Chapter 10

July 2009, Sudan

Pam had the decency to blush when I looked at her after her bloodthirsty announcement regarding Khalid. Then I turned to Karen.

“Karen, you must understand that you two have been living in different worlds. Despite her age Pam has probably seen some things you haven’t,” I said, and then I sighed.

“But your presence here has certainly changed things. We have known for some time that it might be necessary to leave in haste but none of those plans included a blond woman. On the other hand in the old plans, I also thought that I could trust at least some of my superiors. Now I’m sure that I can’t.”

Karen looked at me with her mouth open for a second before she could speak.

“Wait a minute. You talk like I will also be in some kind of danger. Now that that asshole is out of the picture, why couldn’t I just get back to Khartoum and fly home?”

I shook my head sadly.

“Karen, you’ve been in this country now about a week, correct?”

I saw her nod.

“I’ve been here for more than eight months now, and I can only start guessing what is happening behind the scenes. If I’d had to guess I’d say that this country is divided, and after a few years the most radical forces will have even more power. There are some forces who try to prevent it, but there are also forces on all sides who want to make things worse for totally different reasons. Right now there are too many people on different sides who think that killing some westerners, and making things worse for ordinary people, will serve their purposes. Since there is no way that you’d get out of the country before things start happening, you’d become a perfect target, and I’m not only talking about radical Islamists here. Of course you can’t print any of this,” I added as I took the last sip of my now cold tea.

“On the other hand, your presence here may help us to sneak off undetected. There will be some extra effort with the documents, but I have some contacts. I’ll need to work as normally as I can, tomorrow. The following night I need to make sure that their strike will fail. We’ll need to be on our way immediately after that, most probably in the middle of the night. That reminds me ... right now, all of us could probably use a good night’s sleep. Since I’ll need to get up early, I suggest that Pam and Hana sleep together in the bedroom and Karen will sleep in Pam’s bed. I can then take the sofa.”

There was some grumble against my suggestion but not very much, which did not surprise me. I had become all too good in hiding my own feelings. Before we had managed to get everything organized Karen stopped Hana and me.

“I know it is not my business, but you have not explained much. You two are really married, aren’t you?”

Hana took my hand in hers before she answered to Karen.

“Yes, I’m very happy to have Greg as my husband.”

“But you are so young - and Naiya is already - nine months, isn’t she?”

I could feel Hana’s hand squeezing mine so I decided to interfere.

“It is true that it is not at all your business. But if you need to know, Naiya is neither Hana’s or my daughter. She is Hana’s sister’s daughter. Asra died in childbirth and Hana just had to take care of Naiya.”

I noticed that Pam was looking at us.

“Pam, Hana - I give you a permission to tell Karen everything you feel comfortable with her knowing. Since you absolutely need to remain inside the house, tomorrow, you will have plenty of time for that.”

When I finally was able to get to sleep on the sofa, I wondered what kind of can of worms I had just opened. But I also remembered quite well when I had really learned to lie.

2006 - Central America

Sondra took care of me as soon as I got out of the jeep in front of the school. She had Pam had some other girl with them, and together they stripped me and washed me in the outside shower. I knew that I should have felt embarrassed, especially at the point when one part of me responded to the stimulation of the naked girls and Sondra washing me. Before I knew it, I was on my bed and Sondra promised that we’d talk after I had had some sleep.

My sleep was troubled, at best, but I felt marginally better when I forced myself into the shower at eleven the next morning. It turned out that Pam had been keeping an eye on me, and as soon as I walked out of the door she came to me. She let me know that Sondra had organized everything. There were some girls keeping watch on Ms. Rosa, and some other girls were taking care of the two raped girls while Sondra was keeping the group of the younger girls occupied.

It was not until late in the evening when I managed to have a talk with Sondra. Meanwhile I released the girls who had been watching Ms. Rosa, and started talking to her. I had broken her the day before and she was still scared that I might do something to her. It took me some time to make her understand that I was offering her a way out. An escape. I did not tell her why I did that, but from her eyes I could see the moment when she started hoping that she still might have a future. A part of me hated myself for offering her the possibility, as I could not help thinking how many young girls she had given to the syndicate.

Later in the evening Sondra and I explained to the girls why we needed to keep the kidnapping secret. The girls were no dummies. Being in this school, many of them had already seen the darker side of the life. When I was finally alone with Sondra, I explained to her the rest of my plan. She was not at all thrilled about my idea of making Ms. Rosa ‘a good traitor’ who’d had a mental breakdown and exposed the plan to abduct the girls to us. But in general, she was happy that I had a plan. A plan that might even work. Might.

The next few days dragged by. The rain continued two more days which made me really happy since it made the rivers flood and the decreased visibility made it much more difficult to find the truck and the dead men. The more time they spent in the river the harder it would be to find out the real reasons for their death. Someone tried to contact Ms. Rosa a couple of times but either Sondra or I answered her phone and explained that she was very, very sick and incoherent, and not even able to take care of herself. Whoever the person was, he stopped after a few trials. Meanwhile I had finished my report and used the encrypted satellite connection to send it to my superiors.

It took them a whole week to respond. In a way I wasn’t really surprised. After several months of silence, I suddenly overloaded them with information. When the response came they didn’t use too many words: ‘Keep extremely low profile. We’ll contact you later.’

During the following weeks we kept that low profile. Ms. Rosa was locked indoors and we had taken away everything that she might use to hurt herself.

Sondra finally told me about her history - she was a murderer. She had married young, to an obsessive husband who had beaten her every time he got drunk. After four years of marriage he was drunk very often. One day Sondra just couldn’t take it any more, and replied with a knife. What should never have been anything more than a simple case of excessive self-defense, turned into murder; even if she had black eyes and broken ribs - and he had overweighed her by a hundred pounds.

She was raped several times in prison, and once she got out she had been struggling to make her living. She was ‘only’ thirty-eight and not in her mid-forties as I had first suspected. I had to admit that she had started to look much better during these last few months. Now she was again afraid what might happen to her. But, being worried about herself did not stop her from being even more worried about the girls and their wellbeing. I still do not know how she convinced me, but a week and a half after the incident I found myself doing my craziest stunt ever.

Sondra wanted us to show the girls what it should be when two persons made love. During my silly youth I had done that stupid film which started all this, but now we would be performing in front of live audience which included my daughter. Afterwards I was not sure if our stunt was a good or a bad thing for the girls but Sondra was adamant.

“Look, if I had known some of those things in my youth I would not have made the mistakes I made.”

I knew her well enough not to argue. But she was not done, yet. Soon after the incident she made sure that all the girls - including Pam - visited a doctor. I do not know how much she revealed to the old doctor, but when he was leaving he looked after me and called me a hero. And then he gave me a bottle of something he makes himself and made sure that I tasted it. I agreed I was a hero, since I smiled after the tasting. The final surprise was that one night Sondra brought the two raped girls and ordered me to make them feel good.

I got hardly any sleep that night but it was not because I fucked those two teenage girls all night, not at all. We spent most of the night talking and then the girls learned how to give a handjob and a blowjob. All the time I did my best to convince them that they were not worthless because they were raped, and it would not prevent them from finding a decent man. I really hoped that. I did make love to both of them, but not before I had made them come with my mouth and my fingers. Pam just snorted at me the following day when I had problems waking up before noon. She was becoming much too observant. Well, she did hug me; and she kissed my cheek, too.