Soft Targets Read online

  Hakim took his secondary schooling in English-speaking private schools under the benevolent—and venal—gaze of relatives in Syria, who never did discover where the jewels were. Hakim also came under sporadic crossfires between Arab guerrillas and their Israeli coun­terparts, and he knew where his sympathies lay. Newsweek hinted that young Hakim might have taken additional coursework in an academy of socialist persuasion near Leningrad. How he got into an Ivy-league American school was anybody's guess, but a thumbnail-sized emerald was one of the better suppositions.

  Trained in finance, media, and pragmatism, Hakim Arif again disappeared into the east after his American training—but not before leaving indelible memories with a few acquaintances. He quoted the Koran and T.E. Lawrence. He was not exactly averse to carrying large amounts of cash, and protection for it, on his person. He won a ridiculously small wager by chopping off the end of a finger. And he was preternaturally shy of cameras.

  Hakim and Fat'ah were mutually magnetized by desire and bitterness, but not even Interpol knew how Hakim Arif came to lead a guerrilla band that rarely saw its leader. One thing seemed clear about his emergence: anyone too devious for Carlos Sanchez developed a certain mystique among the terrorist cadre. Even luna­tics have a lunatic fringe; the Fat'ah group devel­oped a positive genius for wearing its welcomes threadbare among groups that were only half crazy.

  Thwarted by security forces in Turkey, England, Syria, and Jordan, Fat'ah was evidently fingering the tassels at the end of its tether. Perhaps Hakim had peddled his last emerald; the fact seemed to be that the goals of Fat'ah, reachable by sufficient injections of cash into the proper places, were elusive.

  This was not to say that cash could not be raised. According to magazine sources, Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi had shelled out two million dollars to Carlos Sanchez for his Vienna raid on ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in December of 1975. Analysts of the Third World eventually shifted from their initial opinion that Qaddafi had acted out of personal pique. The final con­sensus was that Qaddafi and OPEC had simply sustained a corporate disagreement, just as other businesses sometimes have disagreements. Nothing personal; the bullets and the blood had been merely business. The biggest. As usual.

  An even larger investment--some said as large as five million dollars from Swiss accounts controlled by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli—had been made toward the massacre at the Olympic Village in Munich, in 1972. Hakim Arif had later contrived a brief and uneasy alliance with the Black September movement precisely because of its success; not with the Israelis so much as with the money they had squeezed from Feltrinelli.

  Hakim himself was rumored to have a dark angel in the person of a sheikh living in and around an English country estate. The anglo­phile sheikh could afford a castle, and walled grounds envied by many a British peer, more easily than the English could afford the sheikh. The nabob had been gently dissuaded only in 1977 from driving his special-bodied ten-meter Rolls across his rolling meadows in search of the once-tame deer that infested his estate. It was not the speeding that his neighbors minded; the Rolls was on very, very private property. The complaints stemmed from the submachine gun bullets that sprayed beyond the sheikh's property whenever he sought the deer. There may have been no close connection between the sheikh's forced moratorium on the deer hunts and his decision, a month later, to put Hakim Arif on salary.

  No act of terrorism, of course, would be paid very well by its well-wishers unless it achieved that crucial phenomenon, media coverage. The sheikhs, Qaddafis, and Feltrinellis would pay more for one well-covered disemboweling than for a thousand committed in secret. Media coverage, especially on television, gave the criminal a chance to publicize his motives and his potency. The news magazines implied that the emergence of Hakim Arif in the United States was an omen of spilled guts.

  They also gave coverage to Hakim's motives, and his potency.

  Everett paused in his reading to gaze wistfully out at California's mighty Sierra range that stretched below the Boeing. Somewhere below, near Lake Tahoe, was a cabin he knew well; hoped to visit again. With the dusting of early snow on sawtooth massifs, the Sierra looked as cold and hard as the heart of Hakim Arif. What sort of egoist did it take to shorten his pinkie on an absurd wager, yet shun photographers? A very special one, at the least. Everett resumed reading.

  The conservative Los Angeles Times, the pre­vious Monday, had devoted too much space to a strained parallel between law enforcement agencies and Keystone Kops. The smash hit of the new TV season was a Saturday night talk show in which a battery of clever NBN hosts deigned to talk, live, only with callers who were already in the news. Soon after midnight after the Pueblo disaster, a caller had identified himself as Hakim Arif. A reigning cinema queen was discussing oral sex at 12:17:26, and found herself staring into a dead phone at 12:17:30. Hakim was speaking.

  Incredibly, the Iraqi responded to questions; pre-recording was out of the question. While Hakim launched into the plight of Palestinian Arabs and the need for funding to continue his heroic- struggle, network officials feverishly col­laborated with police, the FBI, and several tele­phone companies. Hakim was obviously watch­ing the show, to judge from his critique of one host's silent mugging.

  Hakim used no terms objectionable enough to require bleeping. He merely promised to repeat his Pueblo entertainment in larger and more vulnerable gatherings until, in its vast wisdom and power, the United States of America found a haven for Fat'ah. And oh, yes, there was one condition: the country of the haven must adjoin Israel.

  While voiceprint experts established the iden­tical patterns of the Pueblo and NBN show voices, a co-host asked if Hakim realized that he was asking for World War Three. Hakim, chuckling, replied that he trusted the superpowers to avoid exaggerated responses to Fat'ah responses to Israeli banditry.

  As Hakim chuckled, a Lockheed vehicle lifted vertically from Moffett Field in central Califor­nia for nearby Santa Cruz. Its hushed rotors car­ried four case-hardened gentlemen over the coast range in minutes to a parking lot two hundred yards from the Santa Cruz telephone booth which composed one link in Hakim's tele­phone conversation. Police cordoned the area and awaited the fight.

  There was no fight. There was only another clever device in the booth, relaying the conver­sation by radio. Its sensors noted the approach of the bomb squad to the booth with the `out of order' sign, and suddenly there was no tele­phone, no device, and no booth; there was only concussion. The Times surmised that Hakim could have been within thirty miles of the booth. No one, including Hakim, knew that the Lockheed assault vertol had passed directly over his bungalow in San Jose. Nor that a sweep-winged parafoil had narrowly missed a redwood tree while banking upward from a school playground near Soquel, California.

  Hakim's next call passed through another booth in Capitola, near Soquel and Santa Cruz, to CBS. Hakim was in excellent spirits. Govern­ment agencies were in overdrive, steering madly with many corrections. No one was in position to corral even one arm of Fat'ah and when Hakim was good and ready, he closed down his media operation.

  By the time his bungalow had been discov­ered, Hakim had a two-day start. That is, said the private report compiled for Everett by friends of David Engels, if it had been Hakim. Fingerprint gambits, falsely planted prints, were com­mon in disinformation games. The Iraqi's M.O. varied, but he always knew how to use available channels, including the illegal importation of some of his materiel from Quebecois sources. There was more, and Everett forced himself to read it. Beyond his old-fashioned reading glasses, his eyes ached. Presently he closed them and tried to ignore the faintly resurgent whistle in his head.

  MONDAY, 3 NOVEMBER, 1980:

  Two flights and a limousine later, Maurice Everett declined help with his suitcase and carried its reassuring bulk in Palm Springs heat toward a featureless sloping lawn. At least, it seemed to have no features until he strode through a slot in the grassy berm and realized that this comedian knew how to use mon
ey.

  The berm surrounded a sunken terrace open to the sun. Around the terrace and below ground level lay the translucent walls of Charlie George's hideaway. It reminded Everett of a buried doughnut, its hole a glass-faced atrium yawning into the sky, slanted solar panels more attraction than excrescence. It was thoroughly unlike the monuments erected to Mammon on the nearby acreages: it was logical, insulated, understated. Already, Everett liked Charlie George better for making sense even when he was not compelled to.

  Everett was nonplussed for an instant by theman who met him at the door like a sodbuster's valet. Denims tucked into beflapped, rundown boots; suspenders over an ancient cotton work shirt; a stubble of beard. Yet there was no mistak­ing the loose-jointed frame or the shock of corntassel hair over bushy brows, familiar to anyone who watched prime time television. Be­neath a strong nose was a mouth legendary for its mobility, from slack-jawed idiocy to prudish scorn. Everett realized with a start that it was speaking.

  "You wanted it informal," said Charlie George, and ushered Everett to a guest room.

  Everett removed his coat. "I thought you'd taken me too literally, Charlie. For a minute I thought you'd set this up in a vacant lot."

  "Just doing my bit for the Palm Springs image as the world's most elegant unfenced asylum. Complete with crazy proposals."

  "Not in my book," Everett replied. They dis­cussed their strategy while he changed into his scruffies. "I haven't sounded out all the members of the Commission," he admitted, wincing as he adjusted his pullover. "Wills is a reasonable sort, though, and I'll lay it out for him so he'll know how you propose to separate tele­vision from terrorism. These panel talks with the AP and UPI sure haven't excited him—or me. I like your scenario much better."

  The comedian kept his eyes sociably averted as Everett donned soft leather trousers. "We've been batting out details for an hour," he said.

  "Who's `we'?"

  Charlie leaned his head toward the window facing the atrium. "No net veepees, just a couple of pivotal people I told you about." He led Everett through a kitchen saturated with fra­grances of tortilla and taco sauce, into sunlight toward a buzz of male voices in a hidden corner of the atrium.

  They found two men seated, dividing their attention between sketch pads and bottles of Mexican beer. The smaller man made a point of rising; the taller, a point of not rising. "This is our friend in the feds," Charlie placed a gentle hand on Everett's shoulder. "Maury Everett: Rhone Althouse here, and Dahl D'Este over there."

  Althouse, the compact younger man, wore faded jeans and Gucci loafers. Only the footgear and a stunning Hopi necklace belied his undergraduate appearance. He was tanned, well-built, and his handshake had the solidity of a park statue. It was hard for Everett to believe that this pup was a media theorist who deserted academia for a meteoric rise in gag writing.

  "I hope you FCC guys move quicker separately than you do together," he said to Everett, with the barest suggestion of a wink.

  Everett smiled at the threadbare gibe. FCC de­cisions never came quickly enough for the in­dustry they regulated. "Don't bet on it," he replied. "I'm still pretty rickety today."

  D'Este, doodling furiously on a mammoth sketch pad, stopped to gaze at Everett with real interest. "I forgot," he said in a caramel baritone, “you were the star of the Pueblo thing. Perhaps you'll tell me about it.” His tone implied, some other time, just we two.

  Everett accepted a Moctezuma from Charlie George and eased his broad back into a lawn chair. "All I know, literally, is what I've read since I woke up with tubes running into my arms. I expect to learn a lot more from you three, in hopes it won't happen again."

  "Ah," said D'Este, beaming. His elegant slen­der height was covered by a one-piece mauve velour jumpsuit which, Everett hazarded, might have been tailored expressly for this event. Dahl D'Este affected tight dark curls; his tan was by Max Factor. He hugged the sketch pad to his breast and stood to claim his audience. "Well then, the story thus far—" He paused as though for his host's permission and seemed gratified by some signal. "Charlie has this—wild idea that he can ring in a new era of comedy. Instead of avoiding the issue of terrorism in his shtick, and believe me, luv, we all do, he wants to create a truly fabulous character."

  "A whole raft of 'em," the comedian put in. Everett nodded; he knew the general idea but would not rob D'Este of his moment.

  "Charlie has seduced the best talents he could find to plan graphics, that's me, and situations, that's Rhone—according to Rhone. Of course it's ironic because Charlie is NBN, Rhone is an ABC captive, and for the nonce I'm doing CBS sets. I don't know how Charlie beguiled his old enfant terrible," he smirked at Althouse, "to cross tradi­tional lines in this madness." Everett, who knew it had been the other way around, kept silent. "As for me, I couldn't resist the challenge."

  "Or the retainer," Althouse drawled in a murmur designed to carry.

  The splendid D'Este ignored him. "While Charlie and Rhone brainstormed their little skits, I've been inventing Charlie's logo for the new character. A cartoon of the sort of loser who—how did you put it, Rhone?"

  "Rates no respect," the younger man supplied. "If he tried dial-a-prayer he'd get three minutes of raucous laughter.

  "Well, my logo will peer out at the world from Charlie's backdrop like a malediction. I really ought to sign it. Behold, a very proper Charlie!" With this fanfare, Dahl D'Este spun the sketch pad around and awaited reactions.

  Everett was thankful that he did not need to surrogate approval. The sketch was, somehow, the face of Charlie George as an enraged Goya might have seen him. Yet the surface similarity was unimportant. Splashed across the paper in hard sunlight was a stylized symbol of repel­lence. The head and shoulders of a vicious imbe­cile faced them as it would glare out at untold millions of viewers. The face was vacuously grinning, and gripped a fuzed stick of dynamite in its teeth. The fuze was short, and it was lit. In redundant arrogance, just exactly enough out of scale as though reaching toward the viewer, was a time-dishonored gesture: the stink-finger sa­lute.

  Laughter welled up from the group and gey­sered. Althouse raised his beer in obeisance.

  "Ah,—about the monodigital scorn, Dahl," Charlie wavered, darting a look at Everett.

  Althouse held his hands open, cradling an invisible medicine ball. "C'mon, Charlie, it's perfect." He too risked a sidelong glance at the FCC Commissioner. "And for its public use, our precedent was a recent vice-president."

  D'Este: "Of which net?"

  "Of the United bloody States," cried Althouse in mock exasperation. "And Rockefellers built Radio City. Yes it's naughty, and yes it's safe!"

  "I'm inclined to agree," said Everett, "if it's done by a questionable character for a crucial effect. Chevy Chase, ah, had a finger in that deci­sion."

  D'Este leaned the sketch against the solar panels. "A proper Charlie," he repeated, then looked up quickly. "Did you know that British slang for a total loser is a veddy propah Chahlie?"

  "Poor Dahl," sighed Althouse. "Did you know that we picked the name `Charlie George' in 1975 because semantic differential surveys told me they were the outstanding loser names in the English-speaking world? Bertie is good, 0llie is better; but Charlie George is the people's choice."

  "Thanks for nothing," Everett chortled. "I always wondered why citizens band jargon for the FCC was `Uncle Charlie'." Althouse affected surprise, but not chagrin.

  Charlie looked back into the middle-distance of his past. "I wasn't too keen to change my name from Byron Krause to Charlie George," he re­flected, "until I thought about that poem."

  Althouse saw curiosity in Everett's face and broke in. "I tacked up my doggerel on a sound-stage bulletin board, and Charlie saw people react, and bingo: Charlie George." He squinted into the sun as though studying some sky-written stanza, then recited.

  "Heroes all have lovely names,

  Like Vance, or Mantz, or Lance—or James;

  But authors elevate my gorge

  By naming l
osers Charles—or George.

  There's no suspense on the late, late show:

  Big deal the bad guy's Chas., or Geo.

  Goof-offs, goons, schliemiels and schmucks:

  Georgies every one, or Chucks.

  Since the days of big Jim Farley,

  Fiction's fiends have been George and Charlie.

  No wonder heroes all seem crass

  To any guy named Geo. or Chas.

  I think I'll change my name, by golly!

  My last name's George. The nickname's Cholly."

  Everett grinned around his swig of beer, but: "Obviously some of your earliest work," D'Este purred.

  "Point is, Dahl, it fitted the image I was after," the comedian insisted. "And it's been good to me. Your logo is great, by the way; it is a proper charlie." He paused. "I want you to release it to the public domain."

  The ensuing moment held a silence so deep, Everett's ear hurt. D'Este broke it with a stran­gled, "Just—give it away? Like some—amateur? No—" and there was horror in his hushed, "—residuals?"

  "Oh, I'll pay, Dahl; don't I always? But I want the thing available with no restrictions, for any medium anywhere, anytime. PBS. Mad Mag­azine. The National Enquirer maybe."

  "Madness. Madness," D'Este said again, aghast, his normal hyperbole unequal to this task. He reached for a beer.

  When Rhone Althouse spoke again it was in almost fatherly tones. "I'm afraid you haven't been listening very closely, Dahl. It's no accident that Charlie and I are planning to spring this idea in different networks. Charlie's the rudder of several steering committees where the power is in some veepee. I have a little leverage in ABC and with any positive audience response we can slowly escalate the trend. IF there's no problem in, uh, certain quarters." He raised an eyebrow toward Everett.

  Everett traced a pattern on the label of his beer bottle, thinking aloud. "There shouldn't be any serious objection from us," he began. "It's in the public interest to pit media against terrorism—and if you find yourselves in jeopardy it won't be from the Commission." He could not keep an edge out of his voice. "Personally I think you've waited too goddam long already."