“That’s a promising sign,” I said.
Several soldiers approached us, and one by one they tied blindfolds around our eyes and refastened our arms behind our backs. A large, muscular soldier lifted me like a pillow into his arms and loaded me into the back of the armored personnel carrier—a vehicle resembling a giant tin beetle. I tried to remain as still as possible, to draw as little attention to myself as I could, when I felt a soldier climb into the vehicle and position himself with his front pressing tightly against my back. There was a lot of movement, and soon I heard Steve’s voice: “Is everybody here?”
One by one we all answered yes.
The vehicle began to move, and within seconds the soldier spooning my back started tracing his fingers across my body. I prayed he wouldn’t find my money belt with my passport. I squirmed and pleaded, “Please, don’t. Please. I have a husband.” He covered my mouth with his salty fingers and ordered me not to speak as he continued groping me. I could taste the salt and mud from his skin on my lips as he continued grabbing at my breasts and butt, clumsily tracing my genitals over my jeans.
I knew that the armored personnel carrier, a common military vehicle used to transport troops, was full of men, and I wondered how long I would have to endure this torment before someone came to my rescue. I heard one of my colleagues groan in pain—I thought it was Anthony but later learned it was Steve getting a bayonet shoved in between his butt cheeks, not quite ripping through his pants—and I knew we were all being abused simultaneously.
“Please. You are Muslim,” I said. “I have a husband. Please.” He ignored my words and kept his hands on my breasts for the thirty minutes or so we drove, until miraculously another soldier pulled me into the protection of his embrace. He was trying to shield me from the groping. The salty-fingered guy pulled me back against him. The savior pulled me back. Someone had a conscience.
The vehicle finally slowed and pulled over to the side of the road. The door opened, and I was roughly pushed out. With our arms tied and eyes blindfolded, they shifted us to the back of a cramped Land Cruiser. Inside, Anthony was moaning loudly.
“My shoulders,” he said aloud, his voice drenched in pain. “My arms are bound so tightly, it’s killing my shoulders.”
My shoulder with the titanium plate that reset my collarbone after my car accident also ached. Anthony and Steve began to speak a smattering of Arabic to a soldier, pleading with him to retie our arms in front, rather than behind our backs. One by one the soldier untied our arms, and the relief was immediate. I was eerily calm in the back of the truck: My hands now tied in front, the close proximity to my colleagues, and the hope that we would all remain together were enough to get me through the night.
I kept my eyes closed under the blindfold and tried to slow my breath, to distract myself from my fear, my thirst, my need to pee. That’s when I felt another hand on my face, caressing my cheek like a lover. Slowly he ran his fingers over my cheeks, my chin, my eyebrows. I lowered my face into my lap. He raised it, tenderly, and continued with his caresses. He ran his hands over my hair and spoke to me in a low, steady voice, repeating the same phrase over and over. I kept my face down, ignoring his touch, his words. I didn’t understand what he was saying.
“What is he saying, Anthony?”
Anthony took his time answering. “He’s telling you that you will die tonight.”
I was numb. Since the moment we’d been taken that morning, I’d resigned myself to the likelihood that I was going to die, and every minute since then had felt like a gift. I focused on the moment, on staying alive, on not getting overwhelmed by emotion.
Tyler suddenly said, “I need some fresh air. Anthony, could you please ask them if I can step outside for some fresh air?”
Tyler’s request was strange to me; he had endured the previous hours without so much as a whimper, and now he was asking for fresh air. I would later learn that Saleh, the soldier who kept telling me I would die as he caressed my cheeks, had told Tyler repeatedly that he was going to “cut his pretty head off,” and Tyler had been nauseated.