Impossible Odds

enough to get the gist; the calls were not good and the repeated ring tone was pulling the other men out of their stupor. They took interest and started milling around, pseudocasual in movement. They weren’t surrounding us, necessarily, but suddenly there were a lot more of them, and they felt too close.
    Abdi’s protests grew more frantic. He repeatedly screamed out “sagaal!” which means nine in Somali.
    Nine million? They’re still trying to get nine million?
    Wasn’t Jabreel able to talk any more sense into them than that? If he was their guy, and he was convinced we weren’t a million-dollar ransom, how could they be stuck on numbers so high? If they truly didn’t trust him, why was he still doing his job?
    Nothing else we overheard clarified any of it. Apparently the boss kept on making those annoying, “and one more thing” calls. Each one whisked Abdi into turmoil so hot I knew the topic had to be money. I wondered how the Chairman could possibly understand the speech of a man in Abdi’s condition. His naturally guttural speech had become even more distorted by the combination of drugs and emotion. Maybe that was why the Chairman had to keep calling back. And of course with each new call, the ring tone jabbered the same Somali newscast, indecipherable except for that word, “Kalishnikov.”
    And the kidnappers were still demanding $9 million for two broke-ass humanitarian aid workers. Under these circumstances, we each had the life expectancy of a soap bubble.
    •  •  •
    With the passing of days and weeks, Erik had come to the point where he could think things through in a more rational way, even though his rage at the people holding Jessica was still very much present. His strongest desire was to be a bridge between her family and all the people working on the case. Besides keeping up the pressure on her employers to negotiate aggressively for her, he hounded the Crisis Management Team for as much information as possible.
    The Crisis Management Team knew Erik was valuable for validating information on her or on her kidnappers as it came in, because of his experience in the region. Though some felt strongly that he and the entire family ought to be kept out of the negotiations as a form of information control, they were overruled.
    It gave the families comfort to see that he was able to put some degree of influence to work when needed. In the unfamiliar position of being the one who must stand back instead of the one who is charged with fixing things, it was torturous for Erik to give away responsibility for Jess to strangers. But he knew Jessica’s father, sister, and brother were in an even more disturbing condition. Sitting on another continent without knowing the people working on the case, they had no useful knowledge about the environment Jess was in.
    A deep bond was shaped between them, growing stronger with each phone call, and they continued to talk over the phone every day. They came to the collective decision that all three of them would come down to Africa in the coming week if nothing new happened.
    Erik knew they still wouldn’t be told much, either, and that simply coming down to Africa wasn’t going to change that. The taboo about sharing information with the kidnap victim’s family would still be in place.
    He understood the FBI reasoning on that, but it felt cold as steel. Yes of course, perfectly reasonable to keep me off the phone so I can’t be forced to witness Jess’s torment.
    The kidnappers already had his head in a vise, and they were giving the handle one twist after another. He ended the last CMT call of the day glad to be alone again with the memory of the prior night’s dream.
    He wrote to Jessica about it right away. Finally, something good came from sleep: one of those dreams so real you don’t dream at all, but are transported with all of your senses.
    I am sailing a small boat into a Cape Town slip to buy a great bottle of celebratory wine. Then the scene changes to Somalia, and I’m carrying my wine bottle along with me while I go straight to the location where they’re holding you, and I smuggle you out from under their sleeping noses.
    It’s easy. We blink and are both returned to our apartment in Nairobi, standing together out on the balcony with candles burning and the city spread out below us. Smulan comes running over, behaving joyfully for the first time since you disappeared. We sit down and take our time to talk about this future