Set Free (12 page)

“In a shocking turn to the story that has captivated the nation since September of last year, when his thirteen-year-old daughter was kidnapped and held for ransom, bestselling author Jaspar Wills surprised the world late last week when he surfaced at a police station in Marrakech, after having been presumed dead following his own abduction by terrorists in Morocco five-and-a-half months ago.” Inwardly, Katie scowled at whoever had written the run-on sentence she’d just recited off the teleprompter. At the same time, she gave the camera a nuanced look, one she’d perfected over the past months: a look that compelled viewers to listen to her, trust her, feel deeply about what she was telling them.

“It’s a complex, heart-wrenching story that tore a family apart. A story that finally has…” she paused here, looking off camera for barely a millisecond, then, “…if not an entirely happy ending, at least the beginnings of a silver lining around a very stormy cloud. Jaspar Wills and his wife, Jennifer, have joined us here today, in their first public interview since Jaspar’s return home this past weekend. Jaspar, Jenn, welcome.”

The camera panned wider to show the couple next to Katie, sitting in separate chairs positioned close together. Katie reached for Jaspar, who was nearest, and squeezed his hand. The audience would not be surprised at this show of intimacy between interviewer and subject—they expected it. Katie Edwards, since the early days of Mikki Wills’ kidnapping, had been their eyes, ears, and heart when it came to anything to do with the Wills. In the beginning, she’d been relatively unknown on the Boston news scene—unless you happened to be one of the handful of people who read her chatty articles published in a fledgling weekly, or caught her late-night weather reports on a local, non-network, basement-budget, ratings-challenged TV station. But that was then. This was now.

A lot had changed for Katie Edwards in the past ten months. To some, it appeared as if she’d been thrust into the limelight with the same urgent, uncontrollable ferocity as the Wills had been—all by virtue of her pre-existing relationship with the couple.

In the not-so-dark corners of bars frequented by reporters, news writers, and all manner of newshounds, the grumblings could easily be overheard about Edwards’ dumb luck at being in the right place at the right time with the right friends, propelling the inexperienced newcomer to dizzying heights of success far exceeding her abilities. The same snarks begrudgingly agreed the rookie had that “something special” that viewers fell for, but there was no excusing the fact that she’d leapfrogged over way too many hurdles way too fast. Hurdles that novice journalists were meant to scratch and claw their way over, as a kind of boot camp, necessary to earn your stripes in the world of serious journalism—and the respect of your contemporaries.

According to these colleagues, Katie Edwards had neglected to pay her dues. She’d become famous overnight only because of her insider access to the city’s hottest story, a story that refused to die. A story that, even in its death throes, had suddenly reinvented itself and grabbed the world’s attention all over again.

Katie did not entirely disagree with her detractors. She knew it was delusional to contend that she’d gone from a nearly bankrupt, nobody freelancer, to a popular beat reporter for a local news channel, to an on-air personality for a major network affiliate, all in under a year, just because of how good she was. Yes, she’d hopped over the velvet rope. Yes, it was because of her close relationship with the players in the juiciest story around. Sure, she’d grasped the gold ring under somewhat fluky circumstances. But, goddammit, she didn’t still have a firm hold on it for the same reasons. She was smart. She was talented. People loved her.

Creating her own opportunities was nothing new for Katie. Ever since she’d single-handedly turned her pitiful high school newspaper into must-read material, Katie knew she had a knack for identifying the stories people
really
wanted to be told and
how
to tell them.

“I know this is going to be difficult for you,” Katie told the couple, soothing and sympathetic, “having to re-live everything you’ve been through for our audience. I want to thank you for agreeing to do so. I know our viewers appreciate it too.”

Jaspar cleared his throat and responded, “We know people are interested in our story. We’re grateful for the support they’ve shown us, all the messages and prayers. But Katie, we want to be clear: this will be the last time we speak about this publicly.”

“All we want is to go back to our normal lives,” Jenn added. “Now that Jaspar is home, we want to try as best we can to move on.”

Katie’s gaze slid into the camera. “Sadly, Jaspar and Jenn will be moving on without their beautiful daughter, Mikki, at their side. For those of you just joining us, or unfamiliar with their story, I’m here with Jaspar and Jennifer Wills. Last September, while walking home from school on a sunny, tree-lined street in the safe, upper middle-class suburban Boston neighborhood where she lived with her parents, thirteen-year-old Mikki Wills was abducted.” Katie knew that behind her and on TV screens across the country, a cornucopia of visual gems was being displayed. Images of a beautiful, golden-haired princess: Mikki Wills. Gone. Vanished. Only the hardest hearts would be left unaffected.

“Ten months later, Mikki is still missing. During the course of negotiations, communication with Mikki’s kidnappers was suddenly and inexplicably cut off. Jaspar and Jenn never heard from Mikki or her abductors again.” She waited a beat to allow the devastating facts to soak in. “In January, Mikki’s father traveled to Morocco, where another unthinkable tragedy awaited. But first, Jaspar, can you tell us about the purpose of your trip—and why Morocco?”

Jaspar responded with his carefully prepared statement. “Of course. I made the trip to Morocco for work, to research a new book I was planning to write.”

Katie nodded, giving the camera a few seconds of silence to feast on the author’s wan, hollowed-out face. Once again the experts behind the scenes knew just what to do. They’d moved to a split screen, one half showing the ravaged man currently sitting next to Katie, the other showing a slideshow of images—at first playing up the handsome, hardy, famous author everyone knew from ten months earlier. Then, as the story progressed and grew grisly and disturbing, so too would the images of Jaspar Wills. They would show the series of pictures released by his kidnappers in an effort to convince the U.S. government to do their bidding. Pictures of a sad and frightened man, a man bound and bloody and beaten to within an inch of his life. The metamorphosis was nothing short of shocking.

“Can you tell us what happened when you first arrived in Marrakech?”

“I’d arranged for a car to take me to my hotel. When it didn’t arrive, I hired a taxi.”

Glancing at the camera, Katie reported: “In the taxi, Jaspar eventually began to realize he wasn’t being taken to his hotel.” Doing little to disguise a shiver, she added, “I know for anyone who’s ever traveled to a foreign country, this is their worst nightmare. You expect things to work the way they do here in the United States. You expect a cab driver to take you where you ask them…
pay them
…to. You expect to be safe. Jaspar, tell us what happened next.”

“I’d never been to Marrakech before, so I was unfamiliar with the city and where we were going. But eventually I started to wonder if something was wrong.”

“What was it that made you suspicious?”

“The trip was taking too long. We were heading into a part of the city where it didn’t seem likely a hotel would be.”

“What were you feeling at that moment—the moment you knew something wasn’t right?”

“Well, at first I was irritated. I thought, this guy is taking me on a joyride to up the fare. I asked him where we were going. But he wouldn’t answer me. It was hot. I was exhausted from the long trip. I thought maybe I was being paranoid. But as time passed, I became increasingly concerned and…”

“Were you frightened?”

“Yes.”

“What then?”

“Again, I confronted the driver. I asked him where he was taking me. When he wouldn’t answer, I demanded to be let out of the car. Which, as it turns out, was a mistake.”

“Why was that?”

“He had a gun. He hit me on the head…I think with the gun. I must have been knocked out cold, because the next thing I knew I was waking up in a dark room.”

“Were you in pain? Had you been beaten?”

“Yes…no. I mean yes, I was in pain, from the wound on my head where he’d hit me. But the real beatings didn’t start until later, for the proof-of-life photographs…”

Katie interrupted. “For our viewers who may not be familiar with proof-of-life photographs, what can happen in these situations—when someone is kidnapped and demands are made as conditions of release—a common first step is for negotiators to establish that the kidnap victim is still alive. The abductors are asked to prove this, often by means of what is known as a proof-of-life photograph. Somewhere in the photograph will be a dated document, like a newspaper, to prove the victim is alive as of that date.” Behind Katie the scroll showed Jaspar, worsening in condition with each passing photograph, holding up a newspaper. “In Jaspar’s case, the kidnappers were demanding the release of a young man named Qasim Al-Harthi.

“Back in 2012, a bomb exploded in a popular café in Marrakech, the same city where Jaspar Wills was abducted,” Katie announced, now in full reporter mode. “The blast killed thirteen people, including two Americans.” On screen, images pulled from archives followed the narrative. “Soon after the bombing, six suspects were apprehended near the café and charged with the murders. Among them was twenty-three-year-old Al-Harthi, who was later tried and sentenced to death.

“Al-Harthi’s family and supporters, however, believe the young man was convicted based on eyewitness reports manufactured by the police. They claimed that none of the witnesses brought forth by the defense were allowed to testify. They suggested the Moroccan government was only interested in a speedy conviction in order to mollify the United States and other home countries of victims killed or injured in the explosion. To this day, they contend that the real criminals were never apprehended.” Katie’s attention shifted back to Jaspar. “Were you aware of any of this while you were being held?”

“No. During my initial incarceration, the only people I was in contact with were my captors: two men, neither of whom spoke English. I had no idea what was going on. When they took the first proof-of-life photograph, I guessed there had to be some kind of ransom involved. But I had no way of knowing what they were asking for, from whom, or why.”

Katie’s eyes hinted to the audience that what was coming next wasn’t good. “As frustrating as that must have been for you, things were about to become considerably worse, weren’t they?”

“Yes. To say the least. Throughout the ordeal, I was in a constant state of uncertainty. I feared what might happen next. It was like knowing you’re going to fall, but not when or how far.”

“Horrible.”

“Yes, it was. Sometimes I wouldn’t see the two men for a day or more. Sometimes their visits were only hours apart. But each time, I could tell by their faces and voices that something was going wrong. Of course I couldn’t understand them, but it was obvious to me that they weren’t getting what they wanted. That was when the beatings began.”

“Until then, had they treated you well?”

Jaspar shrugged. “I wouldn’t go that far. I had very little food or water. It was extremely hot in the room. I often felt as if I was about to faint. And I probably did. I can’t be sure, because after a while time became a blur. Especially once the beatings began. There was no time to recover between attacks, so the pain and my wounds just got worse and worse. Each time they beat me was more violent than the last. They wanted blood and gore; they wanted whoever was seeing those pictures to know they meant business.”

Perfectly timed, the final proof-of-life picture America ever saw of Jaspar Wills filled viewers’ screens. Although many of the people in the studio that day had seen the image before, an inaudible shockwave reverberated through the room, followed by a gasp, and then pulsating silence.

Immediately prior to the broadcast, the network had issued a warning declaring certain content about to be aired to be graphic and not suitable for all viewers. The bloodied, bloated, bruised face before them now was why.

Oddly enough, the image was less familiar to its subject than to most of the rest of the country. Jaspar studied the larger than life face staring out at him from the screen behind Katie, and tried to remember wearing that mask. But nothing came. Perhaps if he’d seen himself in a mirror at the time—that horrifying image, the wasted face and dead eyes—the memory might have been stronger. Instead, for him, the day that photograph had been taken had been just another in a string of days that, by then, he was convinced were leading to his death. This was a picture of a man who was dying. His mind, heart, soul—everything that had once been Jaspar Wills—was entirely disengaged, exorcised from the crumbling physical shell. This was a man prepared to face whatever came after life.

Hearing a stifled sob next to him, Jaspar dragged his attention away from the thing on the screen and comforted his wife as best he could.