by Fiona Quinn
“With all due respect, ma’am, I’m taking point on this mission.”
But that wasn’t how it had panned out. Not by a long shot. Saturday afternoon The Mossad unit and Jack had turned out in their jungle operational camouflage raring to go, but Rivka ordered them to stand down. The skies opened up, making the chance of friendly fire too great a risk. In fact, it would be all but impossible in this deluge to get their sights on a target or access their progress. She decided they’d use the extra time to gather more intelligence. She wanted verification that this was the cell they were looking for and not a bunch of drug squatters. She wasn’t risking Mossad lives over an opioid raid.
Intellectually and professionally, Jack agreed with the move. Emotionally, he wasn’t on board at all. Rivka knew that and even though Jack had volunteered to go on the intelligence run, Rivka declined. She was right. If he saw Suz in there with the jihadists, Jack wasn’t sure that his professionalism would win out over his desperation to get to her. Seeing her and walking away just wasn’t part of his DNA.
So, it was Adam and his Beta Team who had been sitting under the torrents, counting heads and making maps. Sunday night they had come in from the field, muddy and exhausted, to share their intel. The camp was twenty-two klicks back in the forest. They hadn’t seen any children. They had seen one person with a poncho that was unlike the others, moving freely during prayers. The group of thirty-seven men were all in Middle Eastern garb with beards, or attempts at beards. Some of them appeared to be barely out of pubescents. The camp was absolutely designed for cell training. At one point, Adam was able to run a wire into the eating tent. From this they discovered that while the rains pelted down, the men were learning the various combinations that could be used to make successful suicide vests. The Beta Team recorded a lecture from the leader about the glory of being a martyr. The men in the camp each took a turn pledging their lives to the cause.
“The commander lives in the tent we believed he did from the aerial pictures, and the poncho is in the tent we believe houses the POIs. Again, though, the boys were not spotted.”
“Did you position behind that tent?” Ezra asked.
“We did but there was a distance. The four-wheeler path goes all the way to the end of the fence line so another fifteen meters. With rain and distance, visual was difficult during the day. The last movements of the day that we saw from the poncho was during the last prayer. We were unable to run a wire that picked up voices from that tent. We did get an unusual heat signature when the poncho went into the latrines. If it’s Molloy, she might have had the boys under the poncho with her. That, or the children just aren’t there.”
“The poncho was only visible during prayers?” Rivka asked.
“Affirmative.”
“Well, our first objective is to take out the cell. Which we will do. As planned, we will take the commander. Alive, this time.” Rivka looked around the room her eyes seeking out and making contact with each of them to make her point. “Perhaps he has more to tell us. I’m sure those up the chain of command will want to find out who is sponsoring the cell and what their objectives are. We need to demolish the camp so others can’t move back in. And, of course, if we can free any hostages and bring them back to their homes, all the better. Let’s get to work. We need a plan.”
26
Suz
Third Prayer of the Day, Monday, February 21
Jihadist Training Camp, Refugio Tatí Yupí, Paraguay
The call to prayer strummed a swath of reverberations across the air. Suz had been waiting just inside of the tent flap. There was a bustling about as the men hurried to the food tent. That is where they’d been gathering for the last few days instead of out in the open. The rain pelted down on the camp with a violence that exhausted Suz.
They had been offered little beyond hard-boiled eggs and sometimes some crackers or olives at each meal. Suz thought that resupplying was probably impossible in the weather. She wondered how meager their stores were and if rations would be cut any further.
With each prayer cycle, Suz had been making her way around the camp. Her feet would sink down into the soil like stepping on a sponge. Her footsteps instantly filled with water as she stepped forward, then their shape was abraded away by the vigor of the drops. Her movements were hidden from view by the curtain of grey. The drops pelted down so hard that she had taken to stuffing her shemagh balled up under the poncho hood to protect the top of her head with its cushioning. The visibility was so low that Suz was a little afraid of getting disoriented as she learned what there was to learn. There were twelve tents, for example.
When someone came in the main gate if they looked to the left they’d find the shower tent, then the latrine tent, and then fence. If you turned right, there were seven tents. Each tent, except for the one that housed her and the boys, had cots. Each cot had a small trunk at the end. Each trunk held some basic supplies that the individual soldier owned. No weapons. The men always kept their weapons strapped to them. The tent she and the boys were staying in had no cots and no trunks, and the other tents looked overly crowded, this told Suz that men had been relocated to free their tent up.
Suz and the boys’ tent was second from the last. This told her something too. What it was telling her was just on the outside of her thought process for a long time. For many hours, the boys sat in their tent with pieces of cord that Suz had cut for them. They had the survival book from her backpack open and were practicing knots. Suz was staring at the roof, willing her angels to come and whisper in her ear the thing that flitted ephemerally just out of clear view. But she got nowhere.
On her tour of the compound, Suz found that on the left side of the fence entrance, just in front of the shower tent, was the tent for feeding everyone, and in front of that was a tent that housed some 4-wheeler trailers but no ATVs. This is how the boys said they got in. Suz knew there must be a sizeable pathway and that path had to take her to a road and that road would have to take them to a house, and that house might provide them with safety. Might. That was her escape route right now.
She figured that they had brought her in through the forest, so she would feel incapable of exiting successfully, so she wouldn’t even try. Did they think that she wouldn’t question the boys? Well, the boys were here days before she was, so no one probably thought it all the way through. If they were trying to intimidate her, take away all hope she could escape and survive to get to safety, they couldn’t have done a better job. The walk with the refuge guide explaining that the waters were full of alligators and piranha; the trees full of killer snakes; panthers and wild boar ran prolifically had kept everyone in a tight line behind their Refugio guide. Then there was the jihadist who marched her through the dense trees for hours on end. Completely daunting. Even knowing there was a path, it felt daunting.
Beside the garage tent, was a tent that was the same size as the other sleeping tents, it housed the commander. It held a single cot, but also had a desk and chair, and some boxes of supplies. Ammunition and the like. She couldn’t find any extra weapons. And yes, she looked. And yes, she was now willing to use whatever she could lay her hands on. Maybe.
This wasn’t civilization. These people weren’t civilized. They weren’t even animals. Suz had never experienced anything like this before. Couldn’t categorize these beings. They weren’t humankind in that she didn’t experience any “kind” from them at all. Tolerance from their commander was as far as she could stretch. It didn’t seem he was tolerant from goodness, though, but from practicality. Suz and the boys being here served someone’s purpose. They were collateral and that was it. Her world view had imploded.
The anger and sheer hatred that the soldiers exuded toward her and the children was palpable. Suz hid the children in the tent – wouldn’t let them out of her sight. Though, being in her sight did zero to keep them safe. She had no authority here. She was hated even more than the children were. She was an America and a woman.
The children worried
her. Suz couldn’t get them dry. The feathers in the sleeping bag were sodden and ineffectual from the humidity and while the days were still hot to the point where steam rose from the forest floor, the nights were cold by comparison. Wet and cold. Her meal replacement bars were growing fewer each day. The children would die here, she was sure, if she didn’t do something soon. She would die. . . Things were coming to a head. But she had a plan – sort of.
Finally! In the middle of the night, Saturday, her eyes had sprung open to the ubiquitous sound of falling rain. She knew why they weren’t put in the corner tent. There were only twelve tents and no buildings. That meant that this camp had not been built to house prisoners. The commander had all but told her that when she was figuring out the latrine issue. “No animal. Fence,” he’d said. The fence was there to protect the men from the animals. It was not constructed to keep people secured within. They needed to keep her away from the fence because it was vulnerable.
That morning when the chants called the men to their pre-dawn prayer, Suz had investigated the fence construction.
The shower was built where the ground sloped down and the water from the showers ran away from the camp. There was no escape route through a ditch the way she had hoped.
The chain link fencing, though, that might work. The fencing was stretched tight and she couldn’t kick it to make it bend. That only served to hurt her foot even if heavily booted. She danced around trying not to cuss.
At the corner post, hidden by the latrine, Suz found that the fence was held in place with fittings that bolted together. The bolts were rusted but if she could get the bottom one loose, she could bend the fence out of the way, and they could slip out. Since no one ever checked on them, and she was only seen picking up their dinner and taking it back to their tent, she thought they could leave at the sunset prayer, after dinner. They’d still have a little light from the day. And they wouldn’t be missed until breakfast and maybe not even then. They’d have a good head start and if the day progressed, and she and the boys were still in the forest, they could hide in the trees and wait until it was clear and hike some more.
It had to be soon though. She was running out of food. The boiled eggs didn’t have many calories.
Back at the tent Suz had looked in the survival book for all the different ways to get a bolt free. It said, Coke, and banging, and cutting, WD40, and listed several other things to try. None of them would work in these circumstances. She had a small device that ironically enough was called a zombie card –it was the same size as a credit card and had little gadgets cut into the metal. One was for bolts. At the next call to prayer, Suz tried it out and got nowhere. She applied some Vaseline that had come out of her medicine cabinet and got nowhere. Back in her tent, she reviewed the list again, and this time she landed on heat.
She had a few hand warmer packets left. She thought they wouldn’t get hot enough to help. And besides, the three of them were relying on that heat to help make it through the night. Thank God, the boys seemed to have pulled through their illnesses. Thank God, she seemed to have dodged the bullet and not become sick while snuggling the boys into her at night — for mutual emotional comfort as well as warmth. She examined the propane line on her tent heater and decided that that wasn’t something she had the expertise to deal with – Jack would know. But she, for sure, was not Jack.
She took those thoughts into her dreams. Jack, what would you do? What? He’d be clever. He’d think outside the box. So Suz tried that. She thought. And thought.
Another day of rain. This was Monday. She knew because she had been marking the days in the back of the survival book. The jihadists had started chanting. The men had gathered. Suz went to use the latrine. Sitting there, examining the toilet paper, a spider jumped out at her. The sheer size of the thing made Suz drop the roll. The paper spiraled out across the latrine floor stopping when it hit the plastic lidded barrel that held the lime bag. She remembered what the commander had told her about water and lime, her first day. That combination could burn skin. That was pretty hot. Boiling hot? Effectively hot? She wasn’t sure. Hot for a brief time? Hot for a long time? She wasn’t sure.
Suz thought about her go-to jar-opening technique when Jack wasn’t handy – how she’d stick the spaghetti sauce bottle under running hot water at the sink. That and a good smack on the counter usually did the job. Suz ran back to her tent and found the folded piece of aluminum foil and tore off a length. She grabbed the zombie wrench and ran back to the latrine. She made a packet of lime and a drizzle of water and folded it shut. She wrapped it around the nut. It grew hot – really hot -untouchably hot. She waited as long as she dared. Carefully, she flicked the metal packet to the ground and tried the nut. It turned a quarter turn. That was it. She couldn’t get it to budge any more. But Suz was elated. She swiped some Vaseline over the bolt then tightened the nut back where it had been and ran back to her tent as she heard the last murmurings of prayer.
Each prayer cycle on Monday, Suz worked on that bolt. The first two prayer cycles of Tuesday she did the same. After she climbed in the tent. She heard a call.
“Molloy. Here!”
Shit. Had they found her out? She quickly donned her poncho and went to the tent flap.
The guy outside held up three fingers. “You. Come.”
The three of them?
She nodded and went back in the tent to help the boys to get their tennis shoes on. They’d be wet and muddy if they went out. Getting things dry was a little more possible now that the rain had become more sporadic; but still, was this necessary?
They emerged and went to the commander’s tent. There he had the phone that Jones had given her.
“You.” He pointed to Suz then to the corner.
“You.” He pointed to the boys then his bed.
Suz moved to the corner. The boys sat on the bed. The man handed the boys an American newspaper from Sunday. Suz felt sure that a New York Times could be bought in a hotel, especially one that tried to attract US tourists, if not here in Paraguay, then just over the border in Brazil. The boys were made to hold it up.
The commander reached onto his desk and picked up a piece of paper and read, “Talk mama, say all good.”
Suz’s eye caught on an open Arabic-American dictionary sitting open on the desk.
The boys looked scared and sought her out.
“It’s okay guys. They’re going to make a video, I guess, to let your parents know you’re okay. He wants you to say something to your mom.” She affected some semblance of a smile, hoping it would help them.
“Hi, mom, this is Ari. I’m okay. I haven’t brushed my teeth or anything. But I’ve tried to be good.” Ari turned and looked at his brother.
Caleb was having a hard time. He sucked in his lip, and then it would stick back out in a pout. It took a few efforts before he pulled back his shoulders and said, “This is Caleb.” He sniffed hard and wiped a tear from his eye with the back of his fist. “I want to come home now, okay?”
The commander turned off the video and looked at Suz. “Okay?” he asked. And she assumed that since he couldn’t speak English he was asking if the message that was going out was safe to deliver. For a moment, Suz thought of saying no and coaching the boys in how to get some information across to those who watched, but the thought was fleeting. She didn’t know the distance this tape would travel, who would see it, and what the ramifications would be if they were caught trying a fast one.
“Okay,” she said.
They walked back to their tent. Suz had a great unease settle across her shoulders. They were documenting the children’s well-being. This wasn’t good news. Strike Force had gone after their share of tiger kidnapping victims, and Suz knew the drill. Time was short – very short, sometimes only an hour. There was a very small window for the team to find the victims; and if they did, the next step was what they called a “snatch and grab” – the team just busted in and ran the heck out. No time for finesse.
Suz remembered th
is one story about a woman who had a bomb collar put around her neck and was seated on a chair. She had to hold a phone in her hand to Skype with the guys who were running the crime. They watched her from afar. If she moved, they said, they’d set off the bomb remotely. So she sat very still. Meanwhile, a bank manager was having a meeting with one of the criminal gang showed the manager the Skype of his wife, who was sitting as still as she could, the bomb around her neck, tears streaming down her face, trembling and muttering over and over “please.”
The criminal explained the situation, and that he needed money loaded into his car. The manager locked the front door, told everyone to go into the safety deposit box room and locked them in. All of the money in the bank was loaded into the van waiting at the back door. Off-site security saw what was going on and sent the cops. By the time SWAT arrived, the criminals were long gone. As soon as the criminals had what they wanted, they exploded the woman. There was never an instance, that Jack knew of, that the victims in a tiger kidnapping got to live. They were called tiger kidnappings because they were predatory and lethal. Once the tiger pounced, you were dead.
The camp commander was collecting verification that the children were alive. Someone somewhere was about to get a directive. And, just like the bank manager, this someone was going to do what they were told. Once they did it, the children would no longer be helpful. She would no longer be helpful. Suz wasn’t willing to let her mind take that path any farther than it had already gone.
The late afternoon prayer had been called. The men were in the tent – the ground still too wet for kneeling outside – and Suz stood behind the latrine with her hand clapped over her mouth, trying not to scream. The nut had come free. It was free. They were free! Her feet did a happy dance. It took her a minute to tamp down the elation. She put the nut and bolt between her lips, for safety, then pushed the bottom of the fence. She wiggled out of the camp; she wiggled back into the camp. She put the bolt back in place, rubbing it with Vaseline, replaced the nut, then she made her way back to the tent.
