Impossible Odds

a hallucination in Hell; I’m still alive so far.
    Finally, we reach some random place that looks no different from anywhere else out there, but either the men have decided this is our destination or else they simply agree we’ve gone far enough. Far enough for what?
    This is it  . . .
    A life that ends this way expires in a daze of confusion. There is some small measure of comfort in this confusion, some shielding of awareness. The mind searches for a reason, any reason at all, to believe what is happening somehow isn’t real. For me, denial doesn’t help. The machine guns around us are all too real. These men are the spitting image of those familiar terrorists on internet videos—standing in the background with scarves and sleeping sheets wrapped around their faces while the captives get slaughtered like livestock.
    Straining my eyes in the darkness, I see that some of these men’s weapons seem like long-bladed knives whipping by while we stumble along. There’s no way to tell whether the long thin shapes are gun barrels or blades. I don’t want to think they’re about to execute us by beheading, but I’m scrambling for any other explanation for all this. I am on a terrain of fear I’ve never known.
    When beheading is the goal, a modicum of respect is granted if a single swing of a long blade is used, assuring instant death. Butspecial contempt is expressed by sawing through the throat with a long cooking blade, assuring a fully conscious experience for the victim.
    I know nothing else to do but scream to God in absolute vocal silence. I silently scream with all of my heart and soul, knowing full well I will not be able to scream once they slice in hard across my throat. God almighty! To endure this piece of Hell  . . .
    My blood inches through me like frozen slush. If there’s a personal terror more extreme, I hope to never feel it. All I can do now is to keep silently telling myself I’m too young to die. A few times I whisper the words. For the rest I just repeat it internally, as if it’s a protective mantra: too young to die, too young to die, too young to die . I whisper prayers for mercy, for strength.
    I can’t imagine never seeing Erik again. It seems completely unreal for our future to be stolen from us in this way.
    And then the attackers order us to get down onto our knees and turn our backs to them.

CHAPTER TWO
    Within hours of the kidnapping, President Barack Obama received a security briefing letting him know a thirty-two-year-old American humanitarian aid worker named Jessica Buchanan had been snatched off a roadway in southern Somalia, along with a sixty-year-old male Danish colleague. The NGO had informed the American Embassy in Nairobi about the incident, which triggered the case with the FBI and notice to the White House. Apparently the emerging philosophy in that region was to ask, “Why not start kidnapping Americans right along with everyone else? Equal opportunity misery for everybody.”
    Still, the fact that it had actually been done electrified underground news lines. The early information was sketchy, but from the opening details it was clear this case represented a whole new threat level in Somalia. There was no provocation to the attack; this woman had been in the region teaching children for several years and also worked for a Danish NGO instructing local people how to avoid deadly war munitions. Her work was nonpolitical and nonreligious. As a statement of utter defiance of American authority, the kidnappers could hardly have picked a worse victim. The actions were the international equivalent ofhard fighting words, along with a high-stakes gambler’s bet that this American president might rattle a saber or two but would ultimately do nothing to stop the criminals behind the operation.
    The takeaway for the president was that the Somali pirates had graduated from seizing merchant ships on the high seas and were now seizing innocent people on land. Moreover, they were willing to capture American civilians—even those in their country peacefully working on behalf of the local population. As the president’s experts were also aware, the percentage of survivors in such cases was very low. These two captives were reportedly surrounded by dozens of heavily armed men. These were impossible odds.
    •  •  •
    Approximately one hour after the kidnapping, Jessica’s husband, Erik, still had no indication of trouble. He was about to head off to a workout over