Later that night the door opened. It was Bubbles, with a kid of around thirteen that we were pretty sure was his little brother. Bubbles was holding a small pistol—he’d brought the kid along to show him how American dogs were to be treated.
“Stand up and face the wall,” he said to me in Arabic.
Theo translated and I did what I was told.
“You love Obama!” said the kid.
“Great, they’re all watching that fuckin’ video!” I mumbled to myself, thinking back to my first night with General Mohammad.
“Put your hands up,” Bubbles ordered.
I did.
“Sit down.”
I did.
“Stand up.”
I stood up, never turning from the wall.
“Put your hands up.”
Theo began to translate and Bubbles snapped something at him.
“What’d he say?” I asked.
“He told me not to translate for you.”
“Put your hands up,” Bubbles said again in Arabic.
“I don’t know what you’re saying, man. What do you want me to do? Sit?” I said, about to hit the floor for a second time.
“No!” he yelled.
“Well, what? I don’t know what you’re saying!”
“One of you has to stand all night and one of you gets to sleep,” said Bubbles calmly. “Which one will it be?”
This he let Theo translate.
“I’ll stand,” I said.
“Why?” asked Bubbles.
“Because someone’s got to do it.”
His kick connected with my lower spine and sent me crashing into the wall, face-first. Now Bubbles raised his pistol and told Theo to stand up and move over so that he wouldn’t get blood splattered on him when he shot me. Theo didn’t translate this at the time, but I could tell what he expected to happen from the fear in his eyes and the way he was shielding himself. I rolled my eyes at him. I knew this tool didn’t have the authority to shoot me. After a few seconds I was instructed to sit down again, and Bubbles asked Theo the same question about standing all night. A moment later the door closed.
“Wait, wait!” Theo cried out in Arabic.
“Shut up! Why the fuck are you callin’ him back in here for?”
“I don’t know if I have to stand all night,” he answered.
“What?”
They came back and Theo asked his question. Bubbles gave me a look that said Is this guy serious? and shut the door again without giving him an answer. I was livid, and explained to my cellmate why it wasn’t such a smart move to call someone who’d just attempted to make me think he was going to execute me on the spot back into the room after he’d finally decided to leave.
This wasn’t the only time Bubbles did something like this. He would often open the door and point his pistol at my head to try and scare me. It never had the desired effect though.
“Go ahead, do it!” I’d say, looking him dead in the eye and pointing to the middle of my forehead. “Come on, do it! Put me out of my misery already.”
“Stop doing that,” Theo mumbled.
“Shut up!” I’d answer him.
“He’s going to shoot you by accident.”
“Good!”
I figured the thing these guys were proudest of was that they weren’t afraid to die, so I might as well connect with them on that level, which by this time wasn’t exactly a stretch. Eventually he got the point and just stopped doing it altogether.
On February sixteenth, the door opened and Yassine told me to get up. He handcuffed me and led me out of the room without my eyes covered for the first time since I’d arrived. As we walked I noticed the huge flag on the wall at the end of the hallway with “There is no God but Allah” and “Mohammad is the true prophet” written on it in Arabic—the black flag of Jabhat al-Nusra.
I was led to a door across from the staircase where the hall widened into what must have been a common area when this place was still a dorm. Now it was empty, except for an exercise bench and some free weights.
Waiting for us in the room were Chubs and Redbeard, two of the masked Canadians who’d taken my financial information back at the hospital. I’ve never been so relieved to see two members of a terrorist organization. Maybe they had finished with their investigation and I was finally going home. Two guards came in to pay their respects to the visitors, and after they’d left Redbeard asked Yassine for a glass of tea, which he immediately went to fetch. Now we were alone, just the three of us, and I was offered a chair. I sat down and looked around the room. It was huge, and empty except for the chairs, a table, and explosive devices that sat on every windowsill.
“I’m going to take these off of you, okay?” said Redbeard, gesturing to my handcuffs. “If you try anything it will be bad.”
He was wearing some kind of military vest loaded with all the tools one might need to wage war, and when he bent down his pistol fell out of the vest and onto the floor at my feet. Redbeard froze and looked up at me as if I might lunge for it, but after a second I guess he realized I wasn’t that stupid and picked up the gun and took off my handcuffs. Now we were all settled.
“How are you?” asked Redbeard.
“How am I?” I answered. “They’re beating us and starving us.”
“They’re beating you?” he asked, disgusted.
“Yeah, I got flogged with a garden hose. You want to see my back?”
“No.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little cookie about the size of an Oreo and gave it to me. I tore off the packaging like an animal and scarfed it down.
