Fortunes Obsession (18 page)

     She thought that this man was certifiably insane.  " Oh yes, fine.  I had a wonderful nights sleep.  I'm so relaxed.  I had a few bad dreams though."

     " Tell me about them, I love to hear about dreams."

     " Oh," She said, " Then you'll love this one.  I dreamed the ugliest dog I've ever seen was trying to force me to have sex with him.  This dog had the worst breath I've ever smelled and he snorted like a pig."

     She saw Fahd's smile momentarily fade to a frown and for a moment was frightened that she had gone too far in her goading him.  He smiled again quickly.  " Oh, how terrible.  I would think that a lot of women would enjoy having sex with an animal. Have you ever fantasized that?"

     She decided to change the subject. " What is the weather report for today?  I hope it's not going to rain.  I hate long motor trips in the rain."

     " On the contrary," He said, " The weather is spectacular. It is dry, sunny and unseasonably warm.  What more can we ask?"

     Fahd looked at her and wondered if she really knew what had happened last night.  No matter.  It was a fantastic sexual experience for him.  To him, it was tantamount to stabbing an unfaithful mistress again and again.  He was stimulated just thinking about it and would have liked to do it again.  The bitch was useless for anything else now.  He looked forward to his new life with Sarita.  If she treated him right, he would treat her right for a long time.  He reserved his perverse tastes for the women that Mustafa found for him and for faithless whores like this one here.  He would have liked to beat her last night but he did not want to send Bokaar damaged merchandise. Notdamage that he could see, anyway.  He thought about the money he would receive today and of how he was building a small fortune here in America.

What good fortune it was to have made his way to this country.  It was so easy to break the rules here.

     Dara dressed slowly and applied her makeup just as Fahd had ordered.  As much as she despised him, she would obey him for the moment, having found out he was capable of such violence. The pain was subsiding slightly and the better she felt and the clearer her head, the angrier she was.  She looked at herself in the mirror and thought she looked pretty good for a girl that had been raped and drugged the night before.  She decided that she would have made a great actress because what she really wanted to do was plunge a dagger through Fahd's heart and here she was smiling at him and obeying his every command.

     When she walked out of the bedroom, Fahd nodded in approval.

He laughed to himself when he thought of all her precious luxuries now sitting in his warehouse in Long Island City.  Again, he thought of her faithlessness and reveled in the thought of the pleasures his terrorist friends would take with her before they finally disposed of her.  He felt nothing but disdain for this woman and would have loved to kill her himself but he knew the bounds of what he could get away with in America.

The American Dream did not include the right to kill an unfaithful mistress.  Oh, well, one couldn't have everything

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     Ali Bokaar awoke early in great anticipation.  He had received his final instructions from Bey the night before and had all of the money in a small suitcase.  He was anxious to get on with the operation.  It had been quite sometime since he had been in action.  He thought of the girl and the lust swelled inside him.  This would be a great part of the whole deal.  When it all started, he had suggested the girl in a taunting kind of jest. He never dreamed that Fahd would actually part with her.  He did something that he did not do often.  He bathed and shaved. He had actually purchased a bottle of cologne and sprinkled himself liberally upon emerging from his bath.  He also put on a clean white shirt and a clean pair of slacks.  Even though he had no need to attract the girl, who would be his prisoner and slave, something in his ego drove him to groom himself.  After giving the money to the girl and receiving the documents, he would follow her closely toward the car and when the driver pulled away, he would pounce on her.  He thought back on the many rapes and kidnappings he had perpetrated in the Middle East with great stimulation.  This would be his crowning conquest.  He had never had a real blonde before, especially one taller than himself.

He looked in the mirror and saw something more than what was really there.  He saw a rather dashing, swarthy man who women would lust after.  What was really there was a fat, short man, who was just short of ugly with bulging arm muscles and fierce black eyes.  He usually had a full or partial beard but today was clean shaven.

     He hoped that Fahd was really going to have a helicopter escort for the driver because his orders were to keep the money and dispose of the driver if there was no helicopter. He did not want his time with the girl to suffer due to having to change plans.  His plan was to keep the girl until he was tired of her and then pass her on to his friends.  After that, she would be killed.  He wondered if it made sense to take her to Orlando and take a chance of her ruining the whole scheme.  No, he would only be able to take his pleasure with her here until he was summoned to Orlando.  His friends would have to find their own women and he would have to dispose of her here.

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     Peter took a cab to within a block of Dara's building.

In his pocket were the directions Dara had given him to the New Jersey address.  He knew that he would never have to take them out of his pocket.  He had long since memorized them.

     He walked into the garage, keys in hand and came to the parking spot.  His heart sank.  The space was empty.  He pondered the fact that he may have remembered the wrong spot but he knew that he had not made a mistake.  Why was the car missing?  Did Fahd make her take her own car?  Maybe that was so and she couldn't get in touch with him.  The greater possibility was that foul play was in the cards and that Fahd had taken his car back.

This made it all the more imperative that Peter get to the New Jersey address.  He thought of alternatives.  His best bet was to call Corning, who lived on Park Ave. and Eightieth street and had

a car.  He ran up to the street, searching for a pay phone, all the while cursing himself for forgetting his cellular phone.  He spotted two booths at the next corner and ran to the spot. Both phones were out of order, as so often happens in New York City.

He had no idea where the next phones were and the days of finding phone booths in stores were long gone.  It was Sunday morning and passers by were scarce, giving him no one to ask.  He broke into a trot heading south, looking on both sides of the street. Three blocks later, he found one that was working.  He stood, sweating and out of breath, searching his pockets for a quarter or it's equivalent.  There were no coins in his pocket.  Everything was going wrong from square one.  He felt like the amateur he was.

Finally, it came to him.  Make a collect call!  He called collect and panicked momentarily when Corning's phone rang three times before he picked it up.  After the acceptance process, which seemed to take an awful long time, Corning answered.

    " What's the matter Peter?  I thought you'd have been on your way by now."

     Peter explained the situation, and Corning, who wasn't dressed yet, told Peter he would pick him up in fifteen minutes.

     Peter hung up and paced back and forth for what seemed like an eternity.  He looked at his watch and five minutes had passed.

He went over the plan in his mind and thought of what else could go wrong.  Had he covered every possibility?  He felt very small and insignificant and feared for Dara's safety.  She had literally put her life in his hands and already he was screwing it up.  In retrospect, it was a dumb idea to consider using her

car, when he could have used Corning's in the first place.  He remembered now, that he wanted to keep Lance out of it because of his ill health.  He knew that once Corning's car was in the mix, Corning would insist on joining in.  Peter thought hard and realized that having someone to drive was a better idea.  Corning could be at the curb, ready to make a fast getaway, in case it was necessary  to get out of the car to rescue Dara.  Corning's four door Cadillac would also be easier to jump into in an emergency.

     Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Corning's burgundy Cadillac rolled up to the curb.  Peter entered the passenger door and as if shouting directions to a cabby, said, " George Washington Bridge to Route eighty."

     "  God damn it Peter, I know that.  Now calm down.  You're not going to help any one if you're in a state of panic.  We have plenty of time and it's Sunday morning.  The traffic is practically non- existent."

     Peter just sat in the passenger seat, staring at the road.

"  I just hope the hell we know what we're doing.  It all seemed so easy when I thought about it but now I keep thinking of all of the things that could go wrong."

     Lance took the Harlem River Drive to the Washington Bridge ramp with nary a stop.  The traffic over the bridge was clear and the toll booths were in the other direction, giving them a chance to make up all of the time Peter had spent changing their plan.

     They should reach the address Dara had provided, a good

two hours before Dara arrived.  They decided to find the address and then park a few blocks away until approximately the time Dara should be leaving Manhattan.  That would be eleven o clock.  This way, even if she were early, they would be there.

     They reached Bokaar's house at about nine fifteen and found it exactly as Dara had described it.  A shabby looking house, badly in need of a paint job, nestled in the middle of a quiet block.  A block so quiet, that it looked uninhabited.

     After stopping at a diner a few blocks away, they settled at a table and indulged themselves in a large breakfast which they merely pecked at, neither having much of an appetite.  They sat quietly, reading the Sunday Times.  Eventually, Lance took out his mechanical pencil and started the crossword.  The time seemed to be creeping at a snail's pace.  Finally, after several dirty looks from the waitress, they realized that they had to give up the table and adjourned to Corning's car.  They sat there in the parking lot, reading every word of the paper.  Finally, with Peter's help, Lance finished the crossword.  At eleven o clock, they drove to the end of Bokaar's block, a spot about three to five hundred feet from his house.  They felt that they had an excellent vantage point and that they could react swiftly to any

trouble.  Starting at about eleven thirty, a stout, swarthy man poked his head outside the door at frequent intervals.  At the same time, a helicopter appeared about three hundred feet above the house and began to circle the area.  This caused great concern to the two men.  They naturally thought that the heli-

copter belonged to the terrorists.  Peter imagined himself being gunned down from the helicopter while trying to rescue Dara.  What had seemed to be a foolproof plan was turning into a nightmare.

     Peter looked skyward. " What do you think?" He asked, " How low could he come?  I don’t think he could get low enough in this wooded neighborhood to get a good shot.  Of course, if he were really desperate, he could land in the street.  Christ! We should have brought field glasses.  Every time something happens, I think of something else I forgot."

     Lance looked pensive.  " On the other hand, he might be there to protect the money. Yeah, that’s it.  He's probably in Fahd's employ and not the terrorists."

     " I hope to hell you're right," Peter said, " Something has got to go our way today."

     They sat there for what seemed like a long time.  The street so empty it looked like a ghost town and the helicopter circling above.  The general effect was hypnotic and Peter, who hadn't slept all night, felt himself starting to nod off.  Soon he was asleep, his head resting on the car window and Lance staring intently in the direction the limousine was sure to come from.

    Peter felt an elbow jam into his side.  " Peter, wake up, they're here."

     Peter shook the sleep from his eyes and saw the black limousine turning the corner and gliding toward Bokaar's house.

It made a U-turn and came to a stop in front of the house.

     Dara, in the back seat, looked for the black Porsche the minute they came on to the block.  She turned around to look one more time and her blood ran cold.  There was no sign of the Porsche.  There were about six cars on the block and none of them could have hidden the Porsche.  Every parking space on the block was in full view.  She noticed a helicopter hovering in the vicinity of the house and coming down, progressively lower, after their arrival.  She thought that most certainly, the helicopter was there to kidnap her and take her somewhere Peter could never find her.  She resisted the impulse to break in to tears.  Mustafa, instead of handing her the case, picked up the car telephone and dialed.  She remained in the car behind the darkened windows which gave no vision from the outside but could be seen through from the inside.

     She heard him speak in a low voice.  " Mr. Fahd.  We are here.  The helicopter is above and it looks perfect.  It is now just above the tree line.  We better work fast before it attracts too much attention in the neighborhood.  Yes, I'll send her now.

Yes, I understand.  I will do that."