Held Read online

  At the same time, the car seemed to be very spacious—I couldn’t feel the seat in front of me. The smell of the car and its size made me think it was a limo. Well, maybe it was a stolen limo, and the thieves had decided to add mugging to their crime spree.

  The man let go of my wrists and I began to fumble with my jeans. My fingers felt clumsy and I was afraid that I wasn’t removing them fast enough. It was at that moment—when I realized that I had to do exactly as I was told—that my denial turned to terror. I understood very suddenly that I was in trouble, and I began to tremble.

  All the same, I clung to the thought that they were mugging me. Maybe now that they had my jeans and watch and knapsack, they’d let me go. They’d throw me out of the car, and I’d be safe. They had told me to keep my underwear on. That was a good sign.

  “Put on this skirt,” the man said in the same casual voice.

  I felt something landing on my knees, and I instinctively recoiled with fear of the unknown. Through the bottom of the blindfold I saw a heap of black fabric. I was relieved that it really was a skirt and not a snake or a rat. I found the elastic waist, and pulled it on. It was ankle-length.

  Why a skirt? I wondered. Why didn’t they just throw me out of the car, once they had my jeans?

  A sickening answer came to me: they were taking me to be a sex slave somewhere, and they were disguising me, or dressing me up. Maybe they were taking me to some Middle Eastern country, where women had to wear long dresses.

  Then I remembered that terrorists sometimes dressed their victims in certain colors before executing them. I let out a cry, and my trembling intensified. Years of dance and gymnastics made me think of myself as having good control over my body, but I was shaking so violently that my leg knocked against the leg of the man sitting next to me.

  I felt something being pulled over my head, and I thought at first that it was a sack of some sort and that I was going to be shot on the spot. But a second later it fell past my head, onto my shoulders. It seemed to be a kind of poncho. My running shoes and socks were pulled off and I realized I was whimpering, in spite of myself. My shoes were replaced by sandals.

  Now that he’d finished dressing me, the man tied my hands behind my back. My whimpers turned to sobbing. I wasn’t being mugged, I was being given a new identity. And that meant that they had plans for me. “Please, please,” I begged between sobs.

  The man said, “Don’t panic. Just do as we say and you won’t be harmed.”

  “Please let me go,” I pleaded. I knew no one was ever released by criminals because they asked to be let go, but it was almost an instinct, to plead.

  I tried to force myself to calm down. I needed to focus on a plan of escape, I needed to be alert and calm so that I could free myself. The blindfold was loosely tied; if I rubbed the side of my head against my shoulder, it would slip off altogether. I’d have to find a way to make a run for it. I reminded myself that I was a fast runner.

  On the other hand, it would be hard running in sandals, especially loose ones like these. Maybe that was the reason they’d taken away my running shoes.

  But no matter where we stopped, there were bound to be people not too far away. Greece was not the Nevada Desert, after all. If I ran, someone would see me, someone would help me.

  I tried not to think about what might happen to me if I didn’t get away. The important thing was to find a way to escape. I told myself that if they were planning to drug me or shoot me, they would have done it by now.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  “You’ve been taken hostage for a prisoner release,” the man said.

  It was as if he was talking about someone else—partly because his voice was so calm and partly because I couldn’t make sense of the words.

  Prisoner release—he must mean a prisoner in the U.S. They were terrorists, and they wanted one of their friends to be freed.

  I began to cry. “I can give you money,” I said. Not that Mom and I had any money to spare, but Angie’s parents would help out, and our beautiful old house could be mortgaged …

  But it was hopeless: this wasn’t a kidnapping for ransom. That’s not what they were after, and my offer was met by silence.

  I wondered how many people were in the car, apart from the man and the driver. There was no way of telling.

  “Is this a limo?” I asked, not expecting a reply.

  “Yes,” the man said.

  I thought of organized crime, international power. Who knew if they were telling me the truth about the prisoner exchange? It might only be a way of hiding their real purpose. Maybe they were planning to sell me as a sex slave to some lunatic billionaire, and this was his car. Maybe he was driving. I had to escape somehow.

  “Do you have any medical conditions?” the man asked. In spite of his accent, his English seemed to be good. But the formal language, and the question itself, gave my imagination more horrors to feed on, and I thought—Oh God, they want to experiment on me, or kill me for my organs.

  This was my chance, and I had to think fast. But I couldn’t think fast enough. “I’m diabetic,” I blurted out stupidly. As soon as I said it, I knew they’d see through that lie, and they did.

  “I don’t see any insulin in your bag,” the man said, sounding almost amused. “No one wants to hurt you or do anything to you,” he added, reading my mind. “Try to relax. I want to give you some Valium, and I need to know if you’re on anything else.”

  At least his voice wasn’t aggressive. But was it really Valium he wanted to give me, or something more deadly? Heroin, maybe—so he could turn me into an addict …

  “Don’t imagine the worst,” he said, reading my mind again. “So I take it you’re in good health—aside from the diabetes?” He was teasing me, and that might have reassured me a little, but I was too terrified.

  At least they didn’t want me to die. Not yet, anyhow.

  I nodded miserably. For the first time I understood the word terrorist. Before I knew what was happening, I felt a needle in my arm. I began to scream, then my screams faded into a blurry daze. The drug was working; I felt sleepy and confused. I leaned my head back on the seat and shut my eyes.

  CHAPTER 3

  I don’t know how long the drive was. It could have been half an hour or it could have been several hours. I was thirsty, my shoulders ached, my legs had fallen asleep. But my heart was no longer pounding like mad and I wasn’t trembling. The drug made me groggy and unfocused. Horrifying images of being beheaded or buried alive drifted away like clouds.

  “We’re here,” the man said. He spoke as if nothing extraordinary was taking place. “We’ll be taking a plane. But first you’ll need a wig and a hat.”

  The man untied my hands and placed a long-haired wig on my head. I could see black strands from the edges of my blindfold. How did they know I’d be blond? Or had they brought a variety of wigs with them, I wondered sleepily. Red, blue, purple …

  This is your last chance to escape, a voice in my head reminded me. My hands were free now; that would help me run. But I could barely move my legs, never mind trying to make a dash for it.

  I felt a large, floppy hat slide down my forehead and sunglasses slipped on over my blindfold. I thought I heard a woman’s voice muttering in another language, but I was no longer sure whether I was awake or dreaming.

  The man and the woman—or so I imagined—led me to a set of stairs. I now understood why they’d tied the blindfold so loosely: it was so I could see where I was going. I climbed the four or five stairs to the plane with the help of my captors, who held me by my elbows as if I was sick and they were looking after me.

  There are bound to be other passengers, I thought. I was very mixed up. They’d given me something stronger than Valium, I realized. Nothing made any sense.

  The man said, “Mind your head, the ceiling’s low.” In spite of my drugged state, this was the most terrifying moment yet. The plane’s low ceiling—it was under five feet—made me think of a
coffin.

  “Do you need a lavatory?” he asked. The word confused me, and it took me a second to realize that he was asking me if I needed to use the toilet. “It’s your last chance in a while,” he added, misinterpreting my hesitation.

  I nodded. I was led, crouching, to a toilet and handed a small box of tissues. “No one’s watching you,” the man said, but I didn’t hear a door shut, and of course I had no way of knowing if he was telling me the truth. He wasn’t being considerate, I thought, only practical—some people can’t pee if they’re being watched. It made no difference to me; I was too drugged to care about anything other than keeping my balance.

  I had to gather the long skirt up, and I thought for a minute that I was going to fall over, but the woman caught me—so much for not watching. I knew it was her because her hair brushed my cheek as she steadied me. I also thought I detected a faint odor of perfume or scented shampoo.

  Somehow I managed to get through what seemed like a very complicated process. I even remembered to remove my tampon—luckily I never had heavy periods, and there was a just-in-case pad in place. Just in case of kidnapping, I thought vaguely.

  I was glad after that to sink into a large, comfortable passenger seat. The claustrophobia dissolved, and I had the drugged sensation that everything would work out. Someone reclined it, and I drifted off into a deep sleep.

  When I woke up I thought at first that I was in the katikies with Angie and that everything was dark because it was the middle of the night. Then I realized that I was sitting up in a vehicle of some sort. The memory of what had happened came flooding back to me. It was dark because I was blindfolded.

  For a moment it seemed that my entire body was tied to the seat, and I let out a short, involuntary scream. Then I realized it was only a seatbelt that was strapped diagonally across me, and in fact my arms were free, though I felt very weak. I could tell from the sounds and the motion of the vehicle that I was no longer on the plane. Had there really been a plane?

  It was intensely hot in the vehicle, and I couldn’t remember ever being so thirsty. “I need water,” I said. My voice came out in a raspy whisper.

  I was handed a bottle of water and I gulped it down without caring whether it was drugged or poisoned. If I didn’t have water I’d die anyhow.

  Try to escape, I reminded myself. But I knew it was hopeless; I couldn’t even hold on to the empty water bottle and it slid to the floor. At least the hat and wig were gone. I wondered what that meant.

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “In a van. We’re almost there.” It was the same man; he was clearly the one in charge of this part of the abduction. I noticed again that he had a British accent, along with his other accent—Greek, or maybe something else.

  The heat in the van was making me sweat and the blindfold began to slide down my nose. “My blindfold is loose,” I said. I was afraid it would fall off by mistake, and I’d see my hostage-taker. I knew from hundreds of movies and TV shows that if you saw criminals, they had to kill you.

  He reached over and tightened the blindfold. As his hands touched my hair, I had one of those flash memories—a mother at a birthday party tying a blindfold on my eyes for Pin the Tail on the Donkey. For a split second I could smell the birthday cake, and I even remembered the dress I was wearing: dark-pink satin with black buttons.

  If only this were a game too, and any minute now someone would pull my blindfold off and laugh at the joke they’d played on me.

  I felt more helpless and vulnerable than I would have believed possible. I didn’t even know what country I was in—what if we were in Iraq? Or some other distant, war-torn place?

  I began to cry uncontrollably. I was sure it was over for me. No government ever released prisoners under pressure from hostage-takers—it would only encourage more hostage-taking. My hostage-takers would fail, and they’d kill me. That is, if their intention really was to free a prisoner. Maybe it was something even worse. I thought of Mom, and what it would be like for her to lose me. I was unbearably sad for her, and for my grandparents, and of course for myself.

  The man handed me a tissue and said, “We’re not in a war zone. You’ll be safe.” How did he do that—how did he read my mind? My face must have betrayed me, just like Angie’s. Or else he was experienced and knew exactly what hostages went through, step by step, detail by detail. Because he’d done it before. And I was only the next victim.

  A hundred thousand women disappear each year—Mom had said that in the airport. She was warning us to be careful, not to trust strangers, not to take chances. We’d both laughed. And even Mom had smiled at her overprotective, overly anxious warning.

  And now it had happened to me. I had disappeared. I wondered when Angie would realize that I’d vanished, when she’d call the police. I said I’d be home by noon, and she knew I’d never change my plans without telling her. Even if I lost my phone, I’d find a way to reach her. She must have tried calling me all day. She’d have contacted her parents by now, and I was sure they’d call the police. Not that it mattered. It was already too late.

  Poor Angie! She’d blame herself. She was such a sensitive and emotional person—how would she cope? I thought of all the TV shows we’d watched together in which police detectives had to find serial killers before they tortured their next victim to death. Angie always covered her eyes when there was any sort of violence or suspense. Even if she knew there’d be a happy ending, she couldn’t bear to watch.

  At least I’d left her that note. It would be a million times worse if she thought I’d gone off on my own because I was angry with her. “I left Angie a note,” I said out loud. I was glad the man wouldn’t know what I was talking about. He couldn’t really read my mind.

  Did they have my phone, I wondered, or was it on the road where I’d dropped it? Maybe the phone was right there in the van. If I weren’t so weak, I could try to overpower the man—I’d taken two years of karate when I quit gymnastics, and I was very strong. I wondered how long the effects of the drug would last. Maybe they planned to keep me permanently drugged.

  Wherever we were, it must be close to the equator to be this hot. How far could small planes fly? Hundreds of miles, at least. Maybe thousands. I felt a horrible, hollow terror in the pit of my stomach, as if I’d been let loose in outer space. I began to cry again.

  “Take deep breaths, you’ll feel better,” the man said. “Twenty more minutes. Just hang in there.”

  I didn’t breathe in deeply—I wasn’t going to let him control my breathing as well as everything else—but I tried to focus my mind, the way I used to do during gymnastics competitions. He was being kind to me, and I wanted to show him that I appreciated it, so he’d go on being kind.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked. My voice sounded hoarse and strange, and I wasn’t sure the words had been clear.

  “To a place we’ve prepared.”

  “Are you going to sell me?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I knew he could be lying. I clutched the seat handles as if they were my last anchor to the ordinary world. I noticed that the poncho they’d given me smelled of mothballs. Why had they dressed me in this outfit? I had to push away terrifying answers. Maybe they belonged to a strange satanic cult, and this was part of the sacrificial costume. I began to tremble again.

  Don’t imagine the worst, the man had said. They had given me these clothes so no one would recognize me, that was all.

  “I’m afraid,” I said out loud. I felt a little better, saying those words, and I repeated them. “I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Are you some sort of cult?”

  “No, that’s just in the movies.”

  It was like a gift, when he said that. He was joking with me—he was stepping out of his role. He was telling me that we were two human beings, as well as captive and captor.

  If he was lying, he wouldn’t have made that comment, I thought.

  “Is it because I’m from t
he United States?” I asked. “Are you … militants?” I didn’t use the word terrorists because I knew that terrorists thought of themselves as fighters for a just cause.

  “You’re not in any danger,” he said, not answering my question.

  If they were terrorists they’d have machine-guns, I told myself, but in fact I had no idea what sort of weapons they had, or how many of them there were, apart from the man, the driver, and the woman. Maybe the woman was the driver. Maybe there were only these two.

  These two here, now, but he’d said “we.” To a place we’ve prepared. He must have meant the group he belonged to.

  It was hard to grasp. We were two strangers, but our lives were now inextricably tied to each other. My life was in his hands. I’d never been so closely connected to anyone, except maybe Mom, when I was little.

  At least he hasn’t tried anything, I thought. He hasn’t touched me.

  I remembered a movie I’d seen long ago on television. Natasha Richardson had played Patty Hearst, a heiress who’d been kidnapped by a crazy revolutionary group in the 1970s. She’d been locked in a tiny closet for months, and one of the men in the group had forced her to have sex with him.

  I decided that if that happened I would shut myself off completely. I would pretend I was someone else, I would make it not matter. I was only sorry that I was a virgin, if that was going to be my first time.

  No one had made a move so far, but no one had made a move on Patty Hearst either, at the start.

  Could something have already happened on the plane, while I was drugged? No, I’d know.

  Maybe he was gay. Or maybe he’d try something later … or was he keeping his hands off me because he was a religious Muslim?

  Don’t think, don’t think, I told myself. And in fact everything was starting to feel unreal again. It was as if I was in some sort of waking dream or play, and none of it was really happening.

  Yes, think, I instructed myself. I had to plan for whatever might happen. I couldn’t fade away again.