Ben Bova

“A Small Kindness” is a short story by American writer Ben Bova, published in April 1983 in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine. Jeremy Keating is a U.S. diplomatic agent sent to Athens on a mission to assassinate Kabete Rungawa, a venerable African leader known as “The Black Saint of the Third World,” a key figure in the newly created World Government. Determined to carry out his mission, on a rainy night he follows his target through the city streets to the ruins of the ancient Acropolis. However, what appears to be a routine political assassination soon turns into an encounter that will shake Keating’s certainties about the world, his enemies, and his own reasons for killing.