Soft Targets

by Dean Ing

  Only once did Charlie attempt to reason with his captor. "Look, you've made your point with that poor devil in there," he jerked his head toward Everett in the torture room. "We don't even know where the hell we are. Maybe if you took him blindfolded and released him somewhere. It'd be a sign of good faith to—"

  Instantly Hakim was on his feet, eyes glaring in a bright vacancy. He drew his knife from a pocket, rushed into the other room. Charlie heard a cry subside into a long groan before the Iraqi returned, flinging something onto Charlie's plate. "Shall I force you to eat that?"

  It was a small piece of scalp, pinkish gray on the underside, the blond hair flecked with blood. Charlie George closed his eyes and swallowed convulsively. He shook his head.

  "Good faith? That is the sign of my faith," Hakim said, his breathing very deep. "At your next suggestion you will dine on your friend Kenton." He then described the meal in detail.

  Charlie saw that he was in the hands of a rabid animal and kept shaking his head long after Hakim moved away.

  It was some time before Hakim thought to have Guerrero tend the new wound, and by that time the captive was faint from loss of blood. It was not a killing wound, Guerrero decided; but like all scalp wounds it had bled excessively. As usual, he said nothing.

  The early evening news was innocent of Fat'ah, but Hakim was ebullient, hinting at his motive for optimism. "Your new show time is at eight tonight," he reminded Charlie. "If your people place any value on you, we shall have what we demand."

  "The show was taped in pieces weeks ago, you know," Charlie replied, constant pain from his broken nose diluting his voice. "Before they moved us to Wednesdays, even. They don't have to worry about dead air."

  "I shouldn't talk so casually about pieces or death if I were you," Hakim rejoined. "I shall bet you one ear that we get coverage."

  Charlie made no reply, but tried to read a paperback which Guerrero had discarded. Shortly after his own show began, the captive showed signs of distress. Hakim handed the leash wire to Guerrero who waited in the bathroom while Charlie lost his supper. The audio was up, the door nearly closed. Guerrero took a calculated risk.

  "You will not leave here alive, Carlito. If you hope, throw that up, too."

  Charlie knelt, face in his hands as the ear began to bleed afresh, rocking fore and aft. Muffled by his hands: "Why d'you think I'm so puk­ing scared? NBN won't cave in; we agreed on that tactic. I wish I could retract it now but I can't. And if I could, they still wouldn't." He looked up through streaming silent tears, his hands bloodily beseeching. "And if they would?"

  "You would still die," Guerrero said, wonder­ing if it were true. "It is an ancient custom among the bedouin to dismember their captives. Hakim is a bedouin in his heart."

  "What can I do?" It was an agonized whisper.

  "Die. Slowly, appeasing him, in a week; or quickly, avoiding pain, if you anger him enough." Their eyes met in a long moment of communion. Charlie retched again briefly, and the moment passed.

  The Charlie George Show passed as well as Charlie sat near Hakim, the garrotte wire in place. There was no reference to the kidnapping until the end of the show. Charlie normally traded jokes with his audience for a few mo­ments but, instead of the sequence Charlie had taped, his rotund second-banana comic ap­peared. Standing before a familiar logo, a fiercely satirical sketch for which Dahl D'Este had paid with his life, the chubby comic mimicked a gossip columnist with barbed one-liners. Finally, he said, there was no rumor in the truth—his tongue pointedly explored his cheek—that Charlie and a friend were in a plummet conference with stagestruck terrorists. They wanted a big hand, but Charlie's boy only gave them the finger.

  Hakim watched the credits roll, snapped off the set, and treated Charlie George to a malevo­lent smile. "You win," he said, "and you lose."

  "You got coverage," Charlie husked, "and anyhow, you're going to do whatever you want to. NBN got your message, and you got theirs."

  "I have other messages," Hakim said, and spat in Charlie's face.

  Charlie saw cold rage in the zealot eyes and accepted, at last, that the network would not save him from consequences of events he had shaped. He spoke to Hakim, but looked at Guer­rero. "Have it your way, you pile of pigshit. We did a skit on that: used your profile on a sow's merkin, it's the only coverage you rate—"

  The garrotte cut off the sudden tirade. Without Hakim's tape over the wire, Charlie would never have drawn another breath, as Hakim used the leash to throw Charlie to the floor. Hakim held the wire taut, kicking expertly at elbows and knees until his victim lay silent and gray on the red-smeared floor. Hakim squatted to loosen the wire and nodded with satisfaction as the uncon­scious man's breathing resumed in ragged spasms, the larynx bruised but not crushed. Guerrero kept his face blank as he helped drag their burden into the torture room, then laid his ballpoint pen on a shelf while Hakim trussed Charlie to the table. In the corner, surrounded by the odors of close captivity, Everett breathed un­evenly as he slept.

  "Keep them alive for awhile," Guerrero urged. To his dismay, he heard Hakim grumble assent.

  "The comedian must not cheat me of his awareness," the Fat'ah leader explained, "when I take more souvenirs." He paused, studying the inert hostage, then jerked his gaze to Guerrero. "What was he really saying, Guerrero? Damn you, or kill me?"

  "Does it matter what the tree says to the axe?"

  "If only your questions were all so cogent," Hakim laughed. "That was worthy of El Aurans himself—he who understood pain so well. No, it does not matter. Feed Kenton when he wakes. Let him eliminate his waste elsewhere. Tomor­row the comedian will be replenished, and wrung empty again." Hakim turned in im­mediately. He did not hear the engine of Guer­rero's van cough to life an hour later, its exhaust further muffled by a cardboard box.

  THURSDAY, 22 JANUARY, 1981:

  The man they knew as Kenton woke crying a name. It sounded like 'Jeana', thought Guerrero, forcing himself alert after only four hours of sleep, He handed a cup of cold soup to the bloody wreck of a man and returned to the kitchen, grumbling like a servant. He had taken an enormous risk in contacting his superiors but, he reflected, he was amply repaid in informa­tion.

  Charlie was half-dragged to their morning meal; one arm useless, the other barely functional. He moaned softly as Guerrero and Hakim attacked their cereal. Then Hakim, using his own traditionally unclean left hand in private amusement, gravely took Charlie's spoon and began to feed him. Charlie knew better than to refuse, saying only, "You are one strange man."

  "You must continue to function—and it is easy to be polite to an inferior. Another thing," watching Charlie's difficulty in swallowing, “your schoolboy taunts will not compel me to kill you. Fat'ah is not compelled. Fat'ah com­pels. And Fat'ah punishes.”

  "The monitors," Guerrero said, indicating his wristwatch.

  "You will watch them when we have taken the comedian to his room, and after you see to the consultant." Hakim had tired of his game with the spoon and, with the implacable Guerrero, conveyed Charlie George to the room he dreaded.

  Hakim trussed Charlie to the table again as Guerrero helped his charge to the bathroom some distance away. Then Hakim tugged Charlie's torso to the table's edge. The captive lay face up, hanging half off the table, his head a foot from the spattered floor. He saw Hakim produce the knife, elastic bands, clear plastic tube and gossamer bag, and tried not to guess their uses. Hakim taped him firmly in place as blood gradu­ally pounded louder in the ears of Charlie George.

  Hakim brought the knife to Charlie's throat, smiling, and Charlie closed his eyes. Hakim tugged at the torn ear until Charlie opened his eyes again and then, in two quick sweeps, he severed the ear.

  The big man in the bathroom stiffened as he heard the scream. With the Browning nuzzling his, jaw, he had no option but self-control. At the moment he found the cool water in the basin far more important than anything else on earth. The raw flesh at his temple had clotted heavily, a black patch intruding into
the yellow hair. As he inspected it in the mirror, he saw the Panamanian's reflection. It revealed faint sardonic amusement and something else, fainter still. It might have been pity.

  "Look closely, Senor Kenton," the reflection said, in tones that would not carry far. "Not at the wound, but at the scalp around it." Everett did so, always conscious of the gun muzzle at his throat. "Is it possible that your hair is growing dark instead of gray?" Their eyes locked for an instant. "Very odd, no?"

  Again the cold water over his face, to buy time. "I dye it," he said at last. In a few days, if he lived that long, they would know that much anyway.

  "I am sure you do." Guerrero moved aside to let the other man drop his trousers.

  "It makes me look younger." Everett strained against constipation, the necessary outcome of his forced inactivity.

  "And those faint scars at your hairline; what do they do? What other little secrets do you have in store for me?"

  This ape-raping little wetback was toying with him, Everett decided. Either the guy knew everything, or nothing. "It's very common—in the Industry," he grunted.

  "Of course it is," Guerrero said in tones that implied denial. He waited until the gore-smeared trousers were in place again, his amusement more pronounced as he backed from the cubicle. With the Browning he waved toward the room where Charlie George lay.

  Charlie fought his own screams through clenched teeth, sobbing, straining against his bonds. His face a study in dispassionate interest, Hakim stanched the flow of blood and, holding Charlie by his hair, sprinkled a clotting agent over the grisly mess before he applied a rough bandage. Guerrero again trussed his own cap­tive, this time in a different corner. He did not look toward Hakim but he no longer showed amusement. Guerrero placed his ballpoint pen on the shelf and laid the adhesive tape near it.

  It took Charlie George four tries to say, be­tween gasps "Why?"

  "Questions, questions," Hakim sighed. "Your ear will go to the Los Angeles Times, and its coverage may provoke your television people. This may even start a modest war between media. And this is because I choose," he con­tinued, quickly pulling the flimsy polyethylene bag over Charlie's head. At this point Guerrero glanced quickly toward Hakim and then stalked from the room, the spool of wire lying unused on the floor.

  Hakim snapped the elastic bands around Charlie's neck and stood back, watching the red stain spread past his bandage inside the bag. Charlie's eyes became huge with horror as his first breath sucked the bag against his nose and mouth. After twenty seconds, as Charlie thrashed hopelessly against his bondage, Hakim thrust the plastic tube under the elastic and into Charlie's mouth before tugging the bag back into place. The tube was short and not entirely flac­cid, and Hakim pulled his chair near to hold the free end of the tube away from loose ends of the bag.

  Hakim waited until the breathing steadied. Charlie's eyes were closed. "Open your eyes,"

  Hakim said gently. No response. "Open them," he said, placing a fingertip lightly over the tube's end. Charlie's eyes flew open and Hakim's finger moved back.

  "Have you heard of the dry submarine, my friend? You are wearing one. The wet submarine is favored in Chile; it features a variety of nasty liquids in the bag. Yours may soon qualify as wet," he added, seeing the runnel of crimson that painted the bag's interior in Charlie's feeble struggles.

  Hakim did not glance toward his second cap­tive. Had he done so, he would have seen the big man tearing with his teeth at the fresh tape, gums bleeding, heedless of the pain.

  "Why, you ask, and ask, and ask," Hakim con­tinued, crooning near as though speaking to a valued confidante, a beloved. "Because you will perhaps return to your sumptuous life, if it pleases me. You will be my message to your medium, a man who knows he has been totally broken. El Aurans, the Lawrence of Arabia, broke after long torture and found ambition gone. Few were his equal but," the dark eyes held a soft luminosity of madness as he quoted, "'My will had gone and I feared to be alone, lest the winds of circumstance ... blow my empty soul away.' I do not think you can avoid carrying that mes­sage," Hakim added. "This is true eastern mar­tial art: corner the enemy, and leave him nothing. Your Machiavelli understood."

  From the other room came Guerrero's call: "Coverage, Hakim!"

  The little man turned in his chair, picked up the severed ear, and released the tube which lay nearly invisible against the bag. In three strides he was through the door, to loom at Guerrero's side.

  The item was insignificant, merely an admis­sion that an NBN star was a possible kidnap victim. Television was carrying the news, but obviously was not going to dwell on the event. "So, I must contact another medium," Hakim said, and held up his ghastly trophy.

  Guerrero blinked. "You do what you do only too well, Hakim."

  "Praise, or criticism?"

  "It is my mission to help you do all you possi­bly can." Guerrero smiled at the sharp glance from Hakim; he had spoken the truth, yet not all of it. Nor could he boldly state what he knew about their second captive. It must seem a bril­liant suspicion. "I have been studying Kenton very closely, Hakim," he went on. "I believe that his face is a masquerade. Either he or the come­dian might be persuaded to discuss the point."

  "The comedian?" Hakim barked a laugh. "Not he; not now."

  Guerrero was very, very still. "It has been quiet in there."

  "He no longer complains," Hakim answered, deliberately vague.

  "You are finished, then," Guerrero persisted.

  It was Hakim's pleasure to joke, thinking of the abject terror in the eyes of Charlie George. "Say, rather, he is finished," he rejoined, and turned back toward the torture room.

  Guerrero followed unbidden, his excitement mounting, with only a glance toward Everett, whose hands were hidden in his lap. He saw Charlie George hanging inert like some butch­ered animal, his head half-obscured in glisten­ing red polymer. He could not know that Charlie had spent the past moments desperately inhal­ing, exhaling, trying with an animal's simplicity to bathe his lungs in precious oxygen. Charlie's mind was not clear but it held tenaciously to the fact that Guerrero was anxious for his death. Mouth and eyes open wide, Charlie George ceased to breathe as Guerrero came into view.

  Guerrero's mistake was his haste to believe what he wanted to believe. He saw the plastic sucked against nostrils, the obscenely gaping mouth and staring eyes. He did not seek the thud of Charlie's heart under his twisted clothing and failed to notice the slender tube emergent from the plastic bag. "The poor pendejo is dead, then?" He rapped the question out carelessly.

  Hakim's mistake was the indirect lie, his au­tomatic response to questions asked in the tone Guerrero used now. "Truly, as you see," Hakim said, gesturing toward Charlie George, amused at Charlie's ploy.

  Hakim's merriment was fleeting. From the tail of his eye he saw Guerrero's hand slide toward the Browning and, in that instant, Hakim resolved many small inconsistencies. Still, he flung the knife too hastily. Guerrero dodged, rolling as he aimed, but could not avoid the chair that struck him as he fired. The Iraqi sprang past the doorway, slammed the door and flicked the bolt in place as chunks of wallboard peppered his face. He had counted five shots from the Browning against the door lock, but knew the damned thing held many more. Half blinded by debris from Guerrero's fire, Hakim elected to run rather than retrieve his own sidearm. It lay at his media display in the path of Guerrero's contin­ued fire against the door. One slug hurled scat­tered fragments of his beloved Hewlett-Packard unit into the face of a video monitor.

  Hakim reached his van quickly, almost forget­ting to snap the toggle he had hidden beneath the dash, and lurched toward the road with a dead-cold engine racing and spitting. He drop­ped low over the wheel, unable to see if Guerrero followed. Hakim had cash and the Uzi, an ex­quisite Israeli submachine gun, as Fat'ah emergency rations behind him in the van.

  Hakim considered stopping to make a stand on the gravel road but checked his rearviews in time to reconsider. Guerrero was there, twenty seconds behind.
Hakim would need ten to stop, ten more to reach and feed the weapon. He would fare better if he could increase his lead, and guessed that Guerrero would withhold fire as they passed through the village of Piru. It was worth a try.

  Slowing at the edge of the little town, Hakim saw his rearviews fill with Guerrero's van. Whatever his motive, the Panamanian evidently had a hard contract to fulfill and might take insane chances, including a collision in public. Hakim wrenched the wheel hard, whirling through a market parking lot. A grizzled pickup truck avoided him by centimeters and stalled directly in Guerrero's path, and then Hakim was turning north, unable to see how much time he had gained.

  The road steepened as Hakim learned from a road sign that Lake Piru and Blue Point lay ahead. He searched his rearviews but the road was too serpentine for clear observation, and Hakim began to scan every meter of roadside for possible cover.

  He took the second possible turnoff, a rutted affair with warnings against trespassers, flanked by brush and high grass. The van threw up a momentary flag of dust, a small thing but suffi­cient for Guerrero who came thundering behind, alert for just such a possibility.

  Hakim topped a low ridge and did not see Guerrero two turns back. Dropping toward a hol­low, he tried to spin the van but succeeded only in halting it broadside to the road. He hurtled from his bucket seat, threw open the toolbox, and withdrew the stockless Uzi with flashing precision. Two forty-round clips went into his jacket and then he was scrambling from the cargo door which thunked shut behind him. If Guerrero were near, let him assault the empty van while Hakim, on his flank, would cut him down from cover.

  But he had not reached cover when the van of Bernal Guerrero appeared, daylight showing under all four tires as it crested the rise before the mighty whump of contact. Hakim stopped in the open, taking a splayed automatic-weapons stance, and fitted a clip in the Uzi.