by Jeff Oliver
“Military training?” Ruti asked.
“U.S. Special Forces for eight years, then liaison to IDF,” said Sara.
“Where did you serve?” Ruti pulled off her shirt, revealing a silky bra.
“Afghanistan. Lebanon. Gaza.”
“When did you get out?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Why?” Ruti flipped off her sandals.
“You don’t need to know all that,” said Sara.
“No problem,” Ruti said. She picked up her shirt from off the floor and began pulling it back on.
“It’ll change the mood.”
“Let me judge,” Ruti said.
“Okay, okay. Hold your roll,” Sara said. She sighed. “Back when I was inducted, my mother agreed to be part of a documentary about parents with autistic kids. I think they paid her five hundred bucks, which she needed pretty badly at the time. The producers said they wanted to educate people, to do a public service. Turned out it was a reality TV freak show. My brother’s condition was used as comic relief.
“One day while I was home on leave, a producer left lying around a binder with the show budget. The list of salaries blew my mind. Four grand a week for some of these clowns to stand around doing nothing. Even with military pay, I had debt. So what can I say? I switched careers for the money.”
“Sounds also like you wanted a bit of revenge. You were tricked into letting your brother be exploited, so now you become the exploiter to take back the power. It’s a fuck-off.”
“That your professional assessment, Ms. Freud?”
“It is. But guess what? You won the game,” said Ruti.
“How do you figure?”
“Well, I was just going to fool around with you before, but I’m a sucker for a good sob story,” Ruti said, unsnapping her bra. “So, it’s going to have to be full-on sex.”
What happened next was a blur. Lights came on and there was a ton of yelling below. Ruti shot up in bed. Sara, pulling on her pants, peered down onto the performance pavilion.
“Hey, relax,” said one voice from the pavilion. In a mad scramble, members of the crew were pulling on cargo shorts and covering up with bed sheets, shoved by men in black ski masks wielding machine guns. “Walk!” the gunmen barked.
“Dude, it’s four in the morning,” one of the camera guys complained. “I was sleeping cause call time’s not ’til six. What the fuck?”
“Shut your mouth!” yelled the gunman.
Terrorists. But not the ones hired by the network. Those guys were down there, too, hands behind their heads. Everyone—PAs, tech, story, culinary producers, an ashen-looking Lopez, and a couple of resort staff on night shift—all herded from their rooms into the pavilion space and told to get down on the floor. A prank? Too rough for a prank.
Ruti grabbed her phone but there was no service. Had they taken out the guards? She panicked.
Sara popped a pill.
“Empty your pockets onto the floor!” the terrorists demanded. “Cell phone, iPad, Google Cardboard, everything.” The crew obeyed. The armed men in masks stuffed it all into green duffle bags.
Pacing the pavilion stage was a tall, thin man with goldrimmed glasses and a graying moustache. Dressed like a college professor—tweed jacket, khakis, button-down shirt—he tenderly held his left hand, which was covered by a large bandage speckled with blood. When the crowd settled, the man walked to the front of the stage.
“My sincerest apologies for the early wake-up, friends,” he said. “I run with savages and they must be reminded to be gentle. My name is Izzeldin Al-Asari. I am the leader of Mal-Malaika, the peaceful group erroneously accused of a recent bombing in Haifa. We are currently being hunted down by Israeli police for something we did not do. We escaped their initial assassination attempt, but they are a determined bunch. So, we are here as fugitives … and we kindly ask your assistance and cooperation.”
Al-Asari shook his head and smiled as if he couldn’t believe he had just described his own predicament. “So, who’s in charge here? Who is the great leader of Natural Dish-aster: Season Five?” There was silence as eyes cast down. “No one wants to fess up? Fine, I’ll check the call sheet from the top. Warren Lopez?” Al-Asari stepped off the stage and walked right up to Lopez, who was pale as a sheet. “Ah, the fearless leader. Stand up, please.”
“I don’t have anything,” Lopez pleaded. “We’re a reality TV production. A cooking competition. We’re sympathetic to your cause, believe me, and we don’t want any trouble.”
“Oh, I know all about it. Heroic American chefs versus evil Islamic terrorists. Sounds awfully progressive to me, and gripping television too,” said Al-Asari. “Not to worry, Mr. Lopez. A helicopter will be here to pick us up in only a few days. But we’ll have to lay low until then. We must be invisible. So, I ask you, as creative leader here, how are we going to do this? How can we be hidden now that we’ve aroused so much attention?”
Lopez thought hard, then his eyes lit up with what seemed to be his first great idea as a TV producer in years. “I got it!” he said. “We’ll hide you all in the gear room. Keep your men hidden until the helicopter comes. We’ll get you meals. You can shower up. We won’t tell anyone. Not a soul. Right, everyone? No one makes a peep, or you’re fired.” Everyone nodded furiously.
“Done!” Lopez smiled. “We all want the same thing, see?”
Al-Asari eyed Lopez. “Must you be first to die?” he said.
Several crewmembers sobbed; an AP went faint. Al-Asari motioned to one of the armed terrorists, who poked Lopez with his machine gun.
Lopez whimpered, “I’ll think of something else. Gimme a second…”
Then a loud commotion from outside the pavilion was heard—a female voice so shrill and nasal it made Fran Drescher sound like James Earl Jones. “Jesus Christ, boys, no need to push. I’m wearing Manolo Blahnik heels!” Everyone turned to see who belonged to that awful voice, but when the door opened, only Warren showed any sign of recognition.
The squawking human parrot who entered the pavilion flanked by real terrorists was none other than his wife, Sharon. She wore a patterned silk blouse, knee-high leather boots, and an enormous, bejeweled purse. It was as if an entire Nordstrom Rack had exploded onto her.
“I just get off of an eleven-hour flight and this is the welcome I get?” she said. “Jesus, it smells like open ass in here. Warren? Warren, get these goons off me.”
When Lopez understood just what was happening, he looked up to the heavens, but not to question his wife’s bad fortune—to question his. The idea of being assaulted by real Islamic terrorists was bad enough, but having his wife there to complain shrilly in his ear for God-only-knows-how-long was far too much to bear.
Lopez felt he had only one choice. So he grabbed for the gun. A terrorist grabbed him, a brief struggle ensued, and then the gun went off with a flash. A single bullet shot into Lopez’s foot. “Aargh!” Lopez collapsed onto the floor as his shoe filled with blood.
“You fucking shot me! My foot… my goddamn foot!”
Panic erupted as the terrorist raised his gun to the crowd. Lopez squirmed as a PA wrapped a t-shirt around his foot to slow the bleeding. His wife ran to his side.
“Warren, why is this happening?” she said. “I haven’t even taken a bath yet, and this? I stink, Warren. What about my bags? My photo album? I organized every last picture from the baptism. I can’t lose it—it took me weeks to organize.”
“Sharon!” Lopez wailed. “We’re being held hostage by fucking terrorists and they fucking shot me! Now, will you please forget about the goddamn photo album!”
Sharon turned to Al-Asari and waved her arm, triggering a cacophony of clattering silver bracelets. “Yoo-hoo, Guy-In-Charge? I have a Dead Sea spa appointment on Tuesday that I refuse to miss. They made me pre-pay. Any ETA here?”
Al-Asari squinted, pained by the spectacle he was witnessing. “Put these two in the gear supply closet,” he said, turning away. “They deserve each other.
”
The terrorists lifted Lopez, elevating his foot, then picked up his wife.
“No, wait,” Lopez said. “Not with her in the closet. Anything but that… pleeeease!”
“Take them,” instructed Al-Asari. He slapped his forehead as they left the room.
Up in the audio booth above the stage, Sara pulled on her shirt and headed for the ladder.
“What are you doing?” said Ruti, tugging at her. “Sara, come back here.”
Sara climbed down the ladder slowly. She held up a free hand as all guns pointed her way. “I’m unarmed,” Sara said.
“Who are you?” Al-Asari said. “Identify yourself immediately.”
“Second in command, Sara Sinek.” She stepped off the ladder and onto the stage. “You can check the call sheet.”
“Ah, Co-Executive Producer Sinek. Welcome. Well, I hope you have a good plan for us, because if it’s stupid, apparently we shoot you in the foot.”
“Quick question first,” said Sara.
“You get only one,” Al-Asari said.
“Can any of your men cook?”
CHAPTER 3
In the new regime, the first order of business was updating social media. Crew had been complaining about bad Wi-Fi since arriving, so it wasn’t a stretch for everyone to send out an off-the-grid message, but it required supervision. The English-speaking terrorists watched closely as crew updated Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook with variations of: “Ghosting a few days. See you sluts on the flipside and save the good shit for when I phoenix. #digitaldiet #darkages #missmebitches.” Still, more than a few days without a check-in would be unfathomable to the crew’s family, friends, followers, and Words with Friends opponents without some kind of larger announcement. They’d have to figure that out when they got there.
Under the terrorists’ watchful eye, Ruti shut down the hotel’s Wi-Fi and phone lines except for the hardline in the main office. She called the resort staff who were, so far, unaware of the terrorist infiltration, and told them that they would be spraying the resort for termites so they could all take a fully paid three-day vacation.
The pavilion was set up as a holding area. Cots were arranged, gear gathered, and showers for crew organized alphabetically. Luckily, the cook, a robust elderly woman with big rosy cheeks, was among those previously captured, so breakfast remained a sumptuous spread of sufganyot, shakshuka with cumin, labneh cheese, and thick Turkish coffee. Once the crew got fed and caffeinated, they were back on the job, and even the biggest pot-smoking slacker in reality TV turned into a Navy Seal when they got a call sheet. In fact, it wasn’t long before the crew got impatient with the terrorists. By precisely eight a.m., all crew had gathered by the docks for the Cannibal Challenge and it was cameras up as usual.
The only lingering issue to resolve was what to do with the fake terrorists. Ruti let Sara know that Eilat police took regular headcounts of resort action from a checkpoint tower on the beach, and that even a fluctuation of a few heads might set off red flags. Local authorities knew about the “fake terrorist” shoot, and weren’t happy about it, but the presence of more than nine masked men would mean instant trouble.
The problem with hiding the fake terrorists outright (or killing them, as several real terrorists suggested) is that someone needed to cook during the challenges. Culinary competence could be faked with sharp cutaways and editing tricks, but the guest judges, who were staying at a nearby hotel and could know nothing of the infiltration, would not mince words on the quality of their food. If they tasted the work of amateurs, they would say so, and there’d be a problem. Bottom line: The infiltration would only work if the terrorists were seamlessly integrated into the show.
Sara, Al-Asari, a couple of segment producers, and several of the masked terrorists met in the kitchen to figure it all out.
“Maybe we hide you and your men during the cooking challenges, then bring you back out right after?” suggested Sara.
“Oh, really,” said Al-Asari. “And you certainly won’t flag down security when our heads are turned?”
“What if you take part in the physical parts of the challenges, and then we swap you into vans during the cooking? That way you can watch without being detected,” a segment producer suggested.
“Even worse. If the men at the checkpoint tower see even one masked man making a run for it, they’ll shoot directly at the van,” Al-Asari countered.
Sara sighed deeply and rubbed her temples. There was a sense of doom in the room, a mathematical equation that could not be solved. The terrorists sat around and waited.
“We need at least one cook with real skills,” Sara said. “Either that or we hold off production and hope for the best until your helicopter comes.”
“No, it must be business as usual,” Al-Asari said. He threw up his hands in frustration. “There must be a solution.”
“I can cook,” said a quiet voice from the back of the room. It was one of the terrorists, a man so slight that his mask drooped over his shoulders.
“These chefs are classically trained, Salid,” said Al-Asari. “Their skills cannot be faked.”
“There would be no faking,” replied Salid, softly.
“Don’t make me lose my patience,” Al-Asari said. “You will ruin everything with your foolishness. Now, what if we put…”
“I cooked for Mohamed Al-Shaeik,” Salid said.
Al-Asari laughed scornfully. “Yes, yes, of course you cooked for Al-Shaeik. And I sang with Reem Kelani at Mahjar’s!” All of the terrorists laughed now. “Enough with your stories, Salid. We have work to do.”
“He came to my home to visit my mother when she was ill. They are from the same village,” Salid continued. “His car was late in coming to pick him up so he dined with us. He said that I have a genuine gift.”
“Salid is a balaboosta!” the largest terrorist, named Sheik, said. All the terrorists laughed, one slapping Salid on the back of the head.
“I swear it to be true,” Salid muttered.
“What about your sisters?” said Al-Asari. “They do not cook?”
“My mother liked the taste of my food best. It made her feel at peace,” said Salid.
“Fine,” said Al-Asari. He pulled a chef’s knife with a wooden handle from the block and grabbed an onion off the counter. “Show us.”
“Yes, go ahead and be the wife,” Sheik jeered.
Salid stood up and walked to the counter. He picked up the knife gently, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. A lightningfast flick of his wrist chopped off the ends of the onion, then turned it into a row of paper-thin slices in two seconds flat. The room went silent. Salid laid down the knife, returning to his seat on the floor next to the enormous Sheik.
Sara shrugged. “I guess we found our cook,” she said.
“Seems we have,” said Al-Asari.
“There’s an area above the pavilion where we can hide the fake terrorists for now,” Sara said. “But they must remain safe. None of this is their fault.”
“Keep guns on them,” Al-Asari instructed his men. “They try to run, shoot them. But otherwise, be steady.”
Two terrorists walked out of the kitchen, guns in hand.
Another terrorist came running in. “Mr. Al-Asari. Pardon my interruption. We have problem,” he said, breathless.
“Speak,” said Al-Asari.
“The man with the gunshot wound and his wife.”
“Yes, what is the problem?”
“They’re trying to kill each other.”
In a dingy but spacious supply closet, Warren Lopez slumped on the floor and winced as Ruti cleaned and bandaged his gunshot wound. Warren’s wife, Sharon, paced the floor, making figure-eights with her cellphone in an effort to get at least one bar for cell service.
“The Wi-Fi in this place is dogshit,” she said. “I told you this was going to happen. No tax credit is worth being offline when you have a family, Warren. So irresponsible.”
“It wasn’t my decision, Sharon… Ouch!�
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“Stop moving,” said Ruti, removing fragments of the bullet.
“What will happen to us, Warren? What will happen to Kale?” Sharon said.
Lopez winced again, this time at the sound of his adopted son’s name. Kale. That she’d convinced him to give the boy such a ridiculous name was a testament to how much power she had over him.
“He’ll be fine,” he said. “Worse comes to worst, my sister will take care of him for a bit.”
“Stephanie?” she said. “Are you on crack? She lets her four-year-old play Gods of War on PlayStation—no wonder he’s on meds. And don’t give me that line about educational apps—it’s a slippery slope between some math game and zombie Nazi killers. If we die, Kale goes to my mother. She’ll raise him the way I was raised. Look how I turned out.”
Lopez looked over at her. “Over my dead body.”
“All done,” said Ruti, tucking away her supplies. “Keep it elevated. I’ll change the bandages in a few hours. Truth is, you got very lucky.”
“Wait,” Lopez said. “Don’t leave.”
Ruti smiled sympathetically but headed for the door. A masked terrorist with an Uzi let Ruti out and locked the door behind them.
Sharon Lopez shot venom at her husband. “Did you cancel the credit cards yet, Warren?” she asked.
“Before or after getting shot?” said Lopez.
“Who knows what kind of scam they’re running here,” said Sharon. “Do you know that fraud affects your credit score even if it’s not your fault? And with the house on the market, that could mean thousands, no, tens of thousands of dollars thrown out the window, and all you do is sit there? Tell me, Warren, what are you doing to fix this problem, not to mention the dozens of other disasters that we’re facing? And besides…”
Lopez took a deep meditative breath and tried to escape into the special place in his mind: a log cabin on Mammoth Lake with his college buddies—bong smoke in the cool, clean air, sizzling T-bones on the grill, and cold beer in alumni cups, laughing about some drunken frat house episode that ended poorly a thousand years ago.
“Okay already!” said Lopez, when it didn’t work. “Stop! You haven’t so much as said hello to me since you got here. And even for you, you’re acting like a total …”