B009G3EPMQ EBOK (19 page)

This torture only began with the idiots on the other end of the kidnappers’ phone connection. The worst of it for Erik was self-inflicted when he agonized over being helpless to take some sort of bold and sweeping action, and force all of this to a conclusion.
Take the old-fashioned caveman approach, hunt down those men and fight them to the death.

Even if he had all the information in the world, there was nothing to be done with it. He was already connected to a huge network ranging from top politicians to guys on the ground in Somalia, as well as former Special Forces people from different countries, all of whom had offered their help. What kept him from accepting it was his pledge to do only what was in Jessica’s best interest. At this point he knew a private attack wasn’t an option, and even if an armed rescue plan went forward, the real professionals needed to do it. That didn’t mean the temptation wasn’t severe.

It gave him no pleasure to recognize this in himself. This is what he experienced as the power of raw frustration mixed with mortal fear for a loved one. By this time in the waiting period he had already witnessed, in John Buchanan, how it was possible to remain essentially calm and steadfast even amid such terrible anguish. He just wasn’t quite that way himself. He would have loved to have taken it all like some star in an action movie, one of those guys who always knows exactly how far to push things in order to save the day. But the world of movies had nothing to tell him.

What did he actually know? (1) They had a Crisis Management Team (CMT), made up of professional hostage negotiators and selected members of Jessica’s NGO. This team was linked to the families’ communicator, who spoke on the phone to Jabreel and funneled any news to Erik and the families via Dan or the CMT’s family liaison. (2) The U.S. government was involved via the FBI, which provided inside consultation on the negotiation strategy to the CMT. (3) The U.S. government knew the exact location where Jessica was being held.

Her father, brother, and sister knew they couldn’t do anything for her in Nairobi, any more than Erik could, but he understood how badly they needed to be there. They arrived from the United
States by way of London, all three sick from travel and stress, but after getting back to the apartment in Nairobi and talking things through, they decided to accompany him to Matt’s house for an overview on the case and to hear of the Bureau’s approval of the work being done by the CMT.

Erik could tell John appreciated Matt’s low-key sincerity and his intense devotion to his job. Erik and John agreed that if you have to go through something as terrible as this, you are lucky to have someone on point as responsive as Matt had been.

It was good for Erik to get back to the apartment, cramped as it was, and have a long talk. They all prayed for Jess together, and he felt no conflict at all in openly engaging in prayer. Strangely, while he still had no idea what he really believed about the nature of existence, Jessica’s example had taught him to separate spirituality from the dictates of organized religion.

They all agreed they didn’t feel like doing the touristy types of things that they would have been doing if everyone was there together, but they also felt that they’d go crazy if they just stayed home and hoped for a phone call. Later, when they did have formal meetings with the CMT or Jessica’s employers, Erik pushed them and repeatedly asked how they could have put their staff in danger like this if there was a threat to expats in Galkayo, strongly indicating to them it would be foolish to do anything less than their utmost to remedy this.

He demanded to know what medical and psychological arrangements they had prepared for Jess if she made it out. If she made it out tomorrow, what were their plans for her? They offered no answers that were good enough, and left him smashing his fists on the table. He consulted with them about doing whatever they could at that late hour, organizing community support such as local demonstrations and meetings with elders from the communities near the spot where they knew the hostages were being held. But nothing seemed to help.

Jessica’s family decided to stay close to Erik and Jessica’s apartment while only venturing out once in a while. Erik was glad to do a little sightseeing with them when he could, to at least give them a feel for some of the things that had made Jessica fall in love with the idea of living in Africa in the first place. It seemed important to communicate that her life there was much different from the madness confronting them. Jessica had known sunlight and happiness on this continent. She had earned the respect and in some cases even the love of people she knew and worked with. While she spent much of her personal time with Erik, she had spent her working life there giving the best of herself to the young minds of that emerging society.

He told anyone who would listen about her love for teaching, how she reveled in the successes of her students. Some of her students were impossible to reach, as they are at nearly any school. She hated that and took each loss personally. But Jessica had also seen the best of the young minds she encountered grasping the lifelines she threw them. She witnessed their own self-motivated climb, up and away into the future of those who have been awakened to their own potential. She knew students on that path might learn to reason their way through a complex world to find, somewhere within that world, a place they could fairly call their own. This was what Erik’s wife had brought to Nairobi, and in Somalia she trained teaching staff and then observed them in the classroom, all to help give them a better chance in life. If only, he thought, there was some way to make these people understand that about her.

You can’t let them take her from us.
That night he prayed without any sense of what the listener might look like. Surely, he thought, the loved ones of kidnap victims all offer the same prayer, if they pray, hoping their cause somehow makes them more worthy of cosmic favor than mere gamblers praying for a happy roll of the dice.

•  •  •

Jessica:

About two weeks into the kidnapping, Jabreel sidled over to me one evening and announced we would be talking to Mohammed that night. I had already started to fall asleep and didn’t relish jumping into an SUV and bouncing across the desert to wherever they felt was a good strategic location for a call.

“Planes. Spies,” Jabreel said, pointing overhead. “Amer-ee-cahn. We go far for call.”

I rolled my eyes at that. Really, I couldn’t help myself. The idea of magical American spy planes buzzing around overhead because of Poul and me was just another absurd image in this broken landscape.

“No planes, Jabreel. I’m not an important American.” I pointed at him. “You. Too much
khat
!” I pretended to chew.

He looked up when something caught his eye, and we both turned to see a couple of cars pull up. Dahir and a few other familiar faces jumped out looking pleased with themselves. They presented Poul and me with a two-inch foam mattress for each of us, plus one pillow apiece and a
hijab
for me, to cover my head.

Jabreel beamed at me as if this was all his personal accomplishment while the men brought over a large bag of bananas and grapefruit. As hungry as we were for fresh food of any kind, my heart sank at the sight of this. These guys were hunkering down for the long haul and instructing us to do the same. Sure, I welcomed the idea of getting something soft between me and the ground. And a pillow? I hadn’t even thought to ask for one. But still, I couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for the specter of an extended stay.

Jabreel clearly wanted some sign of gratitude. The best I could offer was a politely vague response, so he quit and walked away.

Eventually some mysterious person decided it was too late to journey into the wilderness for a phone call that night. There was no way to know for certain whether my words or my attitude toward Jabreel actually had anything to do with the decision not to go, or if he was the one who made it. Being left in the dark about decisions was standard procedure for us.

Instead they walked us back out into the open for some sleep-or-we-shoot-you. We toted along our new mattresses and pillows, and as soon as we reached the selected spot we set up our beds right away, moving swiftly to make it unnecessary for anyone to yell, “Sleep!”

Repetition and habit were teaching us to move half a step ahead of the enforcers, doing everything possible to stay in rhythm with them and avoid triggering anyone’s paranoia. I lay down like a good doggie who didn’t need to be ordered to sleep. After that there was only the open sky and a veil of darkness that I hoped would be unfaithful to them.

A few more days blurred together into a single piece. They were more about frustrated boredom and smoldering resentment than the moments of terror we had before then. Poul and I agreed neither of us felt any sense of “Stockholm Syndrome” in terms of mentally joining these fools. But it was impossible not to feel attached to the rare individuals who seemed to look at us and see human beings, even for an instant.

When Dahir, the guy we nicknamed “Helper,” had to take a car in for shop work or leave to pick up supplies, I felt insecure in his absence because at least he spoke some English. For that reason we didn’t like to see him get too far away.

“Helper” often helped without realizing it; we could mark the passing of time by his punctual prayer sessions, repeated five times a day. He also carried a small radio around, which none of the others had, and we could sometimes overhear Somali BBC newscasts.
The most bizarre twist arrived when I heard my name and the name of our NGO within the indecipherable Somali commentary. But there was some comfort in simply hearing signs of life in the outside world, when our own world had shrunk down to this one small and unhappy camp.

I found myself late one morning sitting under a torn orange tarp and taking wry note of the fact that the tarp could have been taken from that pirate video showing those two captive Spanish sailors, the ones who complained of being held for months with no word on negotiations.

At least our people are talking,
I thought. Maybe that thought activated Murphy’s Law—Abdi walked in from the outskirts of the camp, where he had been pacing and screaming into his phone. He was in such a foul temper that when Poul asked to “use the toilet” (walk to a nearby bush), Abdi pointed to a large, heavy blanket and demanded Poul use it to cover up while doing his business. It was a ridiculous demand in the heavy heat of the day, good for nothing more than yet another petty humiliation. I suppose part of his screaming phone conversations regarded their growing fear that we were being monitored from airplanes. Couldn’t these guys understand how much a search mission like that would cost? The planes? The pilots? The fuel?

To hell with it,
I thought. I was tired of trying to argue away Abdi’s paranoia.

Poul grudgingly did as he was told, but while he was gone Abdi picked up a large stick and began chopping at bushes with it, knocking down branches and banging it on the ground as if testing it for strength. He did it with more grace than a primate posturing for an adversary, but for the same reason and effect.

When Poul returned, Abdi’s intentions became clear when he lifted the stick and attacked Poul with it, beating him to the ground. I felt my terror level spike.

“Where is big money?” Abdi shouted, swinging the stick like a bat. “Where is big money?” Smack. “Where is big money?” Smack. “Where is big money?”

“It’s not our fault!” Poul cried, uselessly trying to reason with a stoned, raging speed freak. “We don’t control Mohammed!”

“F**k Mohammed! He lie! Small money! Small money!”

He swung the stick against Poul’s outstretched arms and hands. Poul cried out for him to stop, and I sobbed in frustration and outrage. Abdi noticed my distress, but as usual, my tears generated no sympathy and only provoked him further. He stomped over to me waving the stick.

“You up! Up! Up!
Hijab!
Walk!”

This amounted to an order from Abdi to stand up, cover my head with the
hijab,
and start walking out into the open desert. I started off without giving him any trouble, but even so Poul got whacked into following along with us. Abdi was in such a rage he couldn’t seem to stop himself from continuing to assail Poul. His rage moved past any attempt to persuade Poul of anything and simply became therapy for Abdi’s personal turmoil.

The instant lesson for me was that the specter of violent execution never gets better. We can adjust and inure ourselves to many hardships and challenges in this world, but the prospect of being murdered by a hateful enemy does not mellow over time. I had no clever lines to toss out, no movie-star cool to sneer at my captor, and I felt no sense of magical protection.

I knew there were centuries of human history packed with tales of faithful people who were killed in the midst of praying for release, and who found release only in death. Something told me not to bother to pray for cosmic magic. I just focused on praying for my own strength. I didn’t doubt that if I allowed fear to overcome me, Abdi’s rage would go over the tipping point. It was plain to me that when he looked at me now, he was starting to see red ink where dollar signs used to be.

We walked along with Abdi screaming into my face like a particularly energetic drill sergeant. “I am guerilla warrior! You f**k with me? You f**k with me? Where is big money?”

I forced my voice into a dead calm. “We don’t control the money, Abdi. We don’t even know Mohammed.”

“F**k Mohammed! He give small money! Small money!”

“I’m sorry about that, Abdi, but—”

“Where is big money?”

“I don’t know! You have to listen to me, Abdi! I don’t know! Poul doesn’t know! You hit us, we still don’t know!”

He stopped us and forced us to the ground under a large bush, then squatted in front of me close enough to bathe me in his body odor and halitosis. He glared into my eyes and then used his fingertip to slowly and deliberately write the number 18 in the sand.

“I get eighteen million in seven days—
seven
days, Jesses—or I cut off your head!”