Soft Targets

the spillage.

On the other side of the van, Guerrero heard the commotion Hakim had initiated. Charlie's smile was tentative until he felt Guerrero's nee­dle enter his side like a cold lightning bolt. He cried only, 'Hey, that hurts,' not convincingly, before Guerrero's gristly fingers numbed his diaphragm. Everett spun, had time to wrench Guerrero around as Charlie began to slump before a fletched dart caught the big man high on the left pectoral muscle, Hakim's round a muf­fled slam as he fired pointblank from inside the van.

Guerrero ducked under Charlie George to catch him by the thighs, then lifted, hurling the limp NBN star against the featureless side panel. Guerrero had delayed the operation for days, tinkering with pivots and countersprings until those panels worked to perfection. The panel swung inward, dumped Charlie at the feet of Hakim, and swung shut again. Hakim snatched up his stockless submachine gun and swung it toward the laughing group whose own minor panic had masked the sounds from Charlie's side of the van. Hakim would squeeze the trigger, a spray of forty rounds into their faces, the instant Guerrero dumped the second hostage inert at his feet.

But Everett, knocked too breathless by the dart to cry aloud, was a bigger specimen than Fat'ah had expected and was slow to succumb. He found the dart, gasping, tore it from his flesh, and took a step toward Guerrero whose foot caught him squarely in the crotch. The Panama­nian whirled him by his collar, slammed him against the panel, finally managed to thrust him inside, though mauled by the long legs that kicked as Everett began to lose consciousness. Hakim spat the single code word, 'kuwa, power,' and dropped over the struggling blond giant to smother his hoarse cry.

Guerrero rounded the rear of his van to find Gina Vercours stacking food on the lip of the narrow counter. 'Charlie, Sy,' she was laugh­ing, 'come see what we've got.^'

Guerrero made a gesture of helplessness, said, 'Keep it,' and dropped the side panel which sideswiped Gina's head as it fell. She dropped to her knees as Guerrero reached the driver's seat and a technician, aghast, leaped to Gina's aid.

Guerrero was hard-pressed to keep from draw­ing his Browning parabellum sidearm because he could hear, two hundred meters away, screams from the script girl who had seen it all.

The van squealed away as Gina, swaying to her feet, realized who was missing and where they must be. She fumbled in her shoulder bag for a heartbeat too long and Hakim, locked against his second victim, heard two rounds from the Beretta ricochet from the chassis beneath him. She had missed the tires, and knew better than to fire blindly into the van's rear panel.

Gina, staring helplessly after the careening van, replaced the Beretta before she retrieved the tranquilizer dart, holding it by its needle tip with a tissue. 'Warn the gate and get me to a tele­phone,' she slurred, dizzied by the blow against her temple. All the way to the sound stage, two thoughts vied for primacy in her head. They were, I've lost Maury, and I've lost my job. She could not decide which thought had occurred first.

As the van howled between two of the hangar-like sound stages, Guerrero bore far to the right to begin his left turn. He had thirty seconds on his pursuers but Hakim had made it clear that they must expect communication between the exterior sets and the guarded backlot gate. Guer­rero smiled, hearing Hakim's curses as he strug­gled with dead weights greater than his own, and sped toward the perimeter cyclone fenc­ing. Outside the fence was the access road, de­serted except for a small foreign sedan and a larger car towing an old mobile home. These vehicles were motionless.

Guerrero slapped the button in plenty of time but was not gratified. He slapped it again, then pressed it with a rocking motion as he tapped the brakes hard. Five meters of cyclone fencing peeled back as the bangalore torpedo at last ac­cepted its microwave signal, and Guerrero felt the pressure wave cuff the van. He angled through the hole, negotiating the shallow ditch with elan, and exulted in his choice of a vehicle with high ground clearance. As he made a gear change, accelerating toward escape, he could see Chaim in his outside rearview, dutifully tow­ ing the decrepit mobile home into position to block immediate pursuit along the access road. For once, Chaim Mardor performed above ex­pectation, the mobile home teetering for a mo­ment before it rolled onto its side, a barricade stretching from the ditch to the opposite side of the road.

Talith waited for Chaim in her small car, the only vehicle of their regular fleet that was not a van. Guerrero waited for nothing, but tossed quick glances to check the possibility of air sur­veillance. Van Nuys airport was soon sliding past on his right, and they would be vulnerable until he reached the state university campus where their other vans waited.

Minutes later, Guerrero eased the van into a campus parking lot. Hakim was ready with the crate and together they wrestled their burden, the bulk of a refrigerator, from their vehicle into the rear of a somewhat smaller van. As Hakim urged the smaller vehicle away, encouraging its cold engine with curses, Guerrero wheeled the kidnap van across the lot and abandoned it along with his vendor's uniform. It might be many hours before the abandoned van was noticed, among the hundreds of recreational vehicles on the campus. Guerrero knew what every undergraduate knew: a recreational vehicle was lim­ited only by what one defined as recreation.

He moved then to his last vehicle change, flex­ing his hands in the thin gloves as he waited for the engine to warm, for the flow of adrenaline to subside, for the next item on his private agenda. He had carefully planted Hakim's fingerprints on the abandoned kidnap vehicle after wiping away his own. On the other hand, Hakim had given him only a public rendezvous some kilometers to the west in Moorpark and not the location of the new Fat'ah site which, Guerrero knew, might be in any direction. Hakim's monolithic insistence on sole control was a con­ tinuing problem, but Guerrero had to admit the little palo blanco was thorough. He checked the time and grinned to himself; it wouldn't do to be late picking up Chaim and Leah. Guerrero's mas­ters were thorough, too.

By six PM, Hakim was so far out of patience that he fairly leaped from his seat in the Moor-park bus station at his first sight of Guerrero. The Panamanian bought a newspaper, saw Hakim stand, then ambled out into the street. It was too dark to read the fine print but, waiting for Hakim to catch up, Guerrero saw that they had once again made the front page above the fold. Fat'ah still had friends in print media—whether they knew it or not.

Though Guerrero walked slowly, Hakim sounded breathless. 'I told the girl to make ren­dezvous,' he said, as they paused for a stop-light. 'And you are four hours late!'

'The Americans had other ideas,' Guerrero growled convincingly. 'Talith and Chaim tried to run a blockade.'

'Escape?'

'I was lucky to escape, myself. They were cut down, Hakim.'

Hakim's voice was exceedingly soft. 'This you saw?^'

'I saw. It may be here,' he lied again, brandishing the folded newspaper, ready to grapple with the Iraqi if he saw his cover blown. Hakim Arif only looked straight ahead, and fashioned for himself a terrible smile.

They walked another block, forcing them-selves to study the window displays, checking for surveillance as they went. 'The hostages will be conscious again soon,' Hakim said as if to himself. 'They will be noisy, no doubt. Your delay forced me to inject them again.' Then, as a new possibility struck him: 'Was your van com­ promised?'

Guerrero gave a negative headshake, very much desiring to keep his own vehicle. 'It is just ahead there,' he indicated. 'Do I abandon it now?' Always, he knew, Hakim was perversely biased against an underling's suggestion. He had seen it work many times for Leah Talith; but Talith would use it no longer.

'We have expended twelve thousand dollars in vehicles, and two Fat'ah lives this day,' Hakim snarled. 'No more waste. Stay here, wait for my van, then follow.'

Guerrero nodded and sauntered to his parked van as Hakim hurried away. He knew that dis­tant friendly eyes were on him, but made no signal. One cigarette later, the latino saw Hakim's vehicle pass. He followed closely in traffic, then dropped back during Hakim's double-back maneuvers. When Hakim was satis­fied that only Guerrero was following, he turned north onto Highway Twenty-three toward the mountains.

Well beyond the town of Fillmore the lead van slowed abruptly, loitered along the highway until it was devoid of other traffic. Then Hakim swung onto a gravel road. Guerrero sensed that they were very near the new Fat'ah site and philosophically accepted his inability to share that suspicion with the men he reported to.

After two kilometers they turned again, and Guerrero saw that the new site was a renovated farmhouse in a small orchard. He hurried to help Hakim unload the crate at the porch, ignoring the awful sounds from inside it. Only when the crate was opened in the house did Guerrero learn why the massive blond hostage, gagged and tightly bound, was such a noisy passenger.