From time to time, we heard Egyptians being beaten and screaming after every blow. Someone, presumably an official, shouted in Arabic through the thuds and the cries that followed: “You are talking to journalists? You are talking badly about your country?” A voice answered, also in Arabic, begging for mercy: “You are committing a sin. You are committing a sin.”
As the hours dragged on, the powerlessness and uncertainty became excruciating. I have no idea how anyone has the fortitude to survive weeks, months, or years in such limbo. We could hear protesters going past in the street, and we remembered the burned-out police stations we’d seen, as well as a Muslim Brotherhood member who told us he’d been in a prison that was set on fire and had nearly died. What would happen if a mob torched the intelligence facility where we were being held? We could easily burn or choke to death inside.
I looked at Nick and Z. We had all grown very silent, as if lost in ourselves; there was fear in this room, in all three of us. I thought about all the things I had saved on my devices. I knew they wouldn’t be able to access the contacts list on my phone, as I had set up a special passcode to protect my information. Then I remembered something else. “Shit,” I heard myself saying.
Nick looked up. “What?”
I explained that they had taken my Kindle, and that I had some books on it.
“So what? You’ve probably got stuff on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but that’s okay. You’re a journalist.”
I was thinking of something else. A friend had sent me a book that was supposed to help single women better understand men. I had just started reading it. I told Nick the title: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman’s Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship.
He burst out laughing. I translated the title for our driver, who also started laughing. I was glad that we had been able to break through the fear, at least for a few seconds. But before long, we heard the dim sounds of people screaming again.
The next morning a new officer appeared. He said his name was Marwan. He seemed angry with us, saying that he had enough problems to deal with, because there were “thousands of people under arrest just like you.” Then he told us to come to the door and look out. We saw more than twenty people sitting in the hall outside our room, most blindfolded and handcuffed, several of them Caucasian. “We could be treating you a lot worse,” Marwan told us.
Nearly twenty-four hours after we were first detained, Marwan said that we really would be released before long. Nick and I had agreed that we wouldn’t leave without Z. They said we couldn’t bring him. We said we had to bring him. They said Egyptians had to go through a different system. I knew we couldn’t leave him behind.
“I will throw myself out of the window,” Z told me in Arabic. “They will torture me to death and later bury my body in some mass grave.” He was crying.
“He is Egyptian, he has to stay,” Marwan told me.
“Marwan, to me the life of an Egyptian is worth as much as the life of an American or a German,” I told him. “And I think you as an Egyptian should be happy to hear that.”
He said that I was crazy. “You have to think about yourself, do you understand?” His voice was aggressive now.
In the moment, Nick and I came up with another idea. We took all our luggage—everything that had been in our trunk—and gave it to Z to hold. Bags hung from his shoulders and he held our suitcases in his hands. He looked as if he might collapse under the weight.
“He can’t come!” Marwan repeated.
“Then you have to carry the bags,” Nick told him.
Marwan looked at us in disbelief.
“Well, if you aren’t carrying our bags, then you have to let him come,” I said. “Are you going to drive us back to our hotel? Who is going to drive us?”
His expression turned to disgust, as if all these tasks were beneath his dignity. “Fine,” Marwan grumbled. He confided his exhaustion to us. They had arrested so many people, he said—too many. He and his men were overwhelmed.
Soon afterward, some men came to get the three of us. They said they were taking us to the hotel where our colleagues were staying in downtown Cairo. We were brought out of our room but had to wait in the hallway as several people with jackets over their heads were led into the facility. Marwan and the man who told me how much he liked Morocco stood by the entrance as if waiting to say good-bye.
The evil-looking man who had interrogated Nick gave us back our phones and our other possessions, including my Kindle.
“There’s one thing I want you to know,” Nick’s interrogator told him. “We still have complete control.”
Nick smiled. “It sure doesn’t seem like it out on the streets,” he said.
“No, this is just for show. In reality, we are still in charge.”
I turned to Marwan and the friendly man who liked Morocco. “We’re going back to the hotel, right?” They stared at the ground and said nothing. The evil-looking man told Nick that we had to sign a paper saying we’d all been in good health when we left the facility.
“We can’t do it till we get to the hotel,” I protested. The man insisted. Finally, they brought us outside and turned us over to yet another set of guards. We were jubilant until I asked them to confirm that we were going to our hotel.
One of the men, who wore plainclothes over body armor and carried an assault rifle, told me we weren’t.
“Where are we being taken?”
“You don’t get to know that.”
They put us into our car. Another guard, also armed with an assault rifle, said, “Put your heads down. Look down, and don’t talk. If you look up, you will see something you don’t ever want to see.”
They left us for what felt like ten minutes. We heard ammunition clips being locked into place and duct tape being ripped. We all thought it was for our eyes and mouths.
“They will kill us, by Allah, they will kill us,” Z started whispering. It sounded as if he was crying. “I can’t stay in this car. I need to run away.”
I was worried he would open the door and give them a reason to beat him up. “Don’t,” I whispered in Arabic. “Stay calm. Stay calm.”
A man stuck his head in the driver’s side window: “What did you do in Tahrir Square?” he asked our driver.
Z said we hadn’t been there.
“So you’re a traitor to your country.”
“He is just a driver we hired, and we did not go to Tahrir Square,” I said in Arabic.
I saw that Z was getting very nervous and had begun to cry. He said he couldn’t take it anymore. He was hanging over the steering wheel, saying the shahada. “That’s it, they’re going to kill us,” he said.
I didn’t want to upset the men by talking, so I made small noises, trying to soothe Z. As I sat there with my head bowed, I switched on my phone and posted a message on Facebook to let people know that we were still being held. I asked my friends to contact whoever they could to help us.
The interrogator came around to my window, followed by two men who pointed handguns at my head. He repeatedly asked me if I was Moroccan. I insisted that I was a German citizen and kept telling them that we were journalists for the New York Times. The interrogator was holding a phone to his mouth, saying about Nick, “He’s American. Did you hear it? Did you get it all?”