by Ben Bova
“Freedom for the political prisoners in my country. An end to the dictatorship.”
“By kidnapping me?”
“We will hold you hostage until the political prisoners are freed,” said Moustache. “The people will see that we have the power to bend the dictator to our will. They will rebel. There will be revolution—”
The Chairman shook his head like a tired, tired man. “Blood and more blood. And in the end, who is the winner? Even if you become the new head of your nation, do you really think that you will be better than the dictator who now resides in the presidential palace?”
“Yes! Of course! How can you ask such a question of me? I have dedicated my life to overthrowing the tyrant!”
“Yes, I know. I understand. Just as Fidel did. Just as Yeltsin did. Yet, if the people are not prepared to govern themselves, they end up with another tyrant, no matter how pure his motives were at the start.”
Moustache gave him a look that would have peeled paint off a wall. “You dare say that to me?”
The Chairman made a little shrug. “It is the truth. You should not be angered by the truth.”
Moustache jumped to his feet, yelling, “The truth is that you are our hostage and you will remain our hostage until our demands have been met!” Then he stomped up the aisle toward the front car.
I told Jade to stay there and hustled after Moustache. I caught up with him in between the two cars, out on the platform connecting them.
“Hey, wait a minute, willya?”
He whirled around, his eyes still burnin’ with fury. “Uh, excuse me,” I said, tryin’ to calm him down a little, “but you said it’d be okay for us to leave once the job was over, remember?”
The anger went out of his face. He made a strange expression, like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “The job is far from over, I fear.”
“But I did what you wanted—”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “We had intended to take the Chairman off the train and drive him to a helicopter pad we had prepared for this operation. Unfortunately, the truck we had stationed at the emergency exit from the tunnel has already been seized by your soldiers. We are trapped here in this tunnel, in this train. The Chairman is our prisoner, but we are prisoners, too.”
“[Deleted] H. [deleted] on a crutch!” 1 yelled.
“Yes,” he said. “Indeed.”
“Whattaya gonna do?”
“Negotiate.”
“What?”
“As long as we hold the Chairman we are safe. They dare not attack us for fear of harming him.”
“But we can’t get out?”
“Not unless they allow us to get out.”
I got this empty feeling in my gut, like I was failin’ off a roof or something. I guess I was really scared.
Moustache went through the door to the car up front. I went back into the middle car. Jade was sittin’ where Moustache had been. She was talkin’ with the Chairman.
“I had wanted to bring a message of hope to the people of America, particularly to the disenfranchised and the poverty classes of the dying cities,” he was tellin’ her. “That is why I agreed to make this speech in Philadelphia on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”
“Hope?” I snapped, ploppin’ myself down in the chair across the aisle from the two of them. “What hope?”
He didn’t answer me for a second or two. He just looked at me, like he was studyin’ me. His eyes were a kind of soft brown, gentle.
“Do you know how many people there are like you in the world?” he asked. Before I could think of anything to say he went on. “Of the more than ten billion human beings on Earth, three-quarters of them live in poverty.”
“So what’s that to me?” I said, tryin’ to make it sound tough.
“You are one of them. So is this pretty young woman here.”
“So?”
He kind of slumped back in his seat. “The World Council was formed to help solve the problems of poverty. It is my task as Chairman to lead the way.”
I laughed out loud at him. “You ain’t leadin’ any way. You’re stuck here, just like we are.”
“For the moment.”
Jade said, “We could all be killed, couldn’t we?”
I knew she was right, but I said, “Not as long as we got this guy. They won’t try nuthin as long as the Chairman’s our hostage.”
The Chairman’s eyebrows went up a fraction. “You are part of this plot? From what your friend here has told me, you were forced to help these terrorists.”
“Yeah. Well, that don’t matter much now, does it?” I said, still tryin’ to sound tough. “We’re all stuck in this together.”
“Exactly correct!” says the Chairman, like I had given the right answer on a quiz show. “We are all in this together. Not merely this”—and he swung his arms around to take in the train car—“but we are all in the global situation together.”
“What do you mean?” Jade asked. She was lookin’ at him in a way I’d never seen her look before. I guess it was respect. Like Big Lou wants people to behave toward him. Only Jade was doin’ it on her own, without being forced or threatened.
“We are all part of the global situation,” the Chairman repeated. He was lookin’ at her but I got the feeling he was talkin’ to me. “What happens to you has an effect all around the world.”
“Bullfdeleted],” I said.
He actually smiled at me. “I know it is hard for you to accept. But it is true. We are all linked together on the great wheel of life. What happens to you, what happens to a rice farmer in Bangladesh, what happens to a stockbroker in Geneva each affects the other, each affects every person on Earth.”
“Bull[deleted],” 1 said again.
“You do not believe it?”
“Hell no.”
“Yet what you have done over the past twenty-four hours has brought you together with the Chairman of the World Council, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah. And maybe we’ll all get killed together.”
That didn’t stop him for even a half a second. “Or maybe we will all change the world together.”
“Change it?” Jade asked. “How?”
“For the better, one hopes.”
“Yeah, sure. We’re gonna change the world,” I said. “Jade and me, we don’t even [deleted] exist, far as that world out there’s concerned! They don’t want no part of us!”
“But you do exist, in reality,” he said, completely unflustered by my yellin’ at him. “And once we are out of this mess, the world out there will have to admit your existence. They will have to notice you.”
“The only notice they’ll ever take of the likes of Jade and me is to dump our bodies in a [deleted] open pit and bulldoze us over.”
“Hey, stop the yellin’!” Little Lou hollered from the front end of the car. He had just come in, with Rollo right behind him like a St. Bernard dog. Lou looked uptight. His jacket was gone, his shirt wrinkled and dark with sweat under the armpits. His hair was mussed, too. He was not happy with the way things were goin’. Rollo looked like he always looked: big, dumb, and mean.
Moustache pushed past the two of them. Jade got up from her chair and came to sit next to me. Moustache took the chair and leaned his elbows on his knees, putting his face a couple inches away from the Chairman’s.
“The situation is delicate,” he said.
The Chairman didn’t make any answer at all.
“We are unfortunately cut off here in the tunnel. The security forces reacted much more quickly than we had anticipated. They are now threatening to storm the train and kill us all. Only by assuring them that you are alive and unharmed have I persuaded them not to do so.”
The Chairman still didn’t budge.
Moustache took in a deep breath, like a sigh. “Now the chief of your own security forces wants to make certain that you are alive and well. He demands that you speak to him.” Moustache pulled a palm-sized radio from his jacket pocket.
The Chairman made no move to take it from his hand.
“Please,” said Moustache, holding the radio out to him.
“No,” the Chairman said.
“But you must.”
“No.”
We all kind of froze. Everybody except Little Lou. He stepped between Moustache and the Chairman and whacked the Chairman in the mouth so hard it knocked him out of his chair. Then he kicked him in the ribs hard enough to lift him right off the floor. He was aimin’ another kick when I went nuts.
I don’t know why, maybe it was like watchin’ a guy beat up on a kitten or some other helpless thing. I knew the Chairman was just gonna lay there on the floor while Lou kicked all his ribs in and none of these other clowns would do a thing to help him and I just kind of went nuts. I didn’t think about it; if I had I would’ve just stayed tight in my chair and minded my own [deleted] business.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Before I even knew I was doin’ it I jumped on Lou’s back, wrapped my legs around him, and started poundin’ on his head with both my fists. If I’d wanted to really hurt him I woulda taken out my blade and slit his [deleted] throat. I didn’t even think of that. All I wanted was for the big [deleted] to leave the Chairman alone.
So I’m bangin’ on Lou’s head, he’s yellin’ and swingin’ around, tryin’ to get me off him. And then something explodes in the back of my head and everything goes black.
When I wake up, I’m seein’ double. Two Chairmen, two Jades. But nobody else.
“That was a very brave thing you did,” says the Chairmen.
I’m lyin’ flat on my back. Jade is bendin’ over me, two of her kind of fadin’ in and out, blurry-like. The Chairman is sittin’ on the floor beside me, both his arms wrapped around his chest. Otherwise the car is empty. Everybody else is gone.
“What happened?” I said.
“Rollo knocked you out,” Jade answered.
I shoulda guessed that. Musta hit me like a truck. I tried to sit up but I was so woozy the whole [deleted] car started whirlin’ around.
“Lay still,” Jade said. Her voice was soft and sweet. I thought I saw tears in her eyes, but I was still seein’ double so it was hard to tell.
“You okay?” I asked the Chairman.
“Yes, thanks to you.” His lip was split and his face was kinda pale, like it was hurtin’ him to breathe.
“Where’d they go?”
“They are in the rear car,” the Chairman said. “More of them in the front. We are all trapped here. The Council’s security forces have sealed off this tunnel. American army troops have taken over the station and are patrolling the streets above us.”
“But they won’t make a move on us because Moustache says he’ll whack you if they do.”
The Chairman nodded. And winced. “We are their hostages. He is trying to convince them that he has not already killed me.”
“Why didn’t ya talk to your people on the radio?” I asked him. “Lou woulda beat you to death.”
He almost smiled, split lip and all. “They can’t afford to kill me. Your friend Lou is a barbarian. Even Moustache, as you call him, would have stopped him if you hadn’t.”
“So I got slugged for nuthin.”
“You were very brave,” said the Chairman. “I appreciate what you did very much. To risk one’s life for the sake of another—that is true heroism.”
“You’re a hero,” Jade said. And she really did smile. Like the sun shinin’ through clouds. Like the sky turnin’ clean blue after a storm.
I reached for her hand and she took mine and squeezed it. Her hand felt warm and good. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I busted my cherry when I was twelve years old. Had my first case of clap not much later. I ain’t no Romeo like Little Lou, but I got my share. But Jade, she was special. I didn’t wanna just screw her, I wanted to live with her, make a home with her, even have kids with her. Yeah, I know she was fixed so she couldn’t have kids. They do that to the pros. But I thought maybe we could find a doctor someplace who could make her okay again.
But first I hadda get her outta her life before she came down with somethin’ that’d kill her or got herself knocked off by some weirdo. Okay, it was crazy. Stupid. I know. But that’s how I felt about her. And I don’t give a [deleted] what you say, 1 know she felt that way about me, too. I know. In spite of everything.
Anyway, there I was, lyin’ on the floor of the train car and holdin’ on to Jade’s hand like 1 was hangin’ off the edge of a ninety-nine-story building. I asked the Chairman, “So what happens now?”
He started to shrug, but the pain in his ribs stopped him. “I don’t really know.”
“I still don’t see why you wouldn’t talk to your people on the radio.”
“We do not make deals with terrorists. I know that every government official of the past seventy-five years has said that and then gone on to negotiate when their own citizens have been taken hostage. You must remember that the World Council is very new. Our authority is more moral than military or even financial—”
“I don’t unnerstand a word you’re saying,” I told him. He looked kinda surprised. Then he said, “Let me put it this way: We do not deal with terrorists. That is the official policy of the World Council. How would it look if I, the Chairman himself, broke our own rules and tried to negotiate my way out of this?”
“Beats gettin’ killed,” I said.
“Does it?”
“Hell yeah! You want Lou to go back to work on you?” He closed his eyes for a second. “I am prepared to die. I don’t want to, but if it comes to that—it comes to that.”
“And what about us? What about Jade and me?”
“There’s no reason for them to kill you.”
“Who the [deleted] needs a reason? Lou wants to whack me, he’s gonna whack me!”
“That . . . is unfortunate.”
It sure the [deleted] was. For a couple minutes none of us said anything. Finally curiosity got to me.
“What’s this all about, anyway? Why’s Moustache want to take you hostage? What’s in it for him? Who’re those other guys with him? What the hell’s goin’ on around here?”
So he told me. I didn’t understand most of it. Somethin’ about some country I never heard of before, in South America I think he said. Moustache is the leader of some underground gang that’s tryin’ to knock off their government. The Chairman told me that their president is a real piece of [deleted]. No freedom for nobody. Everybody’s gotta do what he says or he whacks ’em. Tortures people. Takes everybody’s money for himself. Sounds like Big Lou’s favorite wet dream.
So Moustache and his people want the World Council to get rid of this bastard. The World Council can’t do that, accordin’ to what the Chairman told me. “We are not permitted to interfere in the internal affairs of any nation.” That’s the way he put it. And besides, this dictator was legally elected. Okay, maybe the people had to vote for him or get shot, but they did vote for him.
And guess who Moustache wants to make president if and when the dictator gets pushed out? Good old Moustache himself. Who else?
So the Chairman tells Moustache he can’t do nuthin for him. So Moustache decides to kidnap the Chairman and hold him until the World Council does what he wants. Or somethin’ like that. Other guys from other countries who also want pretty much the same kind of thing from the World Council join Moustache’s operation. Arabs or Kurds or somethin’, I forget which. So they kidnap the Chairman. Big [deleted] deal.
So there we are, stuck in the train in the tunnel. They got him, but the U.S. Army and god knows what the [deleted] else has got us trapped in the tunnel. Standoff.
By the time he had finished tellin’ me this whole story— and it was a lot longer than what I just told you—I was feelin’ strong enough to sit up. At least the room wasn’t spinnin’ around no more and 1 wasn’t seein’ double.
“So what happens now?” I asked the Chairman.
“We wait and see.”
; 1 saw a junkyard dog once, a real four-legged dog, get his paw caught in a trap the junk dealer had set for guys like me who like to sneak in at night and steal stuff. Poor damned dog was stuck there all night long, yowlin’ and cryin’. Dealer wouldn’t come out. Not in the dark. He was scared that if his dog was in trouble it meant a gang of guys was out there waitin’ to whack him.
I felt like that dog. Trapped. Bleedin’ to death. Knowin’ there was help not far away, but the help never came. Not in time. By morning the dog had died. The rats were already gnawin’ on him when the sun came up.
“You’re just gonna sit here?” I asked him.
“There’s nothing else we can do.”
I knew that. But I still didn’t like it.
The Chairman put out his hand and rested it on my shoulder. “You may not realize it, my young friend, but merely by sitting here you are fighting a battle against the enemies of humankind.”
I wanted to say bull[deleted] to him again, but I kept my mouth shut.
It was Jade who asked, “What do you mean?”
“This man you call Moustache. The men with him. Your friends Lou and Rollo—”
“They ain’t no friends of mine,” I growled.
“I know.” He smiled at me, kind of a shy smile. “I was making a small joke.”
“Nuthin funny about those guys.”
“Yes, of course. Moustache and Lou and the rest of them, they are the old way of living. The way of violence. The way of brute force. The way of death. What the human race needs, what the people want, is a better way, a way of sharing, of cooperation, of the strength that comes from recognizing that we must all help one another—”
I was about to puke in his face when he smiled at me again and said, “Just the way you tried to help me when Lou was beating me.”
That took the air outta me. I mumbled, “Lotta good it did either one of us.”
“Have you ever thought about leading a better life than the one you now live?” he asked.
“Well, yeah,” I said, glancin’ at Jade. “Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“There are Indians living in the mountains of Moustache’s country who also have a dream of living better. And nomads starving in man-made deserts. And fishermen’s families dying because the sea has become so polluted that the fish have all died off. They also dream of a better life.”
