In surprisingly good English, he said, “You know, we can keep you alive forever. In a state of perpetual pain. I have worked on many men and have gotten very, very good at walking the balance. Do you know of William Buckley? Hmmm? Of course, you wouldn’t admit it-not yet anyway-but he was one of my first patients.”
The statement made me physically nauseated, searing my core in fear.
He put down the scalpel and pulled out a handheld set of pruning shears.
“I like it when you know that death is coming. I’m humane that way. I don’t want you wondering each day if that day will be the last. I can’t imagine the mental pressure that would cause, so I’ve come up with a system. I cut off your fingers and toes as time goes on. Not in any systematic way, of course. You won’t wake up knowing today will be the day you’ll lose your pinky toe, for instance. You’ll just know that when you run out of fingers and toes, we have no more use for you.”
“Today is your first one.”
He approached with the shears, and I began to struggle, mightily trying to break my bonds. The two toughs clamped down on me, preventing what little wiggle room I had in my restraints. One shoved a piece of my shredded shirt in my mouth while the other held my hand steady.
The doctor took my left pinky finger and placed it in the shears. I began to thrash like a shark on a line, to no avail. He looked me in the eye and clamped the shears closed.
I screamed until my vocal cords felt shredded, the sweat pouring off of my face and the blood jetting out of my hand.
He held me by my hair, shaking my head.
“Look at me. See where this is going. You will talk, there’s no doubt about that. But you can die with nineteen fingers and toes, quickly and cleanly.”
His words penetrated my pain, and I realized he was right. I needed to die right fucking now, before I started spilling my guts. In my thrashing, I had felt my right leg not as tight as my left. I thought I could slip it down far enough to stand up and throw myself backward. If I could break the chair, I could make a run for the door and get killed quickly.
I couldn’t do it right now, with the two toughs on me. I would need to last until I didn’t pose a threat. That meant I needed to focus for what was to come. I ignored the words coming out of the man’s mouth, knowing it was just more fear talk, and tried to find something to anchor against.
I thought about Jennifer, about living to see her again, and felt nothing but despair.
The fact that I wouldn’t get to punish him for his treachery made me see red, made me want to scream at the injustice. And I found my anchor.
Jennifer had told Samir that I held a rage like he did, but that had been a little bit of an exaggeration to make him feel good. When my family had been murdered, my rage had been much, much worse. A blackness that wanted to destroy everything it touched. And Samir’s betrayal caused it to stir. A feeling I had spent years fighting, I now stoked until it was white-hot.
The man with the doctor’s bag had put down the shears and picked the scalpel back up. He saw the emotion flit across my face.
“Oh? A tough one. I guess you don’t want to die with nineteen fingers and toes. We’ll see about that.”
Deep inside the Ain al-Hilweh camp, Jennifer stayed underneath a moldy wool blanket, hidden from view. It was now past eight o’clock at night, but there was still enough light out to make her worry should someone look inside the van while they were stopped.
True to his word, Samir had managed to talk to the Lebanese Army guards outside the camp and had gained access. She didn’t know what he had said and didn’t really care. All she cared about was Pike, and her imagination was running wild with the thoughts of what was happening to him. Every second was precious.
She heard Samir say something and stuck her head out. He held her tablet in the passenger seat, directing the driver. He turned around.
“That’s it. At least, that’s where his phone was today when you called.”
She saw a three-story building that looked like an apartment complex, with two men standing at the entrance holding AKs.
“What is it? A housing area? Where do you think they’d have Pike?”
He got the driver moving again and said, “It’s not housing. It’s one of their headquarters. There are no friendlies inside. Pike will be up high. On the second or third floor. It gives them time to hide him if anyone comes inside that shouldn’t.”
By the time they had circled through the maze of alleys and buildings, a germ of an idea had begun to form. The darkening gloom gave her courage.
“Can you guys climb buildings? Did Pike show you that?”
“No. Not specifically, but we learned to climb mountains and rock walls with ropes.”
“If you had a rope coming down, could you climb the back of that building?”
Now parked to the rear, in a lot for an abandoned restaurant, Samir scanned the building, seeing the crude cinder-block walls and pipes jutting out.
Watching him thinking about it, she said, “It’s only three floors. Surely you can do that.”
“Yes. We can.”
She touched a cheap yellow nylon towrope inside the van. It was a half-inch in diameter, and appeared to be long enough. “Tie in some knots. Every three feet. We’re running out of time.”
“Who’s going to get it up there?”
“I am. We can’t get in from the front. We’ll get in a gunfight right off the bat, and they’ll kill Pike before we reach him. We climb the back to the top balcony. I’ll lay in the rope, you guys follow. When we’re ready, we assault from top to bottom until we find Pike.”
Samir said nothing for a moment, looking at the building. When he returned to her, he said, “Are you really an anthropologist?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact I am. But not tonight.”
One of the men finished with the rope, and Jennifer took the last AK-47 out of the duffel, locking in a full magazine and slinging it over her shoulder.
“What’s that for?”
“Pike. I imagine he’ll be wanting to kill someone by the time we reach him.”
They exited the van and moved silently to the rear of the building, the adjacent walls blocking out the last stabs of the sun, covering them in shadow. Nobody challenged them in the alley, the Palestinians’ confidence in their superiority this far into the camp overweighing their security.
Reaching the base, Jennifer’s concern became the myriad of electrical cables coming out of the building. There must have been a hundred, all haphazardly strewn out of the building and across the alley. It would make the climb hard, as anyone following her would have to thread them without the freedom she would have to move left and right, because they’d be using a rope.
She said, “Is this building up to code?”
Samir gave her a questioning look, and she said, “Nothing,” bending down to remove her shoes. She slung her AK across her back, above the extra one, and draped her shoes around her neck.
“Okay. Here we go. I go up first, place the rope, and two follow behind one by one. When we get three at the top, we assault. Have your remaining two men take out the goons at the front door, assaulting that way, but they wait for us to initiate. We go as far as we can until contact is made, then you hit them.” She looked at Samir. “Don’t translate that unless you’re absolutely sure what I mean. Repeat it back to me.”
When she was satisfied, he turned and rattled off about five minutes of Arabic, then pointed at one other man. The remaining two faded from view down the alley, getting a bead on the front door.
She looked at the wall, a ragged affair slapped together with torn brick, broken windows, and stray cables. She knew she could climb it with ease, but wondered if she should. If it was smart attacking a terrorist stronghold with men she didn’t even trust. All to try and find a man who may not even be here, based on a phone grid from
