In His Image

by James Beauseigneur

  When their lungs had cleared enough to speak, Decker and Tom told Lt. Freij what had happened and pointed out approximately where to find the guards’ bodies under the rubble. They did not, however, tell him about the boy. They would talk to him themselves in the morning and maybe come away with a second exclusive.

  By the time they left the scene, crowds of Israelis and tourists from the surrounding area had gathered behind the police lines to look in shock and horror at what had been the last remnant of the ancient Temple.

  The phone caller had been right: There was much weeping that night. The Palestinians had planted far more than enough explosives to do the job. Bits and pieces of broken stone lay everywhere. The earth of the Temple Mount behind the Wall caved down upon the rubble. And of the Wall itself, not one stone was left standing upon another.

  8

  When in the Woods and Meeting

  Wild Beasts

  Jerusalem, Israel

  THE NEXT MORNING Decker and Tom got up early and drove to Jenin to talk to the Palestinian boy. On the way there it occurred to them that they really didn’t have a plan.

  “Okay, after we get there, then what?” Tom asked.

  “We’ll just talk to the kid and tell him to tell the people he was with last night that some American reporters want to talk to them. We’re not their enemy. They like the media. That’s the only way they can get their story out. Besides, if they didn’t want coverage they certainly wouldn’t have called us on the phone to tell us it was going to happen. The bigger problem will be Lt. Freij wanting us to reveal our sources once the story comes out.”

  When they arrived at the boy’s house, Tom decided to leave his camera in the car, just to be extra sure nobody got nervous. They walked the short path to the house and Decker knocked on the door.

  “Do you think anyone’s home?” Tom asked after a moment. But before he had even gotten the words out, the door opened and the boy’s mother motioned for them to come in. “Great,” Tom said, pleased at the reception. “Maybe I should have brought my camera, after all.”

  As the door swung shut Decker heard a loud crack and felt a sudden intense pain spread through his head as his skull absorbed the impact of a wooden club.

  Somewhere in Israel

  The pain in Decker’s head crawled down his neck and shoulders and came to rest in the pit of his empty stomach. Ropes bound his feet and hands. They were loose enough to allow circulation but no movement. Lying on his side with his face to the floor, he wondered where he was and how long he had been there. The air was stuffy and from the stench and the slight dampness of his pants it was apparent that while he was unconscious, he had urinated on himself. From this he judged that he had been unconscious for less than a day, because any fluids in his system would have been vacated in the first twenty-four hours. After that his body would retain any remaining fluids as dehydration set in.

  He could hear two men talking. For right now it made sense to not let them know he was awake. Slowly he opened the eye closest to the floor. When it became clear no one had noticed, Decker strained to look around as much as he could, wincing in pain with each eye movement. What he saw told him very little. He was in a room with one small, boarded-up window. About five feet away Tom lay on the floor in much the same condition, facing away from him. Two men sat playing some kind of card game on a makeshift table, paying very little attention to their captives. Decker closed his eye and rested from the strain. The men were speaking in an Arabic dialect, so Decker had no idea what they were saying. Still, as he tried to ride out the pain, it seemed somehow reasonable just to lie there without moving, listening to the men in hopes of learning something of his situation.

  Some hours later, Decker realized he had fallen asleep. The nausea had subsided and the pain in his head was somewhat less than he remembered. What woke him was the sound of a door closing and men talking, which he took to be a changing of the guard. With his eyes still closed he could feel the men moving about the room, stopping to look down at him and then moving away. Carefully he opened one eye and saw the men gathered around Tom.

  “Wake up, Jew,” said one of the men in heavily accented English. Decker watched as the man pulled back his right foot to get a good swing and then threw it forward with the full weight of his body, landing the toe of his army boot squarely in the middle of Tom’s back. The force of the blow drove Tom several feet across the floor. His back arched in agony as he let out a yelp, muffled by the fact that the blow had also knocked the wind out of him.

  “Stop!” Decker shouted. The four men looked over at Decker, who had somehow managed to sit most of the way up. The man who kicked Tom walked over and looked down at Decker. Decker had the feeling that he was being inspected by the man; he was looking for something. When he failed to find whatever it was, he shoved Decker back to the floor with his foot and went back to Tom.

  Tom struggled to catch his breath and a deep, anguished moan passed from his lips. The man had hurt Tom badly and he was preparing to do it again.

  “Stop!” Decker shouted again.

  This time the man returned to Decker and kicked him in his left shoulder. It hurt terribly, but it was obvious to Decker the man had not kicked him with nearly the enthusiasm or force he had used to kick Tom.

  “Keep your mouth shut or you’ll get the same as the Jew,” the man warned and moved back to Tom.

  “Wait!” Decker said, sitting up again and failing to heed the warning. The man looked over at Decker, who continued, “He’s not a Jew!”

  For an instant the man’s eyes registered uncertainty. He paused, and then looked as though he was going to ignore Decker’s infraction of his order and concentrate on Tom.

  Decker persisted. “He’s not a Jew, I tell you. He’s an American, just like me. Check his passport. It’s in his pocket.” Scenes of the bloody death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl played through Decker’s memory. Pearl, who was Jewish, had been videotaped as he was forced by his Islamic kidnappers to repeat, “I am a Jew. My mother is a Jew.” Then, with the tape still running, he was brutally murdered. 26

  “We’ve already seen your passports,” the man responded. Decker had at least bought Tom a little time: he had gotten the man talking. “It makes no difference to me whether he is an Israeli Jew or an American Jew.”

  “But he’s not a Jew at all!” Decker said. Decker remembered also the 1994 abduction of three British tourists by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the same man who engineered the Pearl kidnapping and murder. After several weeks in captivity, the Britons were released unharmed. The obvious difference between Daniel Pearl and the British tourists was Pearl’s Jewish heritage. Decker knew it was imperative that he convince his captors Tom was not Jewish.

  “He looks like a Jew to me,” the man said, as though that made it so.

  “I’m telling you, he’s an American and a Gentile,” Decker responded with the same intellectual level of argument.

  Decker knew that, right or wrong, if the Palestinian was really sure, he wouldn’t be taking the time to argue about it. But there was another force at work in the room, simple but powerful: peer pressure. The other men were watching their comrade to see what he would do. His judgment was being challenged and he felt he had to respond.

  Tom had stopped moaning and was lying nearly motionless on the floor, taking short, labored breaths. The Palestinian was unimpressed with Decker’s response and decided to refocus his attention on Tom.

  Decker blurted out the first thing he could think of. It was risky, but neither he nor Tom had anything to lose: Another blow from the man’s boot might break Tom’s back. “If you don’t believe me,” Decker said, getting his captors’ attention again, “pull down his pants.”

  The Palestinians looked at each other, not sure that they had understood him, and then started to laugh as they realized what Decker meant. If Tom were a Jew, he’d be circumcised.

  The one who had kicked Tom was not so sure about the idea. He didn’t want to
risk appearing foolish. But the other three laughed and went to work loosening Tom’s pants. They were enjoying the contest between their leader and the American. Besides, it seemed an amusing way to settle an argument where a man’s life hung in the balance.

  There was just one problem, and therein lay the risk: Decker had no idea whether or not Tom was circumcised. But with Tom’s life on the line, Decker’s only choice had been to set that as the defining criterion. When the three lackeys pulled down Tom’s pants, they committed themselves to that criterion. Knowing that many American men, Jew and Gentile alike, are circumcised, Decker was well aware that he still might be condemning his friend to death.

  The leader was disappointed with what he saw.

  The three Palestinians gave Tom’s pants a tug and pulled them most of the way back up. Again they were laughing, but this time, in part at least, they were laughing at their leader. An angry glare abruptly stopped their merriment. The leader quickly changed the subject and, after pushing Decker back to the floor with his foot, signaled for the others to follow him out of the room. As soon as they were gone Decker tried, as best he could, to check on his friend’s condition. He helped him get his pants back up, but with their hands tied behind them it was impossible to fasten or zip them.

  That night, one of the men brought them food and water. In the morning they were fed again and allowed to clean up, one at a time. Now that there appeared to be less chance they would be killed right away, Decker’s mind went to thoughts of Elizabeth, Hope, and Louisa. The fear of torture and death and the physical pain he had already endured seemed somehow entirely different and diminished by comparison to the empathetic pain he felt for the emotional distress he knew his family would suffer.

  In the evening two of the guards came in and blindfolded them, shoved rags into their mouths, and gagged them. Decker guessed they were about to be moved to another location. They lay in that condition for about twenty minutes, choking from time to time on the rags, then their feet were untied and they were led outside.

  Once outside, their captors did something that seemed very strange to Decker. He was taken by two of the men and laid on his back on top of something he recognized from the way it felt as a mechanic’s creeper, used for sliding under a car. His feet were then tied again. All he could imagine was that this might be in preparation for some grisly form of torture by dragging them behind a car or truck. On the other hand, why would they blindfold him? If sadism were the goal, wouldn’t they want him to see the torture that awaited him? Certainly, he thought, they wouldn’t stuff his mouth full of rags. They’d want to hear him scream.

  Decker felt himself being pushed about eight feet, and then rolled off the creeper onto his stomach on the ground. He could sense he was under something large. A moment later eight hands grabbed him and lifted him about eighteen inches until his back pressed firmly against the object above him, and he was strapped tightly into this position. The next thing he heard was the sound of a squeaky metal door sliding shut.

  He realized that he was in some sort of coffinlike box. But he thought he could feel air moving around him, so he didn’t think he would suffocate. As he hung there face down, strapped in and waiting, he heard the sound of the creeper’s wheels again, followed by men straining under a weight and then another metal door closing. Decker assumed his captors had done the same to Tom. The voices of the Palestinians were now muffled beyond distinction, but since no one was speaking English, it really didn’t matter.

  After about five minutes Decker heard a vehicle’s door slam, followed by an engine starting. Now he understood. He and Tom were strapped under the bed of a truck. They had been placed in metal boxes that were built to fit under the truck in order to ship weapons and, on rare occasions, people through check points and past border guards.

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  Elizabeth Hawthorne and her two daughters walked through the concourse of David Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. A few days earlier Elizabeth had been sitting in her office thinking about how slow business was and how much she missed Decker. On the spur of the moment she decided to take some extra vacation time, get the girls out of school, and fly to Israel a week early. Surprises had always been Decker’s forte, but this time Elizabeth decided she would do the surprising.

  She was totally unprepared for the news that awaited her.

  As she and the girls walked toward the exit with their luggage, a somber-looking man and woman in their mid-sixties approached them.

  “Mrs. Hawthorne?” the man asked, requesting confirmation.

  “Yes,” she answered, a bit surprised.

  “My name is Joshua Rosen. This is my wife, Ilana. We’re friends of your husband.”

  “Yes, I know,” Elizabeth responded. “Decker has mentioned you. Did he send you? How did he find out that I was going to surprise him?” she asked, not discerning the seriousness of the situation.

  “Could I speak to you for a moment in private?” Joshua asked.

  Suddenly Elizabeth realized that something was wrong. She wanted to know what and she didn’t want to wait. “Has something happened to Decker?” she demanded.

  Joshua Rosen preferred not to talk in front of Hope and Louisa but Elizabeth insisted. “Mrs. Hawthorne,” he began, “according to the clerk at the Ramada Renaissance, Decker and Tom Donafin left their hotel in Jerusalem five days ago. Last night Bill Dean from NewsWorld called me on the phone to ask if I had any idea where they were. He said that their editor had been trying to reach them for three days. He tried to call you at your office, but they said you were on vacation. He couldn’t reach you at home either.”

  Elizabeth was growing impatient with Rosen’s explanation. She wanted to know the bottom line. “Please, Mr. Rosen, if something has happened to my husband, tell me!”

  Joshua understood her anxiety but hated to just blurt it out with no explanation. “I’m afraid that Decker and Tom have been taken hostage in Lebanon.”

  Elizabeth was struck with disbelief. “What? That’s crazy. That can’t be,” she said, shaking her head. “They weren’t even supposed to be in Lebanon. They’re in Israel! There must be some mistake!” The denial in her heart hid itself behind the authority in her voice, as if by sufficient insistence she could alter what she could not bear to face.

  Joshua and Ilana looked on sadly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This morning the Hizballah, a group of militant followers of Ayatollah Oma Obeji, announced that they were holding Decker and Tom hostage. They sent a note to a Lebanese newspaper claiming responsibility and included pictures of Decker and Tom.”

  Hope and Louisa were already crying. Elizabeth looked for some place to sit down but, finding none, accepted the offer of support from Ilana Rosen, who held her as she wept.

  Somewhere in northern Lebanon

  As the truck came to a stop, Decker tried to breathe deeply and relax his muscles from the hours of grueling bouncing over pot-holed roads. With his tongue and teeth, he had managed to force the rag part of the way out of his mouth, so at least he could breathe more freely. He could only pray that Tom had been able to do the same. Decker’s head ached from the constant pounding against the inside of his steel coffin and from referred pain from the muscles in his back and neck. He desperately hoped the journey had come to an end, but he was terrified by the thought of what awaited him.

  The driver blew the truck’s horn and then got out to await his compatriots. Obviously, he was not concerned about anyone seeing him or his human cargo. Whether this was because no one else would be nearby or that no one who was nearby would care briefly played with Decker’s curiosity but was soon forgotten. A moment later, Decker heard some other men coming toward the truck. He heard the rusty creak of the door again, this time sliding open, and felt hands loosening the straps that held him in place. The man working the straps at his feet was slower than the others and there was no attempt by the faster men to slow his fall to the street’s surface, so he dropped head first, landing on his
forehead with his feet still strapped to the underside of the truck. Still not fully recovered from the original blow to the back of his head a few days before, Decker gasped, causing him to suck the rag back into his throat.

  Choking for air, Decker was dragged from beneath the truck. After untying the rope that bound his feet, one of the men barked a command that Decker assumed meant to get up. His head was spinning with pain and blood soaked his blindfold and dripped down his face and neck; he felt as though he would vomit. Every muscle in his body was cramped or stiff, but he struggled and managed to stand.

  One of the men turned him around and pushed him in the direction he wanted him to go. Decker stumbled repeatedly as his captor shouted commands he couldn’t possibly understand. Coming at last to the threshold of a building, Decker stepped inside and somehow felt as though he had entered a stairwell. It would be bad enough if he had to climb stairs blindfolded; it could be deadly if he unexpectedly came to stairs leading down.

  Doing everything he could to keep his senses despite the pain, Decker reached slowly forward with his toes for either a step up or a drop off. His captor, impatient at the slow progress, shoved Decker forward. Sprawling ahead and expecting the worst, Decker’s foot hit the base of a step. Adjusting his position, he lifted his foot and began to make his way up the stairs.

  Three flights up, Decker was directed down a hallway, through two doors, and finally into a small room. He was placed with his back against the wall and pushed down to a sitting position. The gag was removed and a cup of water shoved into his hands. The man then left and closed the door, locking it behind him. Decker drank the water and rolled over onto his side.