75

Marcus pulled himself deeper into the trunk.

As quietly as he could, he repositioned the crates around him to block anyone’s view if—and, more likely, when—they opened the trunk. He scooped up the plums that had tumbled out of the crate he had broken into and stuffed them back into the crate and covered the hole with his body to keep them from falling out again.

The taillight he had kicked out could not be helped. It might draw attention. But then again, the Mercedes was old. From the brief glimpse he had gotten, Marcus pegged it as a model from the early eighties—of course one of its lights was missing. It was amazing the rusty bucket of bolts still ran at all.

He remonstrated himself for not finding a way to have escaped earlier. In a matter of minutes, he would likely be found out. Then again, with the sun having gone down, the temperature outside was dropping. He could even feel a cool breeze coming in from the Med. He could smell the salt air. These were small blessings, but blessings nonetheless, and he was grateful.

As the minutes ticked by, Marcus felt the car accelerate, then brake. The engine stopped. Then it started again, and they moved forward. Then the car halted, and once again the engine was cut. Marcus counted twelve rounds of this. He heard soldiers talking. They were close. They were right beside him. And al-Masri was the only one who replied. The young aide never said a word.

The trunk opened. Marcus held his breath. A beam from a flashlight swept over him. He could see through the cracks that a soldier was about to remove one of the crates. But just then he heard the screeching of tires. Men began shouting. Marcus heard the sound of automatic weapons fire erupting. He saw the soldier turn and run off. Dogs barked furiously. More gunfire. More yelling. More commotion. Then someone slammed the trunk shut. Someone else—someone close by—yelled something in Arabic, presumably at al-Masri and his aide. Suddenly the engine of the Mercedes roared to life. They were moving again. Marcus had no idea what had just unfolded. Nor did he care. All that mattered was that they had cleared the checkpoint, and—for the moment, at least—he was still alive.

Marcus felt himself breathing again. There was not, however, any time to relax. He got to work. The first thing he did was kick out the other taillight. The streetlamps whizzing by did not provide much illumination inside the trunk. The new opening did, however, draw in a bit more fresh air. More importantly, it gave him a second hole through which he could get rid of all this fruit. For the next several minutes he was shoving fruit out of the holes as fast as he could. Yes, there was a risk that someone would see him. But again, it could not be helped. He desperately needed to create more space to maneuver, and this was the only way.

Once most of the fruit had been dispensed with, Marcus began ripping apart the crates, shoving pieces of wood out the holes and onto the city streets. He was not worried about the noise he was making. He could barely hear himself think over the roar of the engine and the tires on the pavement. There was no chance al-Masri or Zayan could hear what he was doing.

With more space to maneuver in, Marcus tore back the carpet on the floor of the trunk. Though he could barely see, he could now feel the spare tire, a jack, and some other tools. These, however, were not his objectives. Feeling around with hands, including the arm that was still bleeding, he searched around to his right, which, since he was facing backward, was the driver’s side of the car. Finally he felt the cable he was looking for. Following it forward, he confirmed that it was attached to a mechanism on the inside of the trunk. This, he knew, was the trunk release cable. He yanked it, but nothing happened. He yanked it again, harder this time, but the trunk still did not pop open as it was supposed to. He positioned his feet against the back wall of the car to give him more leverage and yanked the cable as hard as he could. Not only did the trunk fail to open, but the cable came completely out of the mechanism.

Marcus gritted his teeth and balled up his fists and fought to resist the immense temptation to hit something or shout out in frustration. He lay there in the darkness for several moments trying to catch his breath and figure out his next move. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that something sharp was driving into his back. He shifted positions and felt around and realized it was the jack. As he held the warm metal in his hands, he had an idea.

Working quickly, Marcus set up the jack in the back of the trunk. He glanced out one of the holes where the brake lights had once been and saw only one car on the street behind them. Several blocks later, the car turned off on a side street. At that instant, Marcus started cranking up the jack. In less than thirty seconds, the force of the extended jack strained the locking mechanism to its limit, and the trunk door finally popped. Marcus grabbed its lower edge, lest the wind catch it and force the trunk completely open. He was not yet ready for that. The car was still going at least thirty or forty miles an hour. These were city streets. It might not be suicide to jump now, but it was close. And what if al-Masri or his aide saw him jump?

Still, Marcus discounted that possibility. He remembered that the backseat of the Mercedes had been filled to the roof with crates of watermelons. The chance of the men in the taxi seeing anything behind them was remote unless they happened to glance in the rearview mirror at exactly the wrong moment. That was a chance he was going to have to take, and fast. There was no more time.

For the moment, Marcus could see no cars behind them. This was it. He pushed the trunk completely open. Then he ripped out the rest of the carpet and wrapped his upper body in it. Finally he hefted the spare tire and moved to the edge of the trunk.

Just then, he felt the Mercedes slow. Fearing al-Masri had seen him, he glanced back but realized that they were only taking a turn. This was ideal, though not something he had even considered. To make the turn successfully without rolling the car, the driver had to brake. At that moment, the taxi was doing only fifteen or twenty miles an hour, if that. Marcus did not hesitate.

He leaped out of the trunk, tossing himself onto the pavement. The spare tire cushioned his fall. He was wearing only boxer shorts, but the carpet protected his upper body. Still, the landing was hard—harder than he had expected—and knocked the wind clean out of him. When he finally stopped rolling and caught his breath, he found that his bare legs and feet were badly scraped up. They were bleeding. But his bones were not broken. The Mercedes was gone. He was alone. Alive. And free.