B009G3EPMQ EBOK (22 page)

Instead I spent the night and the following morning on pins and needles. Even though Poul is more reserved than I am, I didn’t doubt he felt the same way. Finally the hour arrived. We made the ridiculous precall preparations, traveling out into the scrub for miles, then stopped and waited for Erik’s call.

Somebody decided to allow me to answer the phone this time. Maybe they wanted to see me break down at the sound of my husband’s voice, but the opportunity was too precious to waste like that. I resolved to keep my voice and emotions steady, no matter what I heard, no matter what happened, during every second of time that the phone connection was live.

For now, there was nothing as important as resetting the relationship between our captors and our NGO or the FBI or whoever was controlling Mohammed. And I would be damned if I would allow anybody in that place to make me scream or cry out in any way as long as Erik could hear me. I couldn’t begin to imagine the torment he was suffering, in its own way as bad as mine, and I’d die before inflicting those sounds on him and then leaving him with a dead phone connection to contemplate.

Dear Jess–

I had a dream last night about my early days on the job. It seemed to concentrate this toxic frustration down to its essence. The details were different but the frustration was very much the same. My response was exactly what I’m dying to do today.

I’m at the doors of Galkayo Prison, scheduled to make a visit to check the conditions there to see if the prison qualifies for my NGO’s help. I have an appointment, but nobody is coming to open the door. I stand with my small team feeling too angry at this neglect to simply walk away. It’s early during my career in this country and I still have something of a cowboy mentality toward my job.

I stand beating on the door until my hands begin to bleed. Finally, in a dark imitation of the entry scene for The Wizard of Oz, a guard opens the door, pretending not to have known we were there all that time. We are admitted inside.

Before long, I’m almost sorry we got in. This isn’t a prison; it’s a dungeon, and in all the worst implications of that word. The men receive no fresh air or sunlight, and I already know some of them have been there for years without being brought to trial or even formally charged with a crime.

I notice they are chained together in groups of about ten men apiece, and I ask the purpose of this. They tell me the policy helps prevent escapes by making it hard for the men to move. But why, I ask, are so many men chained in a single group? And how can they use the toilet that way?

The guard just grins and points at a hole in the floor over in the corner. “All go together, every time!” He laughs. They live in the stench of one another’s filth. As a group, each man in this chain watches one of the others defecate in close proximity at least ten times a day. That’s only if nobody has diarrhea, which seems unlikely with the garbage I see them being fed. I try to imagine living in a tiny room that smells like the worst public restroom anyone has ever seen, with at least fifty other men, all chained in groups of eight to ten. The stench is like nothing I’ve encountered before. It’s the odor of a poorly tended zoo.

Nobody would stay inside that toxic cloud by choice. I stare at these forlorn creatures and wonder if they somehow get used to the crowding and the filth, or if their senses are reoffended every time they wake up to find themselves in that place again.

And the men’s medical condition—dreadful, even to the untrained eye. The inmates I see are all black African males, but most are literally ash gray in color. There is no natural human skin color like that. The question hits me, How long does a black man have to be held without sunlight for his skin to go so strangely gray?

Faces loom at me from the shadows of their cells, with shades of death stretched across their faces. My only purpose there is to help them. I have to find a way, but I don’t even know where to start.

I ask a guard if the men ever go out into the courtyard. He laughs and points out at the courtyard’s surface, covered in stones. “Too many rocks! The men get rocks and kill us!”

I tell him if he ever expects to get any help from my
organization maybe they should go out to the courtyard and remove the rocks so there’s no longer a “security problem” lying around on the ground. Is it too much to ask, I want to know, to put in a little physical labor and clear the ground?

I am stunned with disbelief, not just by the primitive conditions but also by the laughing cruelty of the guards. The question of who would want a job like this is answered by their casual inhumanity. They appear to like their jobs for all the wrong reasons.

Finally, one of them begins tormenting an inmate by jabbing him through the bars with the barrel of his gun. He grins at me while he does it, as if fully expecting me to laugh along with him and encourage his behavior. Instead, my temper gets the best of me and I snap. I grab him by the front of his shirt, lift him several inches off the ground, and slam him back against the wall.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demand. “You bastard! You bastard! Are you out of your mind?”

The answer comes not from him but from behind me. It is a fast series of metallic clicks. I turn to see AK-47 barrels all around me. Every one of them is pointed directly at my head.

All right, perhaps not the best tactic. I lower the man back to the ground
 . . .

Erik woke up then, but couldn’t shake off the dream, which was all true, down to every haunted face. The question lingered—had he worked to release some of the men from that prison, only to return them to a life of crime—say, kidnapping for ransom? Could one of them be among the men holding Jess now?

His life was saved that day when the lazy prison commander showed up to calm the guards and escorted him out of the prison in one piece. Luck was with him; they won concessions from the prison to alter its restraint policy and went on to get releases for a
number of the men being illegally held there. Those men escaped that hellhole with whatever health they had left. He could only imagine their joy and relief when they were shown the door and told to go, after giving themselves up for dead.

But while he lay in the dark and tried to sort his thoughts, bad ideas formed: Should he go appeal to the kidnappers on that basis? Let them know he had worked to free them, and if not them, then their brothers? Would they show Jess mercy in return?

It was only another extreme idea, based on nothing more than the frustrated desire to do something, do anything other than simply watch the clock. It echoed his wishful thinking for a time like that day at the prison when he was able to take effective action with no thought about risk to anyone but himself.

It was Thanksgiving morning when Erik’s dream was interrupted by a call from Dan Hardy saying another proof-of-life call was scheduled with the kidnappers. In a quiet voice Dan asked if Erik would be willing to reverse the strategy and speak directly with the kidnapper and possibly with Jess as well. The CMT’s hostage negotiation consultant chimed in and made it clear to Erik that every word he spoke would count. The slightest misstep could ruin everything, and therefore he didn’t dare indulge in the sort of anger-based response he had used in that prison.

He would have to make the call alongside their communicator, Mohammed, along with the professional negotiator, with the FBI and CMT members standing in the next room and listening in. Jess would be surrounded by those kidnappers. Still, if they agreed to put her on the line, Erik would actually hear her voice for the first time since this all began. He was cautioned not to express any emotion to the kidnappers, and to remain calm and steady. The CMT’s position was going to be that the Somalis had to advance the negotiations by coming down on their demands.

Beyond that, the Crisis Management Team was running out of options.

Jessica:

The phone rings. Jabreel is there to chaperone, but Abdi and the Colonel are sleeping, and this time Jabreel actually lets me hold the phone myself instead of having him hold it next to my ear. I answer on the first ring, with the speaker off. The line is full of static and the connection is iffy, so I jump right in.

“This is Jessica,” I begin, holding my breath.

“Hey! . . . Uh, Jess, it’s Erik.”

And there it is. Now I get it.

Right there, in that first moment of hearing Erik’s voice, I suddenly grasp the reason why we were warned in our training that we would probably not be allowed to speak with loved ones if we were ever taken for ransom. The rule always sounded excessive to me.
Okay,
I thought.
I get it now. I do.

Because I know Erik too well and I can hear, even in those few opening words, his pain and his fear for me. At the same time I know others won’t pick it up because he is so good at self-control under stress. I’d give anything to spare him this razor wire he’s trying to walk, and I’m already glad I pulled my determination together before we started. I can only maintain equilibrium in this
moment by lapsing into my best business mode. We could lose the connection at any second, and we have to get this right.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hey—Hey. How
are
you?” he begins, and somehow manages to communicate all his concern for me in those few words.

“Okay. Um, we’re okay.”

People in the background are milling around now, disturbing my concentration. Word must be out that we have a connection. Everybody knows its all about money.

“Jess, I cannot hear you . . .”

I hold the phone closer and continue with the business at hand. I’m acutely aware of those parts of me that could easily dissolve into panic and blow this whole thing unless I stay strong. “I need you to verify that Mohammed is the one appointed for negotiation for the family.”

“I can do that,” Erik instantly replies. He keeps his voice cool. “Mohammed is our family’s communicator, and he is our representative. For both families.”

“Yeah, don’t say anything about the organization, just say family.”

“Yes. And it’s just for our families,” he replies right on top of the question.

“Yes.” I turn to Helper and say, “Can you go get Abdi?” Helper hesitates because Abdi is sleeping off a
khat
high and nobody wants to be the one to wake him. I know Abdi’s ways so I understand the hesitation. Too bad.

I raise my voice and look him in the eyes. Doing that is risky, but necessary. This has to work.

“Go get Abdi!” I say, as if to imply that if he fails, this deal could be ruined. “Can you go get Abdi?” I add, trying to look as if it would be his fault if the deal fails. He still looks as if he wants to sit back down. I point right at him.

“No, no,” I tell him. “I want Abdi to hear!” He moves away on his mission.

But Poul snatches the phone away from me. He launches into a speech that comes from a dialogue he and I have shared over the past month, but it was also a conversation I didn’t expect him to have with Erik unless I was prevented from coming to the phone.

Poul begins in a determined voice. “Um, two things: Jessica has not been touched. She has not been harmed.”

“Good.” Erik says it quietly. His voice is grim.

“She is, ah, stronger than you, you may think.”

It’s nice of Poul to say this, but he hasn’t identified himself. I have to wonder if Erik realizes it’s Poul, through all the distortion.

Erik says, “I’m very happy to hear that and of course I’m very worried. And I’m here with Mohammed now, I’m sitting next to him, and I want to confirm that Mohammed is our representative.”

“Yes, from the family,” Poul prompts him. “Don’t mention any organization.”

But now I can tell Erik thinks Poul is one of the kidnappers. He’s not talking to Poul as if he knows him.

“Well, there’s no organization to mention.” Erik changes course so smoothly, even I barely notice. “It’s just our families.”

“That’s fine. That’s fine,” Poul says. “I just wanted to tell you those two things.”

“I’m very happy to hear that, and I hope that this will continue and that we can get Jessica out as quick as possible.”

“Yes.”

“Because we need to have her back . . .
okay
?”

“We need to have both back, I hope,” Poul responds, sounding hurt. I don’t think he realizes he’s never identified himself.

“Yeah, of course! Is it Poul I’m talking with?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t hear it was you, Poul. But of course we want both of you back!”

“Okay, but I am telling you these two things. She is stronger than you may think. And two, nobody has touched her. Nobody has harmed her.”

“Very good, Poul. And you have to keep on being as strong as her.”

“Yes.”

“And you can be assured that we are doing everything we—”

“Oh, I’m out. I’m out,” Poul says, just before I pull the phone from his hands.

“Erik?” I begin.

“Yes.”

“Okay. The leader of the militia is coming.”

“Okay . . .”

“So that he can hear what you’re saying.”

“Yeah . . .”

“Um, before he comes, I just want you to know I love you.”

That one nearly gets him. I hear a heavy catch in his voice. “I love you, too.”

“And I will get through this.”

“Good, Jess,” he says, but his voice is flat. He’s obviously in a room full of people.

“You know . . .” he continues. “You know . . . before you say anything else, I just want you to know I am doing okay. Your family, they’re all doing okay. We’re all doing okay. We’re just trying to solve this in the quickest manner we can. We’re doing everything we can. Everything.”

“Okay.”

“So you just have to believe me when I’m saying to keep faith. And we, the whole family, we’re praying, nonstop. We’re doing everything we can.”

My lifelong spiritual skeptic husband is praying right along with my family. Wonder of wonders. “Okay,” I softly tell him.