Impossible Odds

display a much greater level of impatience over the stalled ransom negotiations, far more than any of the other men. When he flew into a rage, everyone ducked out of his way, including Jabreel and Abdi.
    After one fruitless ransom call, Bashir got into a heated discussion with his lackey, a fat and disgusting guy we nicknamed the Turd, because he made it a habit to loudly pass gas at every opportunity. The Turd might have been answering questions. I could tellAbdi was upset about money, about the pitiful ransom offers they were getting from our side. Even after demanding that the families’ communicator Mohammed be replaced, this time by a female named Lisa, they were more unhappy with every passing hour.
    Finally Bashir broke from the group and stormed over to the spot where Poul was being held under a tree. “Big money!” he screamed at Poul. “Where is big money?” Poul just looked at him and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, trying to placate him.
    Bashir stomped over to me. “We kill you! No big money, we kill you!” He rushed at Poul with his AK-47 pointed at him. “You stand up! Stand up now!” He pointed the barrel at Poul’s long-sleeved shirt, lying on the ground.
    “Put that on! Now! Now!”
    Poul just held out his arms in a gesture of no-contest and quietly asked, “Bashir, why are you doing this?” He added some simple pantomime to reinforce his question, “What did I ever do to you?”
    Bashir just glared at him for a charged moment, then screamed, “You come now! I sell you now! I get five million for you from Al-Shabaab!”
    Poul glanced at me with deep worry on his face. “Bashir,” he began, “please don’t—”
    “Walk!” Bashir screamed. “You walk!” They headed away toward the cars. I began to cry uncontrollably, forgetting all about their repugnance for displays of emotion from women. If they were splitting us up, it meant they were giving up on the negotiation process. It meant everything was over. I didn’t even bother trying to hide my fearful crying. They knew I had good reason. They all knew.
    Bashir vanished with Poul. Jabreel came over and knelt to me to offer “comfort.” He made sure to put a consoling hand on my upper back, rubbing it in little circles.
    “These men crazy (rub, rub, pat, pat). Pirates! You cannot talkto them for anything (stroke, stroke). They no believe me for the money. Bashir say he want me to leave.”
    I sighed, knowing what he wanted to hear. Even fleeing for his own safety, the same games applied with Jabreel. I was still crying, but now the tears were of frustration and personal humiliation.
    “Jabreel . . . We need you here . . . We need you to speak for us . . . We need you to speak on the phone. Please. Make them let you stay.”
    The hypocrisy of my request, made to a man I had come to hate, left a foul taste in my mouth. If I hadn’t already been sick from the microbes in the food, my own words would have been enough to turn my stomach.
    At that moment Bashir returned alone, noticed me crying, and came over to roughly shove his gun barrel into my shoulder. “Shut up!” he bellowed into my face. Then he pulled out a Nokia cell phone and ordered Jabreel to call our NGO one more time.
    “You tell them we now sell the man to Al-Shabaab!”
    Jabreel dialed the number for our contact, and our director got on the line. When he handed the phone to me I couldn’t help but fall into hysterics while I told the director they had just disappeared with Poul and had announced they were tired of the game and they intended to sell Poul to Al-Shabaab.
    “Please!” I begged between sobs. “You know what that group will do to Poul! You have to stop this somehow. You have to do something!”
    Our NGO’s director had the impossible job of trying to assure me they were “doing everything” they could while I shouted back that it sure didn’t look like anybody at all was doing “everything they could.” Now Poul was gone, and I was getting sicker by the day, alone in a camp full of angry-looking males who were all stoned out of their minds.
    “You have to get us out now! You have to get us out now!” I cried out to our director without listening to his spluttered replies.I was openly in hysterics at that point and didn’t care. This time nobody among the kidnappers put up an objection. My emotions played into their plan by turning up the pressure on the people on the other end of the line. I saw what was being