by Warren Adler
Ahmed’s admiration for her father’s action did not surprise her. The criminal mind, too, was susceptible to role models, and her father was made to order. The effect on Ahmed of his sudden ascendancy into the international limelight was dramatic. His ruthlessness had graduated to self-importance.
Somehow he had come to believe that his lucky hit was a product of his own genius. The man was now reveling in his notoriety. American television commentators, with their penchant for hyperbole, had dubbed him the most resourceful, cunning, and cruel of all the terrorists, which, as Arab commentators attested, merely boosted his stock in the Arab world.
“I am the hero of the hour,” he had told her.
It was the denouement that worried her. She had tried to barter herself for Joey’s freedom, but that hadn’t worked. And she thought longingly about Robert. There was hardly a word about him on the television. Undoubtedly, he was frantic.
Ahmed’s taunts at the television screen had accelerated with his drinking. Whenever his name was not mentioned for some period of time, he would rant and rave.
“They are ignoring me.” He would toss her a look of complicity. “You, as well, my little prizes.” Then he would laugh and toss off another shot of whiskey.
But beneath the mask of arrogance, she could detect a tiny sliver of uncertainty, barely a crease really, but promising.
There was no telephone in this new hideout. Alert to every nuance of her captivity, Maria noted that Ahmed had taken elaborate precautions to keep their whereabouts secret.
They had been shuttled around from one place to another. She noted, too, that the number of young men around Ahmed had decreased. She counted only five now, from what had been a high of around a dozen. There was the uncommon blond boy, Ahmed’s obvious favorite, and four scrubby and dour men in their twenties, all interchangeable look-alikes, with just enough differences in their dress to tell them apart. One wore a red bandanna around his neck, another a heavy gold Muslim half-moon. One was balding, and the fourth wore a carefully trimmed goatee, the only aspect of him that was neat.
One or another of them brought in their food. At some point in the day, Ahmed had stopped one of the men, the fellow with the red bandanna. He had whispered something in his ear that she could not hear. They had looked in her direction for a moment. Ahmed had smiled and the young man had left the room.
“We will be an international sensation,” Ahmed said, slapping the table. The blond boy giggled.
“You already are,” Maria sneered.
“We are talking show business,” Ahmed said. “The three of us.” He leered. “The hostage sisters. I have sent for the equipment.”
She grasped where his hints were leading. He would tape some sort of interview, sell it to the television people, greedy for information. The idea disgusted her. No. She would not allow herself to be sold for such purposes.
The boy with the red bandanna returned to the apartment carrying two large boxes. In one was a television camera, in the other a VCR. Incredible, she thought, adding a further factor to the reality of her incarceration. With impunity, they could simply go into a store and buy this equipment.
They shut off the television set to connect the VCR, then tested the equipment. With great delight, the blond young man mugged for the camera, watching gleefully as he appeared on the screen.
“Now,” Ahmed said, turning to her, “you must clean yourself up. You still have some makeup?”
She nodded hesitantly, her gaze alighting on her pocketbook, which they had let her keep. “You and the boy must look healthy, smiling, a visitor enjoying our hospitality.”
“You’ll never get away with it,” she said, unable to raise her voice above a whisper.
“A little gasoline here.” He touched Joey’s ear. “A dab here. Believe me, one more child’s dead body would make little difference in this lovely country.”
The trembling in her body increased. Her breath came in short gasps.
“You can’t.” Her rage finally defeated her and tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks.
He reached out and pulled her up roughly. He seemed to have sobered completely. She wanted to lash out at him, gouge out his eyes. The boy tried to move beside her. Ahmed restrained him.
“Leave the boy here,” Ahmed said. The boy struggled to be released. He patted the boy’s head while he held him securely in an iron grip. “Just get ready.”
Her legs shook so hard, she could barely move. With his freed hand he grabbed her under the elbow and directed her toward the bathroom.
“If you hurt him . . .” she began. His response was to thrust her forward. He threw her pocketbook after her.
“A good job, Maria,” he ordered, still holding the boy in his grip. The boy did not make it easy for him, squirming like an eel, until the grip tightened and he was quiet. Yet he did not cry. For that she was grateful.
In the mirror, she saw her ashen face. Her hair was unkempt. She looked awful. Nevertheless, she made an attempt to put herself in order. He was too ruthless, too unmerciful, quite capable of carrying out any threats to hurt Joey. There was nothing to do but surrender. Patience, she urged herself. Play his game. Hurry, Daddy, she cried to herself. Hurry.
She came back into the room. They had set up a kind of makeshift set, two chairs, catty-corner. Joey, frightened and sad, looking like a whipped puppy, sat on the floor.
“You must tell him to be a good little boy, to look smiling into the camera.”
“Please,” she whispered. “I promise you. He will be a good boy.”
She bent over the boy, embraced him and kissed him. He was shivering. “It’s all right, sweets. All right.”
“Sure, Mommy.”
“He is a very mean man,” she whispered. “But we must do as he says.”
“I hate him,” Joey said.
“You wait. He’ll be punished,” she told him.
“Yeah. Grandpa will get him.” She was not sure he had fully understood the events he had seen on television. His response surprised her. She smiled and hugged him.
“No question about that, sweets. No question at all.”
The boy clung to her neck and she kissed his face.
“Enough,” Ahmed called. “We’re ready.”
Like an automaton, she obeyed his instructions to the letter. She sat on the chair opposite him and composed herself. Anything, she thought. I will say anything. Joey climbed on her lap. “Smile,” she whispered. The boy obediently arranged his features to resemble a smile. The room was quiet now. They had turned off the television set. The blond boy stood behind the camera.
“And after, we will go on a nice little trip.”
So he was running again, she thought. What did that mean? She was still too overwrought to analyze it.
“Now, my little prizes, let us start the interview,” Ahmed said, nodding toward the blond boy. She heard the low moan of the camera’s mechanism as he switched it on.
“Are we treating you well, Mrs. Michaels?” Ahmed asked.
She looked at him and forced a smile. But she could not stop her lips from trembling.
“Stop,” Ahmed said, gentle now, like a director imposing his charm to extract a good performance from one of his actors. “You must calm down.”
“I am calm,” she said.
“A broader smile, please.”
“I’m doing my best.”
He nodded toward the blond boy.
“Again.”
The camera mechanism purred, Ahmed smiled broadly into the lens, then turned toward her.
“Are we treating you well, Mrs. Michaels?”
“Oh yes. It is wonderful—”
“Dammit,” Ahmed said. “It sounds unnatural.”
“Too enthusiastic?” she asked innocently. She felt her courage rising.
“You must seem natural. After all, you are making the best of a bad situation for yourself. But you understand why this is being done to you. That is the feeling we must have.”
“Now!”
Again the camera purred.
“Are we treating you well, Mrs. Michaels?”
But before she could begin, another boy, a surly type, the one with the gold half-moon around his neck, rushed into the room. His dark eyes seemed to mirror his fear. He was nervous and upset. He conversed with Ahmed in brief bursts of Arabic. Ahmed stood up, grabbed a handful of the boy’s shirt, and pulled him menacingly toward him. The boy rose on his toes and pleaded. Then Ahmed let him go and paced the room. He was angry. Beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks. It was obvious to Maria that the boy had brought him news that did not please him. She held Joey closer and patted his arm.
“Everything will be fine, sweets,” she whispered. “We mustn’t let him frighten us.” Joey’s response was to press his body closer to her.
The blond boy had put down the camera and picked up his automatic weapon, pointing it menacingly at Maria and the boy. Maria forced herself not to react. They had done this to her before. A few moments more pacing and Ahmed walked toward the television and flicked the switch. He seemed to have forgotten her presence.
Again the images crowded into the room as the information-gathering juggernaut hopped around the world at a dizzying pace. There was Ahmed’s picture flashed across the screen, but one look at him told her that he was not pleased. A grim commentator stood in front of a backdrop that appeared to be an Arab city street. Children peeked into the camera behind him.
“The linkage has now come full circle. The son of Ahmed Safari, the man identified as the kidnapper of Maria and Joseph Michaels, daughter and grandson of the man who holds the President of the United States hostage, has vanished from—” the man turned and pointed with his head “—this home in Amman. There are no witnesses. Speculation centers on the obvious.”
Ahmed banged the top of the television set. The screen cracked and went blank. “Liars, Bastards. A sick boy.” He pointed his finger at the blank screen. “You touch one hair. You will see what I can do.” He was livid with rage.
“We must not be afraid,” she whispered to her son. He nodded, showing that he understood.
It took some time for Ahmed to get himself under control. Finally he acknowledged her presence again.
“They touch him, you are a dead woman,” he said.
“They have already touched him,” Maria whispered, studying his reactions, forcing her mind to divorce itself from emotion. They had found his Achilles’ heel.
“They will do nothing,” he said, suddenly becoming calm. “It is just another silly ineffective CIA ploy.” He continued to pace the room, speaking more to himself than to her. But he could not seem to shake himself free of his concern. “They want to play their little games, then play we shall.” He looked at her and the boy. “On with the show. The more sympathetic we appear, the more the people in your country will protest.”
He sat on the chair again and the blond boy put down his gun and picked up the camera. But Ahmed was a changed man, Maria noted. He seemed, despite his bravado, somehow less deadly. He waved his hand impatiently at the blond boy.
“Now,” he said. The camera purred. He turned toward Maria.
“And how are you being treated, Mrs. Michaels?”
She lifted her eyes, staring at him directly, lips pursed. Daddy, she thought. Her father’s face materialized in her mind. Do it, she begged herself. Find the courage.
“Brutally. Without regard to human decency. These people are monsters—”
Ahmed sprang from his chair. The blond boy, out of surprise or mental paralysis, continued to record the scene. Ahmed’s arm flashed and the camera fell to the floor. The blond boy lost his balance and tumbled beside it. Then Ahmed focused his attention on Maria. Something, she noted, had changed in the calibration of his arrogance. “You’ll pay the price for this, you bitch.”
He reached his hand out to touch the boy’s head. She sprang up and, still holding the boy, moved away. He did not follow her. Instead, he waved a finger at her. “I swear to you.” He was suddenly speechless, snarling impotently.
“So, Ahmed,” she said, her tone measured, “there is a human side to you. Congratulations.” She had found her strength. His vulnerability was quite defined now. “You had better treat your bargaining chip with some respect.”
“He is a sick boy.”
“I feel for him, Ahmed,” she said.
Again he paced the room, then sat down on the table. He began to write on a piece of paper. She watched him. He wrote, paused, waited, grew thoughtful, wrote again. Then he waved to the blond boy and said something to him in Arabic. The boy took the paper and left the room.
“I have given them a deadline,” he said, his voice gravelly.
Her heartbeat pounded in her throat. His eyes had narrowed; the whites seemed to have disappeared. They looked cruel, snakelike. His lips, too, had tightened, and when he spoke they barely moved.
“The boy will deliver the message. He will call the newspapers. Soon the world will know. A simple request, really. Your CIA will release my son by tomorrow noon our time.”
“What makes you so sure?” Maria asked.
He looked toward her and pointed his chin.
“You do,” Ahmed said. “And if they do not react, we will make a show of it, so they will know we mean business. I assure you, your people will get the message, especially your father.”
She tightened her grip around her son. My father, she thought. Whatever happens, she thought, he will write his answer on your corpse.
31
OF COURSE IT WAS possible to imagine, Amy assured herself. She was in the middle of a computerized experience, a special-effects thrill concocted for Disneyland. Action transpired according to however Jack Harkins programmed a sequence of events. The results of these sequences were then displayed on television. They were then assessed and further sequences arranged to continue to manipulate the experience. Such convictions made the reality of what she was experiencing bearable.
Once again they had let her join the “adults” in the dining room. But only after she had promised that she would behave. It was pointless to do otherwise. Her protests were totally ineffectual. They had shunted her off to the bedroom, a kind of child’s Siberia. She had lain on the bed pouting and resentful, frustrated by the indignity.
Then it had occurred to her that perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps these kidnappings were merely a setup. Perhaps all that was happening, the computer-directed events, the television images, were a contrivance designed to lull the Padre into acceptance before striking back.
It was these doubts that made her delay going forward with her plan. In actuality, it was a weapon, and it rode, like a piece of ice, on the bare skin above her right hip. Its presence was a goading reminder, forcing her to think about alternatives.
“I’ll be good,” she had promised Benjy, her eyes imploring him to let her go back to the dining room. “I’d rather be with my husband.” Her mimicking of a child’s contrition seemed to impress him.
“Now you’re getting smart,” Benjy said, with what seemed gentler tones than before. She had little doubt about his reason for acting this way. She had assumed her rightful woman’s place in their manly universe.
“Don’t make waves. They know what they’re doing,” Benjy told her.
“So it seems,” she offered fatuously. Her apparent reasonableness put in motion their odd but effective communication system. The big man, who was ubiquitous, shuttled Benjy’s message to the Padre, who consented, and they had let her come back into the dining room.
Paul was on the telephone. He looked up at her and nodded. Behave yourself. That seemed to be his message as well. Beside him was his ever-present human attachment, his face rutted and wrinkled, his eyes watchful.
In the dining room, the television set was on. Harkins watched the computer and the Padre sat quietly slumped in a chair appearing to be half asleep. If she did not know better, she might ha
ve characterized him as bored. Nothing here was as it seemed.
She sat on one of the dining-room chairs and concentrated on what was transpiring. Harkins, she noted, was more agitated than he had been earlier. He was working feverishly with the computer, mumbling curses under his breath. Paul wound up his conversation on the telephone and shook his head.
“Gridlock,” he said. “That was the Speaker. He’s appointed a committee, but he assures me they probably won’t act. The polls have taken the wind out of everybody’s sails.” He looked at the Padre. “In other words, the people like what we’re doing.”
He glanced at Amy, but turned away quickly. He seemed deeper into it than before, his face flushed, as it became when he was feverish with excitement. “This is not to say that they aren’t nervous. All that military activity has them worried. Not to mention the edgy Soviets. Be good for them to fret a while.”
Harkins looked up from the computer screen.
“The assessment boys still stick with their conclusion. The Saudis and the Syrians won’t stir. They make a move and the Israelis will clobber them. They’ve called up their reserves. Nice move on their part. Scares the shit out of everybody. The Iranians haven’t got the assets. Too bogged down with Iraq.”
“And crazy Qaddafi?” the President asked.
“He’s jumping up and down,” Harkins said, sucking in a deep breath. “Not to worry. They have nowhere to go, not with the Egyptians staring down their noses. But there’s always a chance he might go off the deep end, except that his council won’t let him.”
“No more talk of atomic bombs?” the President asked. He looked at Amy.
“None,” Harkins said.
The President laughed and slapped the table.
“On the outside it might look like brinkmanship,” Harkins said. “Trick is to scare enough people into putting a stop to this terrorist crap.” He looked at the Padre, who ignored him.
She had heard variations of this conversation before, always one-sided reconstructions by Paul. Hearing it at first hand was more chilling than she had imagined. To avoid listening further, she looked up at the television screen. She felt like a child who had missed an important lesson and was now working hard to catch up.
