He released a high-pitched giggle and the girl dropped her cup. Hakim angrily erased the rictus from his face and pursued another notion. Daoudists could be behind this, seeking to share the media coverage in its bungling fashion. He, Fat'ah, would need to arrange more talks with his television friends.
Not exactly friends, he amended, so much as co-opportunists who could always be relied upon to give accurate and detailed coverage if it were available. Except in wartime, whispered a wisp from a forgotten text. It was unthinkable that American television networks could perceive themselves to be at war with Fat'ah.
Unthinkable, therefore Hakim thought about it.
The same grinning salacious fool was becoming the prominent image behind every news item on terrorism. On competing networks! He thought about it some more. While Fat'ah planned the attack that was to cost Rashid his life, Ukranian dissenters had made news by murdering three enemies in the Soviet Secretariat. A scrap of dialogoue haunted Hakim from a subsequent skit on the Charlie George Show.
INT. SQUALID BASEMENT NIGHT
CHARLIE wears a Rasputin cloak and villainous mustache, leaning over a rickety table lit by a bent candle.
He scowls at CRETINOV, who cleans a blunderbuss with a sagging barrel.
TWO-SHOT CHARLIE AND CRETINOV
CHARLIE Comrade leader, I say we must kidnap everyone who calls us fools!
CRETINOV (bored) Nyet; where would we keep five billion people?
This established the general tenor of a five-minute lampoon, redolent of fools and of impotence, on terrorism against the Kremlin. The Ukrainians had enjoyed the sympathy of the United States Government. Perhaps they still did, but obviously American television moguls thought along different lines.
When had Hakim last heard a sympathetic rendering of the justice, the demands, the motivations, of a terrorist group? For that matter, he persisted, any factual rendering at all? A harrowing suspicion fostered a pattern that coalesced in Hakim's mind as he absently reached for his coffee. Every datum he applied seemed to fit the undeclared war that he should have expected from this medium, sooner or later. A medium upon which Fat'ah was all too dependent: newspapers brought details, but TV brought showers of cash from Fat'ah well-wishers. Had the Americans at last conspired to rob him of his forum, his voice, his cash?
Hakim retrieved his mental images of smoke and media, this time imagining a greasy black roil erupting from a picture tube. It should be simple enough to test this suspicion. If the suspicion proved to be accurate, Hakim vowed, he would bring war to this monster medium.
He sipped the tepid coffee, then realized that he had forbidden it to himself. Rage flung the cup for him, shattering it against a television set that squatted unharmed. The girl's gasp paced Guerrero's reaction, a sidelong roll from his chair from which the latino emerged crouching, his Browning sidearm drawn. Guerrero was not particularly quick, but his hand was steady. In the soundless staring match with the latino, Hakim told himself, he dropped his own eyes first to atone for his rashness.
Hakim stood erect and exhaled deeply from his nose. "We need rest," he said.
"Yes, you do," Guerrero agreed, tucking the automatic away.
Hakim did not pause in his march to the far bedroom. Talith knew that he would not ask her to follow, knew with equal certainty that he expected her to do so within minutes. She collected the debris that lay before the television set, unaware of its symbolic content, then stood before Guerrero, who was slicing excerpts from newspapers.
He glanced up. "I will take sentry duty until four A.M.," he said.
"That is not my topic," she replied quietly, too quietly to be heard down the hallway. "You came very near disrespect, a moment ago."
"I meant no disrespect." Guerrero seemed to think the matter was closed.
She chose her words carefully: "You left room for an inference that Hakim's stamina is less than your own."
Guerrero frowned; it was something she rarely saw. "He had a brush with disaster; anyone would be exhausted," he explained, watching carefully to assess her response. "Under the circumstances—"
"Under any circumstances, Hakim is your superior. In every way. Believe what you like, Bernal, but pay service to that idea in his presence. Always."
From a camp chair near the window, Chaim: "More than with your training instructors in El-Hamma, Guerrero. I know him: before he would accept your insolence, he would accept your resignation." Chaim Mardor flicked the safety back and forth on the weapon across his knees. Guerrero heard, not taking his gaze from Talith. He nodded. It was unnecessary to state that no one resigned from Fat'ah while he was still breathing.
"I must go. I want to go," she corrected herself quickly, and disappeared into the gloom. Guerrero stared after her, then began to detach another clipping for Hakim. He was smiling.
Hakim lay in his bed awaiting the girl. He had read the latino's implied criticism, but would absorb it for now. He could not afford to waste Guerrero. Yet.
MONDAY, 10 NOVEMBER, 1980:
As Hakim awaited the girl, Maurice Everett's evening had hardly begun in Colorado Springs. He selected a fresh log from the bin and thrust it into his fireplace, holding it with two fingers like a rolled newspaper.
"It'll catch," David Engels grinned from his chair, waving the mug lazily. "Sit down, Maury, you're nervous as a bridegroom. Forget she's coming."
"I'd like to," Everett said, dusting his hands. He reached for a poker, then realized it was more makework, more fuel for Engels whose amusement was beginning to grate on the nerves. "Some more rum in your toddy?"
"I'm fine." Engels placed a hand over the beverage. At times of stress, he knew, Everett drank sparingly but wanted everybody else drunk as lords. "It's Vercours you should be plying with booze. I'd rather you did it tonight, out of your own pocket, than later with contingency funds."
"That raises a nice question, Dave. I'm grateful, and I won't ask what contingency funds those are—"
"Wouldn't tell you anyhow."
"—But who decides when I need Vercours? Let's assume my intuition's screwed up, and it works out so well I use her for every public appearance. That's twenty times a year."
"Fifty thou? Pretty steep," Engels replied. "I'd probably palm you off on a bureau man; maybe switch 'em around."
"So you do decide." He saw the Engels features become opaque and knew that he was right. "Well then, why didn't you suggest that to begin with?"
"I told you on the phone, and I told you today, and for the last time I'm telling you: if a female can handle this work, she's better. She raises fewer suspicions. The Secret Service used to make bodyguards obvious on the theory that it'd put a case of the shakes on the assassin. But for some of these fanatics it just shows 'em in which direction to start the spray of lead."
"Or at least that's the current theory."
"All God's chillun got theories," said Engels, and sipped. "If you don't like ours, pick another one."
"And fund it myself."
Engels winked: "You got it. Look, Maury, I can't locate any bureau women who'd be as available. Besides," he went on, ticking off details on his fingers, "Vercours takes it seriously. She's been taking lessons in defensive driving at Riverside. And Wally Conklin likes the ENG coverage she does on him. She even tapes his speeches. What more could you ask? I'll tell you one thing sure, Wally Conklin isn't going to be singing any hosannas over your hiring her away."
"Your hiring her away!"
One eye closed in an outre horsewink: "If you won't tell, I won't tell."
Everett's laugh rattled crockery in the next room. "Okay, you bastard: so you foot the bills and I take the heat. And what'd you say about Vercours and defensive driving? What doesn't she do?"