Trapping Zero

Bachar had spent those three days waiting for their inevitable fate. These men were most likely Hamas, he realized, or some offshoot thereof. They would torture and eventually murder him. They would record the ordeal on video and send it to the Israeli government. Three days of waiting and wondering, dozens of horrid scenarios playing out in Bachar’s head, felt just as tortuous as whatever plans these men had for them.

But when they finally did come for him, it was not with weapons or implements. It was with words.

A young man, not twenty-five if he was a day, entered the subterranean level of the compound alone and turned on the light, a single bare bulb in the ceiling. He had dark eyes, a beard trimmed short, and broad shoulders. The young man paced before the three of them, on their knees with hands bound in front of them.

“My name is Awad bin Saddam,” he told them, “and I am the leader of the Brotherhood. The three of you have been conscripted into a most glorious purpose. Of you, one will deliver for me a message. Another will document our holy jihad. And the third… the third is unnecessary. The third will die at our hands.” The young man, this bin Saddam, paused his pacing and reached into his pocket.

“You may decide who will carry out which task between yourselves if you wish,” he said. “Or, you may leave it to chance.” He bent at the waist and placed three thin lengths of twine on the floor before them.

Two of them were approximately six inches long. The third was trimmed a couple inches shorter than the others.

“I will return in half an hour.” The young terrorist left the basement and locked the door behind him.

The three journalists stared at the trimmed, fraying lengths of rope on the stone floor.

“This is monstrous,” said Avi quietly. He was a stout man of forty-eight years, older than most still working in the field.

“I will volunteer,” Yosef told them. The words spilled from his mouth before he thought them through—because if he did, he would likely hold them behind his tongue.

“No, Yosef.” Idan, the youngest of them, shook his head firmly. “It is noble of you, but we couldn’t live with ourselves knowing that we allowed you to volunteer for death.”

“You would leave it up to chance?” Yosef countered.

“Chance is fair,” said Avi. “Chance is unbiased. Besides…” He lowered his voice as he added, “This may be a ruse. They may still yet kill all of us anyhow.”

Idan reached down with both bound hands and scooped the three spans of rope in his fist, gripping them so that the exposed ends appeared to be the same length. “Yosef,” he said, “you choose first.” He held them out.

Yosef’s throat was too dry for words as he reached for an end and slowly pulled it from Idan’s fist. A prayer ran through his head as an inch, then two, then three unfurled from his enclosed fingers.

The other end fell free after only a few short inches. He had drawn the short rope.

Avi heaved a sigh, but it was one of despair, not of relief.

“There you have it,” said Yosef simply.

“Yosef…” Idan began.

“The two of you can decide between yourselves which task you will take,” Yosef said, cutting off the younger man. “But… if either of you make it out of this and return home, please tell me wife and son…” He trailed off. Final words seemed to fail him. There was nothing he could convey in a message that they would not already know.

“We will tell them you boldly faced your fate in face of terror and iniquity,” Avi offered.

“Thank you.” Yosef dropped the short length to the ground.

Bin Saddam returned a short time later, as he had promised, and again paced before the three of them. “I trust you have come to a decision?” he asked.

“We have,” said Avi, looking up into the face of the terrorist. “We have decided to adopt your Islamic concept of hell just so that we have a place to believe you and your bastard lot will end up.”

Awad bin Saddam smirked. “But which of you will go before me?”

Yosef’s throat still felt parched, too dry for words. He opened his mouth to accept his fate.

“I will.”

“Idan!” Yosef’s eyes bulged wide. Before he could say anything, the younger man had spoken up. “No, it is not him,” he told bin Saddam quickly. “I drew the short rope.”

Bin Saddam looked from Yosef to Idan, seemingly amused. “I suppose I will just have to kill the one who opened his mouth first.” He reached for his belt and unsheathed an ugly, curved knife with a handle made from a goat’s horn.

Yosef’s stomach turned at the mere sight of it. “Wait, not him—”

Awad flicked his knife out and across Avi’s throat. The older man’s mouth fell open in surprise, but no sound came forth as blood cascaded down from his open neck and spilled onto the floor.

“No!” Yosef shouted. Idan squeezed his eyes shut as a piteous sob burst from him.

Avi fell forward onto his stomach, faced away from Yosef as a pool of dark blood seeped across the stones.

Without another word, bin Saddam left them there once again.

The two remaining endured that night without sleep and not a single word passing between them, though Yosef could hear the soft sobs of Idan as he mourned the loss of his mentor, Avi, whose body laid mere feet from them, growing ever colder.

In the morning three Arabic men entered the basement wordlessly and removed Avi’s body. Two more came immediately after, followed by bin Saddam.

“Him.” He pointed to Yosef, and the two insurgents roughly hauled him to his feet by the shoulders. As he was dragged towards the door he realized that he might never see Idan again.

“Be strong,” he called over his shoulder. “God be with you.”

Yosef squinted in the harsh sunlight as he was dragged into a courtyard surrounded by a high stone wall and thrown unceremoniously into the back of a truck, the bed covered by a dome of canvas. A burlap bag was yanked over his head, and once again he found himself plunged into darkness.

The truck rumbled to life and out of the compound. Which direction they were traveling in, Yosef could not tell. He lost track of how long they had been driving and the voices from the cab were hardly distinguishable.

After a while—two hours, perhaps three—he could hear the sounds of other vehicles, engines roaring, horns honking. Beyond that were street vendors hawking and civilians shouting, laughing, conversing. A city, Yosef realized. We are in a city. What city? And why?

The truck slowed and suddenly a harsh, deep voice was directly in his ear. “You are my messenger.” There was no mistaking it; the voice belonged to bin Saddam. “We are in Baghdad. Two blocks to the east is the American embassy. I am going to release you, and you are going to go there. Do not stop for anything. Do not speak to anyone until you arrive. I want you to tell them what happened to you and your countrymen. I want you to tell them that it was the Brotherhood that did this, and their leader, Awad bin Saddam. Do this and you will have earned your freedom. Do you understand?”

Yosef nodded. He was confused at the content of such a simple message and why he had to deliver it, yet eager to be free of this Brotherhood.

The burlap bag was torn from over his head, and at the same time he was shoved roughly from the back of the truck. Yosef grunted as he hit the pavement and rolled. An object sailed out behind him and landed nearby, something small and brown and rectangular.

It was his wallet.

He blinked in the sudden daylight, passers-by pausing in astonishment to see a man bound at the wrists thrown from the back of a moving vehicle. But the truck did not stop; it rolled on and vanished into the thick afternoon traffic.

Yosef grabbed his wallet and got to his feet. His clothes were filthy and soiled; his limbs ached. His heart broke for Avi and for Idan. But he was free.

He staggered down the block, ignoring stares from citizens of Baghdad as he headed towards the US embassy. A large American flag guided his way from high upon a pole.

Yosef was about twenty-five yards from the tall chain-link fence that surrounded the embassy, topped in barbed wire, when an American soldier called out to him. There were four of them posted at the gate, each armed with an automatic rifle and in full tactical gear.

“Halt!” the soldier ordered. Two of his comrades leveled their guns in his direction as the dirty, bound Yosef, half-dehydrated and sweating, stopped in his tracks. “Identify yourself!”