In the Presence of My Enemies (22 page)

Thank you for your kind consideration of this request.

They put it in an envelope and said they would send it out with the next messenger. Maybe this would be the key to unlock our door of freedom.

13

September 11

(Rest of September 2001)

Muhammad had made it clear, our captors explained, that slave owners were to treat their slaves with respect and feed them well. This was part of the Muslim code of honor: “What we eat, you eat,” they said.

“Muhammad even said that if we are eating corn grits [a less desirable food], our slaves should be eating rice [the preferred food].”

It sounded good. But as time went on and the budget supplies got low, we started hearing a new term: “personal.” People would show up with extra goodies and, when questioned, would say, “Oh, this is ‘personal.’ ”

Janjalani and Reina’s hammock was strung fairly close to us, and I began noticing that whether there was food in the camp or not, they always seemed well-supplied. I would watch them enjoying their meal, and feelings of jealousy would swell up. By this time, hunger was a constant companion.

One time on the trail, we had stopped to rest, and Solaiman and Martin were having one of their substantive conversations. We had left our bags just a little ways back in the long grass. The next time I checked, I realized that some of the young Abu Sayyaf guys had gone through our stuff and helped themselves to a bag of little bite-sized candy bars we’d been given a few days earlier! I was incensed.

Martin and I had been so disciplined to ration those out, even though we wanted to scarf them all down at once. We split one early in the day—just a bite, really—and then split another one at night. And now they were all gone!

The next time I saw Reina, I unloaded on her. “These boys! I thought the Abu Sayyaf didn’t steal! Didn’t Muhammad say if you steal, you get your hand chopped off? If that were true, these guys wouldn’t have any hands left!”

She must have told Janjalani, because the next day those boys were reassigned to a different group.

It helped that every once in a while, Joel brought some coffee or something else he could spare from his group. I’d always say, “Oh, Joel, don’t bring us things! We feel so guilty because we never have anything to share with you.”

“I want to do it,” he replied. “My group always tells me, ‘You can take this to the other hostages if you want.’ ” Apparently there were still a few fragments of kindness in the camp.

I think it was the hunger that made me start to see myself the way I really am. Instead of being happy that others had food, I was jealous and covetous. Or to cite another example: Haija—the one who had been especially cruel to us, the one who had beheaded Guillermo—had lost his hammock in a battle and was now having to sleep on the ground like us. I could tell his bones were hurting—and I sort of relished the fact that he was experiencing hardship, too.

I realized that when everything is stripped away from you and you have nothing, you find out what you really are down deep inside. What I was starting to see was not pretty.

(Soon after that, Haija and Daud were chosen to go to Jolo Island on a “secret mission” in connection with Sabaya’s younger brother. We found out later that it was some kind of an arms deal. Soldiers spotted them there, and when they ordered the three to halt, Haija opted to run rather than be captured. He was shot and killed on the spot. The other two were taken into custody. I couldn’t help wondering whether Martin’s glasses were still in Haija’s backpack.)

I felt even more conflicted about food one time when a fresh supply came into the camp, but the guys who had brought it were visibly upset. Someone asked what was the matter.

“Civilians—we killed civilians.”

“How many?”

“Oh, eight or nine.”

There wasn’t time to continue talking; we quickly hit the trail again. Late that night when we finally stopped, Joel filled in the details. He was really good at keeping his ear to the ground and knowing what was going on.

Their initial plan, he said, had been to stop any jeepney and take whatever food was on it. Well, the next one to come by was loaded on top with sacks of rice for the AFP, but it also had a number of civilians inside. Sitting on top at the front was a
CAFGU,
a civilian who is deputized to help the Philippine troops. This kind of person gets a very small salary from the government and is supposed to maintain peace and order in a given territory.

The
CAFGU
was holding a gun. When the Abu Sayyaf stepped out from the woods to stop the jeepney, he raised his weapon. So the guys opened fire—not just at the
CAFGU
but the whole jeepney, mowing people down with their M16s. It turned into a massacre—men, women, children, everybody.

And when they finally took the weapon from the dead
CAFGU,
they found out it wasn’t even loaded.

They then gathered close to twelve bags of rice—the ones that didn’t have blood on them. They also carried off the passengers’ purses and bags. In one they were excited to find a big can of milk. In another, which looked almost like a diaper bag, they pulled out a little girl’s clothes, some panties, a washcloth, and a little towel. All of this was brought back to camp.

Martin and I sat there in shock that night when a captor brought us hot milk with sugar in it. We were so hungry we felt we needed to drink it—but our hearts ached. Martin prayed, “Lord, we don’t know at what cost this food has come our way. We just pray that you would have mercy and give strength to the families of these people who have died.” I sat there looking down into the cup and wondering if that little girl had survived—the girl whose milk we were holding now.

A few days later I found out that she had not. And to make matters worse, she had been the niece of one of the Abu Sayyaf raiders. He had helped gun down his own sister-in-law and niece.

When I learned this, I just gasped at the ruthlessness of it all. I asked Solaiman, “What did this guy think of that? Wasn’t he devastated when he found out who he had killed?”

“No, that was just their destiny,” he calmly replied. This was the standard explanation for any casualty, it seemed. No big deal. It was just to be accepted.

But if anyone else harmed a Muslim, they didn’t dismiss it as the person’s destiny at all; rather, it was an atrocity for which they vowed to seek justice. I thought to myself,
Isn’t this a double standard?
But by now, I was learning to control my mouth a little better, so I didn’t press the debate.

The gun skirmishes continued, sometimes briefly, other times at greater length. The random firing of artillery kept coming, terrorizing us all. At the end of one scary day, during the captors’ evening prayers, my nerves were shot from the constant bombardment. Martin and I were sitting on the ground along a rocky trail, and I said something that may sound strange: “Martin, I just need to tell you good-bye officially . . . so when I get killed or you get killed, I’m not going to have any regrets.”

He understandably looked up in surprise. What in the world was I saying?

“I’m serious, sweetie. We have had a wonderful life together. I’ve totally enjoyed being married to you. We’ve gotten along so well; our goals have been the same; we both love the Lord with all our hearts. I have never for one second regretted marrying you.”

I went on to tell him he had such a wonderful sense of humor. I said although I couldn’t claim God had called me personally to be a missionary, he had called me to be Martin’s wife, and that was enough to make me happy.

Finally, he responded, “Honey, this is weird. I’m not sure it’s even real healthy for you to be saying this.”

“Well, it makes me feel better,” I replied. “I hope we get out of this alive, but if we don’t, I don’t want to have missed the chance to say good-bye to you and tell you how much you’ve meant to me.”

We longed to embrace each other for a tender moment as husband and wife. But with the Abu Sayyaf no more than ten feet away, we had to settle for just looking deeply into each other’s eyes. And with that, we got back to the business of setting up for another night of sleeping under the stars.

* * *

Somewhere during this time, word arrived that ransom had been paid for Angie and Fe. “But we’re not going to release you quite yet,” Sabaya told them. Why not? His response didn’t really make sense.

As soon as he walked away, the two girls justifiably showed their anger. After all, they had been living for this day. Now the money had been paid, and the Abu Sayyaf was reneging on the deal.

I finally said to them, “Just pretend he never said that to you. For one thing, he lies all the time and tells us to lie all the time. This could be just a little joke of his. You’ll be better off not to worry about it.”

At about the same time, we learned that Reina had finally succumbed to Janjalani’s pressure and agreed to marry him, as opposed to being just his mistress. She had been told, “If we get married, then you aren’t Abu Sayyaf property anymore; you’re mine. I can release you whenever I get ready.”

So a little ceremony had been convened, with either Musab or Fatima officiating. Martin and I were not invited.

Implicit in this, of course, was her becoming a Muslim. She didn’t overtly choose to renounce her Catholic faith, but it was explained to her that this was just part of the package, and she would now receive tutoring in how to pray properly and read the Koran.

Meanwhile, no word came back from the Qadhafi Foundation, and about this time we started hearing about a wealthy Manila physician named Doctora Rose. She had been instrumental two years before in freeing a group of teachers and schoolchildren whom the Abu Sayyaf had taken. Now she was negotiating for our release, they said. She was going to pay $3 million for all of the hostages, not just the Americans.

Of course, Martin and I started getting excited. Finally, someone was going to break the deadlock.

She would call Solaiman, or Solaiman would call her to ask how things were going. She said that it would take two weeks to get everything together, and then we would be released. She was going off to a Hong Kong bank to get the money and would be back in one week.

After seven days, Solaiman called; she wasn’t back yet—something about her needing seven
working
days to get the money, and Saturday and Sunday didn’t count. But be prepared and be safe, she said; the money is coming.

A couple of days later she reported, “Yes, I’ve got the money. You guys start heading for the coast. I’ll turn this money over in Zamboanga, and you arrange for a speedboat. We’ll tell you where to meet up.”

Solaiman began trying to line up a speedboat, but they didn’t have enough cash. We heard him talking to an old classmate, saying, “Bring us the boat, and I’ll just give you an OPM. I’ll pay you when I can.” (Solaiman told us that OPM stands for “oh promise me,” a Philippine term for an IOU.)

Sure enough, the boat driver we hadn’t seen since landing on Basilan showed up again in camp. We started slowly moving toward the coast. Our hopes began to rise. Maybe we would be able to rejoin our kids for the start of school after all. . . .

* * *

And then on Wednesday morning, September 12 (Philippine time) . . . Solaiman was sitting in his hammock, listening to the news from Voice of America on his little radio. He often did that—either VOA or the BBC.

He called Martin over to his hammock. The two of them sat there, motionless, for a long, long time. I watched from a distance.
What is so engrossing on the radio?
I wondered.

Finally, my curiosity got the best of me and I could stand it no longer. I ventured over to Solaiman’s hammock. By this time, Zacarias had come around, too.

Martin motioned me close to him. “Something terrible has happened in the United States,” he said quietly. He then described how two planes had hit the World Trade Center in New York, and another had hit the Pentagon. Thousands were dead. The world had been plunged into crisis.

Oh, no. How ghastly!
Our hearts just sank.

Of course, the word spread rapidly through the camp. Guys huddled in little groups, talking and laughing and congratulating one another. Everybody was really happy that Muslims had done something treacherous to the U.S.

Martin and I retreated to sit quietly under our little tree. We had so many questions, so few answers. What would happen now? How would our country respond? Were the numbers of casualties exaggerated? Maybe it wasn’t as awful as it sounded.

That night as we lay down on the ground to sleep, we quietly sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” together and prayed for the victims so far away.

The next morning, of course, Martin was over listening to the news again. At the end of the newscast, the VOA played our national anthem. The guys asked Martin to repeat the words for them, so they could know what the song said.

Martin got choked up as he began to recite, “Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light . . .” Everyone listened carefully. When he got to “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” a sneer came across Solaiman’s face, as if to say,
Ooooh, you think you’re so brave? America has a lot to learn.
He made a snide remark along the lines of “We’ll see how brave you are,” or something like that.

The full impact of the horror could not reach us, of course, living in the jungle with no CNN or newspapers. What was riveting the rest of the world twenty-four hours a day in living color, we were catching only faintly as through a keyhole. Still, we knew it was a serious turning point.

Up until this time, our situation had seemed to be local, not global. Everyone had thought of us as just a couple of Americans in the Philippines (of course, there are many) who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, the geopolitical lines were more clear. A worldwide showdown was brewing, and Martin and I were clearly on the side of the enemy of Islam, in their view.