B009G3EPMQ EBOK (31 page)

I was Alice, back on the good side of the looking glass, but it was still surreal to see how these compassionate gentlemen each bristled with deadly weapons that were just now cooling down after the battle. It occurred to me then that they must have killed all the Somalis. How else could we have gotten out of there like that?

It might have been possible for one or two of the kidnappers to run away, but considering the night vision goggles the SEAL team used, it was hard to believe any glowing green human figures were going to skulk off into the flat scrub desert without being spotted. I knew all too well, after thinking about it so often, that there was nowhere to hide out there.

From the rendezvous airstrip we boarded an air force C-130 for the flight up to Djibouti, the small country on Somalia’s northern border. During the flight a few of the men tried to be social once again and do some simple joking around with me, but I still felt completely locked up. Simple conversational responses felt foreign. I was surprised to discover how difficult it was to think and speak
my way through an ordinary conversation. It felt as awkward and unnatural as writing with the wrong hand. The feeling persisted even after my adrenaline burned itself out. They gave me some privacy for a while by simply leaving me in peace, a luxury in itself. A form of relaxation settled in that was mainly composed of fatigue, but it slowed me down enough that I could set about trying to swallow what had just happened.

Okay, we’re out, Poul’s out, too. We’re both uninjured. Their medic even says none of the SEALs got hurt. As for the Somalis, they’re probably all dead—the ones in the camp, anyway. As for the rest
 . . .

The trouble was that the country is known as a nerve center for social gossip. No doubt the word was already traveling about the ambush, the dead guards, the escaped hostages, the lost opportunity.

Somebody out there—whether it was Bashir, the Colonel, the Chairman, or some unknown Galmudug clan leader—somebody had just lost a ton of investment on us. Somebody was not only furious, but might feel the need to seek retribution to regain status in the eyes of his fellows.

It struck me to wonder how hard would it be to dispatch a couple of
khat
-loaded killers to Hargeisa or Nairobi to take revenge on Erik. He was known to many of the local people, and it would have been easy to find him. With retaliation as a distinct possibility, I pushed my sluggish brain to think of something, do something, fight back the drowsy feeling and let these SEAL team fighters know this thing might not be over.

I piped up over the engine noise, “We have to call Erik and tell him to get out of the house! To get away! By now the kidnappers could already be ordering someone to go after him!”

The man just gave a small, confident shake of his head. “Not likely.” He didn’t say why he thought that.

I nodded as if I understood, but only to hide that I had no idea what to say. I felt socially damaged, as if something had happened
to me while I was out there but I was only now realizing the effect. One of the guys showed me the photo they carried for the purpose of recognizing me, if it came down to a question of identification, which I suppose meant identifying my body. The photo was a still shot taken from the proof-of-life video. It was taken weeks earlier, and I was already looking bad at the time, hollow-eyed and distant. That begged the question of what I must look like at the moment; I was too tired to go anywhere near it.

The rest of the flight went by in a state of melted consciousness between wakefulness and sleep. I had to let others take over and lead me around. One soldier handed me a Kashi granola bar, and I would have sworn then and there it was the most wonderful food on Earth. Actual nutrition—it seemed as if I could taste it with every cell in my body. Some other guy offered “chips and salsa,” which got a laugh, through I’m not certain there was any on board.

We were still in the air when one of the SEAL warriors handed me a beautifully folded American flag. Simply said, I have never felt prouder to be an American.

One of the guys was the FBI Hostage Rescue Team member on the scene, and he pulled a unit insignia patch from his uniform and handed it to me, saying it was a custom to award one directly from the strike team to any successfully rescued hostage. I didn’t know anything about such a custom, but it made no difference to me in that moment if it was a thousand years old or invented on the spot from one man’s kindness. I did my best not to completely break down under a very humble sense of gratitude and relief. There was mixed success with that one.

It was so hard to respond, filled with indescribable emotions and completely overwhelmed. But once we were on the ground I was clearheaded enough to hurry to the cockpit and profusely thank the pilots for getting us out. I kept thanking each man on the team while I passed him in the aisle or he passed me. I think I thanked a few of them several times.

Sunrise came a little after six-thirty, and although we landed in early morning light we deplaned to a wave of heat so intense it nearly slapped me back inside. A whole new crowd of people were waiting for us at the plane’s exit, and they quickly whisked us out of there. I looked back for the soldiers who rescued us, but they had already melted away.

Jessica:

My first contact on the ground was a psychiatrist named Dr. Ray, who worked with the Department of Defense. Their concern was the specific level of treatment we experienced. I didn’t mind telling him whatever I could, but I doubt I was all that clear yet. We interviewed in his DOD van, and the air-conditioning was exquisite. While we talked he offered me the small supply of junk food they were able to pull from vending machines at that early hour. I was so starved for nutrition that these items were beyond delicious; I could actually feel my body soaking up the energy they provided.

I suppose he decided I was okay to pass on to the next stage of the debriefing process, pleased, perhaps, that I wasn’t raving. We went next to the clinic for a more thorough medical exam. The experience was extraordinary; they were all so kind. Maybe it was the contrast of their civility with months of random insults, outbursts of violence, and medical neglect. I kept choking up at the sound of civil voices addressing me with gentleness and courtesy.

A young female doctor took me to a private room and asked if I had been raped. There would be a much different protocol if the threat of HIV/AIDS was involved. I explained that I didn’t know
why a full sexual attack never took place, given the callous attitudes of the men, but I was happy to report that unwanted pregnancy or STDs weren’t going to be an issue.

This greatly simplified my treatment, leaving me yet another reason to be grateful the SEAL attackers arrived before Jabreel’s inevitable attack, or Abdi’s, or that of any of the men who arrived and departed on the breezes out there. The more I thought about the perfection of the raid’s timing, right down to the dark of the moon and the careless guards, the more unreal it appeared. I had to get very small in my thinking and just take one moment after the next, to keep from being completely overloaded.

The nurse made a fresh pot of coffee and brought me a cup with sugar and cream. Until the moment I tasted the brew I hadn’t realized the taste of coffee with sugar and cream was a basic sense-memory for me, fundamental to the lines of memory running through my life. It was a warm reminder that this was all real.

At last I was allowed the luxury of a long, hot shower. Oh, it was good, though it wasn’t going to be too long, this time; since the FBI was eager to interview us and gain anything they could about the surviving kidnappers. I agreed to do whatever they asked, feeling no desire to argue with people who had just brought me back for one more chance at life, a surprise do-over after lengthy head-time spent considering how that life might best be employed, if it was somehow returned to me.

So I stood in that first shower washing away layers of dirt, noticing how bony I was to my own touch. I not only had a sense of being unreal within these surroundings, I felt unreal to myself. The dirt rinsed away well enough, but how dark were the stains on me going to be in the long run? I stood in the thick steam under the luxury of running water and safety and privacy, wondering who was under the hot spray.

I remembered who I had been, well enough. But I had no clear sense of who remained after this experience, or how I was to return
to ordinary life, do ordinary things. All I felt certain about was that this experience had swept through my life with a wide broom, pushing away so much that seemed terribly important, right up until that first automatic rifle barrel was thrust into my face.

I soaped myself all over for maybe the fourth or fifth time and loved the sensations of shaving my legs. I know the ritual is considered pointless in some parts of the world, but it’s a basic part of my picture of myself, and I was surprised by how good it felt. The ritual had power, voodoolike in its ability to act on me and restore some of the fundamental sensations of how it is supposed to feel to be myself, living in my body as I know it, and in my world as I choose to exist in it. Simple personal grooming restored some part of me in a genuine rush of strength and determination.

I was already resolved to make it the first thing I did in this new second chance at life to convince Erik our priorities had been shifted by this thing. We had to start avoiding such long work hours. We had to stop taking risks in the field and instead live like people who intended to have a full family life together and survive long enough to live it out. And of course that meant we would resume our efforts to get pregnant and not allow this thing to interrupt what had been so important to us before it all began.

Because the one thing that emerged stronger and clearer to me out of this experience was the certain knowledge that I wanted more than anything else to be a mother. That and my love for Erik were ultimately the strongest forces to keep my hopes for the future intact when illness and despair would have otherwise taken me away, perhaps long before rescuers had the chance to arrive.

It’s funny how the act of getting nice and clean clears up your thinking. I stepped out of the shower convinced that even though I was still full of doubt over my impeded social abilities, I was now clearly focused on the next step for me in this life with Erik in Africa, or anywhere else we might live in the future. I dried with an actual bath towel, thick and freshly laundered, and then opened
the toiletry kit some of the men had gallantly assembled for me. I noticed there were four sports bras in various sizes but no panties. Well-intentioned males: You’ve gotta love ’em.

I timidly asked a nurse about it. She gave an embarrassed laugh and had somebody bring me some underwear, but they turned out to be an extra-large pair of granny panties. Did I object? Are you kidding? They were actual underwear, clean, and meant for a woman.

I was getting anxious to see Erik, but one of the first things they got across to me in my initial psych interview was their official concern for how and when Erik and I were to be reunited. Nobody knew if I was going to go hysterical, blame him somehow, scream recriminations, slap and claw at him—I guess they’d seen a wide range of behavior from people held in captivity for long periods.

I felt no such anger or desire to cast blame on him, but I also had to privately admit I wouldn’t really be able to judge the effect of all this until Erik and I were back together and in a situation where we could talk it out. I knew he’d been racked with worry, and it seemed obvious the best way to bring a halt to that was for us to reunite without delay. So while I was eager to cooperate with my rescuers, their concerns sounded a little dramatic to me.

They told me my initial phone calls to Erik and my father should be kept to a maximum of five minutes each. So I steeled myself for another couple of stilted, brief conversations that would at least be something, some small bit of direct contact.

My first attempt to get through to Erik failed, so I tried my dad’s cell phone and got him on the first try. “Jess!” he cried out, and this man who was usually not an emotional guy sounded ecstatic. He called to my sister, who was right there with him, and she got on the line with us. We all cried together in sheer relief, and I apologized profusely for putting them through months of hell. Our call was short, but the effect on each of us was powerful.

Shortly afterward, one of the FBI agents walked in with his phone, saying Erik was on the line. As eager as I felt to take that call, from the moment we lurched into the conversation, I began to understand the reasons for restricting initial contact. The floodgates of emotion opened wide. We were both completely overcome, dissolving into tears. I felt nearly too stunned to speak. His voice sounded so good, just as I remembered it, sweet and loving. We could do little more than assure one another, over and over, that we still loved each other, no matter what.

“But, Erik,” I told him just before the phone was taken away from me, “I need to tell you that we’re going to have to have a long talk.”

“Of course, Jess! Of course! We have so much to talk about, everything that happened—”

“No, Erik,” I interrupted him. “I mean us. We have to do things differently from now on.”

“We will! We will, Jess. Whatever you want. Your NGO is arranging to fly me to you as soon as possible. Jess, I can’t wait to see you! Honey, I’m so sorry that all this happened, but we have the rest of our lives to figure things out. It will all be good.”

“I can’t go there now. We have to talk. We have to do better this time. For now, I just want you to please get out of Hargeisa and away from any revenge these guys might be planning. We have to think about their desire for retaliation.”

“All right, I’m leaving for the airport soon. God, Jess, I can’t wait to see you!”

We hung up a few moments later, each one assuring the other our love was alive and well. Still, as soon as the call ended I felt the full force of the wisdom behind the restricted time on first calls to loved ones. I was emotionally wrung out.