for the excuse to execute the hit and leave the blame on the Salafis.

I'd really never expected this one to come up within my hit parameters. Fen's been so consistent in his support of the Salafi Ikhwan, so thoroughly in their camp, I just never imagined he'd do something that would—Il hamdu l'illah— allow me to actually kill him.

It would have been better, of course, if Fen had brought his busload of gays to a mosque rather than a Nazrani church, Khalid thought. But that, I suppose, would have been asking for too much. After all, if nothing else, Fen can hardly have risked exposing the gays to the 'righteous, Godly wrath' of the Salafis he wants them to support. So . . . a Nazrani church it had to be and a Nazrani church will have to do.

Besides, Khalid thought, even if imperfect it's still worthwhile even to just suggest to the gays here who support Fen that they're supporting a man who would turn them over to people who would crucify them.

Khalid liked all the targets he'd been assigned, qua targets. Even so, it was especially pleasing, much more so than his usual hit, to be assigned to take out Fen. Who, after all, encouraged the people who blew up my family, who murdered my mother, my brother, and my angel, my poor innocent little Huriyyah. Who better deserves to die?

'You never really thought about it, did you?' Khalid asked. 'You never realized that, if terrorism works, it can work on you and yours?'

Fen said nothing. He couldn't; his mouth was duct taped closed even as his wrists and ankles were duct taped to the heavy chair on which he sat. Nonetheless, his piggish eyes were full of pleading terror.

Only fitting.

'You really never had a second thought for your safety, did you?' Khalid asked. 'However much you lambasted your country in film and print, however much you lied, however many people you caused to be killed by encouraging their murderers, you never thought that any of it could ever come back on you?

'Sure, I understand,' Khalid said, genially, removing a small roll of duct tape from a satchel and placing in on a table near Fen. 'You're Micah Fen, star. Retribution is for little people. You only kept a bodyguard to keep away your adoring fans.'

'It was easy, you know,' Khalid continued, as he checked his digital camera once again. 'Get on the GlobalNet, find your touring schedule, check for chartered flights, watch for the press throng, spot you, and then follow you to your hotel. You've got security at home, and you do travel with a bodyguard.' Khalid's head inclined towards the cooling corpse of Fen's bodyguard, spreading crimson on the suite's thick carpet. 'But outside of your cocoon, you were really very vulnerable.'

'I put on a service staff uniform I took from a hotel storage closet and checked with room service to see which room had ordered the most grotesque quantity and quality of food. That had to be you. I came to this floor and bludgeoned a maid—she'll be fine; don't worry—then hid her in a closet and took her a passkey.

'With the passkey, I just entered your suite and shot the bodyguard, twice in the chest and once in the head, with a silenced .45. By the time you woke up, you pustule, your mouth was gagged and your arm twisted behind your back. I doubt you would even have woken up if I hadn't dragged you to that chair you're taped to by your arm and shaggy hair. You would like to know why, wouldn't you?'

Glaring at Fen's piggish face, Khalid removed from his pocket a wallet containing a family photo. He opened this and showed it to his victim. 'This little girl was my sister, Huriyyah. You praised and encouraged the men who murdered her. That was enough. I'd have sucked Fernandez's dick for the chance to kill you, but he—fine man—gave me the chance for free.'

Fen shook his head emphatically. Khalid paid no attention. Instead, he put away the photo and wallet and drew from his pockets a clear plastic bag, a nail and a press release concerning Fen's pro-gay activity. Khalid had scrawled a message in Arabic on the press release. He'd use his pistol to nail the press release to Fen's forehead after the fat fuck was dead.

With the camera, Khalid took a photo of his victim, bound and gagged. He then put the camera aside and pulled a couple of inches of the duct tape roll free.

'This is really going to suck,' he said to Fen, happily. 'It's going to suck for you, I mean. I, on the other hand, am going to really enjoy it. Take a deep breath, why don't you? No sense in making this too quick.'

After placing the clear bag over Fen's head, which elicited a garbled set of pleas for pity and mercy, Khalid took the free two inches of tape and began to wind the sticky stuff around Fen's neck, sealing the bag. The rolls of fat about Fen's neck made it a tougher job than Khalid had anticipated, causing him to have to make three extra winds to ensure a good seal. Fortunately, he'd brought more than enough tape.

Khalid stepped back and picked up the camera. Already Fen had the bag billowing, as he tried to suck in oxygen to feed his almost incredible bulk. In a short time the actor-producer's head was whiplashing back and forth and side to side as he exhausted all the oxygen trapped in the bag and went into a full panic.

While snapping a picture of Fen's purpling face, Khalid was struck by a smell even worse than Fen's normal, unsavory aroma.

'Oh, you shit yourself, didn't you?' Khalid sneered. 'What a pig! Aren't you embarrassed?'

In answer, Fen's head only whipped the more frantically as it fruitlessly sought escape from the bag which had cut off its air.

10/7/468 AC, Runnistan, Pashtia

Nobody in the village fired his rifle into the air. Instead, the men, Samsonov rifles and clones held easily in their hands, clustered around Cano and Rachman, forming a circle. The women of the place stood behind their men, but that appeared more a defensive arrangement than a mark of low status. Oddly, the women were not veiled.

Among the villagers, Rachman and his men were well known. All eyes were on the stranger, Cano. From the encircling crowd one old man emerged and walked toward the group.

'Father,' Rachman said to the old man, 'we have returned in glory, all but for Filot who fell in battle and was buried on the field. I have brought with us our hectontar, that our people might rejoice to see the leader of their sons and to see that that leader is worthy. Father, David is one of us.'

Cano followed the conversation, more or less. The word hectontar was new to him, but he assumed it was local dialect and thought no more of it. He was, in any event, much more interested in the fact that the villagers were not using their rifles as noisemakers; in that, and in the unveiled women he saw behind the men. He saw a pair of bright green eyes atop a swaying, willowy shape, but lost them in the crowd.

'Since my son says you are worthy,' said Rachman's father, offering his hand in greeting, 'I welcome you to our village. Come; the day is warm. Let us sit and talk in the cool of my courtyard.'

While the rest of the group split up to follow their own families home, Rachman and Cano followed Rachman's father, Cano's eyes still searching for that willowy shape.