“Theo, get in there and take off your shirt and go with two arms!” I hissed.
As he stripped off his shirt I thought about the olive oil but I knew we had to keep the talking to a minimum. For three days I had told him to use it if he didn’t slide through right away, and I wasn’t about to start another debate about it now with two windows open above me and a possible sniper on the roof behind me.
When he jumped up the second time, he got both of his arms and shoulders through the window and I immediately grabbed them and started pulling as hard as I could, but he wasn’t leveling out. I placed my foot against the building and pulled until it felt like my head was going to explode. As I pulled I stared into his eyes, then up at the windows, then back into his eyes, and then right back up to the windows. I was just waiting for one of them to walk over and empty a clip out into my face.
“You’re not fitting!” I said.
“No, I can fit!” he cried desperately.
The sides of Theo’s arms were streaming with blood from puncture wounds from the horizontal wires that stuck out from the sides of the next window over. I was still pulling, feeling every second, over three minutes by now at least, tick by. If he had gotten up and practiced just once we would have immediately realized he wasn’t strong enough to hoist his lower body up and we could have amended the plan, but now it was too late, and after what felt like forever I stopped pulling and placed my mouth next to his ear.
“Theo, you’re not fitting,” I whispered. “I have to go. The windows above us are open. They’re gonna hear us. I’ll get help.”
“Come back,” he said desperately, after jumping back down into the cell.
“I can’t come back,” I replied. “I’ll get help.”
I sat there, waiting for him to speak as he paced. I didn’t want to be known as the American who left another American behind, but even more than that I didn’t want to be known as the American who foolishly sacrificed his life for someone who chose to sleep instead of preparing for something that nobody had ever accomplished before. Finally, Theo broke the silence.
“Okay, go,” he said.
After I handed him back his clothes I squeezed the size nines Theo had found in the warehouse onto my size-ten feet, shoved my hat into my pocket, checked the windows, and then took off for the open gate at the back. I ran to it crouched down, but when I hit the street I popped up and immediately started walking. A civilian was approaching me, and as we passed each other we briefly made eye contact. Once he was behind me I took off running for the corner. I knew that once I rounded that corner the worst would be behind me.
I was free.
ALEPPO
JULY 29, 2013
The first building I came across had a well-lit entrance to a staircase going up. I ducked into it and stripped off my torn shirt, replacing it with the one I had planned to tie around my head. My abdomen was all chopped up from the wires, and the clean shirt stuck to my wounds as soon as I put it on. I tied the torn shirt around my head so a flap came down over my neck, Arab-style.
As I came out of the stairway I looked around to make sure all was clear and then took off heading southeast. Now all I had to do was get out of Aleppo—with no money, no passport, no cell phone, no contacts, and speaking virtually no Arabic—without getting killed, kidnapped, or turned back over to Jabhat al-Nusra. I was about to become arguably the most hunted man in one of the most dangerous cities in the world and the clock was ticking.
Fourteen hours, I said to myself. You have fourteen hours to get help before they realize you’re gone.
The first person I approached was a middle-aged man with a mustache, sleeping behind the wheel of a small truck.
“Help me, please, help me!” I said in Arabic. “I was kidnapped by criminals!”
He looked right at me and made a “Tt” sound—meaning “No.” Seeing as he wasn’t inclined to help, I wasted no time in putting as much distance between me and that point as possible, in case he told someone he’d seen me and where. Zigzag, zigzag, zigzag I continued down the alley-like streets, sticking to ones that were impassable due to old roadblocks to make it harder to follow me in a vehicle.
The next people I tried were two kids in their early teens on a cart being pulled by a donkey. As I ran up to them they got scared and whipped the reins, sending the donkey into a gallop.
“Shit!” I said.
Now I had to put some distance between myself and that point. I decided to hook a right, and when I did I found myself looking straight at the back of a jihadi who had his AK-47 slung over his shoulder. I very quietly turned around and headed back in the direction I had come.
Before I knew it I was on a busy street in broad daylight, a few cars and trucks whizzing by. I saw an old man with a white scarf around his head coming my way, and my gut told me that this was the man who was going to save my life. I was a little surprised by his response to my halting Arabic.
“No!” he barked, in English.
“Great!” I muttered, and rushed back into the side streets.
Men sat outside in front of barbershops, and when I passed I nodded to them and met their stares. I knew
