Hakim brought the knife to Charlie's throat, smiling, and Charlie closed his eyes. Hakim tugged at the torn ear until Charlie opened his eyes again and then, in two quick sweeps, he severed the ear.
The big man in the bathroom stiffened as he heard the scream. With the Browning nuzzling his, jaw, he had no option but self-control. At the moment he found the cool water in the basin far more important than anything else on earth. The raw flesh at his temple had clotted heavily, a black patch intruding into the yellow hair. As he inspected it in the mirror, he saw the Panamanian's reflection. It revealed faint sardonic amusement and something else, fainter still. It might have been pity.
"Look closely, Senor Kenton," the reflection said, in tones that would not carry far. "Not at the wound, but at the scalp around it." Everett did so, always conscious of the gun muzzle at his throat. "Is it possible that your hair is growing dark instead of gray?" Their eyes locked for an instant. "Very odd, no?"
Again the cold water over his face, to buy time. "I dye it," he said at last. In a few days, if he lived that long, they would know that much anyway.
"I am sure you do." Guerrero moved aside to let the other man drop his trousers.
"It makes me look younger." Everett strained against constipation, the necessary outcome of his forced inactivity.
"And those faint scars at your hairline; what do they do? What other little secrets do you have in store for me?"
This ape-raping little wetback was toying with him, Everett decided. Either the guy knew everything, or nothing. "It's very common—in the Industry," he grunted.
"Of course it is," Guerrero said in tones that implied denial. He waited until the gore-smeared trousers were in place again, his amusement more pronounced as he backed from the cubicle. With the Browning he waved toward the room where Charlie George lay.
Charlie fought his own screams through clenched teeth, sobbing, straining against his bonds. His face a study in dispassionate interest, Hakim stanched the flow of blood and, holding Charlie by his hair, sprinkled a clotting agent over the grisly mess before he applied a rough bandage. Guerrero again trussed his own captive, this time in a different corner. He did not look toward Hakim but he no longer showed amusement. Guerrero placed his ballpoint pen on the shelf and laid the adhesive tape near it.
It took Charlie George four tries to say, between gasps "Why?"
"Questions, questions," Hakim sighed. "Your ear will go to the Los Angeles Times, and its coverage may provoke your television people. This may even start a modest war between media. And this is because I choose," he continued, quickly pulling the flimsy polyethylene bag over Charlie's head. At this point Guerrero glanced quickly toward Hakim and then stalked from the room, the spool of wire lying unused on the floor.
Hakim snapped the elastic bands around Charlie's neck and stood back, watching the red stain spread past his bandage inside the bag. Charlie's eyes became huge with horror as his first breath sucked the bag against his nose and mouth. After twenty seconds, as Charlie thrashed hopelessly against his bondage, Hakim thrust the plastic tube under the elastic and into Charlie's mouth before tugging the bag back into place. The tube was short and not entirely flaccid, and Hakim pulled his chair near to hold the free end of the tube away from loose ends of the bag.
Hakim waited until the breathing steadied. Charlie's eyes were closed. "Open your eyes,"
Hakim said gently. No response. "Open them," he said, placing a fingertip lightly over the tube's end. Charlie's eyes flew open and Hakim's finger moved back.
"Have you heard of the dry submarine, my friend? You are wearing one. The wet submarine is favored in Chile; it features a variety of nasty liquids in the bag. Yours may soon qualify as wet," he added, seeing the runnel of crimson that painted the bag's interior in Charlie's feeble struggles.
Hakim did not glance toward his second captive. Had he done so, he would have seen the big man tearing with his teeth at the fresh tape, gums bleeding, heedless of the pain.
"Why, you ask, and ask, and ask," Hakim continued, crooning near as though speaking to a valued confidante, a beloved. "Because you will perhaps return to your sumptuous life, if it pleases me. You will be my message to your medium, a man who knows he has been totally broken. El Aurans, the Lawrence of Arabia, broke after long torture and found ambition gone. Few were his equal but," the dark eyes held a soft luminosity of madness as he quoted, "'My will had gone and I feared to be alone, lest the winds of circumstance ... blow my empty soul away.' I do not think you can avoid carrying that message," Hakim added. "This is true eastern martial art: corner the enemy, and leave him nothing. Your Machiavelli understood."
From the other room came Guerrero's calclass="underline" "Coverage, Hakim!"
The little man turned in his chair, picked up the severed ear, and released the tube which lay nearly invisible against the bag. In three strides he was through the door, to loom at Guerrero's side.
The item was insignificant, merely an admission that an NBN star was a possible kidnap victim. Television was carrying the news, but obviously was not going to dwell on the event. "So, I must contact another medium," Hakim said, and held up his ghastly trophy.
Guerrero blinked. "You do what you do only too well, Hakim."
"Praise, or criticism?"
"It is my mission to help you do all you possibly can." Guerrero smiled at the sharp glance from Hakim; he had spoken the truth, yet not all of it. Nor could he boldly state what he knew about their second captive. It must seem a brilliant suspicion. "I have been studying Kenton very closely, Hakim," he went on. "I believe that his face is a masquerade. Either he or the comedian might be persuaded to discuss the point."
"The comedian?" Hakim barked a laugh. "Not he; not now."
Guerrero was very, very still. "It has been quiet in there."
"He no longer complains," Hakim answered, deliberately vague.
"You are finished, then," Guerrero persisted.
It was Hakim's pleasure to joke, thinking of the abject terror in the eyes of Charlie George. "Say, rather, he is finished," he rejoined, and turned back toward the torture room.
Guerrero followed unbidden, his excitement mounting, with only a glance toward Everett, whose hands were hidden in his lap. He saw Charlie George hanging inert like some butchered animal, his head half-obscured in glistening red polymer. He could not know that Charlie had spent the past moments desperately inhaling, exhaling, trying with an animal's simplicity to bathe his lungs in precious oxygen. Charlie's mind was not clear but it held tenaciously to the fact that Guerrero was anxious for his death. Mouth and eyes open wide, Charlie George ceased to breathe as Guerrero came into view.
Guerrero's mistake was his haste to believe what he wanted to believe. He saw the plastic sucked against nostrils, the obscenely gaping mouth and staring eyes. He did not seek the thud of Charlie's heart under his twisted clothing and failed to notice the slender tube emergent from the plastic bag. "The poor pendejo is dead, then?" He rapped the question out carelessly.
Hakim's mistake was the indirect lie, his automatic response to questions asked in the tone Guerrero used now. "Truly, as you see," Hakim said, gesturing toward Charlie George, amused at Charlie's ploy.
Hakim's merriment was fleeting. From the tail of his eye he saw Guerrero's hand slide toward the Browning and, in that instant, Hakim resolved many small inconsistencies. Still, he flung the knife too hastily. Guerrero dodged, rolling as he aimed, but could not avoid the chair that struck him as he fired. The Iraqi sprang past the doorway, slammed the door and flicked the bolt in place as chunks of wallboard peppered his face. He had counted five shots from the Browning against the door lock, but knew the damned thing held many more. Half blinded by debris from Guerrero's fire, Hakim elected to run rather than retrieve his own sidearm. It lay at his media display in the path of Guerrero's continued fire against the door. One slug hurled scattered fragments of his beloved Hewlett-Packard unit into the face of a video monitor.