Searching for Sister

By Paul Platte

Terrorists kidnap Mirembe Kenyagi, a Kenyan banker, and her sister Susan. Mirembe miraculously escapes, but Susan is sold into sex slavery in terrorist plagued Iraq.
While working at the bank, Mirembe met Raul Martinez, a Miami lawyer who assists clients—both good guys and bad guys—by setting up “foundations” to hide money from creditors and cops. Mirembe contacts Raul seeking assistance as she prepares to traverse the dangerous Middle East refugee camps in search of Susan.
Raul is married to Haifa, an international model in Jordan. Raul asks Haifa to enlist her rich and famous friends to aid the enslaved female refugees, but Haifa is an addict and captive of social media where she gathers followers and boyfriends. At great peril to himself, Raul diverts money from the international money-laundering underworld to fund rescue operations for sex slaves, coincidentally preventing his wife from latching on to his fortune.
Searching for Sister explores people who waste their lives staring cross-eyed at screens but also the people who find the courage to act to rescue women in distress. Every month hundreds of women are kidnapped, raped, and forced into sex-slavery and marriage. Author Paul Platte reports the untold, true events of those women’s war for survival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Dec 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480898363

Paul Platte

Paul Platte’s international legal career has led him through Miami, Africa, the Middle East, South America, Panama, and Hong Kong. He has assisted groups who expose current human trafficking and sex slavery and helped the victims and heroes on the front lines of these terrible crimes.

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Copyright © 2020 Paul Platte.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

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Archway Publishing

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and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9835-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9836-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020921073

Archway Publishing rev. date: 11/25/2020

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Every month hundreds of women are

abducted, raped, and forced into

sexual slavery and marriage.

Ninety percent of this book is truth.

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CHAPTER

1

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» Kenya-Somalia Border

T he Ngolo boy threw Mirembe to the red dirt and jumped on the girl, straddling her chest with his knees. He pulled a pistol from his belt.

The dark girl’s eyes popped open wide as brown saucers.

Susan! Mirembe yelled for her sister.

The pistol struck her, and she felt her jaw jerk to the right side of her face. She tasted warm blood fill her mouth. She felt her shirt rip open.

Mirembe cried out, I don’t want to die!

The pistol struck again. Blood dribbled out of her mouth down her cheek. Mirembe’s mind retreated from the violence into a black hole filled with stars.

She vaguely felt her body being dragged through the rough undergrowth and scrub grass and dug her fingernails into the red African clay.

She was jerked over and Ngolo smashed her face into East African dust.

Mirembe felt her pants jerked down to her ankles. Long, thin arms and legs quivered like those of a squashed spider as she tried to wiggle out from under Ngolo. She heard a thud in the back of her head followed by a white-hot explosion of pain that burned through her skull.

She felt her underpants ripped and tugged off.

Mirembe closed her eyes and fled back to the dark place.

There was a pause. All her body hurt. Her head. Her private parts. Her legs. Her arms. Her mouth. She bit down on her hand and felt a hole in the front of her teeth.

A violent jerk shoved her legs apart.

Why is my body jerking back and forth? She screamed, until dirt filled her mouth.

She opened her eyes, and her face moved back and forth next to something white and small in the dirt next to her. Is that a tooth?

She tried to raise her head. The darkness and stars returned followed by the sound and ache of a punch on the right side of her head.

Again, her body was penetrated and pushed. Back and forth for a forever moment. Long enough for Mirembe to think of her mother at home in her traditional dress and head wrap, sitting serenely on her woven mat, watching. In and out. In and out of the black space with the stars.

Her stomach wretched, and she vomited; half the puke ran out into the dirt, and half stayed in her mouth. Tears formed in her eyes.

Now the boy grabbed the thin ankles and dragged her backwards, the clay-packed pebbles scratching her face. Ngolo, where are you dragging me? she tried to ask through blood and vomit, but her mouth was filling with dirt. Another sudden sharp pain snapped through her body and then a loud crack in her ribs as if someone kicked her.

The boy let out a grunting sound as if he had been stabbed, and for a moment he froze. She hoped this evil moment was ending.

Then he dragged her body further and her face passed a pool of white cream in the dirt.

She heard another female scream. Is that Susan screaming? Sister, Mirembe mumbled through her bloody mouth. Her tongue felt a hole in her front teeth. The dragging continued.

Her ankles dropped to the ground. Mirembe did not dare move any part of her body. She heard a cork pop out of a bottle. It was the bottle of skat that Ngolo carried in his pocket. I should have left him when I first saw that drinking.

A fly landed on her nose and walked up the trail of blood into her mouth. Mirembe heard other men talking, some in her native language Laala. The others, maybe, spoke the Arabic of her Muslim friends.

Someone grabbed Mirembe’s arm and rolled her body over onto her back. She felt a breeze on her chest.

Someone pushed her knees to her chest. She felt pressure in her private parts, then a jackhammering like when father drives in a fence post on the farm. Help! she screamed. Someone slapped her across the mouth, her jagged teeth shredding her already swollen lips.

Mirembe saw a large pile of rubble lying around the ground, food tins, tires, some burnt bottles, lots of empty bottles, guns, and . . . her pants? Her arms were gripped tightly, stretched out away from her like the crucified Christ statue over the alter at church. Please help me! Mirembe mumbled until a boot stomped on her throat. She felt her ankles grabbed and her legs jerked wide and high.

She opened her mouth to scream, but the boot crushed her throat. Her mouth was as open as it could be, her jaws locking in anguish. But now she could not breath, as if she were under water like the wet between her legs.

She woke up in the night lying on the forest floor. Her head pulsated pain with every beat of her hurt. Reaching her trembling hand up to her skull, Mirembe felt a crack and dried blood. Between her legs, she felt wetness and lifted her finger to her nose to smell blood. It was cold, and Mirembe remembered she was naked. The worst pain was in the back of her right leg. She rolled slowly over on her stomach. Pain seared through her ribs, privates, leg, mouth, skull. For some reason she was afraid to cry out. Loud voices yelled and laughed to her left. So Mirembe dragged herself to the right. Through the forest. Through the pain.

To Mom. Mom will know what to do. Her minded flooded with snapshots of Mom working on the farm, bent over the crops pulling weeds, feeding and herding the cows, directing the workers in their tasks.

How am I going to explain this bloody mouth and torn blouse to Mom? Mirembe wondered, floating in the dark space.

Maybe Nogolo will take me back to the farm and Mom. Mom serves me and my sisters yogurt and fruit after school. She manages the farm on the weekends, and she manages our education in Nairobi during the week. Mom, we should have stayed in Nairobi.

Her mind saw some light in an attempt to make sense of what was happening.

Mom will know what to do.

But I like him, Mom. And he likes me. He said he loves me. Ngolo, I feel like I’m falling in love with you. I don’t understand what I did wrong.

Mirembe turned her head to the side. Her Mom sat in the dirt next to her.

The devil of drink. Just look at your father.

She gasped every time she pulled her body through the dirt. The back of her right leg seared with electric shock.

But we all love each other and stick together, thanks to you Mom. Maybe you are right. Maybe I should go to college in London instead of Kenya. Like Sally and Peter.

Sally and Peter took degrees from London universities. Sally lives in San Francisco and runs a successful coffee shop. Maybe I should move there. Peter works at Barclays Bank in London. I like London. But Mom you saw that the other children took uni degrees from Kenya and they have good jobs in Nairobi. So I can stay in Kenya with Ngolo?

She had no idea how long she crawled or how far she went. One minute she was conscious. The next in the starry black place.

Mom, I met a boy who works on the next farm. He is eighteen, named Ngolo, cute and shy and respectful.

You are only eighteen! Mom said frowning.

Mom, we meet on the border of the farms every weekend. Mirembe did not say they ignored the cattle and sat on downed trees and talked and drew hearts and arrows in the dirt.

She heard flies buzzing around her leg and felt them landing there. How many hours passed? She had no idea. Crawling. Dragging, not her body, but a black skin bag of broken bones. Then the black and stars returned.

The next thing she knew a drop of water poked her eye open. It was raining. Her mouth lied half in a mud puddle. The rain woke her up.

Again, with her scrawny arms she pulled the useless leg, electric jolts shooting through it, through the cold rain for what seemed like hours.

To Mom. To my bed. To my family. I want to smell the liquor on Dad’s breath.

She heard laughing behind her.

Mom, is that you?

Where you are going bitch? A boot stomped on the back of Mirembe’s head. Two giant hands picked her out of the mud and threw her over a man’s shoulder. She felt his muscular back running with sweat. This one’s too fine to let go, she heard. Good price.

Upside down, with each swaggering step of the man, Mirembe swayed back and forth over his shoulder. Blood poured out of Mirembe’s mouth. She saw her trail of blood in the forest below her head. From my mouth or the leg?

The man dropped her to the ground onto her back. Ayyah! She let out a shriek of agony through her mangled mouth. She had no idea how long she lied there before finally opening her eyes. Stars shone in the darkness above her. Is that the forest or the black space?

Slowly turning her head, she was sure that she looked into her sister Susan’s wide-open eyes. Susan lied on her back and stared back into Mirembe’s soul. Sister, are you okay? Then the mirage slowly faded into the clump of scrub grass that waved in the dry wind.

Mirembe looked down and gasped when she saw a giant man with a bullet belt across his chest between Susan’s opened, upward knees. Susan’s crying eyes did not move from Mirembe’s gaze. Only Susan’s body jerked back and forth. Mirembe closed her own eyes . . .

Sister was the last thing Mirembe said before she drifted away into the black hole, now without stars.

The rain woke her up again. It was daylight. She could not move. So she lied still with her face in the mud and listened. Quiet. Nothing but the sounds of the forest, some birds cackling and leaves rustling in the breeze. She tasted blood and dirt in her mouth. The back of her right leg throbbed with pain. Slowly she lifted her throbbing head and saw a pool of blood. Her ribs spasmed with pain. Looking to her side, where Susan had lain before, there was only grass and trees. She could not move her mouth, and it ached like her leg. She laid the side of her head back down in the blood and looked around.

Through her foggy consciousness the tree-shaded clearing was peaceful, and she blinked her eyes to try to focus on a wide but misshapen tree. As Mirembe’s vision cleared, what came into focus was a woman’s dead body lashed to a tree. Head strapped back. Arms tied behind the tree trunk. Eyes and mouth wide open. Eyes staring straight ahead at across the clearing. As wide open as a cow’s when father shoots the long metal rod in its brain. Her face was almost white. The throat was slashed from ear to ear, and her naked body was covered with dripped blood, which was almost black. Mirembe closed her eyes tight to try to erase the nightmare, but when she reopened her eyes the dead woman was still there. This time Mirembe noticed the woman’s bloated stomach, as if she was pregnant. A big black bird sat in a tree limb above the woman, eyeing the corpse and glancing at Mirembe.

Thank God it is not Susan.

Another naked woman’s corpse lay in the mud. The face was turned away, and for a second Mirembe panicked that it might be her sister.

Not Susan’s hair.

Women’s jeans, shoes, shirts and panties lay strewn about the grass alongside empty bottles and discarded food and backpacks. Mirembe reached down her torso, butt, and legs and felt her nakedness. When she brought her hand up to her face the hand was wet with blood, black blood like the woman at the tree. She choked on the mud and blood going down her throat, and she coughed and shuddered, sending an electric jolt of pain into her ribs. Red mud splattered out of her mouth into the dirt. She turned her head to the other side and tried to hold it out of the muddy, bloody dirt, but her head was too heavy and hurt so much that she laid her head back down and felt blood ooze up into her ear. Fading out a bit she wanted to sleep but forced her eyes open and they fluttered involuntarily. When she came back to awareness, she saw the grass littered with several empty, plastic pill bottles with Arabic script on the labels. Like the bottles of her father’s heart medicine. Daddy. A couple of flies landed on her lips, and she blew them away. And then her eyes locked on a tennis shoe that lied a few feet away, a white shoe with four stripes. Susan’s! Mirembe closed her eyes and started crying. Susan. Mommy. Daddy.

Then Ngolo came to mind.

How could you do it? How could any boy do that?

Mirembe and Susan were lying in their beds, Mom standing between. Hands folded. Eyes closed. And if I die before I sleep. . .

» Beirut

Aamal was on a layover in Beirut. She avoided her parents’ house and the ever-present arguments with a conservative father and wacky mother. So Aamal hid out at the house of her married sister Safeta. Aamal’s Saudi Airlines flight out was early the next morning, and she took the opportunity away from Ryad’s religious strictures to wear a tight top and fashionably ripped black jeans. She was ultra-chique in an East-West fashionable way, with dark Arab hair, thick eyebrows, high cheekbones, and full red lips, traveling constantly between the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East and picking up the latest clothes at every layover. There was a boyfriend in Beverly Hills who must have been financing some of her fabulous lifestyle, flight attendants being notoriously underpaid, especially in Saudi Arabia. The only times she betrayed her millennial indifference was when she perceived her hangers-on to violate an important fashion code, such as, You are wearing one too many colors. Get rid of the brown belt. And the scarf is too tight around your throat.

Except Aamal left Safeta alone, who could commit no fashionista wrong, because Safeta was naturally such a lovely person that nobody would dare think a negative thought about that Elbani sister. Safeta was a Aamal look-alike except 5 sizes bigger, having a year ago given birth to the most precious baby girl in the world and being too busy to lose the weight. Her hair never looked put together, her nails were always dishwater worn, and she never walked around without a diaper or pacifier or folded baby clothes spilling out of her arms. But she smiled on. And on. And on. So she was perpetually lovely. In short, Safeta was a saint, if saints were recognized in that part of the world.

They and Safeta’s husband Sousou were a happy group in a sisterly way, mocking their father, who they would never discuss in public, and gossiping about their special sister Haifa and her American husband.

And our father? Aamal asked, smiling, holding a cigarette in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other.

Safeta chuckled, The same, folding a pile of cloth baby diapers on the kitchen table. He’s probably at the cafe right now nursing a tiny cup and arguing politics with his friends. You know. The crooked politicians. The foreigners.

As always, Aamal laughed, sucking in the heavy blue cigarette smoke.

And then home to sit in front of the television news, complaining about the same people, and napping.

Is mother taking her pills?

Safeta pushed the perpetually hanging strand of hair away from her face and smiled. Of course not. The other day father woke up from a nap and called out for mother to bring the tea. When mother did not answer, father got up to look for her. She was lying in the hallway. The ambulance came, the blood pressure was too high or too low, I don’t remember. The ambulance driver and father yelled at her to take her pills.

And?

Safeta rolled her eyes. I’m sure she is ignoring them to save money to buy the baby toys and clothes. You know.

Safeta’s and Sousou’s old stone house sat on a crooked street one block from Mediterranean beach from where 2,000 years before Paul of Tarsus launched his ship to sail forth and preach to the then-known world. The house was cramped, with a small living room and kitchen and one bedroom where the parents and baby slept. But Sousou had built a roof-top veranda that served as the salon for all social occasions. The family could drink and smoke up there without disapproving glances from uninvited conservative neighbors. An insane amount of baby toys lay everywhere as all family members totally spoiled the first grandchild.

The sisters heard footfalls on the stone steps, and Safeta glanced at Aamal, smiled and said, Haifa is here, as she shook a rattle in front of the baby.

Miss Special is arriving, Aamal said, I’ve abused some men in my life, but Haifa is the queen diva. Poor Raul. Poor husband.

Safeta merely smiled, it being impossible for her to utter a bad word about either of her sisters, or anyone else.

Aamal stood up and flipped a cigarette butt over the veranda wall into the street below. His religion allows divorce? I am surprised he hasn’t done it, she whispered in Safeta’s ear so Haifa would not hear, She hates him when they are together, then loves him the minute he gets sick of the abuse and, poof, he flees like a desert wind back to Miami where he belongs. The sisters laughed.

I read about man haters in a magazine, Safeta offered. She chuckled and confessed, Sometimes I want to hit Sousou over the back of his head with the highchair. Doesn’t every wife feel that way at times?

Feel what? Haifa asked turning the corner at the top of the stairs.

Like killing her husband.

Haifa chuckled behind the oversized designer sunglasses, Of course, it’s natural. She lit a cigarette. The difference between me and you two is I actually punch my husband when I am mad.

Her tall figure leaned against the stairway railing. Don’t tell me you are going to bore me talking about husbands. If you bore me, I am leaving.

Have you heard from him?

No, Haifa looked away and exhaled the blue-gray smoke into the ocean breeze.

Have you called him?

Of course not.

Are you getting a divorce?

Of course not. I love him. And he will never divorce me. He’s 62, and I am 36 and beautiful.

Aamal and Haifa kissed each other on both cheeks. Safeta held a pile of baby clothes, smiled, and slightly, barely noticeably shook her head at her siblings.

Exceedingly tall, Haifa had model genetics by birth. And I will always be beautiful to that old man, thanks to ‘touch ups’ behind the private walls of Dr. Gazi, Beirut’s best plastic magician. Haifa chuckled her deep throated, cigarette-octave laugh. Full figured, she moved slowly, always walking as if on the runway, standing with a hand on her hips, never out of place or looking other than chique, hip cocked, hand on hip, flipping hair. I make my husband crazy with all the usual model moves perfected since the age of 14. She wore her jet black, straight hair hanging breast length to allow a tantalizing peak at her melonesque breasts, depending on the yearning man. Her triangular face, set off by the highest cheekbones and perfect chin, had the expression of detached disinterest of a Paris model at the bottom trough coming down off a high of some type. With men and women fawning obsequiously wherever she went, there was never a need to show the slightest interest in anyone or anything. Moving languishly as always, she sank into a seat and smoked quietly. She wore her usual cause uniform: a huge, black t-shirt with a big, bold CALL ME across the front and back, baggy jeans, and untied-suede-American-never-worked-in work boots.

She strode slowly to the cooler to pour a glass of white wine. Speaking at a mirror on the wall, You are right that I hated men for many years. I should just be done with them. She sat listlessly, lighting a cigarette. Mom and Dad adore my husband. I shall have to change that; I think he is a dirty, American man.

Dirty? Safeta asked.

He left a piece of toilet paper in the toilet.

Safeta smiled, but her eyes looked incredulous, confused.

And a small piece of shit.

You asked him to clean it?

Of course, he cleaned it! I am not going to clean a toilet.

What did he say?

In the US they flush the toilet paper down the toilet. He thinks to put dirty toilet paper in the container next to the toilet is unsanitary. Americans! She inhaled. They are all dirty pigs.

A piece of toilet paper? Safeta mused. You need a Muslim man who will give you your own bedroom, bathroom, your part of a house.

And a full-time maid, Haifa added and exhaled. I told him to get his chin fixed. After all, I’ve had my lips, eyes, chin, and breasts done since we met. She stretched on the chair and tossed her hair. He said he still looks good and will do it when he starts falling apart. I told him to do it tomorrow."

How does he respond when you talk like that? Aamal asked curiously, having her own foreign man to deal with.

He had to leave to go back to work in the U.S. When he can’t stand me anymore, he just leaves. I punch, and he leaves. Then I don’t call him for a month.

Haifa’s two sisters glanced at each other. Then waited for more.

I have been handling men for twenty years. He will submit. Just like that Swedish model-agent who wanted to marry me when I was 14.

Digging her phone from a Gucci bag, Haifa went to her Instagram account, Arabian_cupid.

Ah! A new iPhone? Aamal chided, noticing immediately. And a fancy glittery gold case? Another gift from the dirty American husband?

Mm, was the most Haifa could acknowledge. Internet kisses from some admirer named Darling Baba. Hiafa punched in a like, almost angrily, with a blood-red nail. Another follower inquiring if she ever comes to Europe. Another like.

Wow, who’s that? Aamal asked, passing by and looking over Haifa’s shoulder.

How should I know. Some boy model from Switzerland.

Safeta asked, Have you ever talked to him?

Of course not, Haifa answered dismissively. Why would I talk to these people? Then I would have to deal with their pimply-faced problems. They would want naked pictures, then come see me, then want more and more. Just problems. Who needs it?

Haifa sat silent for five minutes, smoking and liking. Smoking and liking. Her little digital box of tricks was bottomless, sending red lips, kisses, red heart after red heart. After twenty years of posting fetching pictures that drew male and female followers to her like metal to a magnet, Haifa was proud of the fact that now, in 2009, she had at least 11,000 followers. Worth diamonds to Haifa’s model ego.

Tossing the phone on the side table, Haifa proclaimed, I’m so bored. She stiffened imperiously in the chair like a mannequin. Glancing at the ubiquitous soccer game that Sousou was watching on the television, Haifa demanded, Do you get Fashion TV?

» Kenya

A bright light blinded Mirembe’s left eye. But not her right eye.

She heard a matter-of-fact voice through the pounding in her head and tried to open her eyes. But only the left one opened. For the briefest moment Mirembe saw two blurred images. One in all white. The other all black.

The serrated cuts and white box of removed skin in the back of her leg are the signature marks of Boko Haram, the African terrorist group, said a low, male voice that was somehow both calm and shocking at the same time.

What cuts? What box of skin? Mirembe asked. But maybe she didn’t get the words out, for nobody answered. She tried to reach down to feel her leg, but her arms were too heavy to move or maybe paralyzed. She panicked and desperately wanted to know if her leg was still attached.

A female voice asked questions too softly for Mirembe to hear, and a second male voice answered in the low monotone. We searched the whole area.

Mirembe drifted off to the black hole, and when she came around, she could just make out a blur in white and a second in blue. Why were they there? The blue blur asked. Mirembe could not hear an answer. When did you last see them? Mirembe’s mind drifted off to the woman strapped to the tree and the big black bird lurking above her. She heard the word, army. The voice in white said something about intensive care, grafts, and therapy.

As her head cleared, she heard the voice in blue more sharply, Now in 1999, the terrorists are losing recruits because of aggressive soldering by the government. A large number of terrorists are dead, forcing them to recruit young boys. But the killers have to offer something to entice boys and young men into a life of hiding, killing, and death. And that offer is female hostages. New recruits are trained to abduct and rape young girls.

Mirembe wanted to speak about the jeans and panties lying about in the clearing, but her jaws would not open.

Mirembe heard a high-pitched shriek and crying.

Mom, is that you? Mirembe yelled out. But maybe not.

Mirembe!

She heard Mom’s voice and felt arms hugging her. Mirembe’s left eye started to focus a bit, and she could see the black, tall stature of her mom, the jet black curly hair, her glasses from years of reading to the children and studying accounting books for the family business. Mommy was holding a white tennis shoe in her hand.

Mirembe! Where is Susan?

At the mention of her sister, Mirembe shrunk back to the dark hole.

Six weeks later as she was being wheeled out of the clinic to the family car, Mirembe said over her shoulder, without emotion, to the nurse, The only reason he succeeded was because he had a gun.

Mirembe did not know how long she had slept. When she woke up in her own sheets, her first thought was of Susan’s face, staring at her with those wide, shocked eyes. Mirembe felt a stroking on her hair, and she twitched.

It’s me, Mirembe, her mother said softly. Are you ok?

Mirembe closed her eyes, and said, Thanks to you, Mom, I’m ok.

What do you mean thanks to me?

Mirembe sighed. Did she want to talk about it?

The whole time I was thinking what you would do. I wanted to get home to you, Mom.

I am so sorry Mirembe. I let you and Susan down. Mom started sobbing. Poor Susan!

Mirembe hugged her Mom back, though the hurt in her leg and mouth throbbed.

A week later, her mom was spoon feeding soup to Mirembe, tears running down the older woman’s cheeks. I’ve seen this all before, Mom said looking only at the bowl of soup. I watched terrorists chop off my father’s hands and feet. Mom was sobbing, mechanically moving the spoon from bowl to mouth. The terrorists invaded our town in Kenya, which 60 years ago was half Christian. My father asked the terrorists if the children could have some food and water. They did not answer. Just chopped off his hands. He did not die so they chopped off his feet. My mother and I had to watch. Mom dropped the spoon in the bowl and held her head in her hands. We did not know if Daddy was dead or alive. The terrorists threw his body in the street, and dogs tore at his body. Then the terrorists dragged Momma and the other older women behind a truck until they were dead. They herded me and the other young girls into the church and raped us. Tears flowed. On the altar. Her shoulders heaved. After many men, I must have passed out and was left for dead. I don’t know. The pretty ones were dragged away and sold as sex slaves.

I was all alone. I wanted to die, Mom told Mirembe. But I did not know how.

One night I got up and just started walking. I was all alone for three months. I walked all the way to Nairobi.

Mom raised her head, looked up at her daughter, and cried out.

I was left for dead. You were left for dead. And now Susan? Poor Susan!

Mirembe held her sobbing mother in her arms for a long time. Stunned at the story. At her Mom’s pain. Not knowing what to say. Mirembe’s hurt was now nothing. At least she was alive. Now was time to worry about Mom and Susan.

Mom, Mirembe was afraid to ask, fearing the worst, any news about Susan?

The police say the terrorists have about 30 girls. They moved into Somalia, then north. The army is working with the Somalia government to try to get them back. I am also talking to some people I know. Mom always knows what to do. Always knows someone. So smart, Mom.

Her father occasionally fell into bouts of drunkenness. Mirembe would only use the word tipsy. Mom was the rock of the family. But her mother burst out, I let both of you down! I should have never left you on the farm to tend the cattle!

Mom, we owe everything to you, Mirembe whispered into Mom’s ear. Mirembe knew the story from her older siblings and repeated it to Mom. You knew when to slip the family and our cattle back and forth across the Somalia - Kenya border, just to keep us alive, depending on which country had the worst civil war at the time. You taught us all the languages of East Africa — English, French, German, and Portuguese. You taught us the dialect of our Milo tribe and took us to your village, so we know our ways.

I don’t care about any of that now, Mom said into Mirembe’s chest. My baby Susan is gone.

Mirembe had never seen her strong Mom break down, even when Daddy was tipsy. Mirembe cried also, but she had to get the words out to comfort Mom. But we all love the farm. You taught us to be independent. Daddy told me how when you came upon pieces of land worthy of our cattle, you exchanged cows for parcel after parcel of land, so now our family owns a huge farm. We owe everything to you.

Thanks baby for saying that. Mirembe’s mom straightened up and wiped her eyes. I should have just kept you girls in Nairobi all the time. Not just during the week, when I made you do your homework. Every day. Mom looked out of the window and kept wiping her eyes. Then she cried again. I thought it was good for you kids on the weekends to clean the pig pens, do the chores, herd the cattle. Out on the acres. Again, tears rolled down her cheeks. And then you met that horrible Ngolo boy, and you are hurt, and Susan is gone.

Mirembe thought, Hours spent with Ngolo, sitting on a log in the warm, bright sun, talking about the future. The future. Now without her big sister Susan.

Mirembe sat up in bed, and her head spun a bit.

She put her arm on her Mom’s leg. Mom, we would not want life any other way. We owe everything to you. We will find Susan.

Mom was alone. I was alone. Susan is alone. I am going to be the one person who does not leave my people all alone.

» Miami

In hindsight, sitting in the calm comfort of his law office, Raul Martine cursed himself for not having seen the first day he was in Beirut in 2007 that his wife’s character had sunk to the baseness of her personality.

» Beirut

I need $3000 USD for the wedding photographer, his then-fiancée Haifa said matter-of-factly, resting on the Beirut hotel couch, her arms and legs crossed, closing off her body from her fiancé, smoking the ubiquitous cigarette.

Raul snapped to attention, as he always did when his impervious fiancée made a demand. He timidly floated out a mild concern, I want to preserve my cash, since I don’t know how long I will be here until your father approves the marriage and we get the wedding set and finished. Let’s go to the bank and use my debit card.

Let’s go. She popped up off the couch and grabbed her purse and keys.

After sitting in a typical Beirut snarl of traffic, all horns and waving arms and Haifa’s Arabic curses, Raul was standing open-mouthed staring at an ATM. Transaction Denied glared out from the screen. Feverishly he reinserted the card and rapidly punched the necessary buttons, trying to subdue the sinking feeling that he was at the mercy of a foreign machine at a foreign bank in a foreign country, none of which cared that this foreigner was about to face the wrath of a women deprived of funds for all the extravagance of a scrupulously planned wedding. He slinked back to the car and reported sheepishly, "Ah, debit and credit cards in