five feet away Tom lay on the floor in much the same condition, facing away from him. Two men sat playing some kind of card game on a makeshift table, paying very little attention to their captives. Decker closed his eye and rested from the strain. The men were speaking in an Arabic dialect, so Decker had no idea what they were saying. Still, as he tried to ride out the pain, it seemed somehow reasonable just to lie there without moving, listening to the men in hopes of learning something of his situation.
Some hours later, Decker realized that he had fallen asleep. The nausea had subsided and the pain in his head was somewhat less than he remembered. What woke him was the sound of a door closing and men talking, which he took to be a changing of the guard. With his eyes still closed he could feel the men moving about the room, stopping to look down at him and then moving away. Carefully he opened one eye and saw the men gathered around Tom.
'Wake up, Jew,' said one of the men in English. Decker watched as the man pulled back his right foot to get a good swing and then threw it forward with the full weight of his body, landing the toe of his army boot squarely in the middle of Tom's back. The force of the blow drove Tom several feet across the floor. His back arched in agony as he let out a yelp, muffled by the fact that the blow had also knocked the wind out of him.
'Stop!' Decker shouted. The four men looked over at Decker who had somehow managed to sit most of the way up. The man who kicked Tom walked over and looked down at Decker. Decker had the feeling that he was being inspected by the man; he was looking for something. When he failed to find whatever it was, he shoved Decker back to the floor with his foot and went back to Tom.
Tom had caught his breath and a deep, anguished moan issued from within him which seemed to come from his very soul. The man had hurt Tom badly and he was preparing to do it again.
'Stop!' Decker shouted again.
This time the man returned to Decker and kicked him in his left shoulder. It hurt terribly but it was obvious to Decker that the man had not kicked him with nearly the enthusiasm or force he had used to kick Tom.
'Keep your mouth shut, American, or you'll get the same as the Jew dog,' the man warned, and then moved back to Tom.
'Wait!' Decker said, sitting up again and failing to heed the warning. The man looked over at Decker who continued, 'He's not a Jew!'
For an instant the man's eyes registered uncertainty. He paused, and then looked as though he was going to ignore Decker's infraction of his order and concentrate on Tom.
Decker persisted. 'He's not a Jew, I tell you. He's an American, just like me. Check his passport. It's in his pocket.'
'We've already seen your passports,' the man responded. Decker had at least bought Tom a little time: he had gotten the man talking. 'It makes no difference to me whether he is an Israeli Jew or an American Jew.'
'But he's not a Jew at all!' Decker said.
'He looks like a Jew to me,' the man said, as though that made it so.
'I'm telling you, he's an American and a gentile,' Decker responded with the same intellectual level of argument.
Decker knew that, right or wrong, if the Palestinian was really sure, he wouldn't be taking the time to argue about it. But there was another force at work in the room – simple but powerful. Peer pressure. The other men were watching their comrade to see what he would do. His judgment was being challenged and he felt he had to respond.
Tom had stopped moaning and was lying nearly motionless on the floor, taking short, labored breaths. The Palestinian was unimpressed with Decker's response and decided to refocus his attention on Tom.
Decker thought fast and blurted out the first thing he could think of. It was risky but neither he nor Tom had much to lose: another blow from the man's boot might break Tom's back. 'If you don't believe me,' Decker said, getting his captors' attention again, 'pull down his pants.'
The Palestinians looked at each other, not sure that they had understood him, and then started to laugh as they realized what Decker meant. If he were a Jew, he'd be circumcised.
The one who kicked Tom was not so sure about the idea. He didn't want to risk appearing foolish. But the other three laughed and went to work loosening Tom's pants. They were enjoying the contest between their leader and the American. Besides, it seemed an amusing way to settle an argument where a man's life hung in the balance.
There was just one problem, and therein lay the risk: Decker had no idea whether or not Tom was circumcised. But with Tom's life on the line, Decker's only choice had been to set that as the defining criterion. When the three lackeys pulled down Tom's pants, they committed themselves to that criterion. Knowing that many American men, Jew and gentile alike, are circumcised, Decker was well aware that he still might be condemning his friend to death.
The leader was disappointed with what he saw. The foreskin of Tom's penis had saved his life.
The three Palestinians gave Tom's pants a tug and pulled them most of the way back up. Again they were laughing, but this time, in part at least, they were laughing at their leader. An angry glare abruptly stopped their merriment. The leader quickly changed the subject and, after pushing Decker back to the floor with his foot, signaled for the others to follow him out of the room. As soon as they were gone Decker tried, as best he could, to check on his friend's condition. He helped him get his pants back up but with their hands tied behind them it was impossible to fasten or zip them.
That night one of the men brought them food and water. In the morning they were fed again and allowed to clean up, one at a time. In the evening two of the guards came in and blindfolded them, shoved rags in their mouths, and gagged them to keep them from making any noise. Decker guessed that they were about to be moved to another location. They lay in that condition for about twenty minutes, choking from time to time on the rags, before having their feet untied and being led outside.
Once outside, their captors did something which seemed very strange to Decker. He was taken by two of the men and laid on his back on top of something which he recognized from the way it felt as a mechanic's creeper, used for sliding under a car. His feet were then tied again. All he could imagine was that this might be in preparation for some grisly form of torture by dragging them behind a car or truck. On the other hand, why would they blindfold him? If sadism was the goal, wouldn't they want him to see the torture that awaited him? Certainly, he thought, they wouldn't stuff his mouth full of rags. They'd want to hear him scream.
Decker felt himself being pushed about eight feet, and then rolled off the creeper onto his stomach on the ground. He could sense that he was under something, something large. A moment later eight hands grabbed him and lifted him about eighteen inches until his back pressed firmly against the object above him, and he was strapped tightly into this position. The next thing he heard was the sound of a squeaky metal door sliding shut.
He realized that he was in a box of some sort, coffin-like, but he thought he could feel air moving around him, so he didn't think he would suffocate. As he hung there face down, strapped in, waiting, he heard the sound of the creeper's wheels again, followed by men straining under a weight and then another metal door closing. Decker assumed his captors had done the same to Tom. The voices of the Palestinians were now muffled beyond distinction, but since no one was speaking English, it really didn't matter.
After about five minutes Decker heard a door slam, followed by an engine starting. Now he understood. He and Tom were strapped under the bed of a truck. They had been placed in metal boxes which were built to fit under the truck in order to ship weapons and, on rare occasions, people through check points and past border guards.
Decker and Tom were on their way to Lebanon.
Tel Aviv, Israel
Elizabeth Hawthorne and her two daughters walked through the concourse of David Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. A few days earlier, Elizabeth had been sitting in her office thinking about how slow business was and how much she missed Decker when she decided, on the spur of the moment, to take some extra vacation time, get the girls out of school, and fly to Israel a week early. Surprises had always been Decker's affinity, but this time Elizabeth decided that she would do the surprising. She was totally unprepared for the news that awaited her.
