by Penny Reid
“At home. They’re safe. We’re safe.”
Safe . . .
I fought to swallow but found I couldn’t. The world swiveled and swayed, tossing me against a wall or barrier to my right, and continued bouncing. I tried to brace myself but my limbs weren’t properly responsive.
“Drink this. It’s just water. When you feel well enough, I have food.” Something was pressed against my chest. I fumbled for it.
“We’re an hour outside of Cameroon. Are you okay? How do you feel?”
Cameroon . . .
I opened one eye and recognized the object in my hands. It was a water canteen.
“I think I’m okay.” I nodded automatically because I wasn’t fully awake. I squinted at an unfamiliar dashboard. We were in a car. A Jeep. It was moving. Beyond the dashboard the landscape was equally unfamiliar. We were in a jungle on an unpaved road.
Maybe I was dreaming.
“Please, drink something.”
I moved my eyes to the left, finding Greg splitting his attention between the gravel road and me. He steered the car with one hand. His other arm reached out to me. It was in my hair, his thumb stroking my neck.
“Don’t drink too fast. Just take sips,” he warned, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder and giving me a soft squeeze.
I nodded again and did as instructed after I confirmed that Greg was in fact the person who had passed me the water. My survival training—training which had been drilled into me until it became instinct—told me to first take stock of my surroundings for imminent threats. I mechanically made of list of facts.
I checked the back seat, then checked the mirrors. There were no cars visible in front or behind us. We were alone.
I scanned the interior of the car and identified three weapons: a Heckler & Koch MP5 behind his seat, a SIG DAK in the driver’s side door pocket, and a stiletto with bayonet-style blade —switched closed—in the cup holder between us.
After my surroundings were catalogued and classified as benign, I took stock of my physical state.
My throat was dry. I sipped from the canteen. My extremities tingled with diminishing numbness. I was lethargic. I took another sip of water, screwed the top back on the canteen, and reached forward to pat down my feet, legs, and hips.
“What’s wrong? Are you looking for something?”
“No. Checking for injuries.” I flexed my fingers and continued exploring my hips and stomach.
“You’re not injured. You were . . . asleep.”
Asleep.
I thought about that word. It didn’t feel right.
“No.” I checked my back, then my arms. “I was drugged,” I said and thought at the same time.
Greg said nothing. He brushed my hair away from my cheek, his long fingers remaining on my neck.
Now that I was certain we were in no immediate peril, for the moment, and I was free of any gaping wounds or broken bones, I endeavored to piece together the how and when and where of our predicament.
“Fiona?”
My last memory was Ashley’s party, Janie on the floor. Greg had come home. I fell asleep. Grace called out. I slept in. The living room . . . the living room. The epically messy living room.
“Fe? Are you okay? Talk to me.” Greg’s tone was cut with urgency.
He left. We fought and he’d left Chicago. And then . . .
“Just a minute.” I wasn’t quite awake, but almost, and my brain was on the high cliff of awareness, on the precipice of pummeling headlong into the present. “Where did you say we are?”
He released what sounded like a relieved breath. “We’re an hour north of Cameroon, in Gashaka Gumti National Park. We’ll make—”
“Oh shit!” I shot up in my seat, instantly regretting the sudden movement when spikes of pain and stars filled my vision. It all came back to me, a violent and sudden recollection of the last several days. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead.
“What? Are you hurt? Can you see?”
“Why are we in Cameroon? We shouldn’t be in Cameroon!” My heart thumped in my chest.
“Calm down. Close your eyes and sit back. We’re not there yet. I estimate we have another—”
“No, no, no! Listen to me!” I kept my eyes shut until the flickering silver shards dissipated, and then peeked at Greg’s profile. “There’s a plane waiting for us in Enugu, a mail carrier puddle jumper through Red Star. It’s going to take us to Lagos, where Quinn arranged for transport. Everything is set, but we need to get back to Enugu.”
Greg cleared his throat, his expression hardening. “It’s too late.”
“It’s not. The plane leaves at sundown. We have time.”
“Fe, you’ve been out for fourteen hours. We’re eight hours from Enugu. It’s too late.”
A sinking vertigo sensation required that I lean against the seat and brace against the door. “Dammit.”
He nodded, apparently agreeing with my one-word assessment of the situation. I opened both my eyes and stared at my husband’s grim profile, ignoring the pain in my head. He’d showered and was wearing seemingly clean clothes, a navy blue T-shirt that read, Seattle Seahawks 2015 Super Bowl Champions, and blue and grey Navy-issue cargo pants. He still had his week-old beard, which meant he hadn’t taken time to shave.
I wanted to panic, but I wouldn’t. Like a good soldier, I took another sip of water and forced the bile rising in my throat to recede. He drove and I stared out the window, collecting my thoughts. The collection of thoughts took much longer than usual because I was also processing how to feel about . . . everything.
He’d lied to me.
He’d lied to me for over two months.
Then he’d drugged me.
I had no idea how to cope or even order my resultant feelings.
Perhaps I shouldn’t waste energy on feeling anything at all. Not yet. Not until we’re alone. Not until we’re safe. .
“Fe?”
“We’re almost to Cameroon?”
“Yes . . . at least we should be.”
“What does that mean? We should be.”
“It means Cameroon is south of Nigeria and we’ve been driving long enough that we should be there soon.”
“Wait a minute . . .” I glared at him then searched the Jeep once more, my hands coming to my waist, searching for my tool belt. “Where is my belt?”
“I took off all your gear. It’s on the floor behind you.”
“Are you using GPS?” I twisted in my seat, searching the floor for my belt.
“No.”
“What about the phone? I had a satellite phone on my belt.”
“The phone is dead.”
“Did you grab my gear bag? I left it on the trail. It has a solar charger for the phone.”
“How could I have grabbed your bag? I didn’t know you had a bag.” He said this through clenched teeth.
“Well, you would have known if you hadn’t drugged me.”
“I wouldn’t have drugged you if you had just listened to me.”
Now I was clenching my teeth too. I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose. I needed to think.
“A map?” I opened my eyes and searched the glove box, feeling for a map.
“No. No map.”
I stared at my husband, dawning comprehension like a slap to the face, my self-imposed control and prohibition on feeling starting to fracture. “You have directions?”
His hands opened and closed on the peeling vinyl of the steering wheel. I could tell he was biting back a sarcastic retort. “No, Fe. Not in the way you mean.”
The interior of the car grew eerily silent. I don’t think I was even breathing.
I swallowed, knowing the answer before I asked, “A compass? Do you have a compass?” My voice cracked on the second compass.
He didn’t respond, instead pressing his lips together. His lack of response was his answer. The situation was officially ridiculous and I was losing my mind.
At length, unable to suppress pani
cked hysteria any longer, I blurted into the silence, “BEANS!”
He started. I’d obviously surprised him, and he gave me the side-eye. “Beans?”
“Magic beans. Please tell me you traded a cow, map, and compass for magic beans. We’ll climb the bean stalk and triangulate our location from the clouds.” I was laughing by the time I finished, holding my empty stomach.
“Oh, this is funny to you?”
“Yes. This is funny.” I continued to laugh, and if I were more hydrated I would have been wiping tears from my eyes. “This is fucking hilarious.”
“I know exactly where we are.”
“Right,” I nodded, the single word dripping with sarcasm. I reopened the canteen and took another sip. “Right, right, right. Just like when we took the kids to Disney World and ended up in that swamp.”
“I wasn’t lost. I was just free of societal notions of the names of the places where I was. It was a shortcut.”
“Why couldn’t you have asked for directions? Would it kill you to get directions?”
“I didn’t need directions.”
“Not then, Greg. Now. Ask for directions now.”
The dam broke on his temper. “Who the hell would I ask? The giant jungle snails? Do you want me to water-board it out of them?”
“No, no, no. No CIA torture jokes allowed. Not when my training is the only reason you are sitting here, with me, and not back in that cell.”
“I don’t need directions. Like I said, I know exactly where we are.”
“That’s right. I forgot. You and the aboriginal speakers of Guugu Yimithirr were both born with an infallible innate sense of direction.”
“The gugu-what?”
“One of Janie’s factoids.” I waved my hand in the air. “It’s a language with no word for left and right, up and down, behind—that kind of thing. So kids grow up with north, south, and southeast in terms of directional cues. They have to be aware of their position as it relates to the earth at all times from a very young age, so they grow up with an extremely strong sense of direction.”
“Oh . . .” He nodded, obviously considering my words. “We should do that with Grace and Jack.”
“What?” My single word question arrived sharp, impatient, and incredulous.
“We should make them describe things in terms of north, east, and etcetera. Think of how valuable of a skill that is, to have an infallible innate sense of direction.”
He was serious.
He wasn’t joking. He was serious and he thought this was a good idea.
The fire ants in my brain were back. How could he possibly think this was good idea? It’s not like raising the kids on my own wasn’t already difficult enough. Now he wanted me to remove prepositions from their vocabulary?
I huffed. Loudly. Not just loudly, obnoxiously.
“What was that? What is that sound you’re making? Are you deflating? Have you sprung a leak?”
“I was just thinking, we don’t need to do that with Jack and Grace, because they’ve probably inherited your infallible innate sense of direction. I mean, here we are in the middle of Nigeria—”
“We’re in the south of Nigeria. Not the middle.”
I ignored him and continued to speak. “. . . and you know exactly where we are.”
“Sarcasm. Nice. Real nice.”
“Says the Supreme Ruler of Sarcasm Land.”
“I’m not the Supreme Ruler of Sarcasm Land, Fe. I’m the Earl of Cynicismshire,” he countered flatly.
A short laugh burst forth from my chest, followed by more laughter—a lot more laughter. I held my stomach. It was real this time, not driven by panic. And it was cathartic. Greg must’ve been able to tell the difference because he cracked a smile.
Seeing his crooked grin, reluctant but genuine, splintered the wall I’d built around my emotions in order make it through the last few days. Raw feeling—latent regret, fear, sorrow, hope—swelled within me, my eyes burned with what would soon be a tidal wave of tears.
“I love you, Greg,” I said, already crying. “I love you so much. You can’t—”
“Shhh, shhh, darling. We’ll get through this.” He reached out to me again, grasping my hand and squeezing.
I brought it to my lips and kissed his knuckles, holding on to him and endeavoring to speak through sobs. “When we get home, I’m going to kill you. You don’t know-you don’t know . . .”
He grinned again, wider this time, and chuckled. “I think I have some idea.”
“You lied to me.” I glared at him, allowing the accusation to carry the entirety of my fear and rage. I cried against his hand, holding it with all my strength. I’m sure my grip was verging on painful, but I couldn’t let go.
His grin fell away, his eyes round and sober, and he nodded. “I did. I lied to you. But you must know I had good reasons.”
I warred with myself, not knowing how to feel or what to do next. Part of me wanted to scream and yell and rant and rave. Another part wanted to curl into a ball and cry forever. And still another part just wanted yoga pants and an ice-cream sandwich.
When I couldn’t stop crying after several minutes, Greg pulled the Jeep over and drove several feet into the jungle. With soothing sounds, he coaxed his hand out of my grip and unfastened my seatbelt. He lifted and pulled me onto his lap. I straddled his hips and he wrapped me in his arms.
I burrowed against his neck and held him, breathing him in, wanting to be closer. I frantically kissed his bearded jaw, his temple, his fuzzy cheek, his lips. He allowed me to kiss him, but I could tell he was holding himself back. Greg smoothed his hands up and down my back, making gentle promises.
You’re safe. I’m safe. I’ve got you. I love you. Everything is okay. We’re okay.
Two thoughts were on repeat in my head, intrinsically linked, one causing the other: You lied to me. You almost died.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it, wretched images flashed behind my eyes, worst-case scenarios. What if I’d been too late? What if he’d been unconscious? What if . . .
After a good ten minutes of crying, and unable to sort through the tangled mess of thoughts and emotions—because apparently my husband always left me with epic messes to clean up—I collapsed against his chest, spent.
My breath hitched at intervals, caught on sobs like a child after a prolonged cry, and my mind was blank. But I was thirsty.
Apropos of nothing, I thought and said, “I just drank all that water, and now it’s coming out of my eyes.”
This comment made him laugh in earnest—though it sounded strained—and squeeze me again. “We have more water, and you should drink it. You also need to eat.”
“You have food?” My voice was scratchy and nasally, and my brain was in a fog. “And where did you get this Jeep? And when did you take a shower?”
“I’ll tell you everything.” He kissed my cheek, lifted my fingers to his lips, and brushed a kiss on the back of my hand. His eyes were rimmed with traces of anxiety and I knew he didn’t like that we were sitting in a car, easy targets for anyone who might pass by. “When we get to the safe house and you’ve rested properly. But right now, you need to eat, and we need to move.”
“Safe house? You have a safe house in Nigeria?”
“It’s near the border of Cameroon and Nigeria, but yes. Of course I have a safe house.”
I wrinkled my stuffed nose, completely confused. “Why do you have a safe house?”
“Darling, I went to high school in Compton. I spent three years in the Marines. My wife was a CIA field agent. We are the paranoid sort who have safe houses. Just accept it.”
“Fine. I accept its existence. But we can’t go to the safe house. Quinn, Dan, and Marie are in Lagos. They’re negotiating your ransom. What do you think will happen to them when it turns out that you—just you and none of the other hostages—have escaped?”
Greg scowled at the road, grumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“And don’t give me your Dalai Lama, Pope,
Hawking speech again, because Quinn and company are here because of you. They helped me get you out. We can’t leave them. We have to get a message to them as soon as possible.”
“I will give you my Dalai Lama, Pope, and Hawking speech as many times as I see fit.” Greg pointed his scowl at me, his tone exacting. However, his features softened as his gaze moved over my face. “But I agree. We need to get a message to them. And we’ll be able to do that from the safe house, we’re almost there.”
***
Greg really did know exactly where we were, much to my astonishment.
His safe house was in the middle of the jungle. At least that’s how it felt to me. We had to drive the Jeep off the road, into the forest, and walk about a quarter of a mile to reach it.
The exterior appeared to be exposed cinderblock and the interior wasn’t much better. A single room measuring about eight by eight, a cot, a square rug, and that was about it. I’d finished assessing the space when he moved the carpet out of the way to reveal a door in the floor.
“During the Nigerian Civil War these bunkers weren’t uncommon. But discovering one out here and still intact was a real find.”
Greg opened the wooden door, revealing what looked like a combination safe. He entered the combination, turned the metal wheel, and lifted the hatch.
“I just finished welding this hatch three weeks ago.” He stood back to admire his work for a moment before grabbing the bag of supplies I was carrying—supplies he’d stolen from the corrupt mainline sentinel—and motioned for me to climb down the ladder into the bunker.
“How did you find it?” I asked as I lowered myself into the ground.
“Luck, actually. I’d already found a place in Lagos, a safe house in a mostly Oyinbo neighborhood so I wouldn’t be conspicuous. I did that the second weekend in January as soon as I had free time. The next weekend I spent my day off hiking. I got lost—”
“What? You? Lost?” I teased lightly, feeling more awake after my cry-fest. I reached the end of the ladder and stepped to the side so Greg could finish descending.
“I know. I can hardly fathom it myself. Look to the left side of the ladder, there’s a switch for the lights.”
“There are lights?” I asked and felt for the switch, flipping it. Compact fluorescent bulbs illuminated the space, which was at least twenty by twenty feet. Newly constructed shelves lined the walls laden with canned goods, non-perishables, computer equipment, and miscellaneous supplies. A large soaking tub took up an entire corner, and next to it was a toilet and basin sink. A single cot claimed the other corner and a table with one chair was pushed against the wall.