77

The unpleasant surprises didn’t stop there. Before he left, Wyatt had to follow Mahmoud into a small and dingy bathroom where Mahmoud handed Wyatt a razor and soap.

“I am sorry to say but you must shave eyebrows,” Mahmoud said. He was shaking his head from side to side as if apologizing for the request. “You will cross border into Yemen as a Muslim woman. We have passport for you. You will wear a niqab and abaya.” Mahmoud shrugged as if it were natural for a man to shave his eyebrows.

“Are you kidding me?” Wyatt asked. “I’m not doing this.” The only asset he would have in Yemen would be his tough-guy American persona. If he shaved his eyebrows, he would look like a clown.

“You must do. These men have worked very hard for planning this trip.”

Wyatt looked in the mirror and then at his host. He grabbed the razor from Mahmoud’s hand, then wet his eyebrows and soaped them up. Within a few minutes the bushy gray eyebrows, as much a part of Wyatt as his caustic personality, had been rinsed down the sink.

“You look very beautiful,” Mahmoud said, chuckling.

“Shut up.”

Mahmoud giggled some more. Then he pulled out a black eyebrow pencil and handed it to Wyatt. “You may need later.”

When Wyatt returned to the main room, one of the other men broke into a broad grin. He said something in Arabic to the other two and they all had a good laugh. Wyatt pulled a pair of shades out of his backpack and put them on along with his baseball cap.

“Now can we go?” he asked Mahmoud.

“Of course,” said his host, as if they had all just been waiting for Wyatt to ask.

Wyatt watched the men put the AK-47s and ammo in the deep trunk of a black sedan along with a couple of gym bags. He sat in the back on the passenger side while the youngest of the three men joined him in the backseat. As they rode, his hosts engaged in little conversation, none of which Wyatt understood. He spent his time looking out the window, studying the scenery in the United Arab Emirates and thinking about the next few days of his life.

The roads were paved and smooth, and people drove on the right-hand side of the road, though it seemed like his vehicle was going exceptionally fast. The scenery was arid but breathtaking, with red rock formations that resembled the Arizona desert. They passed loose camels on the side of the road; one time a camel crossed not too far in front of the sedan. The driver braked, swerved, and continued on as if it happened all the time.

To keep his sanity, Wyatt nicknamed his three captors. The driver was Moe because he seemed to be the boss and was older than the others. His sidekick in the front seat was Larry—a wiry man, taller than Moe and all business. Curly, in the backseat, was probably in his twenties—the apprentice who carried the bags. He laughed hard at Moe’s jokes and seemed like he was trying to impress. He was restless and full of energy, shifting in his seat, trying to get comfortable. His beard was straggly and spotty, his skin pockmarked. His eyes seemed wary but not as hard as the others’, more open to mirth and sympathy. If there was a weak link, it would be Curly, and Wyatt made a mental note.

After about an hour, Wyatt pulled out a cigar and held it up to see if it was okay. Curly said something to Moe, and after Moe approved, Curly nodded his head. Using hand motions, Wyatt explained that he needed a lighter, and soon one was handed back from the front seat. Wyatt lit up and instantly started to relax. He offered a cigar to Curly, who smelled it, nodded, and lit up as well. Soon, all four of them were enjoying a nice American Philly.

For Wyatt, it started to feel like home.

The weather was hot and dry and apparently the vehicle had no air-conditioning, because the men rode with the windows down. Wyatt finished his smoke and leaned back in his seat. He was hungry and exhausted from the long trip and from the adrenaline that had coursed through his body. He let the hot, dry desert air blow in his face, and before long he had dozed off to sleep.

He woke when the car came to an abrupt stop. He looked around, gathered his bearings, and discovered that they had pulled over on the shoulder of some deserted road. He wanted to ask a few questions but what was the use? Curly got out of the car and grabbed one of the bags from the trunk. He threw a large black robe and head covering to Wyatt. He motioned with his arms for Wyatt to put it on.

Wyatt stepped out of the car and pulled the black robe over his head. He put the head covering on as well so that only his eyes were exposed and he threw his sunglasses and hat in the backseat. Curly motioned for Wyatt to take his shoes off, and Curly threw them in the trunk. Curly then retrieved Wyatt’s eyebrow liner from the backseat and had Wyatt lean over so he could get a new thin set of eyebrows. Larry inspected the work and nodded. Then they all climbed into the sedan and started back to the main road.

About fifteen minutes later, they approached an area that looked like a customs checkpoint, and Wyatt assumed they were heading into Saudi Arabia. The men handed Wyatt a passport as they waited in a long line of cars. When they finally pulled up to the booth, two customs officers approached the car, one on each side. Everybody spoke rapidly and brusquely, and it seemed to Wyatt like they were all talking at once. His eyes shot back and forth from the customs officers to his escorts. The driver handed one of the men some papers that he glanced through. Another customs officer came to the back door and stared at Wyatt for a moment. He said something in Arabic and held out his hand. Wyatt handed him the fake passport and the man looked it over, his eyes shifting from Wyatt to the passport and back again. He stamped it, grunted something, and tossed it back in the car.

Wyatt let out a breath, and within minutes they were on the road again, driving through Saudi Arabia. Wyatt started to take his head covering off and Curly reached over and jerked it back down.

“What are you doing?” Wyatt asked.

Curly grunted something that Wyatt didn’t understand.

It was time to test the young man’s resolve. Wyatt started taking the head covering off for a second time, and Larry turned around and pointed a pistol at his head. He barked an order that Wyatt didn’t need translated. Leave it on while we’re in Saudi Arabia.

When Larry turned back around, Wyatt glanced over at Curly. The young man had an I-told-you-so look on his face. This was going to be a long ride.

At noon the men stopped on the side of the road, pulled prayer mats out of the trunk, and conducted their midday prayers while Wyatt watched from the backseat. An hour later they stopped at some kind of restaurant but made Wyatt stay in the car. This time Curly stayed with him, a pistol on his lap to keep Wyatt in line.

While Wyatt waited, his concerns mounted about the way he was being treated. He was alone in a foreign country, and nobody in America knew his precise location. These three men were supposed to be on Wyatt’s side, taking him to Saleet Zafar, but they were treating him more like a prisoner. Somewhere near the border with Saudi Arabia, things had gone from cordial to hostile.

Wyatt thought about his meeting with Mahmoud at the airport. Why no sign as they had originally planned? Had some other group found out about Wyatt’s arrival and kidnapped him? Were they taking him to an al Qaeda or ISIS leader? Why wouldn’t they let Mahmoud, the one man who also spoke English, go along on this trip?

When Moe and Larry returned to the car with two plates of food, Wyatt decided it was time to act. He got out of the car and started arguing with them—English and Arabic flying like missiles. Wyatt ripped off his head covering, drawing the attention of a rapidly growing crowd, staring at a tall American with white hair wearing an abaya. Moe and Larry threw their plates down and shoved Wyatt into the vehicle. In the chaos, Larry pistol-whipped Wyatt, stunning him, then climbed into the backseat along with him and held the gun to his temple.

The others jumped in and they sped away, leaving a gawking crowd behind. Larry and Moe were both yelling at Wyatt, who touched the wound on his forehead gingerly as blood trickled down his face. From the front seat, Curly handed Wyatt some type of rag, and Wyatt put pressure on the wound, stanching the flow of blood, eyeing Larry suspiciously as he did so.

They eventually pulled over to the side of the road and forced Wyatt to get out of the vehicle. They handcuffed his bloodstained hands in front of him, using plastic ties that they had apparently brought for just such an occasion. They pulled the niqab back over his head, but this time put it on backward, covering his entire face. They tied the bottom of it around his neck. Then they shoved him back into the vehicle and drove off in silence.

It was hot, dark, suffocating, and painfully uncomfortable. And it was how Wyatt would ride for the next several hours as the foursome made their way across the barren landscape of Saudi Arabia to its border with the sovereign nation of Yemen.