I Need to Know if You Will

   I was taken to an unknown location at night in a large cedar trunk. It was a new trunk and I know it was cedar because after the novelty wore off, I kept choking on the smell. Her soldiers had bound my hands and legs with twist ties but told me to push the lid if I needed any air. The drive from the hotel was at least forty-five minutes into the countryside, I guessed.

    I kept rehearsing in my head; MP5s, alone, arrow, latitude, partner, enemy, decimals, commitment. I wanted to run my background again in my head as I could feel my nerve going. I focused on my breathing instead.  

   “Stay down.” Someone said. The truck stopped, the lid latched shut, and I felt myself being carried.

   When the lid opened, I was in the basement of an old house.

   She was sitting behind some mid-century teal and white kitchen table. She was a big woman in a brown skirt suit.

   “Why didn’t we meet in your hotel room?” I said.

   “Because you are too pale for me, Mr. Paulson. The Major said you have something for me.”

   “Did he try to sell you those MP5s? They’re clones. The extractor springs are too loose. Save your money.”

   She looked up at her soldiers and I felt all the air go out of the room.

   “Alright, I got something to talk about. But I’m not talking to everyone in this room. It’s you and me, only. You don’t want to share this.”

   This amused her. The soldiers, put me in a chair a distance from her, and added zip ties to my zip ties so I couldn’t get out of the chair. My arms and legs were seriously cramping. The lead soldier put a handgun on the table for my host.

   The same soldier squatted down and looked me in the eye, then stood and smacked me across the jaw. My eyes watered from the pain. He squatted again lifting my jaw and wagged a warning finger in my face. He left us before I could spit blood and tooth chips at him, which was well, as it doesn’t impress people and only begs for them to do worse.

   “Come on, Mr. Paulson.”

   “I know where a broken arrow is.”

   She shrugged.

   “It’s lost nuclear missile.”

   “Yes, the Major was so excited that I meet you. Why should I believe this? What do you want?“

   “Do you have a pen? Paper?”

   She shook her head.

   “I do not want to yell it across the room.” She came over and leaned her ear in front of my mouth. Total violation of her personal safety. Against all sanity I considered biting her, but my teeth hurt. I whispered and then she pulled her head back. “That’s the longitude and latitude.” I said. “But, that’s not even close without the decimals. But from that you can see it’ll take a big crew and equipment to retrieve it. My benefactor doesn’t have the people for that, but you do.”

   “How much?”

   “Okay, I don’t have the decimals. The guy who’s going to pay me has the decimals. He doesn’t want your money. He hates your foreign enemy as much as you do. He wants to know that if you get this, you’ll use it.”

   “My party would win with this. Then we would be in positioned to advance our cause.”

   “No, no. He doesn’t want to hear that. This isn’t for power, or prestige, or a negotiating tool. If you get this, if he gives this to you, will you push the button?”

   “It’s codes, isn’t it? Keys?”

   “You call it whatever you want. Will you push the button?”

   “Yes.”

   “Why?”

   She walked away and sat again.

   “Oh, come on.” I said. “Don’t be shy now. You think I can go back to him and say, she said sure, and not have any reasons why? He’s offering you a gift here. You’re going to have to show you’re worthy.” She didn’t like that, and was marching past me when I said, “You can have them beat me to death, but you won’t get any closer to that arrow, and he’ll sell it in another market. Or maybe someone else from your country. You got competitors? You want to be pissy, or do you want this gift?”

   I was sure I was close to getting myself beaten to death.

  She went back to the table. This time she took her chair and dragged it over to sit close in front of me. “I would push the button. For religious persecution, war crimes, and economic slavery.“

   “That sounds like a politician.” I could feel her anger fill the room. She leaned into me.

   “They took my children. My boys went to their school. They met girls. They did drugs. They took them. The bomb in that café? My sons did not do that. I sent another man to meet them. That man brought the bomb so my sons could die and now their lives have some meaning.”

   “What about the children of your enemies? You would kill their children?”

   “God will keep and save those who are pure. It is a mercy. Give me this gift. I will use it.”

   I nodded. “I got to meet with him to tell him before you get the decimals. It’ll be two weeks, maybe a month. He’ll want to be sure I’m not followed. That I’m not leading anyone to him. That’s a lot of travelling. To start I’d like to get back to my hotel room.”

   She left and the lead soldier brought some water and towels to freshen me up a little. Then he snipped just enough of the ties to get me off the chair and back into the trunk. I was dumped in the cedar forest not far from my hotel. The last of the ties were snipped off. The little white plastic strands looked so out of place in in those woods. It was awful trying to regain my circulation and sense of direction.

   A few days later I was back home at the agency filing a report, detailed and single page. During the debriefing I was asked how the woman could talk the way she did about crimes and suffering when she spent so much of her political life travelling to four-star hotels and picking up men in bars. I don’t know that our politicians behave any better.

   My supervisor asked about my dental work, and allocated me bonus time off and pay, and made no comment about the report. I was not part of any follow up of the intelligence, and I was not sent to that country again.

   I only know from the news everyone sees that the woman was never elected to any office in her country again.