Impossible Odds

who always knows exactly how far to push things in order to save the day. But the world of movies had nothing to tell him.
    What did he actually know? (1) They had a Crisis Management Team (CMT), made up of professional hostage negotiators and selected members of Jessica’s NGO. This team was linked to the families’ communicator, who spoke on the phone to Jabreel and funneled any news to Erik and the families via Dan or the CMT’s family liaison. (2) The U.S. government was involved via the FBI, which provided inside consultation on the negotiation strategy to the CMT. (3) The U.S. government knew the exact location where Jessica was being held.
    Her father, brother, and sister knew they couldn’t do anything for her in Nairobi, any more than Erik could, but he understood how badly they needed to be there. They arrived from the UnitedStates by way of London, all three sick from travel and stress, but after getting back to the apartment in Nairobi and talking things through, they decided to accompany him to Matt’s house for an overview on the case and to hear of the Bureau’s approval of the work being done by the CMT.
    Erik could tell John appreciated Matt’s low-key sincerity and his intense devotion to his job. Erik and John agreed that if you have to go through something as terrible as this, you are lucky to have someone on point as responsive as Matt had been.
    It was good for Erik to get back to the apartment, cramped as it was, and have a long talk. They all prayed for Jess together, and he felt no conflict at all in openly engaging in prayer. Strangely, while he still had no idea what he really believed about the nature of existence, Jessica’s example had taught him to separate spirituality from the dictates of organized religion.
    They all agreed they didn’t feel like doing the touristy types of things that they would have been doing if everyone was there together, but they also felt that they’d go crazy if they just stayed home and hoped for a phone call. Later, when they did have formal meetings with the CMT or Jessica’s employers, Erik pushed them and repeatedly asked how they could have put their staff in danger like this if there was a threat to expats in Galkayo, strongly indicating to them it would be foolish to do anything less than their utmost to remedy this.
    He demanded to know what medical and psychological arrangements they had prepared for Jess if she made it out. If she made it out tomorrow, what were their plans for her? They offered no answers that were good enough, and left him smashing his fists on the table. He consulted with them about doing whatever they could at that late hour, organizing community support such as local demonstrations and meetings with elders from the communities near the spot where they knew the hostages were being held. But nothing seemed to help.
    Jessica’s family decided to stay close to Erik and Jessica’s apartment while only venturing out once in a while. Erik was glad to do a little sightseeing with them when he could, to at least give them a feel for some of the things that had made Jessica fall in love with the idea of living in Africa in the first place. It seemed important to communicate that her life there was much different from the madness confronting them. Jessica had known sunlight and happiness on this continent. She had earned the respect and in some cases even the love of people she knew and worked with. While she spent much of her personal time with Erik, she had spent her working life there giving the best of herself to the young minds of that emerging society.
    He told anyone who would listen about her love for teaching, how she reveled in the successes of her students. Some of her students were impossible to reach, as they are at nearly any school. She hated that and took each loss personally. But Jessica had also seen the best of the young minds she encountered grasping the lifelines she threw them. She witnessed their own self-motivated climb, up and away into the future of those who have been awakened to their own potential. She knew students on that path might learn to reason their way through a complex world to find, somewhere within that world, a place they could fairly call their own. This was what Erik’s wife had brought to Nairobi, and in Somalia she trained teaching staff and then observed them in the classroom, all to help give them a better chance in life. If only, he thought, there was some way to make these