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Hakim's morning newspapers carried headlines on a reported kidnapping, although televi­sion sources still refused comment. Hakim released the comedian, his wrists taped, ankles hobbled, and forced him to eat a mighty breakfast—which was also lunch. He smiled fondly as Charlie complied. Charlie had bled a little during the night and morning but, Guer­rero judged, not nearly enough. Hakim seemed content to sit in their orchard site until their food ran out.

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.