Impossible Odds

acknowledges that it’s not reasonable to expect anyone under these circumstances to just go back home and return to living as if they’ve been out on vacation.”
    “So it involves a stay in a hospital.”
    “It’s whatever that person needs.”
    “In that case, I’d like to have a program like that available for her if she’s willing.”
    “That’s good. Are you certain about it?”
    “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If she’s doing it, it means she’s back here again.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
    Jessica:
    There’s no point in talking about Christmas. We spent Christmas at gunpoint in a scrub desert surrounded by the same essential collection of stooges who had cackled their way through Thanksgiving. The fact that some breezed into camp more frequently than others indicated the command structure almost as well their personal attitudes did. By now my waking hours were mostly spent firmly in the zone of an inner world. The ace up my sleeve was its invisibility, or they would have surely taken that away from me as well.
    After December 27 I never saw Abdi again, which was nothing but a relief, but before he left he made sure to stamp his cruelty onto us. I became so numb to the constant threat level that I simply could not keep my moment-to-moment survival at the front of my mind every second. And even when I went about whatever little mundane activity I was permitted, somebody always found a reason to scream at me about something.
    We knew enough about our surroundings at this point to convince us that in spite of all the jumping around these guys did, we were still spending our time just about fifteen minutes outsideAdado. I clearly recalled the sign welcoming all to “The International City of Adado.” When the weather was right, we could see the lights of the city, not so far away, not really. Maybe not close enough to run to, but close enough for walking.
    I could dream or daydream about escaping, as each day became more like the other. I could drift into a fantasy of slipping away and finding help there in Adado, so temptingly close by. The problem, of course, was that we weren’t prisoners held by chains or bars. The most effective jail for us was isolation. No matter how metropolitan that “International City” might be, we could expect that for many miles in every direction, there was no one to help us.
    Even for the greatest desert survivalists, there would be no way to get around the fact that you were surrounded by people who would consider it their great and grand duty to turn you back over to your pursuers. So the days and nights blended. We sat beneath scrub trees until around five in the evening, then boarded Land Cruisers and were driven to the opposite side of the town to sleep under the stars for the night. They always drove us through town by passing quietly along side streets through the outskirts of town to avoid drawing attention to us or the campsite, protecting their assets from theft.
    Their maddening mix of compulsive detail and lack of reason never waned. They proved that on the day they took us directly into town, instead of sticking to the back roads—perhaps when they knew the region was safe from competitors—and they not only made no attempt to hide us but actually left us in the open on public display.
    It began when we had passed a tiny airport at the edge of town, little more than a short landing strip, but with a good-sized plane sitting on the runway. Poul was still with us then. The driver, by instruction from Abdi, turned into the airport road as if the plane was our destination.
    But as we got closer to the plane, we didn’t slow down, didn’tstop. We rode right on by. Abdi turned around from the front passenger seat and directed a cruel grin at us. He lifted his hand and waved, saying in a sing-song voice, “Wave good-bye, Poul and Jesses! No big money, no Nairobi! Bye-bye airplane! Bye-bye!” and started laughing.
    The rest of the guys followed suit while I fought back the hot tears stinging my eyes and did my best to deny them the satisfaction of seeing how deeply they were tormenting me. Apparently, I did the job too well and deprived Abdi of the pain he wanted to see in me. So just to be certain we got the idea there was no hope, he had the driver take us directly into town this time. I looked at him and saw nothing in his seat but a monster poorly disguised as a human being.
    Later he had them drive us through the center of a bustling little downtown area in