Every person has a price. He knows the money is there. If that is all they want, he will be at home in his bed by tonight. He knows that his only hope of surviving is to offer an attractive enough price. Once he finds what the price will need to be, he will easily exploit the weakness of these stupid amateurs who had kidnapped him.
He recognizes Jay immediately, for Sadegh has kept him under surveillance ever since he arrived in Chicago. Sadegh considered Jay as an insurance policy in case one day he could use him. Jay will be his ticket to freedom. Just offer him enough money, then greed will take over.
The Kurd will be more difficult. He decides to let them make their demands, then he will concentrate on finding the weaker of the two as we negotiate. It doesn’t matter how many millions they want; he had more than enough. He’d pay them and be sure to make it well worth their while to free him.
To make doubly sure, upon his release, they’d get an added bonus. He’d make the bonus much more than they had asked for as an additional incentive not to harm him. Confident that he was in no real danger, he relaxes and waits for them to finish their preparations. Revenge would come later. He would hunt them down to the ends of the earth, until hell freezes. It would be his mission.
Sadegh mentally begins compiling which intelligence agencies, governments, and even bounty hunters he will call on. There would be no place to hide from the ferocity of vengeance. He wouldn’t have them killed; rather, he would make sure they were brought to him alive. He would kill them slowly, personally, at his Lake Forest mansion, or elsewhere.
He knows Jay has two daughters. He’ll find them. That will be Jay’s most vulnerable breaking point. He will make Jay watch while he tortures the young women to death. He’ll do the same to the Kurd’s family. Only then would he begin the kill of Jay and finally the Kurd. He would have a medical doctor treat them every hour so as to prolong their miserable lives for as long as possible. He’d offer the doctor bonuses for each day he could keep them alive.
Sadegh chuckles to himself. Why had he never thought of employing a doctor before? It would be enjoyable. At long last, in this fucking wilderness, he has found a way to prolong “the meal of three courses.”
* * *
Sadegh has lain in the cage for over an hour before they come for him. Without a word, they heave up the cage and carry it into the cave. Hurricane lamps have been lit inside the cave, which is the size of a large room. Plastic sheets cover the floor and four metal stakes have been hammered into the ground thorough the plastic.
Terror explodes in Sadegh’s stomach. This was not what he had expected. With his mouth gagged, how can he negotiate with them? He tries to attract their attention with muffled shouts. When they don’t respond, he tries using his eyes, blinking them frantically as he implores the men to look at him.
They open the cage door, pull him out, and knot strong nylon ropes around each wrist and each ankle. He moves and flails with all of his might, ferocious fear electrifying his struggle. Sweat pours down his face, but he is unable to move. Their grips are too strong. They turn him onto his left side. First, the left wrist is tied to the stake, then his left ankle to another stake.
Jay unlocks the handcuff of his right wrist, but before he can pull it away, the other one has jerked the rope, wedging his wrist hard against the furthest stake. In a few seconds, his wrist is tightly secured to the stake. They tie his right ankle to the fourth stake.
Using a knife, they cut off all his clothes and put them into a plastic garbage bag.
Jalal’s face is hard. He sits on the floor at Sadegh’s head and starts to speak. His voice is soft, as if this private conversation of great importance is just between the two of them.
“All your life, you have inflicted pain on others and enjoyed doing it. Now I will inflict that same experience on you. I do not trust your answers when I first start, so I will measure over the next few days what your mind tells me and later what your mind will have forgotten to tell me. When I find that path and you give me the same answers again and again, when half your body has been eaten away, then I will know you are telling the truth. Until that time, I will use antibiotics to keep you alive. I know how you enjoyed personally injuring and hurting people in your killing rooms. Now I will also measure how great your threshold of pain will be. In the next few days, both you and I will find out.”
Jalal gets up, pours syrup onto Sadegh’s naked crotch, then dribbles it toward rows of boxes. Sadegh turns his head and sees Jalal pull off a blanket. To his horror, his heart hammering with an ugly intensity against his ribs, he sees that below the blanket are cages.
Jalal moves two of the cages closer to Sadegh, and in the light of the lamps, the tethered prisoner sees large rats in the cages beside him. Angrily, they gnaw at the wire mesh sides of the cages, the whiteness of their teeth bright as they continue to bang against the wire.
Sadegh watches as Jalal grasps a rope at the back of the cage nearest him. Now he can see that each rat has one of its back feet tied, the ropes threaded through the back partition of its cage.
Jalal opens the door. The first rat tries to jump forward, but Jalal holds the rope tied to the rat’s back leg. It cannot move forward. Hissing, it squirms from side to side trying to get free, its teeth snapping and grinding obscenely.
“On behalf of my father and all the others you have murdered, these twelve rats will attack you one at a time every half hour. Remember your sins well, Sadegh. You are about to begin your journey into the hell you never imagined could exist.”
Crazed with fear, his eyes rimmed with madness, Sadegh sees the young Kurd let go of the rope. Eyes shut tight, he feels death shivering in his throat, not wanting to see the rat as it runs toward him. Sadegh tastes blood and bile in his mouth as he screams, an unimaginable fear scorching like no other ever, howling his terror over and over again as the rat slams into him and tears at the flesh in his most sensitive and vulnerable spots.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Luke is downstairs, sitting on the floor, playing with his grandchildren. “Okay, everyone, which story should I read before bath time?”
Obediently, the three children stop playing and come to sit close to him. The youngest, as always, puts her hand into his. Gently, he closes his hand, feeling the smallness and warmth as the generations spanning eight decades hold hands.
While Luke is reading the story, he fails to notice a Chicago Department of Public Works van driving into the stockyards. To passersby or others who live in the vicinity, this is a normal occurrence. The van’s headlights cut easily through the darkness as the driver steers between the buildings. It doesn’t take the driver long before he finds the door he is looking for. Turning off the lights, two men in DPW uniforms get out of the van. One of them walks to the door, which is partly open, and jerks to open it all the way. He joins the other man at the back of the van, who already had unlocked and pulled the van doors open.
Both men wear gloves and gas masks as they lift the bulky plastic sheets out of the van. Making sure of their grip on the slippery plastic, they carry the bundle awkwardly through the door of the building. Both also wear hard hats with lamps. They pause just inside the building. Grasping the plastic with one hand, bracing the bundle on his bent knee for support, one man pulls the door closed, leaving an inch or so open. Only then does he turn on his lamp. Reaching across, he activates the other man’s lamp and both of them struggle to balance the weight in the bundle.
Breathing heavily, they walk slowly, picking their way carefully through the debris as they make their way toward the far wall. The room is enormous. The glow of rats’ eyes are all around them as they climb over rocks and piles of rubbish. When the man in front decides they’ve gone far enough, they stop and put the plastic bundle on the floor near the wall.
Standing together, they pull sharply upward. The plastic unrolls and what is left of the body of Sadegh falls to the floor. Sadegh is nearly dead, his heart barely beating. He’s been tortured for six days and the ra
ts in this building will finally kill him. They’ll eat all of the flesh on his body within minutes. For days, they will continue to gnaw on the bones of his skeleton trying to suck out any juices. If his bones are ever found, it will be assumed that a homeless person had died here.
The two men throw the plastic, which still holds pools of his blood, next to the body knowing that the rats will attack and tear the plastic into shreds to get at the blood.
Turning, the two men retrace their steps toward the door.
* * *
The rats, crazed by the smell of fresh meat, rush toward Sadegh once the lights are no longer shining on him.
I continue walking towards the door, but Jalal looks back. He focuses his flashlight on the floor where we’ve left Sadegh.
Ignoring their natural instincts to run away from light, the rats continue eating. Jalal sees their feeding frenzy as dozens of rats cluster like oversized blowflies on Sadegh’s body. Jumping on top of each other, the rats fight to tear meat off as they strip the carcass.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON
Jalal and I hear the first boarding call announced in the departure lounge for Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul.
I say, “So, this is it my friend. By tomorrow, you should be near your home.”
“I have one more thing to share with you,” he says.
“In his cell, my father made me promise as I hugged him and cried, for I was only a little boy and I clung to his legs not wanting to let him go. He made me repeat my promise to him over and over again. Through my tears, he made me swear on my life that one day I would find Sadegh and learn all his secrets before I killed him. My father kissed me on my forehead one last time.
“As I grew older, I always regretted not having killed Sadegh, even though his bodyguards would have killed me instantly. Eventually I despaired that I would ever find him. Killing him today was the right time.
“When I turned and saw the rats in the stockyards eating what was left of Sadegh, I closed my eyes and spoke to my father in the same way that I have spoken to him ever since he died. His body is not here for me to speak to, but our souls and hearts have always been as one. We have never stopped speaking to each other. I thanked him for the final lesson he taught me in his jail cell, for not letting me kill Sadegh over the past thirty years. I felt my father’s presence and it was as if he had his arm around my shoulders. I cried in the same way I had when I was a little boy, for at last, I had my father standing next to me, and together we watched the rats eat his murderer.”
The announcement for final boarding is announced. Jalal picks up his backpack, and we look at each other. I walk with him to the boarding gate.
He says, “In the Bible of many great religions, it says that a man who has one true friend is a truly rich man.”
Still holding my hand in both of his, he says, “Jay, you are my true friend. You have given me friendship like no other and a piece of your heart. Your soul will forever be a part of my heart and my soul.”
Grasping each other’s shoulders, we hug fiercely. When I step back, both of us have tears falling down our cheeks. We both know that one day we will meet again.
LATER THAT NIGHT
My need for revenge has receded. I explain to Josh that the less he knows the better, and all I want to tell him is for his own safety is that Sadegh is dead. I hand over to him a thick folder of names of the eight Eagles who are in America, where they live, and the politicians who are primed and ready to react as soon as Saudi Arabia makes its move. The papers include their Swiss bank accounts, transcripts of the tapes from Hamid, and copies of the tapes with Abdel Amir plotting with his nephew Sadegh, Eagle One.
I give Josh a box containing copies of all the tapes. He can explain that informers over several weeks have provided all this information to him, and he can’t reveal his sources. He has connected the dots and feels that he needs to act. For the briefest time, Josh’s eyes disconnect from mine.
I continue. “My friend, you will have to protect yourself and your family the same way as I will need to because without a doubt, the minute the President is alerted of what you have in your possession, your and my days will be numbered. You and I will cease to exist. The President will see to it that our disappearances are quick, sure, and cannot be traced back to him. I will be leaving Chicago, and will disappear as best as I can until I see what shakes out here in the States.
“Jalal has already duplicated everything he has and the BBC, CNN, and Herald Tribune will all be notified if he should be killed. Our President will never admit to this. No one in any federal agency will touch it, nor will any member of Congress. The finger-pointing will come from both sides of the aisles. The Arabs want to make America an Islamic country. Politicians won’t be able to or want to stop that; too many of them are on the take and too many see this as the ultimate solution for their fringe-left ideology that fits in with the corruption they are used to. My guess is that your only hope is to contact people high enough in the military who can put pressure on the President.”
Josh nodded, then gestured for me to go on with my summary.
“Iran can bring a case against the President, his top advisors, cabinet members, and the military. He can be charged at the World Court in The Hague with war crimes against humanity, and even genocide. Abdel Amir can say that the tapes are an American ploy and that his words have been used and manipulated through Hollywood from the many speeches cut and pasted into the conspiracy that America perpetrated. Now that Sadegh is dead, it will be Abdel Amir’s word against that of the President. He can plead that the whole illusion was to rile up the American people against Iran, and the Eagles really were all Americans in disguise who had been trained to speak Farsi, and commit the atrocities that they did through allegiance to the President of the United States, the Satan of all Satan’s.
“Four men blew up a TV station. They could have been Americans. Five men crashed small planes into 747s, who could just as easily have been “lone wolf” Americans, and the pamphlets left in the buses were printed in the USA. America wants to strike Iran’s nuclear reactors and this was what they have concocted. It was all along an American plot, and America is now too ashamed to confess her sins to the rest of the world.
“Josh, I believe the military are the only ones who will fight to keep America what it has been since its inception. Will an overthrow of the government by the military be our only solution. I don’t know; you will need to decide. Diplomatically and economically, the US will become isolated. If we become the pariah of nations, then maybe being taken over by Islam will become a choice for America’s 350 million people to make through election. Or if they decide to do it the Islamic way, every city will have massive marches, protesters, and eventually violence. America will have its own Arab American Spring.
“My friend, you will have to pull out all stops to find the lone wolves, who are Americans, who have come under the influence of the radical clerics. These are on the Internet and preach hatred for America and its values 24 hours a day. They preach about a need for violence to overthrow the government, in the same way as the Arab Spring Uprising. How that can be stopped? I have no idea, but this was one of the divisions Sadegh was talking about before he died. His words were ‘The lone wolves will attack by air, be on cruise ships at sea, travel in underground trains, have semis filled with explosives on highways that will exit a ramp at high speed and blow up a mall. We are ready, you are not.’”
“Josh, you must move quickly. The Saudis and other Arab countries already have us in their crosshairs. I don’t know what else to tell you, friend. Killing Sadegh might buy us some time, because he was set to disappear and have plastic surgery on his face. Abdel Amir and the Saudis will not be alarmed when they don’t hear from him for a while. Eventually, though, they will realize something has happened to him and proceed on their own. Maybe at first, they will hold back, fearing a trap or ambush by the US. Again, this will buy you some more time, but once they regroup, it will be ‘Open
Season.’ So you have a small window of time to think, plan, and execute what needs to be done to save America. The doomsday clock is ticking. Each hour is an hour less to retaliate—we have created a prison with no doors.”
* * *
THREE DAYS LATER, KURDISTAN
Jalal is close to his village. He is nearly home. He continues climbing. Another hour and he’d be there. He stops to rest, sits under a tree, and looks up into the clear sky. In the distance, he sees an eagle flying to its nest. The lord of the sky is also going home.
High above the town of Dahuk in the Zagros Mountains of the Fertile Crescent, the eagle’s nest is surrounded by snow that never melts. The rabbit’s body was still warm. Talons like steel grip the animal tightly as it sways gently in the cold air. Blood had started coagulating where the claws punctured the rabbit’s soft skin. Powerful wings, nearly six feet from tip to tip, flap an effortless, slow rhythm as the eagle flies higher and higher, cutting through wind currents, moving closer to the clouds. Its neck is bent slightly forward, sharp eyes focusing on its nest, which was now only a hundred yards away.
The majestic bird is nearly home.
The eagle arrives at its eyrie, Positioning itself, hovering, then landing on the branches that make up the nest, it drops the rabbit that will feed its hungry chicks.
The eagle screams.
CHICAGO
Life as I had lived it is now over. I have found my crossroads. The trunk of the car is filled with my suitcases. I carry the last one to the open back door. The back seat of the Jeep is crammed with boxes. I push to move some of the boxes and make enough space to squeeze the suitcase in, then slam the door. I look one last time at the condo that has been my home for over fifteen years, and that I will never again. The new owners will be taking possession tomorrow.
Screaming Eagles Page 27