I'll Fly Away

Chapter Nine: Honor, Honor

Nurota, Uzbekistan

January 2005

Good Measure's latest project was going well.

There were four on the team: me, Elizabeth, Zahra and Tricia. On the surface, four middle-aged women: a pilot, a nurse, a translator, and an expert in textiles and jewelry, working with the women of the local villages on child health, and marketing their handiwork to the $500-a-plate-charity-banquet set back home.

What didn't show on the surface was that I was also a forensic economist. Elizabeth was also an epidemiologist. Zahra was a sociologist who specialized in religious extremist movements. And in addition to her MFA in textiles, Tricia had ten years in Naval Intelligence. All of us were at least conversationally fluent in Uzbek. Over the past three years we had established a delicate net of who knows whose nephew's wife, who overheard the men in the hookah shop talking about guns, whose grandson is best friends with the ambassador's chauffeur...

There was trouble coming here, soon, possibly on a massive scale. We hoped to head it off, or at least give the women and children a head start in escaping. With every shawl and necklace we traded information; safe houses, safe routes through the desert; caches of food, water and medicine; who could be relied on to help, whose notice should be avoided. Who was richer than his job could explain; who was handing out favors, new cars, Rolexes. Where fuel was stored; where ammunition and explosives were hidden. We weighed babies and handed out vitamins and condoms; we vaccinated kids, lent tiny amounts of money, spent hours chatting at henna parties. We kept careful records of the cash, the crafts and the medicines, but the most important things were said indirectly if at all and were never, never written down.

Women's work. Women's gossip. Women's worries. While the men were busying themselves with money, power, and weapons, with alliances and ideologies, we tended babies and bought pretty things to sell back home. And we listened. Quietly. Invisibly. We kept our heads down, our mouths shut and our hair covered. We had stayed off the radar here for three years by being beneath men's notice.

That was about to change.

They came for us just after dark, bursting into our rented house and dragging us out into the street. There was some sporadic shouting about Western anti-Islamist corruption but they seemed mainly to want to get us out fast and quietly. That was worrying. Had there been a mob, there would have been more risk of our being beaten or shot or stoned, but at least more people would have noticed. As it was, it looked like they meant for us to vanish.

Our friends would worry, and they would carefully gossip about what had happened to us, but gossip travels slowly over long distances. Unless whoever had grabbed us decided we were worth interrogating or holding for ransom, we might be too much trouble to keep alive for long.

They drove us far out into the desert, dragged us out of the car, handcuffed us and herded us into a little shack. A larger building apparently served them as a headquarters. I managed to get a long enough look at the night sky to at least work out which way was north. There were no light islands anywhere on the horizon that I could see, that might mark the locations of towns.

The first night we were pretty scared. It was cold in the high desert, and though we were modestly and therefore warmly dressed, it wasn't enough. We huddled together in a corner, talking quietly among ourselves, trying to figure out where we were, who had us and why. We really didn't have enough to go on; it was more to pass the time and keep calm than anything else.

This was my first experience of captivity, and Tricia's too. Elizabeth had been grabbed off the street in Mogadishu once, while working for Doctors Without Borders, and held overnight for ransom. Zahra's family had been kidnapped in Peshawar when she was a child, and her father and uncle had been shot. She was shivering pretty hard; I thought it might be shock rather than just cold. I scooted close to her, looped my arms over her head (handcuffs make it difficult to hug) and tried to keep her warm. The others huddled closer, bracketing us on each side.

Elizabeth hummed softly, something folk-songish in a minor key, almost under her breath, and I rocked Zahra slightly in time to the music. She leaned into me and the shivering grew less intense. When Elizabeth came to the end of her song, I picked up with "Blackbird." Tricia sang "Gimme Shelter." Elizabeth sang "Donna, Donna." I had just started "Stand By Me" when we heard footsteps hurrying toward the shack. I hushed and released Zahra, turning toward the door as it was roughly and hastily unlocked.

One of our captors, the tall one with the beard, slung the door open angrily. "No singing," he said. "No protest."

"I'm sorry," I said in English, and then in Uzbek, my eyes downcast.

"Stay quiet," he said, and slammed and locked the door.

So we kept quiet, kept our heads and eyes down when they were around, and conversed in whispers when we were alone. Days and nights passed. No one interrogated us; they seemed reluctant to have anything to do with us at all. I grew tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Our age, and the youth of our captors, worked in our favor. I think we probably reminded them of their mothers or aunts. After the initial grab, they were fairly respectful; no groping or abuse, and they fed us regularly, if not very well. They made sure we had clean water, and the bucket we used for a toilet was emptied daily.

We asked (very respectfully) what we had done to make them angry. They told us not to ask questions. They told us that if we obeyed orders and didn't cause trouble, we would be set free as soon as certain conditions were met. They didn't specify what conditions. I got the sense that they were taking orders from someone else, and that they had only the vaguest notion what they were doing.

On the fifth night, we were dozing in a heap on the dirt floor of our improvised cell, catching a little sleep despite the handcuffs, the cold, and the glare of the single light bulb that was always left on. Sometime after midnight, I woke up to the sound of the door rattling softly. I rolled to my feet and got between the door and the rest of my team. Stealth wasn't our captors' usual style.

The door opened a crack and he slipped in.

"God damn it," I whispered.

"Nice to see you too," he whispered back.

"Get out," I whispered.

"I will," he said. "In a minute. Anybody seriously hurt?"

"No. But you're about to get us all killed."

He rolled his eyes. "Jeannine, I have been doing this for a while," he said patiently.

Tricia, Elizabeth and Zahra were awake now. They watched with interest.

"We're always getting accused of spying," I said. "If you pull a James Bond, it'll poison everything we've ever done."

"I'm not going to," he said. "If you were in immediate danger, I could cause a propane tank 'accident' in the main house and get you out. Since you're OK, I thought I'd smuggle out a message for you. To whoever you want, but I'd suggest Amnesty plus your colleagues back home and the U.S. and Canadian embassies. Once word gets out that you're here, it'll be much harder for them to get away with hurting you. Sound good?

I glanced at the others, a quick visual poll. They all nodded.

"Got anything to write with?" I asked him. He pulled a little notebook and a pen out of one of his many pockets and pouches, and handed it to me. I passed it to Elizabeth.

"Five minutes," I said.

"Keep it legible, it's going on CNN," said Tricia.

Elizabeth smiled, wrote a couple pages, and passed the pen and notebook to Zahra.

I looked back at Clint. "Not going to write this down," I said.

"No problem," he said.

"Jackson Lewis. Teaches textiles at SCAD. Tell him, Fiona said the eels aren't poisoned."

He thought about that for a minute, then smiled. "Lord Randall."

I nodded.

"The goddamn SCA."

I nodded again. "Hell, we infiltrated the Nimitz."

He grinned at that, then sobered. "Jeannine—"

"Shh. We'll be okay. Or if we're not, that's okay too. We try not to lose people, but it does tend to generate sympathy."

He took my hands. "Be careful. Save the martyrdom for when there's really no other choice."

I gave his hands a squeeze. "I've been doing this for a while too, Robin Hood," I said. He pulled me into a brief hug.

I turned back to the others. "Done?" I asked. They nodded. Tricia handed me the notebook and pen and I added my bit, then gave them back to Clint. He tucked them away, and then all of us froze as we heard multiple footsteps crunching along the gravel path from the main building.

"Shit," I said.

Immediately, Clint pulled out his lockpicks and re-locked the door.

"We can distract them," I said. He nodded and tucked himself into the corner where the shadow of the open door would fall.

My colleagues had already sat on the floor in a circle, knees touching, leaving a space for me. I sat with them. I reached across the circle and held Tricia's hands; Elizabeth and Zahra were already doing the same. Tricia took a deep breath and began to sing:

Keep your eyes on the prize,

Hold on, hold on...

She had a beautiful, powerful contralto and she knew how to use it. Both her parents marched in Selma.

The rest of us joined her.

Keep your eyes on the prize,

Hold on.

We could hear the footsteps speeding up as our captors heard us.

Here's where I have to rely on what I learned later, because I have no memory of it now.

The door flew open and two of the guards came in, night sticks swinging. I had my back turned to the door, so I didn't see Clint go; neither did they.

As was our habit, the others curled up and stayed still; when necessary, I got up and made trouble. I had enough martial arts experience to slip a punch, or turn my shoulder to block a hit, without being obvious about it; I was more muscular than my teammates, so I could absorb more force without breaking or rupturing anything. It was nothing out of the ordinary. We'd done this a dozen times, in various places, when trouble broke out. I maybe got up one or two more times than I normally would, to make sure Clint had time to get clear. But apparently I miscalculated, and one of them was a little more pissed off than I'd meant him to be, and he came up behind me when I wasn't ready.

I do remember Tricia's beautiful eyes, and the worry on her face as I went down into the dark.

[Author's Notes: Jeannine's password refers to the Scots ballad "Lord Randall". The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz was once home to the SCA Shire of Curragh Mor; the name means "big boat".]