The leader closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and then looked coldly into Jesse’s eyes, “Well then, here is what we are going to do. My two colleagues will escort you to the bank. I will stay right here. Once you hand the map to them, they will let you go, and they will call me. If they do not call me within thirty minutes telling me they have the map, I will go into this villa and kill your friend Waleed. I promise you that I will not make it quick. I can assure you he will go very painfully. It is all very simple. Do we have an understanding?”
Jesse’s tried to think of something. Shit! I gotta figure something out…and fast. The man became impatient. “I will ask once more, do we have an understanding Mr. Jesse Woods? I require an answer now.”
Jesse had no choice, so he answered, “Yes, we have an understanding.” The leader nodded to his henchmen. The man on Jesse’s right grabbed him by the right arm, poked his knife uncomfortably against Jesse’s ribs and led him to a silver four-door car just past where he had parked. The man opened the left rear door and shoved Jesse into the back seat. While still gripping Jesse’s arm tightly, he entered the car through the same door, forcing Jesse to slide to the right side. The other thug hopped into the drivers seat.
The driver started the car, and looked over his right shoulder. “Which branch of ADCB are we going to?”
Jesse had to think quickly to come up with the branch furthest away that would give him the most time to formulate some kind of plan. He thought of a branch far enough away that it would give him twenty minutes to think. “The Corniche branch, just past the Emirates Palace on the left.”
The car pulled onto the street with Jesse wracking his brain trying to come up with a way out of the mess he was in. Ten minutes later, he had an idea. It wasn’t the best
idea, but at least it was something. He knew it might get him killed, but it was all he had.
Jesse reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cigarette, praying his half baked plan would work, all the while thinking that cigarettes would ultimately be the death of him anyway, possibly now or maybe later. He held up the cigarette and looked quizzically at the man on his left. The man nodded okay, so he fished his lighter out of his shorts pocket and nervously lit the cigarette. Less than a minute after he lit it, he had his chance.
The car went over one of the many bizarrely placed speed bumps on Abu Dhabi city main thoroughfares. As the car bounced, Jesse pretended to lose control of his cigarette. He fumbled it and tossed it to the left, right into his captor’s lap. The man immediately shifted his attention from Jesse, lifted himself up, looked down and tried to grab the cigarette. Jesse acted quickly.
Jesse grabbed the distracted man’s right hand holding the knife and started pummeling him in the face as fast and as hard as he could swing his other arm. He was hoping to knock the larger, stronger man out quickly. It didn’t work. Even as startled as he was, the man tried to turn the knife towards Jesse. Jesse managed temporarily to turn the knife towards the man while continuing to hit him in the face again and again. The thug continued to try to turn the knife towards Jesse. He was affected by the blows, at least enough for Jesse to have the upper hand temporarily. A life and death struggle for the knife was in progress. Scared out of his mind, Jesse was unsure he could win this battle.
Hearing the commotion in the back seat, the driver turned his head. He immediately saw that things had gone wrong. He couldn’t see that Jesse had a grip on the knife
with one hand and had somehow gotten it near his captor’s chest. He could, however see that Jesse was punching his partner repeatedly, and it appeared his partner was in trouble.
Reflexively, the driver stomped on the brakes as hard as he could. Jesse was thrown forward and smacked the right side of his head on the seat in front of him. He saw
stars. The man next to Jesse was not as lucky. When he flew forward, the knife was in front of him with the point turned towards his body. His full body weight slammed into the back of the front seat, plunging the knife deep into his chest.
To Jesse, everything suddenly appeared to go into slow motion. Jesse let go of the knife. It remained sticking straight out of the middle of the man’s chest. The man looked down at his chest with confusion on his face. He momentarily feebly grabbed at the knife and opened his mouth, but only a gurgle came forth. He coughed. A large splot of blood oozed onto his chin. Then he fell forward and slumped sideways onto the floor with both eyes wide open, looking right at Jesse.
Jesse suddenly came back to the immediacy of the moment. The car was stopped on the shoulder of a busy street. Cars were driving by, swerving around the parked car
honking their horns. The driver was struggling to unhook his seatbelt while yelling something in Chinese over his shoulder that Jesse didn’t understand.
Jesse’s ears were ringing, and he had a bloody lip. He didn’t wait to try to understand what the man was saying. He grabbed the door handle, jumped out of the car, and headed away from the road. At this point, he had no further plan. He knew he just needed to get away as fast as possible. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the driver was getting out of the car. He started running.
