Chapter 10: The Viper's Lair

Jamil Yassin was twenty years old, and until three days earlier, had been attending college at the Bekaa Valley campus of the Lebanese University. She had been working towards a medical degree. Jamil knew the highest she would probably be able to reach was a nursing degree. College was expensive and the meager savings that her parents had saved for her education was nearly gone. But, she dreamed of being a doctor. She had also dreamed of using her education to free her country from its abject poverty. Like many a starry-eyed youth, Jamil believed the world would succumb to her determination and pure heart. A generation earlier, and in another country, Jamil's age group had been identified as 'the Immortals, ' because they didn't believe in their own mortality.

Three days earlier the opening scenes of her nightmare had begun. Jamil's father hadn't returned home after his day's work as an small appliance repairman. Jamil and her mother frantically called friends, and extended family, to find him. They had driven to the shop where he worked, and then to the shop owner's home, but no trace of her father was found. Her father had left work at the regular time and had simply disappeared.

Jamil was old enough to remember the bad old days of her youth, when kidnappings and murder were so common in Lebanon. Hezbollah, at Iran's urging, had kept the country and the populace in turmoil. When Iran virtually disappeared in a radioactive cloud, Hezbollah suddenly became much less violent and radical. Hezbollah was a lot more careful about how they dealt with the general populace without their big brother, Iran, standing behind them. The years since were still difficult, but her country seemed to be slowly struggling free of the chains of ignorance and repression. Poverty was still rampant, and Lebanon was still struggling to find its identity. However, the beginning of hope was glimmering in the minds of Jamil and her friends. Jamil and her mother feared that those days were returning when they couldn't find her father.

Early on the morning of the second day following her father's disappearance, Jamil's naivety had been shredded, and the nightmare took a deadly twist. There was a knock on the door just after sunrise. Her mother answered the door, anxiously thinking it might be word of her husband. Five men rushed into their home.

Jamil and her mother had been dragged to the earthen basement that had served them so well when warring factions had fought through Baalbek. Jamil had been tied to a chair while her mother was tied to a rough table they kept in the basement.

Then, the men cut and ripped a palm sized patch of skin from her mother. Jamil screamed. Her mother screamed. And then the true torture started.

The Sergeant suggested that they would continue skinning her mother, unless Jamil suggested something the soldiers might enjoy more. The Sergeant said that Jamil must beg the soldiers to accept her suggestion, and she had to beg hard. If she begged hard enough, and sounded sincere enough, and if it was something the soldiers thought would be interesting, they would stop cutting and skinning her mother. That is, they would stop until they tired of the new atrocity that Jamil had begged them to visit on her mother.

Jamil had visited some of the forbidden web sites at the college. She had seen pictures of men using women in ways that were frightening, but also strangely fascinating. In retrospect, Jamil had compared the fascination to a bird being hypnotized by a snake. Her mother had explained the ways of men and women, but Jamil's mother had never mentioned the depravity she had seen on the forbidden web sites. There were two, three, and even four men using the same woman, before she had to use her hands to service more men. Jamil had been repulsed, but those images stood her in good stead during their ordeal.

Jamil drew on those images, hoping against hope that one of the atrocities would satisfy the men's lust and they would leave her and her mother alone.

Her mother was raped, beaten, and tortured. During the ordeal, the men questioned Jamil and her mother about something called seekers. Neither Jamil, nor her mother knew what they were talking about, so the men continued. The nightmare lasted most of the day, and then her mother had mercifully died.

Jamil was to be next, but the Sergeant stopped them. He didn't stop them out of kindness. Sergeant Mahdi inspected her like he would a cow at market, but she was sure no cow felt as degraded as she had felt.

"We'll take this one with us," Sergeant Mahdi had said with a leering smile that terrified Jamil. "We'll take more time with this one, and maybe we'll learn something worthwhile. Maybe the Lieutenant would like to help," he said thoughtfully. "Yes. That might help with another problem."

His men had laughed dutifully, and Jamil had been taken from her home. She had glanced over her shoulder as she was dragged from the basement and the scene had crystallized in her mind. Her mother's lifeless, broken body was draped over the small table. Blood had pooled under the table and had begun to congeal. Her mother's glazed, lifeless eyes watched Jamil as she was dragged from the basement.

Something happened to Jamil's mind in that moment. An anger began building. It couldn't replace the terror and horror, but it could give her the strength to endure. She knew these men had killed her father because they had described what they did to him before he died, in terrifying detail. Jamil saw what they did to her mother. Her anger was sustained by the cold certainty that, if she could just endure, her chance would come, and she would have her revenge.

The last twenty-four hours had been surreal for Jamil. There had been pain and humiliation in the way they handled her like a piece of meat, but it hadn't touched the core of her. The Sergeant forbade them from doing more than touching, pinching, and forcing Jamil to perform oral sex. Jamil loathed what they forced her to do, but nothing they did to her could touch the person her parents had loved and nourished. That person was safe in her parents' unconditional love and acceptance, and was just waiting to strike back.

Eventually, they arrived at a different house, a very nice house. Jamil was chained to a wall in a basement cell and left with her misery. She was on a cot like the prison beds she had seen in old American movies. The chain was long enough to reach a toilet at one end of the cot, and a sink at the other. Her first action when the cell door closed was to rinse her mouth out and rid herself of the sour taste that remained of the men. The second action was to empty her stomach in the toilet. Then, all she could do was relive the memories of her nightmare.

She was, in due course, able to sleep, but her dreams were as terrifying as her waking life had become. At least in the beginning. Then her mother and father came to her in her dreams. They looked younger than Jamil remembered them. There wasn't quite as much gray in their hair, and there were fewer lines on their faces. They promised her that she would be free again. Strangely enough, they also cautioned her against being set on revenge. Her father promised that the men that had done this to Jamil and her family would pay, but not necessarily at Jamil's hands.

The anger Jamil had felt was even more solidified when she awoke to sounds in the adjoining room. She sat up and steeled herself for what would happen next. She knew her humiliation and degradation was about to begin, again. She knew that physical pain would also begin again. But, in her heart, Jamil knew that eventually, they would make a mistake, and they would pay for what they did to her family. The memory of her dream lingered, and the promise of retribution gave Jamil a glimmer of hope. She didn't forget the warning that retribution may not be at her own hand, but Jamil vowed that she would have her revenge, no matter the cost.

The door opened abruptly. A moment later, Sergeant Mahdi stumbled into the room before falling to his knees. This was a very different Sergeant than the smirking man that had taunted her with her fate the night before. Blood was smeared on his face, and his uniform. The Sergeant's pants were wet, as if he had peed in his pants.

Jamil would have gasped in astonishment, if her mind hadn't been so focused on her rage.

A tall man, with black hair and fairer skin than was common on a Lebanese, followed the Sergeant into the room. A short Arabic man with a large hooked nose followed him.

The tall man looked over his shoulder, and, in English spoken with an American accent, yelled, "Mom, she's naked. Would you bring a blanket or something to cover her, please?"

The man turned back to the room, and met Jamil's eyes.

In the Lebanese dialect of Arabic that sounded like he was a native, he said, "We'll get you loose from those shackles in just a moment, Jamil."

Jamil could only stare at him wordlessly in astonishment. He hadn't even looked at her body. He had talked to HER. Jamil could see the compassion in his eyes. She could hear the compassion in his voice. She had FELT his words. Jamil felt like a cool, healing balm was soothing the raw wounds in her mind and soul.

The tall man reached down and grabbed the Sergeant by the back of his neck. He literally lifted the Sergeant to his feet.

"Where are the keys to her shackles, Mahdi?" the tall man demanded in a voice that couldn't be denied.

"Th ... Th ... They are in the top drawer of the nightstand, by the bed," Sergeant Mahdi stammered in terror.

The tall man nodded to the shorter man, and the shorter man rushed back out of the cell. The shorter man had barely disappeared through the door, when a woman that was obviously not of Arabic descent entered the cell.

"Let's get you decent, dear," the woman said in passable Arabic, as she wrapped one of the silk sheets from the large bed around Jamil. "Cody will get those chains off you in just a moment."

"Thank you," Jamil said hesitantly, looking at her rescuers in shock.

A short, dark haired woman about Jamil's age entered the cell. A tall blonde woman followed her. The blonde woman stamped hard on the Sergeant's foot as she walked past him.

"I'm so sorry, Sergeant," the blonde said in English, with obviously false sympathy in her voice. She had to speak loud to be heard over his howls of pain.

"Briana," the tall man said patiently, "You can have him after I've finished with him."

Jamil's shock evaporated in sudden rage at the tall man's words, and she snapped, "I have first claim to this pig."

"I'm sure you do, Jamil," he said soothingly. "We can work that out later. We have some things to do, first. His boss is expected in about half an hour. We need to get our buddy Mahdi ready to pull his Lieutenant into our little trap."

The tall man looked around the room, nodding thoughtfully, and said, "This room should work nicely. It would probably be best if Mahdi meets him at the door. Briana, would you get him cleaned up, please? Ask Brian to help if you want. And for God's sake, rinse him off someplace before you put clean pants on him. I think he lost control of his bowels, too."

"Let's go, asshole," the tall blonde girl, Briana, said to Mahdi as she grabbed one of his ears and lifted him onto his tip-toes before walking him towards the door. She called over her shoulder and said, "Amy, why don't you help me. Maybe he'll do something stupid, like resist, and we can use him to practice your snake strike. You're still not holding your wrist right."