The Screaming Eagles (19 page)

They won’t sacrifice four for eight it would be an insult to their cause. Martyrdom requires killing many infidels, not just eight. If all four are going to die, they have plans to kill hundreds of others. These are the percentages that they’ve planned for. This is what you have to prevent or you’ll have a bloodbath.”

Michael glanced down once again at his notes. He crossed off more points. He seemed to be ready to sit down when he thought of something else. Quickly running his finger to the bottom of the page he jotted down a few words. When he was ready he looked at Dani and said.

“When these killers die, and for sure they’re going to, you have to find a way to limit how many people they’re able to murder and take with them when they detonate those bombs, whether in the studio or wherever their planners want them to die.

Your biggest problem will be that the hostage takers might just be a diversion. These terrorists and their companions know exactly what they’re planning; you don’t, so you can only wait and then counterattack. That puts you at a distinct disadvantage. You’re aware of that, but so are they.

You don’t have much time left so you need to pull in all the available resources that you have to find their accomplices. You need to find them fast.”

Michael, stood for a moment unsure of what to do then walked back to his chair and sat down watching to see what Dani would do next. He waited for the ax to fall?sarcasm, a sneer, anything. Dani sat tapping a pencil on his notepad. The room was quiet save for the straining air conditioners that now seemed to be humming loudly. There was no movement anywhere around the table. Expectant, the room full of Subversives watched Dani warily.

He smiled a tight grimace, ominously banging the table with his fist as he stood up. Grabbing at his writing block, pad and pencil in one hand and a coffee cup in the other, he threw them savagely against the wall across the room from where he sat. “Nice to know someone at least one person here in the whole damn room is awake. Shit, you’re supposed to be the fucking experts and we need a civilian to tell us what we already should have known. Damn it, what the fuck are all of you doing about the same old problems in a new disguise? Are you all a bunch of morons? Jeee-zuz who the hell has something to add? Anyone, come on people, have any of you got anything that we can work with?”

He started pacing up and down the room, anger telegraphed in every step. He looked at everyone in turn, slowly pacing taking short deliberate steps, turning his head seeking eye contact and getting none. His anger was vicious trembling and ready to explode. No one said anything, the air conditioners continued humming loudly. Finally he sat down.

“Well thought out. Pretty good, Mikey, perceptive. You’ve got some pretty good stuff there. Come on, you morons, how do we find the fucking accomplices? Give me something, anything, be creative, and use some imagination. Take five, I need to make some phone calls. Five minutes that’s all I’m giving you, then I want some answers, and I mean it, I want answers, damn it.”

He started phoning. Michael felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned, saw Perry half smiling, giving him a thumbs-up sign.

If Perry was impressed and Dani was impressed, hallelujah. Swinging around, flushed with importance, Michael found her looking at him. For the briefest instant, he sensed something. He didn’t know what, but it was something. The connection was still there. He put out his hand and said, “Hi, my name is Michael. What’s yours?”

Grasping his hand in a firm grip, she shook it. “Julie, Julie Hannesson. Pleased to meet you. Have you really seen these men? Where, when? Do you know them? Are they really terrorists? Will they harm anyone? Why A.T.N.?”

Before Michael could reply, the volume was turned up loud. They heard an announcer say that it was now ten o’clock and that they were returning to the situation at Chicago’s A.T.N. affiliate station.

John Geocaris’s face came on screen. The Iranian handed him two sheets of paper to read. The camera panned showing Geocaris take the papers. He smiled complacently, a grim set of his mouth, lips thin, his eyes scanning looking for the points to punctuate.

Finally pursing his lips, he cleared his throat, sitting up straighter angling his head slightly, he assumed the professional pose that he used so effectively. “America, the great Satan of the world must change. People of America, my good and wonderful friends, embrace a new, beautiful way of life. Force your President, your Congress, to listen to you. You and only you, good people of America, can make them change the direction of confrontation with us, the peace loving peoples of the world.” Occasionally his eyes would look up into the cameras for a moment when he was making an important point, then he’d continue, the resonance of his voice rising, eyes looking up directly at the cameras, sincere and challenging to his audience. Geocaris, confident now was getting himself into high gear, he was in control, the voice was familiar, the master was speaking. The master knew the world was listening, his friendly tone invited them to believe what he was saying, so he continued, “We who are peace loving nations. Let them befriend us, learn from us … “

“Stop.”

The Iranian bent down picked up a walkie-talkie and listened. He spoke into it softly. He nodded and put it down on the desk in front of him. He looked at the man behind Geocaris and spoke to him. In an instant, the man standing behind Geocaris chopped his fist down on Geocaris’s neck. Geocaris made a slight sound. His head jerked as it fell onto the desk, arms splayed out in front of him still holding the papers.

Bending over, grasping his hand, the man who’d hit him folded Geocaris’s fingers tightly into a fist, extending his little finger onto the desk. In a blur of movement, a hand slashed downward at the extended finger.

Michael only realized the hand held a cleaver when he saw the finger jump away from the fist. It lay about six inches away from Geocaris’s fist, blood slowly seeping from it.

He heard Julie’s sharp intake of breath. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her strained hypnotic stare. She’d gone very white. A vein pulsed in her neck. She’d grabbed his hand, and her nails dug deep into his skin.

Unhurriedly, the Iranian put down the cleaver next to the finger. All eyes were focused on the slow, soft seepage of red that was gathering on the desktop. Drop by drop, the pool of blood bulged, slowly getting larger, the red contrasting brightly with the top of the anchor’s desk.

The Iranian rummaged underneath the desk and came up with cotton balls and a Band-Aid. He let his companion bind Geocaris’s wound. Michael said to Dani, “The bastards came prepared. They knew they’d cut off a finger. I wonder what else he’s planning to surprise us with in his box of tricks under the desk?”

Dani shushed him.

The Iranian looked into the camera. “My friends, Islamic Sharia Law demands that when someone steals, the punishment is to cut off a hand. The punishment for stealing a second time is cutting off the other hand. A.T.N., you and your police are responsible for Mr. John Geocaris’s punishment. You are stealing my time. An hour ago I told you that we would only be here twelve hours. What is twelve hours? It is nothing. I warned you that we would not negotiate with you. A few minutes ago I was informed that you have blacked out this broadcast. Thus, you are stealing my time. Do not be stupid or do foolish things, our eyes are everywhere, we know your moves. Our friends are helping us. Your disgusting government’s time is at the beginning of its end. You, my friends, who are lovers of freedom like we are, support our glorious cause. My friends force your government to change its evil ways.

In one hour we will broadcast again. If you choose to steal my time again, I warn you, Mr. Geocaris will lose his hand and once again your police and your government will be the ones to blame.”

Perry said to Michael, “Now we know where the fifth guy is. A walkie-talkie has a radius of about a mile, but we can’t lock onto its origin because there are literally thousands of frequencies. We’ll have to start searching every hotel, office building, apartment building, and construction site. They’ll never find him. We don’t have enough time.”

“How were we able to see the broadcast if it was blacked out?”

“TV stations always allow the police and their top management teams to see the programs so that they can make plans, come up with strategies, make on the spot decisions. All civilians have their sets blacked out if the authorities say it’s necessary.”

Michael heard a muffled sob. He turned and saw Julie’s head was down, and she was biting her bottom lip. Michael could see she was fighting not to cry. His heart sank. It, the elusive it, was not going to be. She was probably in love with Geocaris. Just his luck she cared for the bastard. Damn.

THE DESERT BUNKER

1:30 a.m.

“Excellency, plan two is now in effect. As Eagle One in Chicago so wisely anticipated, Excellency, the broadcast was blacked out. The necessary steps were taken so everything is once again proceeding smoothly. Plan three, is now six and a half-hours away. Do you wish to rest, Excellency? Would you like something hot to drink?”

“No, Hamid. I will go to the communications room a half an hour before plan three. Wake me then. Arrange for my son, my brother, Generals Ghobzadeh and Hartounian, and all soldiers, cooks, servants, everyone without exception to be in the bunker at five o’clock after morning prayers. Have a celebration breakfast prepared. I have an announcement of major importance for our beloved country. Convey my congratulations, to all who are here, but as before Hamid, it is your responsibility to see that we maintain the strictest of radio and communication silence, absolute silence. I warn you, it is also your responsibility to see that everyone is inside the bunker to hear my announcements. That includes all of the guards. That is all. Leave me. Go, tell them.”

“Yes, Excellency. Thank you, Excellency.”

Hamid closed the door to his room and locked it. He carefully unbuttoned his shirt and unwound the microphone from his chest. He clicked off the tape, wrote the day and time. Climbing onto his bed, arms outstretched, he removed a ceiling panel, storing the tape with the others.

Hamid had been made the personal aide to the President four years previously when as a young sergeant in the army he’d spotted an assassin, jumped in front of the President and thrown him to the ground. The assassin’s bullets had hit him in the shoulder and arm. In gratitude, the President had promoted him to general. He was now the trusted aide; however, no one knew that he was a Kurd. This was a fact not known to any other person, not even the elders in the village from where he came from.

Twenty years ago, Hamid had left the Kurdish village of Dahuk and enlisted in the army using false identity papers given him by Little Hawk. He’d been instructed by Little Hawk to learn modern military tactics so that when the time came for the Kurdish uprising, they could fight on even terms. Little Hawk was his cousin, the most feared Kurdish leader in the mountains of the Fertile Crescent.

Hamid reached for the radio, looked at his watch waited until the exact half-hour, then activated the switch turning on the radio. Hamid, speaking rapidly said, “Breakfast six thirty, all guards withdrawn, everyone in bunker. You will have no more than half an hour. Tapes, plans, panel above my bed.”

Hamid turned off the switch.

In the radio control room the corporal heard the beeper. He saw the monitor needle jump indicating that a radio had been activated. He put down his coffee and walked across the room grabbing his earphones.

Instructions had been specific, there were to be no radio communications. As he stretched to tune into the frequency, the beeper stopped. The needle dropped back to zero. He watched for some minutes, finally concluding that the activation of the radio was probably a mistake. He looked at his watch, entered the incident into the log: “Radio activity, five seconds. Two thirty a.m.” The corporal took off his earphones and continued to drink his coffee. He would wait until the breakfast to tell the general, no need to wake him now.

*

Squatting on his haunches, Jalal, or Little Hawk as he was now known, heard the message, then turned off his transmitter. Hidden behind sand dunes half a mile away from the camp, he prepared to wait until six thirty. Killing the President would have been easy. Hamid could have done this at any time during the past four years, but getting information regularly was of more importance. He knew something massive was being planned. When he returned to the mountains, he and the council of elders would decide what to do with the information.

He knew they’d be surprised that they had a spy near the President. Some would be annoyed, insulted that they’d not been told, but Jalal had his reasons, and he would handle any problems they’d give him.

The desert was cold. He wrapped his blanket tighter, thinking of the caves, the tents, the trees that were his home as he constantly moved with his fighters high enough in the mountains so the troops could not find them. When troops moved off the roads, they were easy to pick off from the bushes. Something had to be done soon, for lately the troops were able to evade the ambushes and massacre the Kurds in their villages.

There had to be a traitor in the council of elders.

Turkey had closed its borders to refugees. America had promised support and food and delivered neither. Iraq and Iran promised peace, but all the Kurds got was treachery.

Motionless, wrapped in his blanket, Jalal waited. Grains of sand softly moved, whispering gently against him. ==========================================

A.T.N.‘s screen suddenly showed the Iranian talking to Geocaris. Dani slammed down the phone groping for the remote on the far side of the table, nearly dropping it as he turned up the sound. Looking directly at the camera the man in the red kaffiyeh said, “Good people of America, our friends and brothers, we have decided not to wait an hour before we broadcast and have instructed your management to allow Mr. Geocaris to continue reading. They have agreed but we do not trust them and we need to test their sincerity. We warn you management of this TV station that if the broadcast is not live our friends will contact us and Mr. Geocaris will this time lose his hand. We have an agreement you will let us broadcast to the American people but you broke it. Do you plan to break it again? If so you will be responsible for his hand, not us, for unlike you, we keep our agreements.” The man looked at John Geocaris who tried not to acknowledge him as he sat looking ahead into the camera. It panned a close up of his face focusing on a long vein, fat and throbbing that could be seen from where it started below his hairline and protruded along the left side of his forehead. Sweat poured from his face dripping onto his collar, staining his tie and the lapels of his jacket. The finger, a small piece of reddish flesh surrounded the severed bone. The bone’s brittleness appeared stark and white against clots of drying blood that had begun forming around stringy bits of gristle and flesh. The blood had seeped out unevenly along the desktop under a section of the finger collecting in a dark pool, directly in front of Geocaris, the menace of the lesson clear for everyone to see. The cleaver had been placed cleverly on the console in front of the camera turned around so as to show the brightness of the blood staining its metal blade.