Set Free

by Anthony Bidulka

  Set Free was Jaspar Wills’ true-life account of the whole thing, beginning with the day his daughter disappeared and ending on the day he returned to Boston following his own kidnapping. The book had debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and had remained there ever since.

  Although the interview had been publicized as a promotion piece for Wills and his new book, everyone knew the truth. This was going to be reality TV at its best—which was why the network had committed to sixty minutes live in prime time. No book, no matter how popular, could command the same. This was all about show business, about media darling Kate Edwards doing what she did best: taking viewers by the hand and leading them into a private world. Once there, award-winning author Jaspar Wills and his beautiful wife would bare their souls for all to see.

  In Set Free, Jaspar revealed intimate details never discussed in the interviews following his stunning return. He recounted the severity of the beatings he’d endured, his serious contemplation of suicide, and meticulously described his frequent escapes into what he termed “dreamscape reality”—a place where he spent great swaths of time in the company of his daughter. He talked about an eventual “soul-refreshing” salvation at the hands of a woman whose real identity he’d never know, and—the most provocative revelation of all—his fleeting sexual relationship with her.

  Fans were dying to hear more. They were desperate to see the reaction of Jennifer Wills as her husband publicly admitted his infidelity—all on the heels of her own shocking affair with the man accused of kidnapping their daughter. This was prime time soap opera material.

  On top of everything else, Katie had a few surprises up her sleeve. Only she and her producers knew when and how she’d dole them out. Every good journalist lived for moments like this. These sixty minutes were hers. This would be the show that propelled her, at light speed, from Katie Edwards, affiliate correspondent, to Kate Edwards, national anchor.

  The first twenty minutes of the show were heavy on archive video and photo collages, backed by a compassionate score. Katie expertly navigated the viewing audience, with great sensitivity to the Wills, through the early days of the story: Mikki’s kidnapping, the failed retrieval attempts, the trial, the pressures on their marriage and careers, and, eventually, Jaspar’s decision to go to Morocco.

  “We’ve talked before about your arrival in Marrakech. How you came to be deceived by a man pretending to be a taxicab driver,” Katie recited. “A man who conned you into getting into his car. In your book, you describe in nerve-wracking detail those horrible moments when you first begin to realize that you aren’t being taken to a hotel, but that something quite different—something unimaginable—was happening,” Katie led.

  “Yes,” Jaspar responded, looking considerably healthier and more robust than the last time he’d appeared on camera with Katie, immediately following his return from Marrakech. “Even for me, a writer, someone used to expressing himself in words, I found this part of my story difficult to adequately explain in the book. There is a depth of fear to which a person plummets when you know, for certain, that you are truly, suddenly, unexpectedly, in great danger. It’s nearly impossible to describe, even now.

  “You’re in a foreign country. You’re exhausted from traveling for hours. It’s hot. You can’t speak the language. And then the unthinkable happens. At first you freeze. You doubt yourself. You doubt the reality of the situation. But when it hits you, when you know it’s true, and it’s happening to you, it’s as if someone has pounded you over the head with a sledgehammer.”

  Katie visibly shuddered. “I don’t even want to imagine it.” She turned to the camera, somber eyes nakedly eliciting empathy from the millions watching. “I’m sure many of us know the experience of visiting a place we’ve never been to before. We might fleetingly think: ‘what if something goes wrong?’ But for it to really happen…” Back to Jaspar. “My God, Jaspar, it’s terrifying to think about.”

  “Terrifying is a good word.” He let out a half-laugh, half-moan. “You know, Katie, there’ve been times since when I’ve wondered whether it was a good thing the kidnapper knocked me out as soon as he did. At least when I was unconscious, I didn’t have to live in the terror.”

  “Live in the terror,” she repeated Jaspar’s last words like a mantra. After a short pause, Katie moved on, elucidating for the audience’s benefit: “It was when you began to register suspicion, and voiced your concern to the driver, that he knocked you out?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You didn’t regain consciousness until you were in the room where they first kept you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jaspar, I’ve never asked you this before…” Katie allowed a dramatic two-second delay. Enough time for the cameras to catch Jaspar’s gape. “Did you ever wonder…did you…oh gosh, I don’t know how to ask this…or even if I should.” This hesitant uncertainty, Katie knew, was the kind of stuff audiences ate up—as long as you didn’t do it too often.

  Other than to close his mouth, Jaspar didn’t respond one way or another. This apparent spur-of-the-moment, off-script diversion had not been part of the prep package he and Jenn had been given.

  Seemingly resolved, Katie pushed on. “Have you ever wondered if your kidnapper, the taxi driver, targeted you specifically? What I mean to ask is: do you think he knew you were Jaspar Wills, bestselling author, renowned around the world? Or was this simply a twist of fate, or really bad luck?”

  Jaspar nodded his understanding of the question. He hadn’t expected it, but he was comfortable answering. “You know, Katie, I’ve spent hours wondering about that exact thing. In the many months of my captivity, I can’t think of a single thing that would lead me to believe they knew who I was.” Another short laugh. “Not that I expected them to produce a book and ask for an autograph.”

  With soft chuckles of their own, Katie and Jenn acknowledged the light moment—there’d been so few. Katie in particular was grateful for the reprieve. Nothing gave power and heft to drama more than a dash of counterpoint humor.

  “Jaspar, as you know, I myself recently traveled to Morocco,” Katie spoke in a way that indicated a shift in direction and tone. “To Marrakech. The same city where your harrowing kidnapping ordeal began. Of course I hadn’t read your book, since it hadn’t been written yet, but thanks to our friendship, I already knew a great deal about what happened to you there. I didn’t go to Marrakech looking for that story. But,” she quirked her head to one side, “I am a reporter, after all. I was after a story.

  “I followed your footsteps in Marrakech because I wanted to tell the story of the place, to get a sense of the environment in which you found yourself. The extreme heat, the foreign languages, the strange foods, the smells...the sheer exoticism of it all. I have to say, I’ve rarely been anywhere where I’ve felt so out of place. Everything is drastically different from here at home. I wanted to capture that, to find a story that would do justice to your magnificent work in Set Free.” The book’s cover image flickered on-screen.

  “Thank you,” Jaspar whispered, nodding humbly.

  “But I have an admission, Jaspar. I didn’t come back with that story.”

  He gazed at her, uncertainty once again clouding his eyes. “Oh?”

  “I came back with something entirely different.” She steadied herself, like a bomber pilot about to release her payload. “Something that will surprise you, and everyone watching us tonight.”

  Chapter 39

  Jaspar reverentially accepted the worn leather wallet, his eyes nearly bugging out. Katie knew she’d played the scene perfectly. The producers had wondered if he should be forewarned about the revelation. But she and the lead producer, Peggy Guttenberg—the only other person who knew everything that was going to happen today—had argued strongly against it. To tell Jaspar she’d recovered the wallet was to rob their viewing audience of a priceless moment. By the look on Jaspar’s face and the way the cameras were zeroing in on it, Katie knew they�
��d made the right call.

  Jenn leaned in to get a better look at the item in her husband’s hands. “That’s your wallet,” she marveled in a hushed whisper.

  “Yeah. They took it from me when…” Jaspar stopped, looking up from the wallet to glare at Katie. “But…how did you get this?”

  “You’re right,” Katie said, ignoring the question for now. “Your kidnappers took this wallet from you while you lay unconscious in the back seat of their vehicle. I believe if you look inside, except for cash and credit cards, everything else is there. Driver’s license, insurance card, family photos.”

  TV screens across the country flashed blown-up versions of the wallet-sized pictures Katie had found. Mikki as a baby. Mikki at about three. Mikki just before she was abducted and never seen again.

  The cameras—and America—watched as Jaspar carefully withdrew the same photographs, one by one, and stared at them in amazement. When he was done with one, he’d carefully pass it to Jenn, who did much the same.

  With the final photograph handed away, Jaspar was about to demand an answer from Katie about where and how she’d found the wallet, when she gave him more. First a set of keys. Then sunglasses.

  “I believe these are yours as well?”

  Jaspar massaged the keys in his right hand, as if attempting to force warmth into the cold metal. Gently taking hold of the sunglasses, Jenn studied them intensely, as if beholding a friend long believed lost forever.

  “How did you do this?” Jenn marveled. “How did you get these?”

  Katie nodded, as if hearing the question for the first time. “I know both of you must be shocked. I was too. To find something of yours, Jaspar, thirty-five hundred miles from home. It made your story all the more real for me.” She smiled a sad, kind smile. “I’m just glad I could do this one small thing for you, to bring back at least a very small part of what you lost in Marrakech.”

  Jenn’s thank you was tearful, her hands visibly trembling.

  Jaspar nodded his gratitude. She’d not yet answered his question. He asked it again: “How did you get these?”

  Sliding back into reporter mode, Katie faced the camera and told her well-rehearsed story. Low-quality video, taken with her own hand-held Sony, flickered behind her, its gritty inferiority adding a dark, grungy authenticity to the report and her investigative prowess.

  The first images showed the immensity of Jemaa el Fna, all fine detail of the massive square lost in blaring, hot sun. Jerky shots of the medina aptly captured the frenzied activity and crowded maze of the marketplace. A long, lingering view of the Mattars’ shop appeared as the camera meticulously panned the street where it was located. Although Katie did not specifically identify the store in her reporting—as advised by the station’s legal department—her camerawork told the truth. She’d also included an artist’s rendering of Mehdi Ahmadi, whom she identified only as a confidential source from whom she’d retrieved Jaspar’s personal effects.

  Jaspar and Jenn watched and listened, as enraptured and awed as any TV viewer. Immediately prior to announcing a scheduled break from the live telecast, Katie earned her keep by artfully ending on a cliffhanger: “When we return, you’ll learn about my meeting with a man who went by the name of Tarek, and what he told me about what happened next to American detainee and bestselling author, Jaspar Wills.” Concluding remarks done, she set her face in stone until the broadcast went to commercial.

  “Katie, this is amazing!” Jenn exclaimed, jumping up. She made a stilted move toward the other woman. Given where they were, and the state of their recently-strained friendship, she decided a hug was inappropriate. “Why didn’t you tell us about any of this?”

  “Yes,” Jaspar intoned, less enthusiastic, still fingering the keys. “And what else did you find? Who is this Tarek person?”

  “Come on, Jaspar!” Jenn chided, attempting a cheerful tone. “Why so glum? Were you hoping your money was still in the wallet?”

  At that exact moment, Peggy arrived, bringing the interaction to an abrupt end. The producer was demanding Katie attend to some urgent matter happening on her iPad. The diversion was planned. Both Katie and Peggy had agreed that it was important to keep the Wills from having too much chit-chat time with Katie during breaks, in the interest of maintaining the in-the-moment realness they were going for.

  As Katie and Peggy stepped away, Jenn returned to her seat next to her husband. “Isn’t this incredible?” She held up the sunglasses. “I remember when you bought these. I bet you never expected to see any of this stuff again.” When there was no response, she asked: “Jaspar, are you okay?”

  He nodded, eyes darting between his newly-returned keys and Katie’s powwow with her producer.

  “Oh, God,” Jenn said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Is seeing these things bothering you? Are they bringing up bad memories?”

  Their eyes met. For a moment it was just the two of them, husband and wife, the frenetic noise of the studio and hustle and bustle of the dozens of people who made the broadcast happen nothing but muffled background. Despite everything they’d been through and the difficulties in their marriage, Jenn knew this man. She could tell he was uneasy, unhappy. But there was something else too: he looked worried. But what could he possibly have to be worried about? Wasn’t the worst over with? Things were getting better between them. His book was an immediate bestseller. Wounds were healing. Weren’t they?

  “We can stop this anytime, Jaspar,” she offered, her voice a gentle caress.

  His head bobbed. “I think we sh—”

  “Welcome back,” Katie’s voice boomed, sharp, powerful, at-the-ready.

  Jenn tried to catch Katie’s eye, to somehow communicate that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea anymore. Maybe they could take a break? Something, anything, to avoid putting her husband through any more of this.

  Immediately, Jenn realized it was too late. She also realized something else: at least here in the TV studio, Katie Edwards was not their friend. She was a professional newsperson, intent on doing her job at whatever cost. And then came one more hideous truth.

  The surprises weren’t over.

  Chapter 40

  “Jaspar,” Katie began, full wattage on the author. She was bringing to bear her keen ability at making it seem as if there were no cameras, no millions of viewers on the other side of the lens, no collection of technicians, producers, social media managers, news directors, editors, camera operators, sound and audio engineers, hanging on to every word. “In your book, Set Free, you talk about the day it became apparent, to you and the kidnappers, that their demands were never going to be met. They decided to move you from your original location, which we now know to have been in the medina section of Marrakech.”

  Jaspar struggled to mentally pull himself out of the ugly place he suddenly found himself in. The camera showed him turning to his wife. Viewers would wonder what he was seeking. Comfort? Rescue? Benediction? But there was nothing Jennifer Wills could do. His gaze shifted back to Katie, questioning, as if he wasn’t quite sure what she wanted from him.

  “They moved you out of the city, isn’t that right?” Katie asked.

  Jaspar cleared his throat. “Yes. But I didn’t know why. All I could think of was that whatever their original plan had been, it had failed. So they needed to make a change.”

  “You were right.” Katie subtly shifted in her seat to concentrate on the camera. “We know from what officials are now making public about the case, that although the American government was fully engaged in discussions with the kidnappers, they were never in a position to obtain the release of Qasim Al-Harthi. We also know that international relations between the United States and Morocco have been—and continue to be—strained at best.

  “Although we can’t confirm their validity, for years there have been reports of prisoner release negotiations, such as this one, being successfully carried out behind-the-scenes, arranged privately, by non-government third parties. In the end, numerous questions still
remain unanswered. Was everything done that could have been? Did Jaspar Wills’ kidnappers simply give up and run scared? Or did something else happen to make them change plans?” Turning back to her guests, she asked: “Jaspar, is it your belief that, given the complexity of the situation, we may never know the real truth?”

  Jaspar hesitated before haltingly agreeing. “I think I have to believe that. If for no other reason than to protect my sanity, and move on.”

  Katie nodded, as if never before having considered that point of view. Inside, she was smiling. He’d just given her the perfect segue. Choosing her words carefully, she asked, “Is it true then, that throughout your ordeal, and maybe since, you’ve feared for your sanity?”

  Jaspar looked struck, not expecting the question. “I…I suppose in a way, yes. I talk in depth in my book about the times when I felt…removed from my normal self. As if my mind was taking me someplace else, someplace better, safer. If you want to call that insanity, so be it. But I certainly didn’t fear it. In truth, I sought it out, in order to survive.”

  “I get it.” She waited a count of three, then: “When the kidnappers moved you out of the city, was that one of the times?”

  “I was gagged, tied up, thrown into the back of a van in the middle of the night. So, yes, I was probably a little cracked when that happened. You have to understand that by this point, I’d already been held for several days in a sweltering hot, dark, smelly room, with very little food or water. I was beaten almost daily. These were not good conditions.”

  The shake of Katie’s head and grim repose of her mouth communicated sympathy. “I’ll probably say this a dozen more times throughout this interview, Jaspar, but I just can’t imagine what that would be like. No one watching tonight can. That’s one of the reasons we’re so appreciative of your willingness—and Jenn’s—to be here today to share your story.”