The Assassin by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online Page A

were under constant government surveillance.
    The followers of Abdul-Zahra Mohammed also watched the entrances, but from the other side. Keeping the quarter safe for the faithful and as a base for holy warriors to rest, equip and train was an essential task.
    Still, today Abdul-Zahra Mohammed was uneasy. It wasn’t the crowds—the people looked like they always did. The rug merchant, the boy on his bicycle carrying fruit, the man who made “genuine” leather souvenirs for sale to infidel tourists—who used to come to the quarter but were no longer welcome—the butcher, the imam and his students. .. Mohammed knew or recognized most of them.
    The air smelled the same, the noise was the same …
    And yet… something was wrong! What, he didn’t know.
    Ah, he was getting old. The government didn’t molest him because he and his organization didn’t cause trouble in-country. Their efforts were directed against infidels abroad.
    Someday, someday soon, the government’s turn would come. The generals and faithless would be unable to resist the power of the organization, the might of the faithful focused in holy zeal. Someday soon.
    Abdul-Zahra Mohammed finished his tea and left a coin on the table. The proprietor nodded at him, as he always did. They had known each other since Mohammed was a boy and his father brought him here. Mohammed descended the narrow stairs and paused in the hallway, which was empty. There was a gentle breeze here, just the laden air in steady motion, coming through the open door. He stood listening to the voices, the shouting, cajoling, earnest conversations, some light, some serious, some haggling over prices.
    The merchants had been haggling for as long as Mohammed could remember. Mohammed’s father had been good at it, and loud, and hearing his voice rise and fall, ridiculing ridiculous offers and pleading for justice, was among Mohammed’s first memories.
    So what was troubling him?
    He stood in the hallway, just out of sight of people on the street, as he weighed his feeling of unease.
    Abdul-Zahra Mohammed took a deep breath, exhaled and stepped through the door into the crowxl. He went to the corner, avoided a bicycle loaded impossibly high with copper pots and strode along by the leather merchants and their customers, who were fingering the merchandise and haggling.
    Something—or someone—was behind him.
    He could feel the danger, the evil.
    Mohammed glanced behind him and saw the cloth on the head of a man at least three inches taller than the people surrounding him. A strange face, a tall man .. .
    Mohammed pushed his way into the crowd, galvanized by a sense of urgency and fear. Yes, he could feel the fear. It surged through him and stimulated him and made him breathe in short, quick gasps.
    He glanced over his shoulder again, and the tall stranger was still there, only a few steps behind. It was an evil face, the face of the Devil, the face of the enemy of God.
    He tried to run, but the crowd was too thick. Too many people! Get out of the way! Let me pass. Don’t you understand, let me through!
    Now he felt panic, a muscle-paralyzing terror that made him lose his balance and stumble and grab at the people around him like a drowning man. He was drowning—drowning in his own fear and terror.
    He sucked in a deep breath to scream and opened his mouth, just as an unbelievably sharp pain shot through his chest. A hand roughly grabbed his upper arm.
    He had been stabbed! The realization came as he felt the knife being jerked from his body with a strong, steady stroke.
    He staggered, felt his legs wobbling, felt dizzy .. . then the knife was rammed into him again. He looked at his chest and saw the shiny steel tip of the knife protruding from his robe. Blood … there was blood!
    The pain! He felt the knife being twisted by a savage hand. The pain was beyond description! He couldn’t draw breath to cry out.
    The world turned gray as his blood pressure dropped. Then the light faded and he