Charlie Ford Meets Secret Agent Man

  What I can say is that I wanted to be a bad ass. I wanted to be affiliated with the best of the best, and I was; up until that fateful day. That day I held my head up high, thrust my arm into the air and said, "I fucking quit." It was during maneuvers that it happened, I'd been beaten to a pulp. I looked like hell, I could taste my own blood and I wanted out.

  I still see no shame in it; one day I will be the best of the best and I will proudly wear a uniform but it won't be for the Rangers and it won't even be for the Army.

  I finished my letter to my father about how much I loved the Army, and how I was actually thankful that he made me that ultimatum. I also went into detail about how I felt neglected and inferior my entire life and I let it all out.

  I also felt somewhat inclined to send him my bachelor's degree, but since I only had another two semesters until I finished my master's degree, I wanted to wait. Actually, I wanted to see the look on his face when I told him that I had been secretly using my GI Bill to fund my education and unbeknownst to him, I am not a loser without any direction. I graduated with honors and I am nearly finished, which is why I was so hell-bent about returning to Greenwich. I set out to finish what I started, and being a nanny was the best way to finish school without having the stress of rent, utilities and partying nightly.

  I actually cried when I finished the letter, which rarely happens. It felt good to come to terms with my pain and when I was through, I had a seventeen-page letter to send to him. Front and back. I tucked the letter into my purse and intended to send it, just as soon as I was on a different continent.

  ***

  Annabelle finished her conversation with her grandmother, and then called her mom in Los Angeles.

  Nicole Harrison was one of Hollywood's top actresses. She could select her roles and as of late, she could choose whose bed to sleep in. Just last night, I caught the tail-end of "Entertainment Tonight" and saw her gliding down the red carpet for Braden Booker's new movie preview, and I hoped that Braden Booker was using her like she had used Roald. After all, he was an up and coming actor and she was the older, more experienced actress. That would serve her right.

  I stood at the door and listened as Annabelle went on and on about Kenya and all the cool things that I bought for our trip, and she made it sound like her life was perfect, which I knew was the farthest thing from the truth.

  ***

  The downstairs Grandfather clock chimed twice, letting me know that it was time to go and once my heart rate returned from hyper-speed, I knocked gently on the door and then I peeked my head in.

  "Go away," she shouted and tossed a large stuffed dolphin at my head.

  "It's time to go." I stood firm and tossed the dolphin at her head. "Are you ready? Do you think you forgot anything?"

  "Why are you talking to me? I hate you."

  "Well, I happen to loooovvveee you," I said super sweetly, and pulled her into a massive bear hug and although she writhed and shrieked, I knew that she enjoyed the embrace because—well, let's just say, I remember what it was like to be twelve.

  ***

  Vinny drove us to JFK airport and I had everything packed for a fun flight. I took care of all the essentials: gum, water, jerky, Snickers, tampons—just in case—and, of course, a myriad of crossword puzzles, CDs and the letter to my dad. Bella took her seat beside me, closed her eyes, turned on her earphones, and ignored me over the Atlantic Ocean. I didn't mind because I was watching movies and shoveling peanuts into my mouth as if they were going out of style. I finished two cheesy romance novels that another passenger had lent me and then I finished a couple of crosswords before the pilot's voice broke my concentration. Half an hour later, we were safely on the ground again.

  ***

  Our first stopover was in London. I had only been to England one other time, in the Army, and it always seemed so gloomy. No wonder English people are so droll. They are miserable and they have no lips—that might also have something to do with it.

  I entered the gift shop, bought a couple of shot glasses because when I was here with the military we didn't really get time off to buy souvenirs.

  Then I went to customer relations, bought airmail postage, and hesitantly handed over the letter to my father. It took me a good five minutes to actually get up the courage to hand it to the nice, no-lipped man behind the counter, and even then I still couldn't hand it over.

  Finally, Bella nudged me in the arm and said she swore she just saw Britney Spears. I could have cared less. Now if it had been Colin Firth, I would have tackled him and demanded that he talk dirty to me.

  Bella looked at me, looked at the envelope, grabbed it out of my hand, and thrust it at the no-lipped man.

  "Thanks." I smiled. "I needed that."

  ***

  When we finally landed in Nairobi, Kenya, we learned that we had to wait a couple of hours to take a small commuter flight to the landing strip just south of where they were filming yet another version of "King Solomon's Mines."

  I think that Hollywood has completely overdone the whole legend of Alan Quartermain and, furthermore, I just can't see Roald Munson playing the same character that Sean Connery once played, or for that matter Richard Chamberlain or Stewart Granger. He just didn't fit; but I'm obviously not a famous movie producer, so what do I know?

  Now, Hugh Grant would make a great Alan Quartermain. Hell, he'd make a great Mr. Ford. I'd marry him and have his babies any day of the week. Okay, I digress. I was just trying to keep my mind off the flies and the scary guys with guns and the fact that my underwear was permanently stuck up my butt crack, thanks to the sweltering heat and humidity.

  We holed up in a small airport terminal until our guide came to take us to the plane. It would have been nice if Roald had come to meet his daughter at the airport in a strange country. Especially since men with semi-automatics were walking around the terminal looking like something out of "Commando." It was unnerving to me and I'm an adult—an adult with Army training, no less. I can't imagine what Bella was thinking. She hadn't let go of my hand since we landed. Perhaps she does love me after all.

  I stopped for a couple of Cokes and batted my hand in front of my face to keep the flies away. I think I prefer civilization to the great big outdoors. This was not my idea of a dream vacation. A dream vacation for me would be a couple of weeks in St. Martin with a Swede, named Sven, who had hands that never quit. I really couldn't believe that I was thinking about sexy Swedes at a time like that. I was just delusional that's all. I blamed it all on the heat, of course.

  Before getting out to the small plane that would take us to Kisumu, we were both patted down by said men with guns and I thought for sure Bella was going to cry. It was scary to have normal men pat my butt and thrust their hands into my crotch, but these guys seemed to be enjoying it a little too much.

  The first white man that I had seen all day yelled something that sounded like hurry up, and we ran over to the decrepit plane. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked up.

  "Uh uh," I muttered as I looked at the ancient piece of hardware that was supposedly going to take me over the mountains. "No freaking way," I said to the white male, who didn't look too impressed with me.

  Bella grabbed my hand and begged me to come, but the rubber on my shoes seemed to have congealed with the hot tar of the asphalt. I was frozen and I had a bad feeling about this.

  Another white male quickly shuffled me up the stairs.

  I was in hell. The seats were too close together and the leather was ripped and torn. I took a seat next to Bella and remained silent while the rest of the passengers boarded.

  Overall, I counted ten passengers and two pilots. There were no flight attendants to pass out peanuts and Bloody Marys and no pillows or blankets. Bella and I were the only two female passengers. That was a bit unsettling, but then again, what woman in her right mind would come to such a place? Don't get me wrong, I did learn to deal with dirt and grime in the Army, but I still didn't like it. No one has to like dirt, do
they?

  Bella squirmed beside me, so I took her hand in mine and patted her knee for good measure. "We'll be there soon. I'm sure of it." I hope.

  I clenched my jaw and listened to the other passengers mumbling about nothing and then we were airborne.

  Bella put her earphones to her ears, closed her eyes and laid her head on my shoulder.

  I kept my eyes toward the front and did what I always do. I mentally flew the plane from coach.

  After finishing my Snickers bar and half my bottle of Coke, I grabbed the crossword from my bag and had just clutched my pen in my fingers when all hell broke loose.

  When I said there were ten passengers on board, I was mistaken.

  There were seven passengers and three hijackers. Holy-shit!

 

  Chapter Four

  I once thought that I wanted to be a bad ass. I once thought I wanted to remain a member of the Army Special Forces that dealt with situations like this all the time. All I knew right then was that I just wanted my daddy. Better yet, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Where's Arnold when you need him? Okay, okay, he has the state of California to run and has no time to save my sorry ass, but who's left? Sylvester Stallone is just too old. Bruce Willis is just too beautiful. So who does that leave?

  Scared does not fully embody what I was going through when I saw the first guy stand up and point a gun into the cockpit. Frightened is not a strong enough term to describe how I felt when the second butthead pointed his gun at us, the passengers, but I had Bella to think about. Bella was my number-one priority, so screaming like a girl and passing out cold on the floor was not going to be an option.

  Although, come to think of it, passing out felt like the right thing to do, so I did.

  ***

  After I regained consciousness, I counted the passengers and there were only five. The blood on the seats and airplane walls told the gruesome story about what had just transpired and Bella was shrieking next to me; I felt like I was going to puke and I really needed to get a handle on my allergy to the sight of blood. When I was in the Army, I handled it well by keeping smelling salts in my pockets, unbeknownst to Brick, the Master Chief from hell. Nevertheless, I was without smelling salts and there was so much blood.

  The three men converged on the rest of us and shouted some not-so-nice words and although I'm not fluent in asshole, I'm pretty sure they told us not to move or we would die.

  Okay, fine by me. I couldn't have moved if I tried.

  The taller of the two white males with pistols said something to the other tall white male with an even larger pistol and I was confident that they were South African because I had seen "Lethal Weapon II" a number of times and I remember the bad guys' accents.

  Where in the hell is Mel Gibson when you needed him?

  I was back to that again. Going over it in my head. What would Wesley Snipes do? After all, he had been in a number of hijacked-plane movies and he always saved the day.

  Bella had finally stopped crying and was silently saying a prayer in another language. I'm assuming that her grandmother had taught her well, after all, Bella had spent lots of time with her grandparents during their travels to foreign countries. I just couldn't think of a thing to say to her; not one gosh darn thing that would be of comfort.

  The man behind me read my mind and whispered, "It's going to be okay," from behind Bella's chair.

  He certainly wasn't going to be the hero. I had read the inscription on his briefcase and his name was Duane. What kind of name is Duane? It was nice of Duane to say that to Bella, but it wasn't the truth. Things were not fine. We were going to die. These were most likely terrorists and we were going to crash into that mountain up ahead. Ahhhhh.

  Okay, I said to myself in my head, because I didn't want Duane to know that I was the only hope of getting us out of this alive. I didn't want him getting his hopes up because I was the only one on the plane with eight years of Army training in special tactics and I was the only one who could take down a man with a gun in two decisive movements. You are losing it. Control. Control. You have to remain focused. I did my best to regain any of the training I had learned, but this was real. So real that I could smell death, and it reeked.

  I gave up on remembering any of my training and concentrated on Bella and on how scared she was. The men were sitting, chewing on my jerky and staring out the window at the dense jungle. I had no idea where we were and I really didn't care. It didn't matter to me at that point where I was going to die, it just mattered that I was, and I really didn't want to. The only solace that I felt was that I had sent that letter to my father and had finally said my piece. Damn, I had wanted to see the look in his eyes when he learned that I had a master's degree in criminal justice. Wouldn't that knock his socks off? A couple of tears trickled out of the corners of my eyes and I squeezed them shut to stop the rest. I was not going to cry. I was not going to be that weepy stereotype who watched her life passing before her eyes.

  I squeezed them tighter, and in my mind, a montage of my life started playing and I became that sappy stereotype. I started thinking about my brothers and about how I had some serious making up to do because I had blamed them for our father's predisposition of loving them more than me. Then I thought about Ruger and about how I had promised to buy his dream place in the country with acres and acres of jackrabbits to chase, and I was so close to that dream.

  I had all the money I needed in the bank. I just had to finish school and then I could take him away from my parents. I thought about my mom and about how sad she would be that she didn't get to see me get married and have kids.

  The tears were rolling out by this time, and when I felt a warm hand on my shoulder, I opened my eyes and looked into Duane's eyes, right through his Coke-bottle glasses.

  He was a nerd incarnate. Poor man. Even his checkered shirt and un-matched bowtie reeked of geek-dom.

  "Where's your purse?"

  I had no idea why he was asking such a bizarre question, so I narrowed my swollen eyes and by God, I was not going to get mugged on top of everything else.

  "Your purse? Where is it?" He was being quite adamant.

  "Why?" I said under my breath, and kept my eyes facing forward per the asshole with the gun's request.

  "Just give it to me, please."

  I felt around with my feet until my toe hit my bag.

  Bella stared bright-eyed and begged for me to stop moving. I kicked my purse under the seat and mentally made a note to kick the geek's ass for mugging me, if we should survive unscathed. I heard him wrestling around behind me and was certain that he was rifling right past the tampons and bottle of Midol to get to my wad of cash, which wasn't a lot; maybe just a twenty-dollar bill or two.

  I hadn't heard any demands on the radio, or any cursing in awhile. My ears started popping out of nowhere, so I was certain that we were descending, hopefully onto a nice runway and not into the ocean.

  I said my fair share of Hail Marys and crossed my fingers under my butt just because my hands were shaking that badly and I wanted Bella to think that I was in control. I don't know why that was so important to me, but it was. I looked over at her, gave her a small wink and a smile, and then I held her hand as we bumped around on the ground. We had a rocky landing that bloodied my nose and shattered a couple of windows because either we had hit a couple of trees, or perhaps I had screamed so loudly that they shattered from the high-pitch of my shrieks. It was hard to tell.

  The assholes seemed to have survived intact, and pulled a dark-skinned gentleman out of the plane by his ankles. The man shrieked and screamed like a toddler, and I genuinely felt for him. I just hoped I had enough control not to scream when they came for me.

  We waited with racing pulses and bated breath for what seemed like an eternity before assholes numbers two and three came back and held a powwow with asshole number one. There were scores of head bobbing and guttural noises made but, again, I had no clue as to what they were talking about.

  Not being able
to hear made me think of the bionic woman and of how I so would have liked to see her show up and save the day.

  Bella squeezed my hand tighter and brought me out of my trance. Asshole number three, the tall lanky one, grabbed me by the upper arm, yanked me from my seat and said, "MOVE IT."

  He could have said it nicely. I mean, where does it say that hijackers have to be assholes on top of everything else? Wasn't it bad enough that they just rerouted seven passengers to an unknown destination in what looked like the middle of hell? They didn't need to be rude on top of it all. Sheesh.

  Bella was right behind me and I knew that because I could hear her sobs. They brought Duane out after her, along with one other dark-skinned gentleman, whom they took aside and immediately disposed of.

  Then we were four. Four hostages, three bad guys, and then I saw the bad news. There were more bad guys with a lot more guns. Eleven—no—twelve; I could see feet beyond a red Jeep, and that made thirteen. Thirteen bad guys!

  We were dead.

  Duane seemed eerily calm for a dweeb. I half expected him to lie down on the ground and beg for mercy, but he didn't. He hung his head low and remained silent as they marched us into the first canvas tent.

  I know canvas tents well, so I felt at home. There were a number of cots on the floor, and a couple of canteens of water. That was where they handcuffed us to a metal bar that lined the floor. Each of us had our own separate chain linked to the bar, giving us enough slack to either lie down, kneel or sit on the cold dirt floor.

  Great. More dirt.

  Bella finally burst into full-blown sobs once the assholes left us alone and Duane just sat, slumped over like a catatonic slug.

  "We're okay," I said. At that point, I did think we were okay. They seem to be quite selective about who they were killing off, so I wondered if this was just a run of the mill kidnapping, or perhaps something I couldn't even fathom. I didn't want to speculate at that time, I just held her close and said a prayer.