"Is the farmer alone?"

"Most likely," Friday replied. Hostages who had been kept a short while tended to be highly agitated, even panicked.

They wanted to get to someone who could protect them.

Even if there were other hostages at risk, including close family members, self-preservation was their first, irrepressible instinct.

Hostages who had been held a long while were usually just the opposite.

They had already bonded with their captors and were very standoffish, frequently antagonistic, The man below them was neither.

Nazir hovered a moment longer and then set down on a nearby field.

After the noisy forty-minute flight it was good to hear nothing but the wind. The cool breeze also felt good as they made their way to the farm.

Nazir wore a 38 in a holster on his hip. Friday carried a derringer in the right pocket of his windbreaker and a switchblade in the left. The22 gun did not pack much punch but he could palm it if necessary and easily use it to blind an assailant.

The farmer waited for the men to arrive. Friday made Apu Kumar out to be about sixty-five. He was a small, slope shouldered man with slits for eyes. His features seemed to have a trace of Mongolian ancestry.

That was not uncommon along the Himalayas. Nomads from many Asian races had roamed this region for tens of thousands of years, making it one of the world's truest melting pots. One of the sad ironies of the conflict here was the fact that so many of the combatants had the same blood.

The men stopped a few feet from the farmer. The farmer's dark, suspicious eyes looked them up and down. Beyond the house was the barn.

The chickens were still squawking from the fly over "Good morning," Nazir said.

The farmer nodded deeply, once.

"Are you Apu Kumar?" Nazir asked.

The farmer nodded again. This time the nod was a little less self-assured and his eyes shifted from Nazir to Friday.

"Does anyone else live here?" Nazir inquired.

"My granddaughter," the farmer replied.

"Anyone else?"

Kumar shook his head.

"Is your granddaughter here now?" Nazir asked.

The farmer shook his head. He shifted a little now. His expression suggested fear for his safety but now his body language said he was also tense, anxious. He was hiding something. Possibly about his granddaughter.

"Where is she?" Nazir pressed.

"Out," Apu replied.

"She runs errands."

"I see. Do you mind if we look around?" Nazir asked.

"May I ask what you are looking for?" the farmer asked.

"I don't know," Nazir admitted.

"Well, go ahead," Apu said.

"But be careful of my chickens.

You've already frightened them once with your machine."

He made a disdainful gesture toward the helicopter.

Nazir nodded and turned. Friday hesitated.

"What's wrong?" Nazir asked the American.

Friday continued to look at the farmer.

"Your granddaughter is one of them, isn't she?"