by Matthew Dunn
The camera was placed on a tripod in the center of the room. One of the Chechens stood behind it, facing the red Arabic letters on the far wall. The chains locking Bob and Ramzi to the walls were released from their catches. Both men were dragged nearer to the camera and forced onto their knees. Five of the jihadists stood behind them, scarves wrapped around their faces. The camera was turned on.
In English, the unit’s leader said, “Hello again, Mr. President. If you are a merciless pig who hates Americans, today will be these men’s last day on Earth.” He slapped Bob’s head with sufficient force to cause blood to whip out of the CIA officer’s mouth and fly across the room. “You shouldn’t be surprised. We gave you fair warnings. It’s just that so far you haven’t listened.”
Bob thought his ear might be perforated. The noise on that side of his head was severe though he could still hear the jihadist’s words.
“This evening it will begin. You will watch what happens in our final video. But you have four hours to change the course of events. If Arzam Saud is released, and you can convince me that you have a plan that doesn’t entail trying to kill us as we exchange prisoners, then I give you my word that these men will be kept alive and returned to you.” He moved in front of Bob, crouched so that his face was at the same level as Bob’s, and asked the CIA officer, “Would you like to go home?” He smiled; his eyes were cold. “I bet you would, you miserable dog.”
Bob wanted to spit in his face, tell him to go fuck himself, and show as much defiance as was possible from a man who was bound in ropes. But things had now changed within him. He felt helpless and resigned to his plight. The man he’d been up to two days ago belonged to an unwanted story. Everything here was all too real. Too horrific. Too repulsive to be in a tale.
Bob looked directly into the camera. His bloodshot eyes were dried-up windows to a savaged soul; they had nothing to give anymore beyond telling the world that this could happen to anyone if they were unlucky. He murmured something, but it came out all wrong and was unintelligible. He glanced at Ramzi, who was staring at him, a look of utter desperation on the translator’s face. Ramzi nodded. Bob didn’t know why or what it meant. Maybe Ramzi was silently telling Bob that whatever he did or said, Ramzi would be shoulder to shoulder with the CIA officer and share whatever suffering came as a result.
Bob cleared his throat; he wanted to be stronger and wondered if in fact he and Ramzi had been extremely strong to make it this far.
He said, “Mr. President, I want to come home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
One hour ago, Will had landed in Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport. Via London, he’d flown business class from Moscow, purchasing a suit and toiletries at Heathrow and availing himself of the business-class departure lounge’s facilities to shower, shave, change into his new clothes, and make himself look nothing like a man who’d recently killed someone in a park.
The journey from London to D.C. had been agonizingly long, not helped by the fact that he’d had to sit next to a loud-mouthed Silicon Valley entrepreneur who’d spent the whole journey bragging to Will about how many billions of dollars were sitting in his bank account. In fairness to the entrepreneur, his last words to Will were self-effacing and deferential. When the aircraft was taxiing toward the arrivals area of the airport, the captain had welcomed passengers to Washington and added that there would be a slight delay in disembarking because the plane was carrying a VIP who had to leave the craft first. The plane had stopped a hundred yards away from its allotted spaced; police cars with lights flashing had raced onto the concourse and stopped by the plane; and uniform cops and plainclothes Secret Service agents had entered the plane and told Will to come with them. As Will grabbed his luggage out of the overhead locker, the entrepreneur had said to him, “I’ve spent the whole flight talking about how great I am. But, who the fuck are you?”
Now Will was sitting in a straight-backed chair in the center of the Oval Office. The president was sitting behind his desk at one end of the room. Standing close to him were Chief of Staff Donny Tusk, head of the Joint Special Operations Command Lieutenant General Jerry Kinnear, and Will’s former handler, CIA director Patrick Bolte. Moments ago, there’d been other politicians and senior military and intelligence personnel in the room, all here to watch the latest video of Bob Oakland. Tusk had ordered all of them to leave when Will had arrived.
Will was facing the four men, his legs crossed and his hands clasped. He was motionless, his brilliant intellect calculating hundreds of facts about the men before him. Only Patrick suspected the MI6 officer was mentally raping them, but he was reassured to note that Will betrayed no signs of doing so.
“We have sixty minutes left to release Saud and post a video on the Internet advising everyone that we’ve done so.” The president looked at Kinnear. “Tell him.”
The general addressed Will. “We’ve got Saud in a holding pen at McGuire AFB—McGuire military airbase in New Jersey. We video him getting on that plane. We tell the terrorists that we’re flying him to the Middle East. When we’ve landed, we tell the terrorists to call our embassy in Baghdad. Our ambassador will field that call in person. He’ll ask for the grid reference where his captors want to make the exchange. We stick to our word. The exchange is clean. No military intervention.”
“And in doing so, we get our boy back at the price of negotiating with terrorists.” The president looked weary. “I can’t let the world watch Bob and his aide be hacked to pieces. I’ll be damned if I do. Trouble is, I’ll be damned if I don’t.”
Will’s eyes darted between each man before settling back on the president. “Don’t make the trade.”
Kinnear’s fist thumped the president’s desk. “You’re playing with lives, son!”
“I never play. Don’t make the trade.”
Donny Tusk folded his arms while studying Will. “You think we shouldn’t give in to terrorists’ demands?”
“Of course, but my stance is underpinned by specifics. I don’t believe they’ll kill Oakland if we refuse to budge though I could be wrong.” Will saw hostility on all of the men’s faces, even in his loyal friend Patrick’s expression. “I realize my advice carries with it some degree of risk.”
“Degree of risk?” Kinnear stood, his face crimson. “You arrogant son of a bitch!”
Will was unflustered. “Arrogance is a sense of superiority over others, coupled with contempt for the weak. I have no such contempt. Nor do I think I’m superior to any living organism on this planet. But weakness is pertinent. Ramzi is weak. Even tough Bob Oakland looks like he’s been broken. We are weak. We must all help each other. And the only way to do that is to stand firm.”
Patrick’s expression changed to one of concern as he looked at Will. “If you’ve got this wrong, my friend, it’ll be on your head. You’re making an almighty call.”
“Actually, it’s my head and my call.” The president asked Will, “Isn’t that correct, Mr. Cochrane?”
Will replied, “You make decisions based upon the information supplied to you. If my information is shit, you have my complete permission to shoot the messenger.”
“That’s not how it happens, at least not around me.” The president pointed a finger at Will. “Still, I’m not making a decision until I’ve heard everything. Why do you think we shouldn’t give in to their demands?”
The men were silent as Will spoke for ten minutes.
“Jeez,” said Tusk as he rubbed his face. He looked at the president. “But they still might kill Oakland and the translator anyway.”
“The chief of staff’s right.” Will’s eyes were unblinking as he stared at the president. “I’m certain what I’ve told you is fact. But I cannot predict what the terrorists will do if we face them down. They may kill Oakland simply out of spite or to tie up loose ends.”
Kinnear, Tusk, and Bolte started arguing with each other, with the president
listening carefully to each man’s point of view.
“I have a solution.”
The four men stopped talking and looked at the MI6 officer.
Will elaborated, “Mr. President: send them a video message. After it’s finished, you will receive a call. I will give you the precise words to say to the caller.” He wrote on a piece of paper. Tusk grabbed the paper and handed it to the president.
When the president finished reading the few lines, he sat in silence for a minute, deep in thought. He lifted his head and said to his chief of staff, “Get a camera and technicians in here. Now!”
The technicians wanted longer to test audio levels and lighting, but thanks to Tusk’s threats to have them impaled on stakes if they didn’t move faster, they were ready to shoot within three minutes of entering the room.
The president made his address to the camera. “We want proof of life. Get Bob Oakland to make a call to the White House. I must speak with him.”
After the camera was turned off, and the technicians told to leave, the five men waited. All except Will kept glancing at their watches and wall clocks. In thirty minutes, Bob and Ramzi were going to be slowly executed on film.
Thirty minutes became twenty.
Kinnear started to sweat. “What if they haven’t seen the video?”
Calmly, Will said, “They have. Monitoring the Internet is vital to them at this juncture.”
Twenty became ten.
Then nine.
Then eight.
Donny Tusk was pacing. “Shit! Shit!”
Seven.
Kinnear was on the verge of panic when he exclaimed, “We get the camera back in here! Tell them we make the trade!”
Six.
Five.
The president’s phone rang. One of his staff spoke to him and said he had a call that needed to be urgently transferred to the Oval Office. The president waited. He said, “Hello, Bob.”
Bob Oakland’s voice was thin. “Mr. President. Sir. It’s me. I . . .”
Patrick wrote quickly on a piece of paper and shoved it in front of the president. The president read his instruction. “Bob: I’ve got to ask you a few questions. Ones that only you know the answers to. I need to check you are who you say you are. You okay with that?”
“Yes . . . yes.”
The president spoke to Oakland for a minute, asking him about CIA protocols and codes that the president and Oakland were cleared to know. He looked at his staff and nodded.
It was the real Bob Oakland on the phone.
The president said, “Hang in there, Bob. You’ve got a whole bunch of people, me included, who think you’re a hero to have survived what you’ve gone through. When we get you out of this situation, I’m going to meet you in person and make sure the world knows the remarkable service you’ve done for our country. But we’ve got matters to attend to first. Put their leader on. I need to say something to him.” The line went quiet.
The Chechen jihadist spoke. “You have less than two minutes. After that, I must hang up and set to work on your fellow American.”
The president picked up the paper Will had given him, and word for word relayed its contents. “We know everything about Arzam Saud. You want the world to know that Saud is a terrorist. Now, so do I. I’m not doing a public trade with you. That would undermine my position. But, it would also undermine yours. Trust issues would come into play. Was Saud brainwashed by us and turned when he was in captivity? Is he going to report back to us about ISIS? Islamic State won’t fully trust him. Maybe they won’t trust him at all. His stock could hit rock bottom. But I see your plight, and I’m very sympathetic to it. Though I don’t agree with what you’ve done, we share the same values and concerns. It’s in my interest to see matters are put right. One day soon, Arzam Saud will escape. We’ll make sure of that. He’ll make his way back to you. Probably he’ll rough up a few people along the way. That’ll look good. He’ll be hailed a hero by ISIS. His stock will hit the roof. He can go back to being a terrorist. In return, I ask that there is no more blood and that hearts remain beating. Do I have your agreement?”
There was silence at the end of the phone.
Then, the line went dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bob’s eyes opened. Had he been asleep? Knocked unconscious? Or was this how it worked when you reached the other side?
He just lay on the ground for a while, breathing, trying to work out what was happening while wondering if all this was real or a dream. The room looked like the same one he’d been in since he’d been captured. But three things were different. The red words were no longer on the wall. All of his shackles had been removed. And Ramzi was nowhere to be seen.
Was this a trick?
Probably.
Soon, he’d be back in chains, on his knees, jihadists laughing as they sawed through his gullet.
Still, it was nice to think otherwise. Even if it was a foolish thought.
And it was nice of the president to try to reassure him, and tell him he’d give him medals, and would announce to the world that Oakland was the finest son of America. It was like a parent trying to comfort his child at the end of the phone, the parent not knowing where the child is, the child being trapped in a coffin, deep underground somewhere no one could find him.
That cool breeze? Where was it coming from? It felt so good on his painful skin. A draft, he guessed. A change of wind direction, perhaps. He’d never felt the breeze in here before.
Bob forced himself to his feet, yelping in pain from the rope injuries on his legs. He staggered forward, calling out in a hushed voice, “Ramzi? Ramzi! What’s going on?”
Maybe Ramzi couldn’t answer because he was being torn apart in the room next door.
He reached the wall where Ramzi had been tethered, next to the red letters that had faced Oakland for every second of his incarceration.
Dead Room.
He touched the area where the letters had been. It was damp. They’d been washed off very recently. Oakland wondered if the trick they were playing on him was to make him think he’d lost his mind. They needn’t have bothered. If he had any sanity left, it was so wafer thin that the cool breeze he felt was liable to make it snap. “Ramzi—are you dead?” he asked as he limped to the door. Ramzi didn’t answer. Bob placed his hand on the door handle, deciding that they’d slaughtered Ramzi and left Bob trapped in here with no food and water so that he could surely go insane and die.
He turned the handle.
The door opened.
The breeze was refreshing though Oakland ignored it because his heart was beating fast with fear and hope. He wished he didn’t have the hope. It was so cruel. So tantalizing. So utterly fucking futile.
“Ramzi—did they murder you? Bury you in the desert? Eat you? Piss on you? Tell me, please. I need to know. It’ll help me prepare myself for what they’ll do to me. Please, Ramzi.”
He looked in the adjacent room. No hangman’s rope; the bench was gone.
“They ate you, Ramzi.” Bob staggered onward along a corridor. “My poor Ramzi. Disappeared forever.”
He passed other rooms, all of them empty, and reached the end of the corridor. He opened the door and walked into what looked like a warehouse. There were piles of metal girders, rusty machinery, conveyor belts covered in dust and mildew, and a tractor and trailer that was on bricks and had no wheels. The vehicle looked like it had been stripped of every spare part that might be useful. No, this wasn’t a warehouse. A long time ago, it had been a factory.
At its far end was an open door, and beyond it, brilliant white light.
“Heaven or Hell,” Oakland muttered between gritted teeth. “I don’t care. Either’s better than this place.” He limped onward. “You out there, Ramzi? What’s it like? Harps and grapes, or goats with forks?”
Maybe Ramzi was now an
angel, waiting for him in the white light, his huge wings outstretched, a smile on his face as he hovered above the ground. He hoped so. It would be sad if instead he confronted his translator in a barrel of boiling tar, burning alive for eternity.
The breeze was stronger. His eyes were squinting because the light was so damn fierce. God’s light? The devil’s light? Either or, it hurt. Mustn’t look directly at God, he reminded himself. It’s rude to do so. Be polite. Say sorry for the naughty things you’ve done. Move along.
He reached the door and stopped, his heart still beating fast, his mouth open.
What he saw looked like the outskirts of a town or large village. A road was here. So, too, houses, telegraph poles carrying cables, and banks of grass that ran alongside the road’s edge. The place looked poor but not impoverished—more like the blue-collar working towns that Bob had grown up in. It appeared deserted. The sky was blue, the temperature pleasant. The breeze continued to wash over him as he staggered down the center of the road.
“Hello! Anyone here?”
Maybe this was a Syrian village whose occupants had been gassed to death. A ghost town remained. Yes, that’s what happened. It had been decided by higher powers that Bob Oakland had been condemned to an everlasting existence within a chemical attack. That sucked.
There was movement farther down the road. Something black. Bob couldn’t decide if it was an imp, demon, or creepy ghost girl. It had legs and arms, for sure. Don’t trust it, Bob told himself. It might play at being nice, but it wants your liver and kidneys.
The black creature grew nearer. Walking. Not a ghost girl, instead an old witch. She had a headscarf on, her back was bent, and a stick was in one hand. Of course, her frailty was all bogus. Don’t eat anything she offers you. It’ll be laced with poison. Pretend you don’t know what she really is. Maybe she’ll leave you alone.
The old woman got very close and stopped, her expression quizzical. She shrieked while holding her mouth to her hand and staring at the walking corpse that Bob resembled. “Peter! Peter!” she cried out while looking at a house across the street.