Countdown: H Hour

by Tom Kratman

  So what, in the name of the god in which I no longer believe, do I do?

  Yacht Resurrection, between the coast of Kudat

  and the island of Pulau Banggi, South China Sea

  There were really only three places Prokopchenko felt truly safe. One was in his palace—no other word would really do—outside Moscow. Another was his dacha and its compound, on the sea, west of Rostov on the Don. The third—sometimes—was on the Resurrection.

  The Resurrection was problematic; there were just so many places he couldn’t go, or, if he went, couldn’t safely stay. Pirates? Bah; he could handle any pirates and no worries about some silly international tribunal bringing charges for it. There would be—rather, had been—no survivors, after all. No, if he had to, his yacht could take on every pirate in the world, simultaneously.

  It was the regular forces that were a problem. The Vietnamese and Chinese were always out in the Spratleys, these days, looking to intimidate the other and, on occasion, actually engaging. Sometimes the Filipinos took a hand, too. The yacht was no match for a frigate.

  And the regular ports? The bribes to keep the local “authorities” off his ship were endless and, if not precisely insupportable, insulting beyond Prokopchenko’s willingness to bear.

  So I’m stuck here, the Russian fumed, lying on his back, hands behind his head, dick recently wet, with Daria occasionally raising a snore beside him.

  I’m stuck here with a mere one girl to entertain me, moving from one section of empty sea to another, with the nearest thing of interest the occasional at sea resupply. Well, that and watching my puts on the market.

  Maybe sail to someplace approximately civilized and take the helicopter to land to find a few more women? Risky. Needlessly risky. I’m not precisely a wanted man, not by the authorities, but any number of local criminal gangs—local to wherever—would like to get their hands on me. And the fucking “civilized” ports, of course, won’t let me take adequate security along. Idiots.

  I wish that goddamned wog would hurry up and get me my money, so I can give him the devices, so he can detonate one, so I can use that detonation as a kind of Reichstag fire to take power back home. Of course, it’s risky, being in the same area and being a suspect for the delivery. But this is something I can’t trust anyone else with. God, I despise humanity.

  In that kind of foul mood Prokopchenko slapped the Ukrainian girl, saying, “Wake up and use your stupid mouth for something besides breathing through. It’s what you’re paid for.”

  Caban Island, Pilas Group, Basilan Province, Republic of the Philippines

  What was, to Janail, mere distant screaming from the raped girl was, to his main prisoner, much closer and more personal. Her ordeal took place a bare thirty feet from where Ayala lay. It sounded like it was in the same hut.

  Poor little shit, though Ayala.

  His finger stump had stopped aching some time ago. From what Ayala could glean from the “doctor’s” expression, this was not necessarily a good thing.

  At the doctor’s insistence they’d made Ayala something like a bed, and given him a thin blanket and, probably too late, a mosquito net. Neither of these, despite the tropic heat, kept him from shivering. He was still chained to his rock, in any case, though in his condition that was probably superfluous.

  The infection in my hand or a touch of malaria? the old man wondered. No matter; either will be the death of me. And fairly soon, I think.

  I always thought that I’d die before my Paloma. No fear there. But I thought I’d die with a priest at one hand, my confession said, and Paloma holding the other. Now? No priest, no confession, no salvation. And the burden of my sins is heavy . . . heavy. And no Paloma.

  I wish I could get her a message. I’d tell her to forget about me, forget about the ransom, and use the money for revenge. “’Vengeance is mine,’ sayeth the Lord.” That’s what the priests say, isn’t it? Well, if I’m going to Hell anyway, what’s a little more reason?

  And if, somehow, by the grace of God, I ever get out of this alive, my entire fortune is going to revenge, and the fucking Moros’ great-great-great grandchildren are going to shudder and scream at the mention of my name.

  If . . . by the grace of God . . .

  The shivering ceased as Ayala felt a wave of warmth come over him. Oh, shit. Now comes the fever and the shakes.

  Just across the trail, a young girl shrieked anew as her masters tore her sphincter for about the fourth time this evening.

  Allah not making an answer, Janail was left on his own. Slinging his rifle over one shoulder, he left his hut and walked to the shore to the north, where some low cliffs kept back the sea. On the way he passed by the crucifixion site, a couple of bodies, dead and stinking with decomposition, and one fifteen year old Filipino, struggling and, in effect, torturing himself to death.

  Janail spent a moment looking up at the writhing body, just barely discernable in the jungle gloom. With an indifferent shrug, he continued on.

  The old man’s a wasting asset. I use him, or I lose him, anyway. So next week we’re going to make another video, taking another finger. If he dies in the course of making it, so be it. We can cut that out of the recording. His family won’t know, and the one in his family who has been helping us would rejoice if he did.

  Reaching the low cliffs to the north, Janail sat, cross legged, looking to sea and thinking hard upon his unenviable plight.

  After all, I’m only taking one chance among many. If he doesn’t die this time he surely will next. And I never intended to give him back. At some point in time, we’re going to be left with a corpse anyway. If we have the money, well and good; he becomes a corpse after that. If he dies before we have the money . . . well, we’d have had to bluff anyway.

  Hmmm. That leads to an interesting thought. What if we take not one finger, then change his clothes a bit, then take another finger, maybe with a slightly different camera angle. Then we wash him up, bandage him, dirty the bandage, and change his clothes. Another slightly different camera angle . . . then a toe . . .

  Yes, that’s the trick. We’ll take six months worth of videos in a single day. He’ll probably die but that doesn’t matter if we have the means to keep terrorizing his family.

  Ah, Janail, you are brilliant.

  Hmmm . . . should I get that cooperative journalist back? No, I think we can handle this better on our own, without any distractions. And better have the doctor get him as strong as possible so that he lasts long enough. I’ll give the doctor that week.

  I wonder, should we take as many parts as we possibly can before he dies? Mmm . . . no. Six—or five, even, if he doesn’t last that long—should be more than enough. Anything beyond that—on the off chance he does last that long—would be gratuitous and I am, after all, a civilized man.

  “Old man, get up,” announced the guard, pulling on the chain that ran from Ayala’s leg to the rock. The guard was one of two. In another time, a stronger Mr. Ayala might have been flattered that they felt he needed two guards. Now? Now he couldn’t possibly care if they’d sent a regiment.

  “Get up.” Tug. Tug. “The boss wants to speak with you.”

  Ayala wasn’t sure he even could rise. A quick inventory suggested it was possible. Another hard tug from the guard indicated it was necessary. Weakly, he forced himself to a sitting position, then to his feet. He started to fall over before the guard, younger, taller, fitter, and much, much healthier, caught him, one handed.

  Ayala took one look at the camera, set up on its tripod, and turned to flee. The senior of the two guards caught him by his filthy, ragged collar, pulled back, spun him, and then cuffed him hard enough to split his lip.

  By the collar, Ayala was dragged to his chief kidnapper’s chair and thrown, roughly, to the ground.

  Two men, both armed and wiry-looking, stood behind and to either side of the chair, which seemed to Ayala to be a sort of rude jungle throne. The men had their faces covered with thick gauze, wrapped around them, starting
at the neck, then spiraling up to form something like turbans. Janail was similarly masked.

  Behind them a green banner was hung, proclaiming something—Ayala had not clue one as to what—in Arabic script.

  Janail nodded to the cameraman, who started recording.

  In English, the language he and the Ayala clan shared best, he said, “I warned you what would happen if our demands were not met. I sent you instructions. You have not contacted me. You have not met my demands. This is the price of your intransigence.”

  “Take him.”

  The two veiled guards behind Janail came out from behind his pseudo-throne. One pushed Ayala over into the dirt. The other grabbed his leg and yanked, presenting the bare foot to Janail.

  Janail picked up the same set of shears he’d used before. They were rustier now. He held them before him a bit for the cameraman to focus on.

  “Please? Oh, plleassse! Nooo,” begged the old man.

  “Whine to your vile and decadent clan of oppressors,” Janail responded, loudly enough for the microphone on the camera to pick up. “Only they can help you.”

  Twisting around in his seat, Janail locked one of Ayala’s skinny ankles in a vise grip, forcing down the lesser toes as he did. Then he carefully placed the shears around the big toe. Squeezing once drew both blood and a shriek that would have made a kinder man blanch. Janail didn’t care in the slightest.

  The shears met bone, which resisted for a bit. The old bone was no match, though, for the strength behind the shears, especially once Janail began twisting them with his wrist. If anything, the old man’s screaming redoubled.

  The bone split with a audible crunch. Clamping down on the shears’ handle, Janail severed the last shreds of flesh. Ayala’s big toe popped off, flying several feet to the dirt. The camera followed its path, then held steady on the pitiful, bloodied bit of flesh for several long moments, Then, finally, it returned to the victim, lying on his back in the dirt and sobbing like a young child.

  “Next month, it will be another piece,” Janail finished, making an imperious gesture to stop the cameraman’s recording.

  “Oookay,” the terrorist chieftain said, with enthusiasm, still in English. Reverting to his own language, and rubbing his hands together, he said. “That went pretty well. Now take him, bandage his foot up, but make the bandage look old and dirty. Clean him up a little. Change his shirt. Comb his hair. Then bring him back and we’ll do number two. A finger this time, I think.”

  Quivering with shame, humiliation, disease, infection, and pain, the old man was dragged off to prepare him for his second ordeal.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

  And the people who ask it explain

  That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld

  And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

  —Rudyard Kipling, “Dane-geld”

  Malate, Manila, Republic of the Philippines.

  Aida wore a light sweater, pink, when she arrived. She’d been her before, and always found the air conditioning set too low.

  Pedro’s head was down, shaking back and forth slightly in a way that suggested he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “She’s in the TV room, Aida,” he said. “She’s in a bad way.”

  Aida nodded. She knew the gist of it but not the details. “How did the recording get here?” she asked.

  “Junior found the disk on the front lawn. I suppose somebody frisbeed it in.”

  Aida grimaced. “Yeah, I suppose. Where is Junior? And why aren’t you with the Kanos?”

  “Junior’s gone to the office. Says he can’t stand to see his mother like this. They called me back to see if I could help with Madame.”

  Pedro sighed. “Aida, I’m not going to try to take your gun. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let Madame see it. That’s how bad a way she’s in.”

  “Point taken,” Aida agreed. “Though she’s not nearly that weak. You don’t have to escort me; I’ll find her myself.”

  “Won’t be hard, even if she’s moved. And I’ve sent for the head of the Kanos. And a doctor who won’t ask too many questions.”

  Long before even reaching the corridor that led to the “TV Room”—it was much more of a high end commercial theater in miniature—Aida heard the keening. It was high pitched, repetitive, and really not quite human-sounding.

  Oh, dear.

  The first thing Aida saw on the one hundred and eighty-four inch screen, mounted to one wall—yes, the peasantry could no longer have cheap, incandescent bulbs; this meant little to the very rich—was a very sharp image of something she could not, at first, identify. The screen was locked on that image. She stared for some moments, then drew her breath in sharply once she realized she was looking at a bloodied human toe, fuzzily displayed about twenty times life-size on the screen.

  Aida couldn’t see the tiny woman, being rather short herself and Paloma Ayala being dwarfed by the seat back. She didn’t need to see, though, to know where Mrs. Ayala was; the keening sufficed for that. She walked forward about twenty feet and turned left, toward Madame. Mrs. Ayala had her arms crossed in front of her. She was rocking back and forth, rhythmically, tears pouring down her face, ruining her makeup. Paloma’s hair was a torn-up mess. She had nothing around her neck, at the moment, though there were a number of mixed pearls and diamonds scattered across the floor. Even her customary crucifix was nowhere to be seen.

  Taking a seat next to the stricken old woman, Aida reached out one arm, patting her back in a sort of there, there gesture.

  Paloma turned toward Aida, then, still keening, rocking, and weeping, and buried her face in the other woman’s shoulder. Automatically Aida wrapped her in a one-armed hug, then began stroking the tangled mess of Mrs. Ayala’s hair with the other hand. There, there.

  Aida rested her own cheek on the top of Paloma’s head. “I’m so sorry, cousin. I’m so very, very sorry.”

  Shuddering, Paloma finally got a few words out, the words broken by sobs, sniffles, and shudders bordering on the epileptic. “I’ve . . . got . . . to . . . pay them, Aida. He’s . . . old . . . older than me. He can’t . . . take that.” She wailed, “Aiaiaiaiai . . . he’ll . . . aiaiaiai . . . he’ll die!”

  “If you pay them,” Aida said, softly, “he’ll surely die.”

  At those words, Paloma went into an even worse bout of pseudo-epileptic contractions.

  Welch looked around the expansive and ornate—ornate almost to the point of tackiness—estate. “Let me tell you of the very rich. They are different from you and me.”

  “What happened?” Welch asked of Pedro, by the entrance into the mansion from the porte cochere.

  Welch had a sudden, odd thought. I like this guy because, not only doesn’t he hesitate to do what’s needed, I’m twice as big as he is and he’s not remotely intimidated by that.

  “We got a video disk,” the sometime taxi driver, sometime arms provider, and full-time bodyguard and doer-of-needful-things replied. “The Harrikat took off the old man’s toe. I’ve seen the recording. He looked . . . bad. Really bad. I think Madame wants to pay the ransom.”

  “That would be . . . unwise,” Welch said.

  Pedro agreed. “You know that. I know that. So does Aida, who’s in with her now. But Madame, she don’t know anything except that the one person she loves most in the world is being slowly chopped to bits, that she can’t stand that, and that she’ll do anything to make it stop.

  “You can kind of understand.”

  Welch nodded ponderously. “I do understand. It’s still unwise.”

  “Yeah. C’mon, Mr. Welch, I’ll bring you to her.”

  God, thought Welch, I hate to see a woman cry. It just flips all kinds of genetic switches.

  Aida had wiped Paloma’s runny nose and more or less reorganized her hair. The makeup was mostly rubbed off and resting among the fibers of Aida’s sweater. It wasn’t quite so uniformly pink anymore. About the stream of tears, she hadn’t b
een able to do much.

  Aida and Welch exchanged glances. Reluctantly, the woman said, “She wants to pay the Harrikat.”

  “I cannot even begin to explain what a bad idea that is, Madame.”

  Paloma couldn’t speak; sobbing, she pointed a trembling hand more or less at the screen with its big bloody toe.

  “Yes, I understand that. But if you pay there is no chance you will see your husband again. You’ll see another ransom demand, for even more money, perhaps. But him? No, no; he’s the goose with the golden eggs.”

  “When can you do a rescue then?” Aida asked. “He’s not going to survive through much more of this.”

  That last set Paloma Ayala to howling: Aiaiaiaiai . . . aiaiaiaia . . . aiaiaiaiai

  “We’re pretty sure we know where he is. Madame was there for that. The rest of my force arrives in three days. We go in three or four days after that. Call it a week from now.”

  “Can you guarantee to save him?”

  Welch shook his head. “I told Madame up front, there are no guarantees in this kind of thing, only odds. We have a preliminary plan, and I think we have a good chance . . . a very good chance. But no more.”

  Later, after Madame had been sedated and put to bed, Aida and Welch reviewed the video.

  “Disgusting . . . disgusting . . . disgusting.” Aida said it about every four seconds of the few minutes’ duration.

  “I need a copy of it,” Welch said, when it was finished.

  “Why? There’s nothing there to see.”

  “You never know,” Welch said, “And Lox is remarkably good at ferreting out things you wouldn’t normally see.”

  Aida was a policewoman, and a good one. She knew that, on the global scale, Filipino police were about as good—if also about as corrupt—as could be expected in a poor country. She also knew there were capabilities that her force couldn’t even dream of having. The Kanos just might.