My eyes focused and I saw that I was in a fairly big room with boxes stacked in every corner and files on top of several empty desks. At the desk directly across the room from my cage, Jackson worked at a computer. After a minute, he noticed me sitting up. He turned in his comfortable-looking leather office chair.

Jackson said, “I was holding you up here in the office to be safe. Away from the real prisoners. They’d love a shot at an American. Especially one as wholesome looking as you.”

I had a million questions, but I couldn’t form any. All I could work out was, “What are you going to do with me?”

He remained cheerful and said, “Let me show you the first part of my plan. You’ll appreciate this, I’m sure.” He picked up an ancient rotary phone and dialed four digits. I could only hear his side of the conversation. And I didn’t have the energy to shout or distract him in any way.

When someone on the other end of the phone answered, Jackson said, “Hey is this Non-Metric Solutions? This is Rick over at Deep Water.” There was a short break and he said, “Hey, DP, how you doing today? Good, good to hear. What’s the DP stand for? Dennis Paul, I see. I see your name all over the place and always wondered about that.” There was another decent break.

This time Jackson used a professional tone as he said, “Can we borrow one of your people for about a week? Ten days at the most. You can bill us one and a half times the rate if you want. His name is Mitchum. I’m not sure about his first name. Robert, really? Just like the actor?” Then he closed it out with, “Yeah, we could really use him around the holding facility. He said he didn’t mind. Probably use him on some transports down to Jalalabad, too.” He gave DP some numbers for billing then said, “Thanks so much, DP. We’re all in this together, and I appreciate this kind of support.”

Jackson hung up the phone then turned and smiled. He didn’t say a word. He winked at me. Without another sound, he went back to working at his desk. And I started thinking about how to get out of this cage.

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

I had little contact with anyone else the rest of the day. Sometime during the evening, a surly-looking employee with a tattoo on his forearm of the Philadelphia 76ers logo dropped a can of beans with a plastic spoon on the floor next to my cage. I was hungry enough that it was as good a dinner as I’d ever eaten.

I kept wondering about my mom’s concern that someone was following her in Marlboro. What would happen if things went wrong here? Would they hurt my mother? It was a disturbing thought.