In the Presence of My Enemies (25 page)

A couple of days later, when I was in a slightly less spiritual mood, I thought of another divine promise to add to my list!

Vengeance is God’s. He’ll repay.

Early on Monday morning, October 15, Sabaya came over to tell Martin to get ready to do a live radio interview. Although the sat-phone had gone dead, we did still have one cell phone that could be used if we could find a transmission tower close by. In addition to giving a prepared speech, Martin would respond to questions from the outside. Of course, Sabaya outlined five complaints against the West that he wanted made, which Martin duly jotted down on a banana leaf, since nobody seemed to have any paper that day.

1. United States support of Israel against the Palestinians

2. Oppression of Muslims everywhere

3. World sanctions against Iraq and Libya

4. Continued presence of Western troops in Saudi Arabia

5. Support for the Philippine government’s goals in Muslim Mindanao

Soon the phone connection was made and the discussion began. When asked how he was faring, Martin said, “Well, I’m very tired and weak, and frightened. My wife is very tired and weak. We’ve both lost a lot of weight from walking a lot.”

In a few minutes, the interviewer asked what message the Abu Sayyaf had for government officials, both in the Philippines and the United States, since the broadcast was being widely heard. Martin duly went through the list, as instructed.

But before the interview ended, he managed to get in some personal notes: “We would like to wish our daughter, Mindy, a happy birthday. She has her birthday in two days on October 17. So, this is our first opportunity to send them news that we are alive.”

He also got a chance to address the AFP’s rescue attempts: “Please stop. . . . Our lives are often in danger. Unlike the local hostages, it’s impossible for me to escape. . . . I’m always tied up. I am always in the center of the group—not like the locals who are often sent to get water or sent to do small errands. The repeated rescue attempts and especially the artillery and the air strikes have been very frightening because they’re so random. They cannot rescue me with an artillery attempt, and they cannot rescue me with an air strike. We will only be killed, and our children will only be orphans.”

At the end, he summarized: “The Abu Sayyaf is going to survive this operation, but the hostages will not. Eventually, the hostages are going to succumb to sickness, and eventually some of the hostages are going to be killed.” Thus, he conveyed that negotiation was the only sane answer.

October 17

Mindy’s twelfth-birthday parties are held at school and home. Her best present: a tape (from Radyo Agong) of Martin wishing her a happy birthday.

November 12

U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt comes to Rose Hill to visit Martin’s parents; he also stops at the middle school to address students.

Sabaya, meanwhile, took his turn on the air to keep up the bravado. He noted that President Arroyo would head to Washington the following month for a state visit. “It would be very embarrassing if she goes to the U.S. with the bodies of Martin and Gracia,” he observed.

The only response to the interview in the days to come, as far as we could tell, was more pursuit by the AFP, more shelling, more raids. Things were not pretty. Everyone wanted this to be over, even the Abu Sayyaf. It had already dragged on much longer than anyone expected. With increasing frequency, guys in the Abu Sayyaf went AWOL. They headed to town for supplies and never returned.

The lack of leadership skills became more and more apparent. We ended up back in the general area where the jeepney massacre had taken place. Apparently, our leaders thought that the people, being loyal Muslims, would feed us and take care of us—forgetting that just about everybody in town had lost a son, a daughter, or a cousin in the shoot-out. These people were so angry with the Abu Sayyaf that they not only refused to help us but also went straight to the military asking for protection.

The crazy part was, the AFP didn’t believe them, because there had been no recent reports of sightings in that area. So one night, some of the villagers went outside with their own guns, shot into the air all around town, and then ran back to the military claiming that the Abu Sayyaf had attacked them. Obviously, we didn’t hang around this village very long.

* * *

We began hearing that they wanted to release a good number of people—the rest of the Golden Harvest boys, the farm boy we had recently captured, and the Filipino women hostages. After all, Angie’s and Fe’s ransoms had already been paid, and the Abu Sayyaf were not hopeful of getting any money from the nurses’ families back in Lamitan.

November 14–16

Paul Burnham and Gracia’s sister, Mary Jones, travel to Washington to lobby their representatives as well as the Philippine ambassador for more action. Two New Tribes Mission executives also attend.

November 16

Mindy prepares a Philippine meal for a school project. She takes pictures to send to her parents.

Sure enough, the rumors proved true. To mark the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, on November 15, a major release was set up.

Oh, the emotional good-bye we had. I told Fe to call my parents and tell them I loved them. From my pocket I pulled out my wedding ring at last and pressed it into her hand. “When you get to Manila, give this to the New Tribes Mission office, okay? Tell them to send it to my daughter, Mindy, in case I don’t get out. If you lose it, that’s okay—don’t worry. Just
don’t
let the Abu Sayyaf get their hands on it!”

She promised she would. I gave her my dead watch as well.

Of course, Martin and I added, “You tell them out there that somebody needs to do something for us. Somebody needs to pay our ransom.”

We had by then settled the debate—in our minds, anyway—of whether that was the right thing to ask. Martin had reasoned, “It is not our responsibility to figure out how a ransom payment is used. If we can trust the Lord for a million dollars, which is something totally beyond our reach, we can trust the Lord that that million dollars never buys a weapon or blows anybody up. These guys can just as easily send the money to their wives so they can live in luxury or something.”

At the very last minute, Musab decided he wasn’t going to let Ediborah go. He was a stubborn man and very proud. I think the only reason he made her stay was to show the group that he was the emir, the boss, and what he said went.

After many hugs and tears, the group began to make their way down the hill. But an hour later, they were back; they’d spotted soldiers at the bottom of the hill.

We mobiled to a different place where civilians were found who were willing to take the group into town. So we said good-bye again. I just wept when they left. I was happy for them, but I knew I was losing the companionship of girls I’d come to love.

Three or four hours later, they came back again! The civilians had failed to find out what time the jeepney left for town. So they would have to try again early the next morning.

We put up hammocks for the night. Martin and I were assigned a place right in the middle of all the activity—in fact, it was between two trees and directly over a big trash pile of banana peels, coconut husks, and marang skins left from cooking. Somebody decided this was a good place for our hammock. The flies were horrible. This only depressed me all the more.

Early the next morning when the girls left again, I cried, but I didn’t make any more speeches or give them hugs. I just kind of waved at them as they went by. I thought about Job, of whom the Bible says, “He sat down among the ashes” after his whole life had crashed (Job 2:8,
KJV
). That is exactly what I was doing.

Everyone was very quiet the rest of that day. The excitement in the air turned into a real sadness. I could tell that Omar missed Sheila right away.

Meanwhile, the thought began to dig into my mind that maybe, just maybe, this kind of a day would never come for us. After all, time was passing by. Every scheme that had gotten our hopes up had dwindled away. What was it Solaiman had said back on the speedboat that first afternoon? “We will make demands, and we will deal with you last.” We were indeed left for last now, along with Ediborah. The rustling of the wind in the jungle trees only reinforced the loneliness in my heart.

15

The Package

(Mid-November–Mid-December 2001)

Ediborah and I had not spent all that much time together up to this point. My social life had seemed to revolve more around the needs of Fe and Angie. All this changed now that Ediborah and I were the only two women left in the camp, surrounded by some forty male captors.

A capable woman about my age, mother of four, Ediborah had been a nurse supervisor at the Lamitan hospital. Her husband had left her shortly after the birth of their last child, a son, six years before. She talked most about her oldest son, Jonathan, twenty-four, and how reliable he was. He worked for a fishing company in Zamboanga and sent or brought money home whenever he could. I could tell she was really proud of him.

Ediborah and I both needed to get our minds off the fact that we (along with Martin) were the last remnant now, so we volunteered for jobs. The guys had stolen a cow and her calf and had begun to butcher them—a skill they seemed to just naturally know, like tying your shoes. I’d never done anything like this, but Ediborah had, and so we said we’d cut up the meat.

That was easier said than done, because
bolo
s were in short supply, especially sharp ones. We worked together that day, with me holding the meat while she sliced it thin, so we could then salt it and smoke it on the fire to preserve it. We actually had a good time.

I wondered to myself,
Now how does stealing this beef fit into the
mujahideen
code? I thought they didn’t do that.

Musab came around at one point, and I decided to ask him. Ediborah interpreted my words into the local dialect so he would understand better.

His answer was simple: “The civilian is nothing; the normal person is nothing. The
mujaheed
must go on.” In other words, the fighter in holy war must have what he needs, regardless of the ramifications.

I pressed Ediborah a bit more. “But what if you get to the point of having an all-Muslim state? If people steal a cow in that situation, they would get their hand chopped off whether they’re
mujahideen
or not, right?”

November 19

President Arroyo arrives in Washington to assure President Bush that her military can handle the rescue. She also has lunch with Rep. Todd Tiahrt, who comes away “optimistic.”

November 19

Jeff attends his team’s football banquet.

Her next answer was classic. “If we need it, it’s not really stealing.”

I thought back to June, at the Lamitan hospital, when hostages began looting that patient room of its supplies. The logic had been the same. Human nature seems to find ways to justify its wrongdoing, to move ahead with what serves its self-interests, and then to figure out an explanation so it doesn’t sound so bad.

By the time Ediborah and I finished working with the meat, our hands were covered with blood, and we were sweaty. “Let’s go to the river for a bath,” she suggested.

“Well, sometimes they won’t let us.” The guys often didn’t like to stop what they were doing and stand guard down at the river.

“They’ll let us go,” she said. “Just come with me and don’t even ask.” With that, she started off, and some of the guys scrambled to follow, as required.

* * *

The month of Ramadan had begun, when Muslims are allowed to eat only before sunup and after sundown. That rule didn’t apply to Martin and me, of course; they didn’t care when we ate. They called us to the fire before sunup to get our food, and we just saved it until later. We ate half of it for breakfast and the other half for lunch. Then we ate supper with the group after sundown.

The odd thing was, although Ramadan is called a time of fasting, these Muslims ate
more
during this lunar month. Food preparation started in the early afternoon, and they were very meticulous about their cooking. They wanted to have everything ready right at dusk, so they could promptly “break the fast.” They looked at their watches time and again, and they discussed whose watch was correct. But they all waited for the leadership’s signal that it was dark enough to begin eating.

November 21

President Arroyo calls Martin’s parents in Kansas to express her concern.

We began noticing that when they were divvying up the budget, they fixed extra treats, like bananas mixed with sugar, but we only got our normal little pile of rice. “We can’t give you any of this,” they said. “It’s for us because we’re fasting—so we need more.” The logic of that always seemed to escape me.

But then speaking of treats—a day or so later, a box arrived for Martin and me! I was over at the fire with Ediborah when she said, “The emir has some glasses for Martin.”

“What did you say?!” I thought I had misunderstood her.

“A package came in for you last night. The emir has your eyeglasses.”

I went dashing off to find that box, because I knew if I didn’t claim it right away, it would be pilfered by the Abu Sayyaf. If it had any food in it, I knew I couldn’t depend anymore on them stopping to screen the ingredients for shortening; they were too hungry now. I had to find that box immediately.