Prism

by Rachel Moschell

  Allaahu Akbar

  Allaahu Akbar

  Ashhadu Allah ilaaha illa-Lah

  Ashhadu Allah ilaaha illa-Lah

  Ash Hadu anna Muhamadar rasuulullah

  Ash Hadu anna Muhamadar rasuulullah

  Wara’s pulse surged, knowing what she was listening to. As a linguistics geek, she could definitely recognize Arabic.

  God is great.

  I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except God.

  I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.

  They’re saying salaat, Wara thought, absolutely stunned. These guys are Muslims.

  The men, still standing, all hooked their hands behind their ears, turning their palms forward, and repeated, “Allah Akbar” in a flat monotone. Crossing one hand on top of the other in front of their bellies, they prayed more in Arabic, though Wara only caught a little. The main gist seemed to be glory and praise to Allah, and at the end she heard something about Satan.

  She then recognized the opening lines of the first surah or chapter of the Quran. All of the men outside bowed in unison, backs straight, gaze lowered. Wara shivered, hearing again, “Allah Akbar!” and realizing that most of the praying men wore long knives hanging from their belts in leather sheathes. Her attention span suddenly fizzled and she weakly crawled back to the sleeping bag, not quite sure what this new revelation meant for her.

  She was being held captive by a group of Muslims. Who had put a bomb on her bus.

  For the first time she wondered where she was. Under the white star light outside the tent, Wara had made out the shadowy bulk of mountain peaks. The men must have carried her, unconscious, from the road after the accident. They couldn’t have carried her far, could they?

  We could be up on one of the peaks above Coroico.

  The perfect hiding spot for terrorists, apparently.

  Who would ever guess that Islamic terrorists would be lurking around Coroico, adventure tourism capital? Coroico, with its stunning scenery, picturesque small-town charm, thick with plantings of coffee beans and oranges?

  Feeling rather sick, Wara uncapped the bottle of luke-warm water Paulo had given her last night and drained the rest. She really needed to use the bathroom, but wasn’t about to ask. Yet. Right now she really needed a distraction, something to keep from thinking about Muslim terrorists outside her tent and Noah possibly being dead. Wara dropped the empty plastic bottle onto the sleeping bag and let her eyes wander around the tent.

  The olive green tent was big enough for Paulo to stand in at the center, just barely. Six people could possibly sleep in the thing side to side, but right now the tent only held the one sleeping bag, a rust-colored hiking backpack, the lantern, and leather sandals.

  And a fat golden book. Swallowing hard, Wara reached towards it, thinking maybe she could work on deciphering some of the Arabic lettering in this Quran to keep herself from crying. She flipped through the gold leaf pages of the book, then frowned at the page and blinked.

  Because the book wasn’t a Quran at all; it was a Bible.

  The scrolling letters shimmered in front of her, and Wara closed the book to see the cover, unable to believe what was in front of her eyes.

  This guy, Paulo, had a Bible here in his tent? The same Paulo who was holding her captive and had tried to kill her and Noah on the bus?

  Something fluttered out of the Arabic Bible pages, swishing to the nylon tent floor. It was a dated-looking five-by-seven photograph of a happy family seated at a restaurant. Wara immediately recognized the bright colors and elephant logo of Dumbo ice cream parlor in Cochabamba. The entire family in the picture was gathered around a square table with a canary yellow tablecloth, eating sundaes in tall, frosty glasses.

  Footsteps padded outside and Wara jumped as Paulo ducked in the tent. He saw her sitting there, then paused. Droplets of water still clung to his temples and curly black hair. “How are you feeling?” he finally said.

  “What?” Wara blinked at him. How was she feeling? Was she really supposed to be feeling anything other than awful?

  Paulo’s eyes flitted between her face and the photo she was holding between two fingers. It occurred to her that maybe snapping at him about how she was feeling wouldn’t be the best way to keep this guy from killing her. Maybe she should talk to him, try to at least seem sympathetic.

  It wasn’t very likely he would care, but worth a try.

  “Dumbo,” Wara remarked, studying the picture again and trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I love this place. I go here all the time in Cochabamba. Who’s this in the picture?”

  Paulo lowered himself onto the floor next to her and held out one hand, palm up. “That’s my family,” Paulo said, obviously wanting the picture. But Wara kept staring at it, suddenly fascinated with how the family of an evil man who bombed buses would look. They should be dysfunctional to the core, lounging together at a seedy bar while the kids ran wild in the streets. What were they all doing eating ice cream at Dumbo like decent people?

  Two normal-appearing adults who could be the parents were both looking off in another direction, as were a few of the children. “Looks like you have a nice family,” Wara said, thinking that it was actually true. Closest to the camera sat a plump teenage girl with curly ringlets, a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, and huge gold hoop earrings. A skinny, good-looking kid with dark hair had an arm around her, wearing a red soccer jersey, grinning at whoever was snapping the picture.

  The shock started small, somewhere at the bottom of Wara’s spine. But by the time it raced up her back, she nearly choked, sucking in a horrified gasp.

  “Please give me the picture, Wara,” Paulo was saying with a tight smile, but Wara had frozen, realizing that she knew the face of the girl with ringlets in the picture. In fact, she knew that face so well she felt it was part of her own family. Paulo snatched the picture away and Wara felt the tent wall shimmer around her in waves of hot and cold.

  “You’re Alejandro Martir!” she croaked. She stared at the face of the guy in front of her: square, coffee- colored jaw, pretty hazel eyes.

  Those were the eyes! All seven of the Martir kids had them, inherited from their mother, Noly.

  Wara’s jaw dropped, then snapped back shut. Paulo was blinking at her, obviously shocked. “Your sister, Nazaret,” she forced herself to say numbly, “is my best friend in Cochabamba.”

  Paulo’s clear hazel eyes widened and then closed, very slowly.

  His face confirmed everything.

  13

  olive green

  IT CAN’T BE.

  Wara really couldn’t believe it, couldn’t wrap her mind around this being anything other than the worst nightmare ever.

  “You’re the brother…” she forced herself to say the awful words out loud. “The one who’s been missing.” She could see it now, that faded photograph on Nazaret’s white dresser, surrounded by threadbare teddy bears and little jeweled vials of nail polish.

  It was him, that skinny kid from the missing brother picture. He was the same guy sitting next to Nazaret in the ice cream shop, arm slung around her shoulders.

  And here with Wara in this tent, holding her prisoner.

  Alejandro.

  She couldn’t believe it. One of the Martirs was a criminal? Or a Muslim terrorist?

  Paulo—no, Alejandro---was looking at her with deliberation, as if deciding whether it was worth insisting on the previous lie about his identity. Then he erased his pained expression and scooted closer to her. “Actually I go by Alejo. How is my sister?”

  Wara was furious, horrified. “Why don’t you find out yourself?” she snapped at him, voice bordering on hysterics. “Your family has, like, adopted me in Cochabamba. They pray for you all the time. They’ve been wondering for years where you’ve been!” Now Wara was sputtering, and she tried to calm down. Her nerves were beyond frayed, and her hands trembled on her lap.

  Nazaret’s brother looked stricken, a marked change to his former aloofness. “Na
zaret has been doing really well, actually,” Wara glared at him. “Until now, because she’s going to find out that two of her best friends are dead! The good thing is, though, that it looks like she’ll never find out that her brother killed them. So I’m sure that someday, she’ll go back to being ‘fine’!”

  Tears filled Wara’s eyes, and she felt furious for crying in front of this man. But she was also afraid. Nazaret’s brother or not, this guy had kidnapped her and bombed the bus. He hadn’t contacted his family in all these years. The fact that Wara knew the Martirs wasn’t going to keep Alejandro from killing her so she wouldn’t give away information about whatever he and his fellow terrorists were doing.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d let that word float through her mind. Wara swiped at the tears with her sleeve and tried to control herself.

  “Are you a terrorist?” she asked warily, fixing her runny eyes on Nazaret’s brother. Alejandro actually had the gall to draw back in surprise, screwing up his face as if offended by her insinuation.

  “What? No!” he insisted, waving his hand at her. “We are not terrorists, ok?”

  It could have been Wara’s overactive imagination, but Alejandro did not appear completely convinced of his own words. Brief memories crossed Wara’s brain of various news articles she’d read online recently, accusations from the United States that Bolivia was harboring fundamental Muslims and allowing them to use their country as a base for radical Islam’s cause. In fact, one of Bolivia’s former presidents had foreseen something similar when he commented, “Bolivia is going to be the next Afghanistan.”

  She remembered the web page Noah had found that day in the coffee shop, the one about Islam being the only hope for Latin America. “I’m not sure I believe you, Alejandro,” she said.

  Alejandro watched her guardedly. “Actually I go by Alejo. I really hate Alejandro. That would be what my father called me.”

  What could Alejandro Martir possibly have against his father? Pablo Martir was a good man, a far cry from what his son had apparently become.

  This was a nightmare. Wara’s eyes ran over Alejo’s face again: Nazaret’s father’s jaw. His mother’s eyes.

  It was awful. Being kidnapped and nearly killed by someone bearing the image of her Bolivian “parents” was really freaking Wara out.

  She couldn’t handle it.

  Wara crumpled down into the sleeping bag and pulled the top over her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, even after she heard Alejo leave the tent, close the flap behind him.

  Alejo Martir left her alone for a long time, just stopping back once to remind her that the tent was surrounded by motion detectors so she’d better be sure not to escape. He asked if she needed the bathroom or food, but she didn’t even acknowledge him, still curled up under the sleeping bag.

  Alejo and the other guys were close by in the clearing, having some kind of meetings. Probably terrorist stuff.

  Maybe about noon he came back and caught her staring blankly at the cover of the fat golden Bible “Brought you some granola bars,” he said grimly. “And some more water. But before you eat, there’s a stream close by in the forest. I thought maybe you’d want to go down there...” He squatted and picked up a bag from behind his backpack in the corner, which he held out towards Wara. She blinked, realizing it was her purple backpack.

  “How did that get here? I don’t remember.”

  Alejo shrugged, one foot tapping on the floor, probably anxious to get back to whatever he was doing outside. “I’m going to have Gabriel and Stalin take you down to the creek,” he informed her. Noting a look of protest about to spread across her face, Alejo raised one hand and said, “Most of the guys have already gone back home. The ones that are left I trust. They’re going to take you there and bring you right back. Ok?”

  “Fine.” Wara shrugged helplessly. What choice did she have? She was his prisoner, right?

  “Thanks for the food,” she said in a small voice, glad right now for any small kindness.

  Alejo nodded curtly and eyed her again before turning to stride out of the tent. She heard him giving instructions to someone outside, and then the tent flap pulled aside and two faces poked in: the pale goatee who woke Alejo for prayers this morning and the pudgy guy who last night had told her that when she kicked the bucket she deserved to go to heaven.

  “Ready?” they asked politely. Wara stood up warily, racking her brain to try to remember if these two had been among those making nasty comments upon her arrival last night. As far as she could recall, the stringy-haired guy had only been standing and staring—and she remembered him giving her a hand up and telling the guys to stop with the lewd jokes. And the skinny guy—now it was all coming back. He had leaned close when Alejo had his arm practically around her neck and whispered, “I didn’t want to bring her, but the guys said I had to.”

  So far so good.

  “Ok, sure.” Wara shrugged and tried to pick up her rather heavy backpack. The bulky guy stepped forward hesitantly and held out one arm for her bag. She handed it to him without a word and followed the two of them outside. After a few steps in blinding sunlight, they entered the shade of the trees. A chorus of cicadas and tropical birds was rising above the canopy.

  Wara jumped as a reedy voice said, “So, I’m Stalin. In Coroico I’m a professor. I teach kids morality and ethics class.”

  “Uh, hi.”

  Morality and ethics class? Is he serious?

  “My name is Gabriel Shara.” Wara noticed that the taller, thin guy had a baby face with kind-looking greenish eyes.

  “I’m Wara Cadogan,” she said, wondering if they really cared.

  “Yeah, we know.” Gabriel was starting to cheer up. “We read your passport. You’ve been here in Bolivia for a really long time.”

  “Six years,” Stalin remarked, stepping carefully over a very tall rock, slippery with the morning dew. Wara felt the dampness soak through her canvas shoes and into her ankle socks, and decided that whatever time left to her in life she would live barefoot.

  “Just a second,” she said, stopping in the middle of the forest and beginning to peel off her soaked shoes and socks. “My shoes are all wet.”

  “But—we’re almost to the stream!” Stalin insisted, seemingly shocked by the sight of a gringa stripping off her footwear in the middle of the cloud forest. “You’re going to get cut on the rocks!”

  “Well apparently I might die today anyway, so I might as well enjoy my last day, right? Am I supposed to be afraid of dying with a few cuts on my feet?” She wadded the damp socks up into her shoes and began walking again, picking her way over broken sticks and squishy moss. Stalin and Gabriel walked alongside her in morose silence, until the gurgling of water told Wara that Stalin had been right. A shallow, rushing stream cut its way through a dirt patch of the forest just ahead, tripping over small stones in its path. Stalin set her backpack down on a flat rock by the stream, and then motioned to Gabriel.

  “Ok, so we’re going to leave you here for a while, but don’t do anything foolish because we’ll be close by.” Stalin cocked his head to one side and then said, “We won’t be peeking, though. I mean, we’ll be far enough away…”

  Gabriel looked mortified and glared at Stalin, who grinned lopsidedly and let Gabriel lead him away. Gabriel turned back towards her with a cool grin. “Don’t even think about disappearing, ok? I’ve got equipment up here you’ve never even heard of, and I’ll find you like that.” He snapped his long fingers, and then whirled back to continue off to some point in the banana plants where they would be waiting.

  Shivering in the coolness of the mountain air, Wara quickly unzipped her backpack and dug out a change of clothes. She pulled on black pants and a green tank top, then knelt next to the stream to try to wash the dried blood from her cheek and hair.

  “Still there?” A masculine voice hollered from somewhere in the bushes.

  “Yes!” she answered, biting her lip. “Just a second, ok?”

  “Just making
sure!” a different voice called back.

  The frigid water burned her scalp and she realized she probably did have some cuts. She remembered the side of her head smacking against something in the bus as she saw the wall of silver fire go spinning over her like a ceiling.

  I must have gotten thrown out the window, she realized with a shiver. But I hardly have any cuts. Maybe the explosion blew the glass away first.

  Nausea filled her as she imagined Noah, arm ripped away from her shoulder as he was thrown further into the fiery bus by the explosion, while she was tossed out the window in the opposite direction, to safety.

  “I know women take a long time, but we really have to get back.” Wara thought the too-cheerful voice was skinny Gabriel’s. She slogged across the spiky grass on her bare feet and scooped up her backpack.

  "Ok, you can take me back now,” she called sadly. In a way, she wished they would just tie her up out here instead of bringing her back to the clearing. Here, sapphire blue butterflies were flitting across the racing surface of the stream, licking up crystal drops, dipping their spindly black legs into the water.

  Stalin and Gabriel crunched their way out of the foliage, staring at her standing there in bare feet. Obviously deciding not to mention the feet again, Stalin wordlessly took her backpack and motioned for her to follow them back to the camp. Sunshine hit her damp hair with a welcome warmth as she stepped out of the shade and into the clearing. The sight of all the olive green tents quickly brought the chill back. Alejo was sitting on a rock, talking to a short guy with wire rim glasses and a little brown goatee.

  “Take care of things for me a while, will you Benjamin?” Alejo told him and Wara was not happy with the way Alejo’s eyes ran over her as Stalin and Gabriel passed her over to him. Alejo’s lips curved into a wry smile and he grabbed her arm, half-dragging her with him towards his tent. She really had to focus on keeping her feet under her as Alejo marched her along, then pushed her through the door of the tent. Inside, her dropped her arm and latched the tent door shut.