Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

“As you’ve been informed, His Pope-ness and all these fine people are prisoners of al Qaeda,” he said and motioned to the cameraman to switch from the Pope to the bombers, who were attaching their devices to the columns of the cathedral and running wires down the aisles toward a panel near the Pope’s chair. “Failure to comply with our few rules and our small requests…and we’ll blow this place to, pardon the pun, Kingdom Come. Oh, and by the way, that goes for any attempt to interrupt this broadcast now or at any time in the future. We are in contact with friends on the outside who will let us know, at which point I will have no choice but to kill someone for every minute we are off the air.”

Kane laughed. “Our demands are pretty simple. First, the Vatican will direct its bank to transfer by wire the sum of five hundred million dollars into an account the numbers of which will be given when the Vatican is ready and it had best be within the hour or else”-Kane did his best James Cagney gangster voice-“the Pope gets it, you dirty rats…. Next, when our demands have been met, we’ll be leaving this fine establishment and traveling to LaGuardia with His Eminence-just to make sure there’s no trickery-at which point we’ll board a 747 and fly to a country of my choosing. At that point, the Popester will be released to that government, which I’m sure can be negotiated with to allow his return to the Vatican.”

Kane pointed to the dead woman lying in the aisle and signaled for the cameraman to focus on her. “This bitch wouldn’t follow directions,” he quipped. “Now, she’s dead. So you can see that I am absolutely serious. Stay tuned for further updates in the near future. Oh, the clock starts ticking as…of…now.”

When the camera was turned off, Kane walked over to where Karp was sitting with his arm around Lucy. “Ah, my good friend Butch Karp,” he said, then sniffed the air. “Is that Karp, or carp? Something smells like dead fish.”

Karp said nothing so Kane pulled out his gun and waved it in his face. “What’s the matter, Karp, cat got your tongue?” He put the gun closer to Karp’s face. “So whatever shall I do?” he said. “Shoot you now or shoot you later.” He began to dance a little jig. “Shoot Karp now, or shoot him later. Shoot Karp now, or shoot him later.” He stopped dancing. “Shoot you now and splatter your fucking ugly head all over your little bitch daughter, or let you think about it?” He leaned toward Karp. “What shall it be?”

Karp continued to say nothing. He just looked in Kane’s eyes until the psychopath quailed, but then snarled. “I think we’ll wait. In the meantime, I have an hour to spare, maybe it’s time Miss Lucy and I became better acquainted. I’ve decided to make her my concubine, you know…mother of my children. Hey, how about that? We’ll be related. Mind if I call you Dad?”

Karp moved his hand so that it gripped Ned’s shoulder. Kane saw the move and said, “That’s right. Sit still, cowboy, while I go rape the shit out of your girlfriend. Come on, Lucy, let’s go.”

Any thoughts Karp had entertained about staying calm and finding a reasoned way out of the difficulty were lost to the duty of fatherhood. With a snarl he shot up from his seat, and with one hand grabbed Kane’s wrist so that he couldn’t use the gun and with the other took Kane by the throat and tried to crush his larynx. He had the momentary satisfaction of seeing terror in the eyes of Kane before the blow from the butt of the gun of a terrorist who’d come up to support Kane, stunned him. The second blow knocked him out.

The terrorist pointed the gun at Karp’s head to finish the job, but Kane stopped him. Still, clutching his injured throat and pointing his gun at Ned, who’d started to rise from his seat, Kane croaked, “No. I don’t want him dead yet. Bring the girl.”

Ned would have leaped and died anyway, but Lucy turned to him quickly. “If you love me, you’ll sit back down,” she said. “This isn’t over.” The cowboy remained poised for a moment, then collapsed into his seat.

“That’s right, cowboy,” Kane taunted. “No John Waynes in here, please. Any heroics would just get a lot of nice people killed. So Lucy and I are just going to go have a little fun, then we’ll be right back.”

“I’m going to kill you, Kane,” Ned said.

“Oh, get in line, cowboy,” Kane replied. “Of course you will. Isn’t that what happens in the movies? Oh, but wait. This isn’t a movie. This is real life and sometimes the bad guy wins!”

“And when I put a bullet in you,” Ned whispered, “that will be real, too.”

Kane looked at the cowboy for a moment as if weighing whether to end the threat. Then he laughed. “Yeah, but first I’m going to get the girl.”

As Kane and his bodyguard ascended the stairs to the altar and prepared to pass, the Pope spoke up. “Please, leave the child alone,” he said.

Kane shook his head. “Now, you just sit there like a good little Pope and wait for your friends to send me lots of money.”

But the Pope continued, “Don’t compound your sins by harming another innocent life. No man is so evil that he cannot find salvation through Jesus Christ.”

“Oh pul-eeze,” Kane said, rolling his eyes. “Take a look at the world, you clown, and tell me again that two thousand years of Christianity has improved things. And let’s take the Catholic Church. You’ve been ignoring the rapacious nature of your priests for how long? Do you think raping little boys is something new? The Catholic Church is just another greedy, money-sucking leech, willing to do whatever it takes to keep the coffers full and the faithful in fear of hell if they don’t do as you say. Did you know my father was also my grandfather…yes, that’s right, he fucked his own daughter, and then your precious church hid the dirty little secret. I don’t want your salvation or God’s forgiveness. If anything, you should be asking for mine and every other child out there harmed by your crap.”

“I am God’s representative on earth,” the Pope said. “If I beg for your forgiveness, will you give up this mad plan and let the child go?”

Kane looked up at the ceiling as if considering the offer. But then looked back at the Pope and said, “Hell, no. What do I look like, an idiot?”

As he began to pass from the cathedral, Father Aidan Clary stepped forward and clutched Kane by the arm. “I’ve done what you asked,” he said. “I’ve killed, and now I’m about to become a mass murderer. Where are the woman and my child?”

Kane pulled his arm away from the scar-faced priest. “Oh, I expect you’ll be seeing them soon enough,” he said, then looked as if something else had occurred to him. “Of course, if there really is a heaven and a hell…maybe not.”

Clary’s face became such a mask of anger and grief that one of the terrorists pointed a gun and motioned him back. “You promised,” the priest sobbed.

Kane looked amused. “Yes, so I did. But guess what? I lied. So long, Father…and thanks.”

As Kane pulled Lucy into the rectory, he stopped at a room where one of his men was monitoring a bank of monitors showing the outside of the building.

“Damn,” he said, looking back to smile at Lucy. “Looks like they got us surrounded. Whatever will we do?” He patted the terrorist on the back. “Anything to worry about?”

“Not yet,” the man said. “They have called in their SWAT teams, but they seem confused as to what to do next. The infidels are never prepared to accept losses. But soon they will see how real men die, Allah akbar. ”

“Yes, yes, Allah be praised and all that,” Kane said. “Let me know if anything changes.”