Captivity (41 page)

“I know all that,” Harmeet says tightly. “I’m just saying that the negotiations are looking good.”

“And I’m just saying we have to be ready to take things into our own hands. We know that Medicine Man is a liar.”

The check-in stops. We fall silent for a long time. As my anger subsides, I fall deeper into dismay. It could be that they’re right. There are three basic strategies for survival, I think: dig in and fight, run away, or adapt. If I was able to reconcile myself to waiting, adapt the way Harmeet and Norman seem to have, perhaps I’d suffer less. But I can’t. I abhor adapting, I’m not built for it. Everything within me wants to act. If I can’t fight, I have to flee.

I flop about like a fish that’s been landed in a boat. There’s no answer to it. Waiting is one survival strategy, escape another. The risks of an escape attempt are momentous, but so are the risks of doing nothing. It’s a gamble either way and we have no way of knowing. Regardless of what we choose, we have to face our situation as it really is. Denial can only lead us to doom.

MARCH 7
DAY 102

Two million dollars. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s mountainous, startling, incomprehensible. I am being claimed by my government, despite working for an organization that will not under any circumstances pay a ransom. It sickens me, the thought that the purchase of my freedom will be used to buy more weapons to kill more people. I intend to keep the commitment I made when I joined CPT. I won’t ask for it, but neither will I object if a ransom happens. In fact, I am secretly hoping it will. I want too much to be free.

“Do you have any news about Tom?” I ask.

Medicine Man looks stressed. “Yes, he is still at the other house. We have some problems, so we separate him. You know his government will not negotiate for him. The CIA is trying to prevent the negotiation. They do not want the exchange to happen, so it is taking a long time and the negotiation very slow. We announce that we kill him—to separate your case. But we not kill him. He will be released with you. We just make this announcement to some media.”

Kassie! Andrew! The weeping, wailing, mortal anguish of such news. It is unconscionable! An outrage! To make them think Tom has been killed for the sake of putting pressure on the Canadian and British governments. And I said nothing. I simply didn’t think of it. I was so busy assessing the implications of his statement for
my
release, so preoccupied with securing
my
freedom, that I did not see the consequences for Tom’s family. Unable to see, therefore unable to act. I am revolted at myself.

Downstairs with the captors. We pay close attention to the news. There’s a brief story about us. Twenty seconds or so of the video Medicine Man shot eight days ago, our appeal to the leaders of the Gulf Arab States. It is strange, bizarre, surreal beyond words, to see oneself this way, on
television as a hostage, being spoken about in a language you can’t understand, from the very place you have been disappeared. Life really is stranger than fiction.

Ominously, there is no image of Tom. Neither do we hear his name spoken. We never ask after Tom’s welfare again.

The nightly security protocol changes. The person in the middle—usually me—is no longer handcuffed twice. Harmeet and I can now sleep with one hand free. Norman, chained by his ankle, has both hands free. We no longer use the Instrument of Grace.

MARCH 8
DAY 103

The captors have moved and taken up residence in what we think used to be the dining room. It is a cavernous space—perhaps fifteen feet wide and forty feet long—divided in half by a custom hardwood cabinet full of shelves and doors for storing dishes. The entrance to the room is just opposite the hallway sink, a few steps from the kitchen. The wall to the far right is banked with red velvet curtains that hang in front of windows that look onto the driveway. There’s one sleeping mat against that wall, another in the middle of the room facing the television. The room is illuminated by a fluorescent light that’s been hotwired into a wall-mounted light fixture.

We sit facing the television along the wall opposite the curtains. The floor is covered by an ornate Turkish carpet with red and blue designs. The other half of the room is shrouded in darkness. It appears to be a grand parlour full of stately furniture protected by white sheets.

“I wonder why the sudden change?” I say.

“It was probably easier for them to move to a new room than it was to clean up their old place,” Harmeet jokes.

MARCH 9
DAY 104

It was a completely unremarkable day. I search my notebook for a sign or a clue. There is none. I remember there was a fierce windstorm in the night. I remember I was still recovering from my illness. The window was open during the day and the light that filtered into the room was warm and healing. Sometimes I sat with Harmeet and Norman, but mostly I slept. The captors were still allowing me that luxury during the day.

I remember that Uncle was taking Harmeet downstairs to do laundry. Uncle had discovered a washing machine that actually worked. Harmeet was just stepping into the foyer when I grabbed the two upholstery covers Tom had used as blankets. Here, take these, I said. The nights were getting warmer and I thought it would be a good idea to wash and have them ready as an alternative to the heavy red blanket. I remember smelling the covers, hoping to catch a last trace of Tom’s scent. It was faint, but I could still make it out.

They found Tom’s body early in the morning. Some reports said it was in a ditch along a piece of wasteland next to a railroad track, others that it was outside a kindergarten. Some said it was in the district of Mansour, others Daoudi. His hands and feet were bound, his body wrapped first in a blanket and then in black plastic bags. The autopsy said there were eight bullet wounds to his head and chest; he had not been dead long—at most a few hours—and there were no signs of physical torture.

Our families and CPT were all given the news at the same time, in the early afternoon of March 10. They were told a body believed to be that of Tom Fox had been found the day before and the process of confirmation with fingerprints and DNA was under way. The team offered to identity the body but U.S. officials said no. The team asked where the body was and they said it was likely already on its way back to the United States. At 8:00 p.m. EST the U.S. State Department confirmed it was Tom and CPT held press conferences in Chicago and Toronto two hours later.

The officials “misspoke.” The body was still in Iraq, at Anaconda Air Force Base near Balad, awaiting transport to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for an autopsy. When the team found out, Beth Pyles went immediately to see if she could accompany Tom’s body home. They said yes, and Beth waited at the base for two days. Then they said no. The Army Reserve Mortuary Unit, whom Beth got to know and greatly respect, allowed her to escort Tom’s body into the cargo hold of the plane. His casket was draped in an American flag. The soldiers said goodbye with a salute, and she read from John’s Gospel with tears. “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”

She waited on the tarmac as the soldiers carried a second casket into the plane. To her astonishment, it was the remains of an Iraqi detainee who had died in U.S. custody. He too was being taken to Dover for an autopsy. Even in death, she thought, Tom was accompanying Iraqis. Through more tears Beth recited for both men a verse from the Book of Job: “Naked I came into the world, naked I will depart. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And then, in the only Arabic she could think of,
“Bis m’allah … Allah ackbar.”

The plane took off at 9:00 a.m. EST on March 12—the same day a memorial service was held for Tom at a Catholic church located near the CPT apartment in Baghdad. Anne Montgomery and Rich Meyer, both CPTers, watched outside the fence as the plane touched down at the base at six o’clock the next afternoon. Tom’s children, Kassie and Andrew, and their mother, Jan (accompanied by Rich and CPT co-director Carol Rose), went to see Tom’s body on March 16. After the viewing and a time of prayer, Tom was immediately cremated. Some of his ashes were scattered by his children at a favourite spot of theirs called Great Falls, and then at a place in the Shenandoah Mountains that Tom had designated.

On March 19, the team’s driver took Maxine and Anita to a place called Hay Eladel, a strip of wasteland located along a railway track located in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Andaluse. This, they had been told, was where Tom’s body had been found. It was one of the most dangerous things they did while on team. They covered their heads
with
abiyas
and Max wore a
jubba
, the long black coat commonly worn by Iraqi women. They got out of the car briefly to survey the rubble-strewn railway margin. A passerby told them the bodies of Iraqi men were dumped there regularly. They drove to another location a few minutes away to hang the funeral banner. You see them everywhere in Iraq: wide bolts of black cloth with white writing, erected on poles at street corners or hanging from buildings. This one they hung on a wall overlooking an expressway. They wanted as many people to see it as possible.
In memory of Tom Fox in this place
, it read in Arabic. Christian
Peacemaker Teams declares, “We are for God, and we are from God.” To those who held him we declare, God has forgiven you
.

In the customary way, the first sentence announced Tom’s death; the second sentence offered a traditional condolence from the Quran; the third sentence was a message for his killers reminding them of CPT’s unwavering intention. When they went back to get it a week later it was still there, unmolested and intact, exactly as they had left it.

We do not know any of this until much later. Nor do we know that Tom sat down to write on the evening of November 25, the day before our kidnapping, a reflection for CPT called “Why Are We Here?”

It’s the ultimate question, really. Why
are
we here? Whether we’re cleaning up after dinner or facing a gun, the earth turns, the sun rises and sets, the seasons come and go. We all have to find our way somehow. We have to make sense of the turning, the rising and the setting, the coming and going of our lives, whatever the here is that we’ve been given to live. It’s the task God has breathed into us. True to his serious and thoughtful nature, Tom spent his last night as a free human being deliberating on this question.

I offer it now as his last will and spiritual testament. It was what the arc of his life pointed to, what he fought to live each day we were chained together, what he aspired to, I’m sure, until his very last breath.

I thank God for you, Tom. For your life, your courage, your witness, your friendship. How I wish you had made it too.

MARCH 10
DAY 105

Delta Force 3: The Killing Game
. If I had to guess, I’d say the movie was made in the late eighties. The bad guys, this time, are fanatical Islamists intent on waging a global Jihad against Western freedoms. The good guys, a team of Delta Force commandos, have been ordered by the U.S. president to capture an Islamic terrorist mastermind and foil his evil plot to explode a nuclear bomb on live TV in New York City.

At the end of the film, Junior gets his gun from under his pillow and points it at the TV.
Najis
, he howls.
La! La!
he rages. American soldiers are weak, stupid, effete, incapable of the heroic bravery and special forces prowess shown in the film. He stands up, waves his arms, hops up and down, almost to the point of frothing. He puffs out his chest, points to Uncle and himself. They could easily kill ten American soldiers between them, he boasts. Uncle laughs in hearty agreement.