Chapter 15

He was jostled awake by someone dragging him out of the cot. A man threw a bowl of water onto John’s face and motioned for him to wash up. John now had more than a week’s growth on his beard. He knew he looked awful, having been deprived of daylight and basic human interaction.

The bodyguard he called Big Man had grabbed John by his arm and led him down a corridor lit only by fluorescent bulbs that flickered and buzzed. John really had no concept of how long he had been detained. The windowless room could have been underground or in someone’s home, for all he knew. Nighttime or morning? He had no idea. He ate the food he was given, when they gave it to him, or they would take it away, and John would go hungry until the next meal, John learned the hard way. He slept when he was tired or bored due to the lack of stimulation or routine. While he thought he’d been detained for about a week, he had nothing but his beard growth to gauge how much time had actually passed.

Big Man and John arrived at a door. There was no window in the door to give him a glimpse of what was waiting on the other side. John suppressed the anxious reality that came with being a prisoner. Torture or death could come at any moment without warning.

The image of an American journalist, who had been kidnapped by extremists, came to him in nightmares, and John experienced the terror of watching the journalist be beheaded time after time whenever he fell asleep. Maybe that’s what is on the other side of this door? John thought but pushed the idea from his mind. He didn’t need to panic now.

The door opened, and he saw another windowless room furnished with five empty wooden chairs. Next to the chairs was a long plank, some cloth, and a bucket. I’m going to be tortured, John thought as his pulse quickened. Images of waterboarding flooded his mind.

I wish they would just kill me or let me go, he thought. Big Man pushed down on John’s shoulders, indicating that he should sit. He did as commanded. The big man held up his hand. Stop? Stay? Be right back? He had no idea.

John once learned from a security consultant that if kidnapped, one should cooperate with the abductors, but to not be submissive or overly emotional. “That’s one way to get a bullet in your head real fast.” Cooperative but not weak, was what he remembered. John waited for his hands and feet to be bound to the chair, but to his surprise, Big Man turned and walked out the door without restraining him. Are they just gonna shoot me?

A few minutes later, the door creaked open, and Clown Face walked into the room. John acknowledged him with a brief nod while Clown Face searched for something in his robe before pulling out a smartphone. Clown Face spoke into the phone, and John could not understand a word or discern what the language was. It sounded like Arabic, but with an accent he couldn’t place. Maybe it was a local dialect. Sounded Middle Eastern, maybe African. It could have been either an official language of wherever they were or some village dialect. Google dealt with major languages, hundreds of them, but not regional dialects.

Google Translate replayed, and Clown Face turned up the volume. The digital female voice spoke back. Your wife will be in Dubai today. John stifled a laugh that the voice of scary Clown Face was female. We will go and see her at the appropriate time. For her sake, I hope she has what we expect from her.

Clown Face spoke into the phone again, the digital voice asked, Do you need anything?

John shook his head. Are you comfortable? John nodded his head.

Do you want to see your wife? John froze. In a split second he had to answer. Of course he wanted to see Molly, but he didn’t want the kidnappers to think that seeing her was important to him. He shook his head no.