Humiliations? Stupid things that meant so much at the time that they stuck. You felt your life had been a string of mistakes and you wanted to go back and get it right before you checked out. And try as you might, you didn't care at all about the triumphs—degrees, ceremonies, honors. No, all you could remember were the little, trivial things, joys and sadnesses that were yours alone. Remembrances of trivialities past. That's what being a hostage was all about.
On the other hand—and she hated herself for this feeling—there was something almost erotic about men with so much sudden, ill-gotten power. Evil had its own allure, just as surely as good. Were they just two opposite sides of the same emotion? Wasn't Satan the real hero of Paradise Lost ? Was Ramirez that same figure? The sexiness of power. Bill Bates had the same aura. . . .
Georges and his young staff engineers were sitting listlessly and staring at their computer screens, looking exhausted and defeated. Bill had been confined to his office, where he could do nothing but fume since his radio had been shut down and there was now only one phone remaining connected to the outside world—the one on her desk, which they monitored.
It got worse. Isaac was coming in, which meant they'd have a real prize for a hostage. As if Bill weren't enough, to have a famous American Jewish professor in hand would be the topping on their whole grab.
She tried to catch Georges's eye, across the room. He seemed to be drowsing at his terminal, almost as though nothing had happened. Since he had always held a political stance slightly to the left of Che Guevara, maybe he secretly enjoyed being taken hostage by these self-appointed enemies of American Capitalism.
No . . . she saw an eyelid flutter ... he was just faking his calm. He was scared to death. And he was thinking. About what?
She had done some thinking of her own, about the guy who called himself Number One, the terrorist now sitting at the other end of Command, calmly smoking a thin cigar. As she examined him, the gray temples and perfect tan, the beige sunglasses, she began to find his appearance a little incongruous. What was it?
Well, for one thing, he looked too perfect. Something about him . . . He had to be at least in his late forties, but nobody's face looked like that at his age. It was too smooth, too tight.
Plastic surgery. The bastard had changed his appearance. So who was he, really? He hadn't given his name, but his face must have mattered once. Who?
Try and put it together, she told herself. He's not Middle Eastern. Maybe he's trying to pass as an Arab, but he's not fooling me. No, he's Latin. It's in the way he moves, the way he brushes at his sleeve, the way he holds his cigar. He's just like Domingo, the guy in junior year, who thought he was God's gift to the feminine gender.