“I know the most direct route to the airport is if we go in a diagonal northwest route, but I think the rebels know we are out here and will be watching for us. I’d like to go straight north until we get into the safe area outside of the city, and then cut back west to the airport. What do you think?”
Danita paused for a moment as she contemplated what I was saying. It seemed odd that I was talking to a teenager about our escape plan, but she was the only one who spoke English and I needed to talk the plan out to see if it sounded reasonable.
“I’m going to get my mother. She will know.”
I waited as Danita explained the plan to her mother and watched her facial expressions to see if she agreed with me. It appeared that she did and she smiled at me, then waited for Danita to talk.
“She says yes, that’s a very intelligent plan. She will tell the others.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I thought it was a really good plan too and it was good to know that another adult in our group agreed.
It was barely dark outside when we finished removing the furniture from the front door area and lined up to get started on our journey. We didn’t have enough weapon power to keep us safe if we were ambushed, but we could ward off the occasional rebel if alone.
I was nervous, but surprisingly I wasn’t shaking at all. The ability to harness my scared feelings into something meaningful had helped me a lot since arriving in Damascus. Before, I was in my head all the time, constantly second-guessing everything. But in a war zone, there wasn’t time for second-guessing, I had to act fast and I loved it. The adrenaline rushed through my veins like it belonged there and I couldn’t wait to complete our mission and feel the rush of a job well done.
Well, except for what happened to Rake. My gut hurt just thinking about the bullet that he had taken for us. He had tried to get us out of the combat area. We were lucky he had been there and I would never forget that he sacrificed his life for ours.
When we got back to the states safely, I hoped I would get a chance to talk with his family and tell them how brave he was and how much he had done. I didn’t know if it would help at all, but hopefully it would give them a little peace, knowing that he had helped so many people in the last moments of his life.
“Okay, I want everyone to pair up. Stay with your partner and stay with the group. We are going to be moving fast; if you need us to slow down, let me know and we will. It’s more important that we stay all together than it is for us to get there quickly. We have all night; let’s be safe,” I said as I waited for Danita to translate and watched for everyone to pair up.
When the last bit of daylight had faded away, I opened the door and we headed out on our path to the airport. The moon was full that night, which gave us just enough light to illuminate our path to where we were going. Unfortunately, it would also give the rebels the light they needed to watch for us if they were anywhere near our area.
We had to move quickly and not stop, if at all possible, until we were out of the dangerous area where the majority of the rebels were. I knew we couldn’t just sprint out of the city; it was obvious that many of the women and teenagers weren’t in any condition to be running.
They had spent weeks hardly getting enough nourishment to live on; running wasn’t a task their body was willing to take on with that little amount of nutrients. We moved along at a fast walk, which did require some people to jog a little, but I continually looked back
to keep an eye on the group and sent Danita to count our numbers periodically.
I watched the minute hand on my watch and stopped for a break every fifteen minutes to give everyone a chance to catch their breaths. It was certainly an exhausting proposition to bring such a large group of malnourished people along a hike the length of what we needed to do that evening. The human spirit is an amazing thing though; those women and children knew that their life was on the line and they continued to keep moving forward.
There wasn’t one complaint about wanting to stop or needing to go slower. It was impressive to see how truly dedicated they were to rescuing themselves. As we moved north, about an hour away from the house we had started at, I began getting a feeling like someone was behind us.
“Danita, do you see anything or anyone back there?” I asked as the feeling hit me.
“No; should we move faster?”
“I’m not sure, I don’t know if it would help or not. They could just be walking through the streets or something. Let’s just keep moving at our pace.”
I let Danita lead the group and I moved to the back where I walked backwards and kept my eyes peeled on the street behind us. When Danita brought the group to a stop, I saw two figures off in the distance behind us. They were probably six blocks away, but I could see them as they distinctly moved from one side of the street to the next.
I also saw, what I thought looked like an assault rifle hanging off from one of the men’s body. We couldn’t fight against an assault rifle, that was for sure. And it wasn’t likely that we could outrun two rebels.
The rebels were notorious for stealing food and water from anyone and everyone. It was highly likely that they had been well fed over the previous weeks and had plenty of water. As compared to my group of women who hadn’t eaten much of anything for weeks, well...
“Danita, I see two men about a half of kilometer behind us. I need you to keep the group moving and I’m going to distract them. No matter what, stick to our plan and keep going north. Get everyone out of here and to the airport.”
“We can help you. We can hide with you and distract them.”
“No, I’ve got this; now get going. I will catch up. If I catch them off guard, I can kill them both without them getting any shots off.”
“Okay, we will go,” Danita reluctantly agreed.
I knew she didn’t like the idea of leaving me behind, but I had to think about what I thought Nate would do, and he wouldn’t let the women and children be put into danger. It was much better if I stayed back and engaged the enemy and gave them a head start on getting out of the area. Even if I ended up getting killed, at least I would have wasted the rebels’ time and everyone would have been a few miles down the road by them.
I ducked into an alley and waited for the two figures to get closer. I wasn’t going to let them get a shot off at all. If I waited for just the right moment, the moonlight would hit their shadows and I could take a shot or two at them. With the ammunition I had on me, I certainly could take two men out, I was confident of it.
My heart pounded as they got closer, and I felt like it was actually going to explode. But the fear I felt there in that moment wasn’t anything like the fear I had felt at the hands of Stephano. In Damascus, I felt in control of myself and the fear I had. Adrenaline rushed through my body like a drug and I wasn’t ready to give it up.