“What are you, outta your mind?” I asked him. “Who do you think you’re dealing with, the NYPD? They’re terrorists!”
“No!” he barked in my face. “They’re going to pay for my leg! Somebody is going to pay for the surgery to my leg!”
I tried to explain that he was better off just concentrating on surviving rather than on receiving restitution from al-Qaeda, but there was no getting through to him. I also warned him to stop bad-mouthing Kawa just in case we ended up back in his hands, but he brushed that suggestion off as well.
The more dominant the Moroccan became in the room, the more abusive he was toward Theo. I’d be sitting on the other side of the cell, peacefully playing chess or having a conversation, when out of nowhere a loud slap would break my concentration and draw everyone’s attention—and it was always the same guy on the receiving end. And every time it happened Theo would be back on his knees giving him a massage within an hour or two, after getting the most hollow, insincere apology the sociopath could spit out.
After a few slaps I started going over to Abdelatif once he had calmed down, to try to reason with him. I’d beg him to stop hitting Theo, and every time he’d promise to try, but we all knew it was an empty promise doomed to fail. To try and preempt the next assault I thought of a safety mechanism to maybe help my fellow American out a little. Whenever I saw that the Moroccan was at a boiling point and ready to explode, I’d yell “Code Red!” It sounds dumb, but it actually worked the first few times because the Moroccan went instantly from kill mode to laughing gimp.
Unfortunately for me, there was nobody to yell “Code Red!” when it was my turn. The fight happened at night, and there couldn’t have been a stupider reason for it. One second we were getting along fine and the next we were cursing each other out, all because I asked him to translate something to Rias, who I’d forgotten he had a beef with at the moment. As soon as we started to really get heated I simply got up and walked over to the other side of the room, but this didn’t shut him up and as usual he started threatening to tell Obeida that I was a Jewish CIA agent, and—also as usual—I called his bluff. A few minutes later I looked in his direction and found him staring at me, clearly looking for a fight, so I decided to give him one and stared right back, which provoked an immediate reaction.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” he screamed at me, jumping to his feet.
I knew that, strategically speaking, it was the wrong move to go up against a Sunni in a Sunni prison, but I just couldn’t take one more second of this guy’s shit, and I leapt to my feet with my fists raised.
“Come on, motherfucker!” I screamed at him, ready to go, but before he could hobble over every man in the room was between us.
As soon as Ayman grabbed me I settled down, not having any desire to put up a fight against people who were trying to help me. I didn’t see the Moroccan’s fist coming because he waited for me to turn away so that he could blindside me. The punch landed flush on my jaw, but with nothing behind it except for the shit pouring out of his mouth, it didn’t faze me for a second. I balled up my fists, ready to rock, but before I could cock back hands were restraining me from every direction.
Once everything had settled down again, Ali Hussain, a captain and one of the most loved and respected men in the room, came up and embraced me.
“You are a great man,” he said gratefully, with the little English he knew.
I felt a surge of pride when I heard this, and when I made eye contact with Shareef and Fadaar a second later they were both smiling proudly as well.
“Jumu’ah!” Fadaar called out. He held up his fists, praising me for standing up to the most hated man in the room.
I may have taken the hit, but the message was clear to everyone in the cell: I was not Theo and would not stand to be treated like Theo for a single second. In my eyes our environment was kind of like the Olympics—every man in that cell represented his country, sect, or hood, and I was going to do so bravely and honorably, to show everyone there and every jihadi holding us exactly what Americans were made of.
Nobody in the room, including the Moroccan, ever raised up on me again.
When the door opened and they strolled in, we all knew immediately that we were in the presence of power, but none of us had any idea just how much. On June first, we had been held prisoner within the stores for twenty-seven days, and had not received a visit from the emir since before we were transferred into the new cell. Now a group of men, the emir among them, entered, and leading the pack was an extremely confident man in his late forties with a long black beard, a buttoned-up black-and-white-checkered shirt, and camouflage pants. When he addressed the room he did so through squinted eyes to emphasize his contempt for the Alawites. He accused them of being terrible Muslims; he said they drank, smoked, and fucked their sisters. By the time he was finished every Alawite in the room looked crushed by having to take such abuse without defending themselves—although a few did try to speak up, without success. When the man finally looked down to see me by his feet, his expression suddenly softened and he abruptly switched to broken English.
“Who are you?” he asked, confused.
“I’m an American photographer.”
“What are
