Chapter 18 #3
At one point, they brought Sammy forth and forced him to say he hated America, hated his evil father, and wanted to go home to Afghanistan. They took pictures of Britta with their cameras, but did not ask her questions, no doubt sensing she was unwilling to speak the words they fed to her.
In the end, Arsallah and the Al-Jazeera people shook hands, like old friends, and the Al-Jazeera people left “to catch a plane.”
Some new people came, clearly Arsallah’s followers, to report a problem. Sammy whispered to her, “They can’t get us on an airplane to Afghanistan. They need to find a hiding place till they can hire another private plane to take us away.”
For that reason, they were brought to a basement room of an abandoned house near the airport, and their stay grew longer and longer as the problem of getting out of the country continued. And their treatment grew increasingly worse, as well.
After three days, they were still bound and in the basement, but no longer gagged. Incoming and outgoing flights could be heard overheard, day and night.
And now, here was Arsallah again with his crew of camera people.
Not Al-Jazeera, just his followers clicking away.
Also accompanying him was the evil Hakim, who took great pleasure in hurting her and Sammy, the gentler but still cruel Daoud, the man whose nose she had broken and who had taken revenge on her numerous times, and several others of their captors.
With neatly trimmed beard, Arsallah was dressed in a pristine white gown and neatly pressed and folded head covering.
Unlike her and Sammy, who wore the same sleep clothing and reeked.
When they untied their arms and ankles, pain pricked Britta’s body, like a thousand pins and needles. Sammy’s groan indicated he was in similar straits as blood began to circulate in their limbs again.
Sammy was first to speak for the cameras.
The little boy looked gaunt from lack of food, and fear.
Bruises marked his skinny arms and legs, and there was a bad cut on his cheek.
He could have been much worse. Britta had taken many of the blows intended for him.
As a result, she had a black eye which had swollen till her lid was closed, a cut lip, bruises and cuts marring most of her body, finger marks on her neck, and an ankle which very well might be broken; at the least, it was badly sprained.
Betimes, she wished they would just kill her, but it was a momentary lapse. She must needs stay strong for the boy.
In a docile voice, he repeated all that he was told to say. “Please, Father, do what they ask. America is evil. Do the good deed they demand, and I will be free. Please.”
Britta was resigned to repeating their hateful words by now, but she did so with a raised chin and defiant eyes.
..well, one defiant eye. Her words were somewhat slurred due to the swollen and cracked lip, but intelligible enough, she supposed.
“Zachary, we are being treated well.” That was a jest, of course, that the came-ras would surely reveal.
“You must do as they demand. ’Tis the moral thing to do.
Release the holy warriors in the name of Allah.
Do as they say, and we will be released.
” She would have blurted out more, but she was certain they would cut out that part
After Arsallah and Hasim left, Daoud proceeded to retie their arms and legs. He was done with Sammy and finishing up Britta’s wrist restraints when Hasim shouted from the top of the stairs, “Hurry if you want to come for lunch.”
Hasim’s shout startled Daoud and he jerked up from his bent position behind her. This instant of distraction allowed Britta the opportunity to flex her wrists, causing Daoud to think he was done, when in fact the rope was a little looser than usual.
“Behave and you will be given food and water shortly,” Daoud remarked as he climbed the stairs.
“And after that, will we be killed?”
Sammy gasped at her question. Apparently, women didn’t question in their culture.
“Not if you do as you are told,” Daoud replied.
The door was closed and locked. Much activity seemed to be taking place upstairs. Talking, laughter, doors slamming, cars starting and taking off. Presumably, at least some of the terrorists were going out to lunch.
This might be their one and only opportunity.
“Sammy, we’re going to try to escape.”
His eyes went wide, and he whimpered.
“I’m going to turn around. I want you to untie the ropes around my hands. They are a little looser than usual, and your fingers are small. Now, don’t start crying. This is the time to pay attention. Be focused.”
It took him longer than she would have liked.
But once untied, she quickly untied the ropes around her ankles, and undid Sammy’s restraints, as well.
She broke a wooden chair, keeping one of the legs for a weapon.
Then she propped the chair back up at the little table so the damage would not be noticed.
“Listen to me, Sammy. This is all going to have to take place quickly. I’m going to lay the ropes loosely around our ankles, and we will put our hands behind our backs, pretending that we are still tied up. Are you listening?”
He nodded.
“When one of our captors comes in, I will wait till he comes close, then hit him over the head. You must go over and lock the door. I will break the window. Can you do that?”
He nodded again, gulping. “I am scared.”
“I am, too, dearling, but we can do this.”
“It is a small window,” he pointed out.
“Big enough, even for a giant like me.”
He did not even smile at her mirthsome remark.
“I am going to shove you through that window first. I want you to run as fast as you can and do not look back. Do not wait for me. I will follow, but if I do not, you are still to run till you find someone. Tell them to take you to the police. Tell the police to call your father, Zachary Floyd, a Navy SEAL, and that you were kidnapped. Can you remember all that?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to go alone.”
“I know you do not, and mayhap I will be with you. But if not, you must needs run as fast as your legs can carry you. Can you run fast?”
He smiled for the first time in days. “I run like hell. That’s what Uncle Danny says.”
Their opportunity did not come till early that evening when Daoud finally came with a tray of food for them.
..hamburgers, Frankish fries and fizzy drinks from that Scottish place, McDonald’s.
Daoud placed the tray on the table and said, “I will release the arm restraints. Samir first.” Daoud’s English was excellent, compared to Arsallah and the others.
“While he is eating, I will hold a gun to your head, Miss Asado. The least wrong move by Samir, and you will be dead. Likewise, when he is tied up again, you will eat whilst a gun is to his head. Do you both understand?”
The second Daoud bent down to untie Sammy’s ropes, she, still sitting, smote him over the head with the chair leg.
He went down, unconscious, immediately. Sammy ran to the door to lock it.
She tore off a piece of Daoud’s shert and stuffed it in his mouth.
Then she tied his hands behind his back and his ankles together.
Quickly, she moved the table over by the window and placed Sammy on top.
“Are you ready?”
He nodded.
“Once I hit the window, the noise may attract the others; so, there will be no time to hesitate. What are you going to do, Sammy?”
“Run like hell.”
She tried to smile and cracked her lip even more.
“If I am not able to follow,” she said, her voice choking up, “tell your father...tell Zachary that I love him.”
She cracked the window open then, shoved Sammy through, and immediately heard shouts upstairs. It took her a bit longer to get through the window and by then the basement door had been broken down and there were orders to go after them.
Britta began running in the opposite direction from Sammy, what she had planned all along. It was not an easy exercise with her injured ankle. She could hear the men coming after her, the distance closing between them. Then there was the sound of gunfire.
She glanced right and left. On the one side was a steep hill, which would only slow her down more. On the right side was a steep incline leading to a rocky beach. The ocean or a lake, she could not be sure.
Her best choice lay in running forward, but then she felt a sharp pain in her back.
It must be a bullet from one of the weapons.
The pain drew her up short. She stumbled.
Fell. Then rolled over and over and over, each rock and sharp bramble digging into her already bruised flesh.
She could feel a warm substance...blood?
...running down her back. She crashed to the bottom, striking her head on a boulder.
The pain was excruciating, but soon it eased.
She thought she saw a flock of black birds flying overhead. A sign of death in Norse legends. The ravens of death. Berserk warriors often saw the vultures in the midst of battle.
With a long sigh, she surrendered to her destiny. The Norns of Fate had won.
So, this is death.