Impossible Odds

internet access in the nearby town of Adado.
    How sophisticated were they about electronic information? Would they force passwords from her and pull some sort of online identity scam? He had battened down the hatches by shutting down social sites and adjusting banking information, but if they were persistent they would try to find records of any purchase Jessica might have made online and take home addresses, phone numbers, private email addresses, any form of contact. A leak could be anywhere. Electronic “water” will find the weakest point.
    He tried to unwind with a few forceful workouts at the gym. They did a lot to keep him from just grinding his teeth and pacing the floor. The physical effects of sustained anxiety had put sharp knots in his muscles, so the ability to throw his emotions into the workout loads helped to more or less slap him together and castoff a lot of the terrible energy for another few hours. He had also begun starting the mornings with long walks around their neighborhood, just trying to keep his head straight.
    In the meantime he went off to oversee his work each day, determined to keep his routine as normal as possible. He thought about arranging to cancel his workload or get a replacement—but of course that would leave him there inside the long silence with nothing to do but think. That, he knew for certain, would not be good.
    He could see how someone could be tempted, deeply tempted, to turn to alcohol or pills in a time like this. There is something basic to the survival instinct that wants to avoid deep, persistent pain. All animals avoid it when they can. Sleep doesn’t do it; sleep is no protection from the subconscious mind.
    With alcohol as a refuge, a person could start out the day mildly drunk in an attempt to escape dark thoughts, but quickly become completely intoxicated. Short of a blow to the head, the only thing completely effective at shutting off the tormented thinking and worst imagining is the oblivion delivered by drugs or alcohol. If he could have seen any way a drink or pill could help get Jessica back, he would have already been facedown on the floor.
    Most professionals can keep up a certain persona regardless of other things going on in their lives. Erik was also able to fall into familiar behavior each day while in important business situations, but living with two such different versions of life was bizarre in the extreme. Everything around him felt fractured and segmented, as if life had been transformed into something by Picasso.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Jessica:
    The days began to dissolve into one another, daylight hours dragging by while they held us under the cover of the trees, followed by nights of fitful half-sleep out in the chill of the open desert. Whatever dopey ideas they had about security from overhead surveillance, they never missed a day of hiding us from above, or a night of sending us into the desert to hide under an open sky.
    Makes perfect sense, guys, I think to myself. Put us out in the open at night because surveillance planes or satellites could never spot us. After all, it’s dark.
    I’ve always found stupid people scarier than smart ones. Stupid evil people scare me more than smart evil people because a stupid man will gladly surrender his judgment to someone else. This makes him substantially more dangerous. If I had to choose between being held captive by a smart criminal and a dumb one, I would take the smart guy every time. At least I’d be dealing with someone who’s got the capacity to understand his own situation—and perhaps be open to improving it.
    Meanwhile, they continued to keep my medicine away from me, for reasons nobody would explain, and I got recurrentbladder infections. Maybe they were just acting on an order and didn’t know why. My impression was there was no real justification for this, just the repressed resentment of somebody who would lift himself up by denying me something I needed. I could feel my internal balance already going off center, and within days of being taken I had felt a urinary tract infection and a rough stomach bug setting up shop together.
    As for stomach troubles, no doubt a major factor had to be the disgusting fact that we had only two bowls and two spoons, a few cooking pots, and four cups for the entire camp to use. Thus any microbe hosted by any one of them was quickly shared with the rest of us.
    Result? Hey everybody, let’s all take turns eating out of the same bowl with our