Impossible Odds

was concerned, the authorities would have to get the job done right away. He was so exhausted from holding back out of concern over doing more harm, even as their inaction harmed her anyway, that if they abandoned plans to go in for any reason, he knew where to get a team of experienced men who would help him make the attempt himself. Every one of the perfectly good reasons not to do that was growing smaller in his mind. There was nothing left but the hell of the ticking clock until the “go” command was given, with the window of opportunity quickly closing. Once it was shut, nobody’s rescue attempt would do any good.
    •  •  •
    Jessica:
    I opened my eyes and looked up from my place on the sleeping mat, but the sky was still so black that things didn’t look any different whether my eyelids were open or closed. There was no moon, and a heavy haze blotted out the starlight. This was the deepestpitch black I’d ever seen out there. The chill in the air was sharp and woke me up in spite of, or maybe because of, the thin blanket and the damp sleeping mat. I guessed it was well after midnight, probably around 2:00 a.m. Time for a trip to the bush.
    Oh, I hated to get up. I had to force my shivering muscles to stand. But the damned urinary tract infections made it impossible for me to sleep through the night. It was my first time getting up since falling asleep, but I knew there’d be more.
    The routine was always the same. I stood in place and quietly said, “Toilet.” I had to get approval to move off the sleeping mat. To get off the mat without that permission would risk having someone think I was making an escape attempt. I called out softly enough to avoid waking everybody, but loudly enough so one of the nearby guards would hear me and, I hoped, give me permission to step away.
    The problem was that nobody answered. I told myself they might be preoccupied or might not have heard me. So I repeated, still speaking softly but a little bit louder this time, “Toilet.”
    I stood still and held my breath to listen. There was no response from any of them.
    What is this? The silence and stillness was so bizarre I felt my adrenaline spike, and I was instantly wide awake. There were nine guards surrounding us. I could hear our Helper, Dahir, snoring close by. Surely they weren’t all asleep at the same time. No way. It never happened.
    Poul ought to have been sleeping about twenty feet away, maybe more, though I couldn’t see him. Each of us was forced to sleep surrounded by our own group of guards. It just didn’t seem possible that not one of either group of guards was awake. Unbelievable. It was wrong in a huge way. I felt my hearbeat begin to speed up, although I couldn’t have explained why, since there was no apparent danger. There was just this new and unbelievable situation.
    I struggled to reason this thing through. They had spent theday loaded to the gills on khat and stuffed themselves with roasted goat for dinner. So maybe they had all crashed at the same time and didn’t bother to set a guard? But that idea landed with a thud. All of them at once? These were paid mercenaries.
    If Bashir caught his men doing this there would surely be bloodshed. The man who had been left in command, the big one called African, should absolutely have been awake and pushing the others to stay awake as well.
    I raised my voice just a little louder. “Toilet! Come on, you guys! Dahir, you hear me? Toilet, okay?”
    Not a peep. They either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. Must’ve been a great party.
    The continual infliction of unnecessary difficulties was already a sore spot with me. Being stuck on that mat was at the top of the list. Right at the moment, I needed to go, and somebody had to respond. But when I squinted as hard as I could into the dark, everything was washed in black. My eyes hadn’t been able to get used to the dark because there was just no light out there to take in. No firelight, no ambient light from any source. The overcast continued to block the stars. We might as well have been in a deep cavern.
    I gritted my teeth and exhaled in exasperation. Great. Here we go, fellas  . . .
    I grabbed a little penlight that still had some battery power and used it to light the ground in front of me, just enough to walk without tripping over somebody. I made it to the nearest bush without raising an alarm from anyone, but the whole time I was out there I kept up a flashing pulse with the