Glasshouse: A True Story of the Arab Spring (part 2: Jabberwocky)

The drive was strange and took us far out of our way to a remote agricultural region. He purposefully mimed as though he were trying to lose a tail, one I myself could not spot, before taking us back towards the border with Syria. I suspect he was probing my reaction to this as way of continued investigation. I was impassive. Later we went to a very, very nice kebab restaurant. The presentation was an immaculate mandala of salad and turmeric stained rice bedding golden hued kebabed chicken. He even paid for it, which I felt was utterly contrary to all the known laws of nature that pertain to this sort of thing. Counting coup at such a sharp cost is not a habit of a professional espionage organization. Judging by this and his naked pride, with a twist of mean irony and predacious arousal, at showing me his passport full of stamps commemorating Syria-Turkey crossings he was ritually preparing me for the betrayal to come. This aspect was lost on me then. It only became clear after it was far too late that the passport he had shown me was his graveyard.

Chris was gone by this point. I was too sketched out by some of the things he had done (and tried to do) during our time together and I had abandoned him in Harbiye. He seemed to be leading me into attempts at legal entrapment on terror charges, often juiced with coercive menace. I had already had problems with this in San Diego while I was equipping for my expedition.

While I was shopping for water purification equipment at REI a strange man had approached me. He was very tall and had an unnaturally slender build. Grey-pated with eyes that smoldered with hate like burning tar. He began the conversation by asking me about water filters. The conversation drifted to Libya and Syria and then suddenly took a left turn as he began to loudly and passionately rant, like a parody of a baptist minister, about the wonder and joy of anarchy. It had rattled me as while it could have been a random encounter it had the structure of entrapment with terror charges. I did not encounter him again after this.

We drove for a while out into the country and met up with more people close to the border where we changed cars. I was struck by how young everyone was. I had been doing my usual absurdist mugging for the camera on the lead up into Syria, alternately parodying Geraldo and a bathetic modern day Don Quixote which I suppose would be a parody of a parody. I am a pretty weird guy.

Night had fallen by the time we got to the trail which we would be taking over the border and into Syria. I had a massive cargo of equipment and medical supplies with me. It required five people to carry over the border. The lack of nimbleness was terrifying to me. My only comfort was being able to jettison most of my burden, in the form of medical supplies both left over from Libya and donated by private entities in the United Kingdom at my first destination once the passage into Syria was complete. My plan was to seek out the civilian medical establishment and present them as a gift, only retaining a minimal care package for myself.

The hike was a grueling haul. I was told to be as quiet as possible to avoid Turkish military patrols. My colleague Tracey Shelton had run afoul of this fate and had been deported not long earlier. We stopped briefly near the summit of the half caldera that sheathed Antioch and looked down at the city. Spies are very big on natural beauty and hidden places. I had seen the same in Libya. The cryptoculture of espionage communities abutted in conflict regions is quite highly developed and peculiar. It is an easy, even friendly manner sculpted faux from shrieking mortal tension. I was still trying to decide who they were when we finally crossed and made it to the safe house on the Syrian side of the border. It was spacious and comfortable. The windows were kept shuttered and I was cautioned not to go outside or open them. We passed time in the usual way. Astonishing them with various gizmos from my kit. Lame attempts at cultural exchange that were gamely entertained. They were all weird in the fashion of men not reprising themselves in interaction. I could infer nothing from this. Perhaps they were simply entertaining the journalist. They left and the portly man with the terrifying passport and I spent the night there. The next day we ate breakfast. Flat bread iced with yogurt and topped with broad beans. Tea. There was little banter during our meal, which I only picked at as I was nervous about our transit through Assad controlled territory. We left shortly thereafter. The large man insisted I cover my head as we left for the vehicles but let me remove it once we were all loaded. He had a weird glee when he did this. Yet more coup to feather his ego with, I would realize later.

The drive was short. The large guy was sweating and speaking in rapid unaccented English now, spewing Syria trivia and pointing things out along the road. The streets were deserted except for our vehicle. A large army truck flew past us, two soldiers leaning over and leering at everyone from their positions in the bed, glaring sternly at us as we passed to search our faces for panic or fear. A murmur of disquiet spread through the cabin of our vehicle at this. I had no beard and was bald as an Egyptian. We may as well have been waving a road flare. The army truck let us pass, though it was not long after that we came to a roadblock.

The driver slowed our vehicle to a halt as nonuniformed men fanned out across the road and approached the vehicle. They were armed with AK-47s and appeared to be civilian militias. One approached the driver and they began to converse in Arabic. He inspected the cabin and then lunged through the window and grabbed the driver. We were quickly set upon by the remaining people at the roadblock. The last I saw of the large man? He was flinging himself from the vehicle with an expression of unabashed glee and was soon over the shoulder of the road and down the hill that it ran along. He was clearing the scene in case they decided to Swiss cheese our vehicle. This was his murder weapon finally revealed.

I was sitting in the middle of the back seat with passengers on either side of me. As the situation disintegrated I found that I still had another minute or so of peace before they got to me. I sagged into my seat and considered firing up a cigarette. We were taken down and hooded in short order and taken to a nearby holding facility. I was placed in an animal stall and stripped of my boots, wrist watch, and glasses. A lot of people question the boots, a nice pair of composite toe side zip desert boots, but these guys are not naive and I have yet to find better performing footwear in the battlefield environment. They really ought to be mandated as standard practice. I had previously seen journalists taken out by inferior footwear. This is deadly in an environment where you may have to run very fast over broken and debris strewn terrain. Having a rock get stuck between your sandal and your foot only to snap a metatarsal bone like a jewler's hammer on your next stride is a dumb way to die. So long as you don't blouse your pants it shouldn't irritate anyone. The Syrians were not confused by them. I was given a piece of flat bread and a cucumber and left alone for the night. I was too drained by the capture to think and my hands far too swollen and painful from the restraints to manage anything other than stupor. I slept.

(To be continued)