“What now, Dad?” he asked, hoping his father couldn’t tell his voice was shaky.
“Now, we’re going to the public restrooms around the corner,” replied Gilbert, quickening his step.
His dad covered the last twenty yards to the bathroom at such a brisk pace that Garret had to run a couple of times to keep up. As his dad moved to open the door, Garret jerked back on his dad’s hand.
“Dad, that’s the ladies’ room.”
He pointed sheepishly to the stick-figure with a skirt on the door.
“I know, son. You have to trust me. No matter what happens, just go directly to the next to the last stall.”
“So, you bought the mop to make it look like you’re a janitor?”
“You’re a smart boy. It won’t be very convincing with two of us, but if it keeps some lady from screaming and running for mall security, that will be enough.”
“Why not use the men’s restroom?”
“No time to explain, son. We’ve got to hurry. Come on.”
He followed his dad through the door. It was a labyrinth-style entrance, so they turned left and then right again to reach the restroom. They headed straight for the end of the row of stalls. Garret saw a woman in front of the mirror washing her face, but didn’t think she even noticed them. His dad opened the door to the next to last stall, pulled him inside and locked the door.
“You wanted to be far away from the door so that if they come in here looking for us, you’ll hear them coming, didn’t you.”
His dad nodded.
“But, why not the very last stall?”
His dad quickly put his finger to the boy’s lips and leaned close to his ear.
“Son, we need to speak in a very quiet whisper and only if necessary. Understood?”
Garret nodded his head. He already knew that. He was desperately trying to avoid the silence because he could not keep himself from thinking about what was about to happen, which brought on waves of nausea. He watched as his dad opened the shopping bag, removed a package of yellow dishcloths, tore it open and began folding one of them lengthwise until it was a one-inch strip. Then, his dad took two more, tied one to each end of the folded strip and once again leaned close to his ear.
“Son, I’m not going to lie to you. This is going to hurt and not just a little either. I’m going to put this in your mouth and tie it around the back of your head. You need to bite down hard. It’s very important that you not scream. Can you do that?”
Garret lowered his eyes and nodded slowly.
“Okay. Sit down then and open your mouth,” said his dad.
Garret straddled the toilet and almost gagged as his dad pushed the strip of cloth into his mouth and quickly tied it with a square knot in the back. Then, he watched as his dad quickly made two more long strips from three dishcloths.
“I’ll use these as tourniquets later,” whispered his dad with a smile that was meant to be reassuring.
The boy didn’t move. He watched as his dad opened the package of five box-cutters. He put one in each of his socks and one in his back pocket. He took another one, bent down to pull up Garret’s pant leg, and stuck it inside Garret’s sock. He removed the last box-cutter from the package, pushed up the blade and used it to slice through the tough plastic packaging that held the tweezers. His dad then stuck the closed end of the tweezers in his mouth, and turned back to his son.
Garret felt his stomach tighten. His dad had used his fingers to poke and prod around each of the cuts on his face and arm while they were in the car. The pain had brought tears to his eyes. The thought of his dad cutting them open again left him feeling dizzy and faint. He closed his eyes to keep his dad from seeing the fear in his eyes. The fear that he wouldn’t be tough enough. The fear that he wouldn’t be able to handle the pain.
><><><
C
AIRO
The sat-phone on the table rang.
“We’re inside the mall and on individual coms.”
“Okay, you have to move fast,” answered Jabbar crisply, as he checked the screen on his smartphone just to be sure nothing had changed. “We still show them to be in the northeast corner of the complex.”
“That’s what we are seeing too,” replied Mehmet.
“According to the schematics that’s the public restroom, but obviously you can’t tell which floor. Split up. Mehmet, you check the ground floor and the first floor. Ali will go to the second and third floors.”
Ahmet broke in.
“Remember brothers, a dead hostage is useless. The American will not go without a fight. Do you both have tasers?”
“Tasers and suppressed handguns with subsonic ammo.”
“Stick with the tasers. Back-up from Smuggling and Organized Crime is on its way. Keep your coms live. It’s the oldest boy we’re after, but if you see any of the family members, apprehend them. Don’t worry about mall security. We have that covered.”
“Right.”
The room fell silent. The whole thing would be over in minutes.
><><><
I
STANBUL
Gilbert looked at his watch. In just thirteen minutes, Gary would be driving off with his family, and it would take about two minutes for them to reach the parking lot. He put his hand on his son’s head and whispered.
“Okay, son, let’s do it. You can keep your eyes closed. That might make it easier.”
He said this mostly because he wasn’t sure he could do it with his eleven-year-old son staring up at him. All he could think about were the pictures of human sacrifice in his junior high history books, images of the ancients offering their children to the gods. Gilbert held his son’s head in his hands and kissed him on the forehead.
“I love you, son.”
Garret nodded nervously and closed his eyes again. A tear slipped out and rolled down his cheek. For the hundredth time, Gilbert wondered if he was just being paranoid. What if there is no tracking device? The thought of inflicting pain on his son for nothing had tortured him for the last half hour. He knew he would never forgive himself if he was wrong.
He took a deep breath, held the box-cutter like a pencil between his thumb and index finger, and cut the three crude stitches in the wound on Garret’s forearm. He knew the fleshy part of the forearm would be better for concealing something than the lacerations on Garret’s face. The boy winced as he quickly pulled the stitches out with the tweezers. Then, he grasped the boy’s arm firmly and placed the point of the box-cutter at one end of the wound.
“Here goes,” he said softly, quickly plunging the razor-sharp blade down into the flesh and slicing to the other side of the wound.
The boy’s eyes flew open, and he instinctively tried to wrench his arm free from his dad’s grasp. Gilbert was expecting this though. The eleven-year-old boy’s strength was no match for his dad’s. Gilbert mechanically noted that there was no rhythmic spurting. Still, the blood flowed in a steady stream out of the boy’s arm and unto the floor. He knew there would be too much blood to see anything in the wound, which was why he had bought the tweezers. Without a word, Gilbert took them from his mouth and stuck the box-cutter between his teeth because there was no sterile surface he dared set it down on.
He knew that probing the wound was going to hurt the most, so he gripped the boy’s arm as tightly as he could, braced it against his leg and pushed the tweezers down into the cut to start probing for a chip, a capsule, something hard. This time, however, the pain was so great and Garret’s reaction so strong that the boy wrested his arm free and stumbled backed into the corner of the stall beside the toilet clutching his bloody forearm. Muffled sobs came through the dishcloth, tears flooded from eyes begging him to stop. The boy shook his head frantically side to side as if to say,
No, Daddy. Please, no!
It was a trance-like moment. Within the span of a second, Gilbert saw a terrified and helpless boy cowering in the corner, his face covered with cuts and bruises, the blood-splattered toilet seat, and the red stain on the floor. Gilbert realized he couldn’t do this alone. It was impossible without a second person to help hold the boy down, and there was no time for that now. Then, in a surrealistic moment, he realized that the salty taste on his tongue was blood from the box-cutter, blood from his own son, and it was at that same moment that he realized what he had to do. He took a step towards his son and saw the panic in the boy’s eyes change to absolute terror.
“Don’t worry, son. I’m not going to hurt you. I have another idea. I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
The blank look on his son’s face told him the boy was too disconcerted to even process what he was saying. Gilbert slid his hands under the boy’s arms, lifted him up, gave him a big hug and whispered in his ear.
“It’s going to be okay. Remember, how you blacked out when the men took you out of the container? We’re going to do the same thing. You just relax.”
He sat down on the toilet seat with Garret in his arms, put his thumb and forefinger on either side of the windpipe and began pressing down, all the while whispering in his son’s ear.
“I’m going to press pretty hard, so it may be a little uncomfortable, but it won’t hurt. I promise. It’ll just put you to sleep for about thirty seconds.
Gilbert could feel the carotid artery pulsing beneath his fingers. He knew he had to restrict blood flow and stimulate a parasympathetic response through pressure on the vagus nerve. Seven seconds later, he felt his son’s body go limp in his arms. He now had less than one minute before Garret regained consciousness.
CHAPTER
77
C
AIRO
“This is Mehmet. The ground floor restroom was clear. I’m entering the restroom on the first floor now.”
Ahmet frowned. He had felt sure the American would avoid the top floors. Ali reported next.
“I’m half-way through the second-floor bathroom now. Nothing so far.”
This was followed by the sound of yet another stall door being kicked in and another man cursing for having been caught with his pants around his ankles. They had listened to this same routine already six times. They heard Ali apologize. He repeated what he had said every time. He told them that he was with Counter-Terrorism, that they had tracked one of those responsible for Monday’s bombing into the mall, and ordered the person to remain where they were. More doors slammed. More curses. Forty-five seconds later, Ali’s voice came over the sat-phone speaker.
“Second floor is all clear. Moving to the top floor now.”
At the same time, they listened as Mehmet went down the row of stalls on the first floor. It took less than a minute for him to check the twelve stalls. Most were empty.
“First floor is all clear. Shall I wait for Ali or head for the parking lot?”
Ahmet looked at Jabbar.
“Has the device moved?”
“No, sir. It is still in exactly the same place.”
“Negative, Mehmet. There has been no change in position. Did you see any blood anywhere?”
“No, sir.”
Ali’s voice came over the speaker.
“Entering the restroom on the top floor now.”
Again, the room was filled with the sound of stall doors being kicked open. Ali was on the sixth stall when Ahmet began shouting at the sat-phone.