The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel (38 page)

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As soon as the president left, the doctors wheeled Yael away as well.

They said they were taking her for tests. I lay there in pain, staring at the ceiling, reeling from all that had just happened, with no way to move and no one to talk to. Rarely had I ever felt so alone.

I closed my eyes but couldn’t sleep. All I could see was Jack Vaughn’s body hanging, dangling, twisting. I opened my eyes and glanced at the Iraqi children, all of whom were now sedated and sleeping, but all I could see were images of them in those hideous cages. I turned and stared at the ceiling, but all I could see was Yael and Sharif fighting for their lives in that compound in Alqosh
 
—fighting and, in Sharif’s case, losing.

An Air Force nurse soon came by to check my IV and vital signs. “How are you holding up, Mr. Collins?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”

Are you kidding?
I wanted to scream.
Do you have any idea what we’ve all been through?
But I just bit my tongue and nodded.

“Blood pressure’s a little high,” she said, putting a note in my chart. “Are you comfortable? Can I get you anything?”

I gritted my teeth. Was there anything I wanted?
Of course there is, lady. How about ironclad proof
Yael is going to be okay? How about my friends back from the grave? How about the last few days to have
never happened? How about a phone to call home, a computer to write the story, and the Wi-Fi to transmit it back to my boss?
But I just shook my head and stared at the space where Yael’s stretcher had been. I imagined the doctors working on her, hooking her up to all kinds of hoses and tubes and monitors, and I was scared for her.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “But what about my friend
 
—is she going to be okay?”

“We’ll know soon enough,” she said.

“She took a terrible blow to the head back there,” I said.

“Yes, I know,” the nurse replied.

“And her arm is broken,” I added.

“We’re on it,” she insisted.

“And she’s got severe burns all over her body,” I noted.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Collins; we’re doing everything we can to take care of her,” she assured me. “And when we touch down, we’ll get her straight to Walter Reed. We’ve already alerted them. They’re going to be standing by with a first-class team when we get there. Believe me, she’s in good hands.”

I nodded with gratitude, then wondered if I’d heard her right. “Did you say Walter Reed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The medical center?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In Washington?”

“Well, Bethesda, but yes.”

“We’re not going to Tel Aviv?” I asked, somewhat perplexed.

“No, sir,” she said. “Why would you think that?”

“Well, I just thought . . . I mean . . . Yael’s Israeli, so, you know, I thought we’d be
 
—”

“What, dropping her off?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Sir, this plane is carrying the president of the United States.
We’ve got one priority, and that’s to get the commander in chief back to D.C., back to the White House, as quickly and as safely as possible. That’s it. That’s our mission. Everything else will have to wait.”

“Of course,” I said. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure, sir. Now you get some rest. We’ve got a long flight ahead of us.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Do you want me to give you something?”

“No, no, it’s not that; it’s just . . .”

“I know. You’re worried about Miss Katzir. But I’m sure she’ll be fine, Mr. Collins. And I suspect she’ll be awake in a few hours. Why don’t you get some rest? And when she stirs, I’ll be sure to wake you.”

“You’d do that?”

“Of course, sir. It would be my pleasure.”

“Well, thank you,” I said, choking up. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . .”

“It’s okay, Mr. Collins. You need to rest. That’s it. Just lie there and rest. You’re safe with us now.”

The funny thing, given the circumstances, was that I actually believed her. As I leaned back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt safe. But I did now. Sad, but safe. Mourning and hollow and racked with grief . . . but safe. And it was odd. Good, but odd.

Soon my breathing began to slow. My eyes started getting heavy. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, I began to relax. We’d rescued the president. He was safe. We’d rescued all these children, and they were safe too. Yael was getting the best care she possibly could, and so was I. There was nothing else I could do, nothing but rest and resist the temptation to slide headlong into a depression that would just make everything worse.

For a moment, I craved a drink, but I forced myself to think about something else
 
—something, anything
 
—and fast. I began to think about the story I was going to write. I tried to imagine what
I was going to tell Allen first, the moment they let me use a phone. I tried to organize my thoughts and imagine how I was going to capture all that I’d been through and communicate it to a world that wasn’t going to hear it any other way. This wasn’t just a series of articles. This was a book. And I was no longer going to be under a military censor. My thoughts raced.

Soon the cabin lights were dimmed. Conversations turned to a whisper and then quieted completely. The people on this plane were as spent as I was, and everyone began to settle in for the twelve-hour flight. I glanced up the hallway and noticed a young Air Force officer pulling down all the window shades. Before she got to us, I looked out the window nearest to me and noticed that we had started banking west. It took me a moment to realize exactly where we were, but then I saw the Jordan River. I saw the barrenness of the Judean wilderness below us. I knew then that we were clearing the airspace of the Hashemite Kingdom. We were heading into Israel, toward the Mediterranean, and then home.

And then, as we began to level out, I could see the brave young men flying those Navy fighter jets, our escorts. One of the jets was so close I could have waved to the pilot if I’d wanted to.

Then the young officer arrived, and just before she closed the window shade, she turned to that pilot and caught his eye, and she saluted him. And the pilot saluted back.

And when he did, I broke. My eyes welled up with tears. I got a lump in my throat. I tried to hold back the emotions. They embarrassed me. But I couldn’t help it. As the officer closed the last of the window shades and darkness settled on the medical bay, I closed my eyes again and began to shake, began to weep. Quietly. Not so anyone could hear me. I was simply overcome with relief and gratitude beyond measure.

And then, though it felt far from familiar, I quietly said a prayer. I thanked God for rescuing me, for giving me another chance. I asked
him to take care of Yael, to bring her back to me safely. And then I wiped my eyes and closed them and thought about those fighter jets at our side, keeping us safe.

I reached over and inched up the shade. Just a crack. Just to be sure.

The fighter escort was still there.

And no sight had ever looked as good.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joel C. Rosenberg
is a
New York Times
bestselling author with more than three million copies sold among his nine novels (including
The Last Jihad
,
Damascus Countdown
, and
The Auschwitz Escape
), four nonfiction books (including
Epicenter
and
Inside the Revolution
), and a digital short (
Israel at War
). A front-page Sunday
New York Times
profile called him a “force in the capital.” He has also been profiled by the
Washington Times
and the
Jerusalem Post
and has been interviewed on ABC’s
Nightline
, CNN
Headline News
, FOX News Channel, The History Channel, MSNBC,
The Rush Limbaugh Show
, and
The Sean Hannity Show
.

You can follow him at
www.joelrosenberg.com
or on Twitter
@joelcrosenberg
.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over the years, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with an amazing team for whom I could not be more grateful. They are consummate professionals, love what they do, and approach every detail with creativity and excellence.

Scott Miller, my literary agent, and his team at Trident Media Group are the best in the business.

Mark Taylor, Jeff Johnson, Ron Beers, and Karen Watson at Tyndale House Publishers are a great team, and it has been a true pleasure to work with them over the years. They truly get what I’m trying to do and are always helping me do it better. Their colleagues are absolutely outstanding: Jan Stob, Cheryl Kerwin, Todd Starowitz, Dean Renninger, the entire sales forces, and all the others that make the Tyndale engine hum. And I don’t know what I’d do without Jeremy Taylor, my editor extraordinaire.

June Meyers and Nancy Pierce on my November Communications, Inc. team always give 100 percent, and I’m so grateful for their hard work, attention to detail, kind and gentle spirits, and faithfulness in prayer.

I’m so deeply blessed by my family. They have all been so encouraging, patient, and helpful on this adventure from the beginning, and I would never want to do it without them.

Thanks so much to:

My wife, Lynn, with whom I just celebrated twenty-five amazing years of marriage and can’t wait for a million more!

Our four wonderful sons
 
—Caleb, Jacob, Jonah, and Noah
 
—who
are true gifts from our Father in heaven to Lynn and me, and whom we cherish more than they will ever know.

My parents, Len and Mary Rosenberg, who have encouraged me as a writer since I was just eight years old and haven’t given up on me yet. They just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in the summer of 2015 and have set a great example for our whole family of a marriage rooted in Christ.

The Meyers, Rebeiz, Scoma, and Rosenberg families, who fill our lives with so much love and laughter.

Lastly, but most importantly, I want to say thank you to the fans of these books in the U.S., in Israel, and all over the world. I am so grateful for your e-mails, Facebook messages, tweets, and letters. I only wish I could write these books as fast as you all read them. Thank you so much. I just hope
The First Hostage
manages to live up to your incredibly high (and growing) expectations.

“IF THERE WERE A
FORBES
400 LIST OF GREAT CURRENT NOVELISTS, JOEL ROSENBERG WOULD BE AMONG THE TOP TEN. HIS NOVELS ARE UN-PUT-DOWNABLE.”

STEVE FORBES, EDITOR IN CHIEF,
FORBES
MAGAZINE

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