This book describes the reality as experienced and remembered by Daniel Rye and the other contributors. It is told with respect for those who were murdered, those still in captivity and those who survived, as well as for their families.

Puk Damsgård

Cairo

September 2015

Happy Birthday, Jim

The plane had just taken off from Heathrow Airport and was high above the clouds when Daniel opened his wallet and took out a small piece of cardboard. He silently contemplated the white surface, studying the image of his own face sketched with thin pencil strokes. He wasn’t wearing his glasses in the drawing and he had a beard, but otherwise you could tell it was him.

He showed the picture to his travel companion, Arthur, who was sitting next to him, his long legs stretched out under the seat in front.

‘Actually, some of the stuff we did was quite enjoyable,’ said Daniel, gripping the mini-portrait tightly between his fingers. ‘We played our own homemade version of Risk and I did gymnastic exercises with the other hostages.’

The drawing was the only memento from his time held hostage by ISIS in Syria. It had been drawn by one of the other western prisoners, Pierre Torres, who had sewn it inside his sleeve and smuggled it out of captivity. Pierre was another of the lucky ones whose freedom had been successfully negotiated.

Once freed, Daniel feared the worst. The Islamic State started killing the remaining western hostages, which was the reason why, on 17 October 2014, he found himself flying over the Atlantic with Arthur on their way to New Hampshire. They were on their way to attend James Foley’s memorial.

Daniel put the drawing back in his wallet and ordered a glass of wine to accompany the predictable ‘chicken or beef’ in-flight menu. After the meal he fell asleep, his head resting on the still folded and plastic-packaged blanket he was using as a pillow. His hair was sticking up from the static electricity and his mouth hung open. He woke up five hours later, just as they were preparing to land in Boston. Outside the airport terminal he lit a cigarette in the clear autumn air and inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs. He didn’t usually smoke. In the meantime, Arthur went to pick up the keys for their rental car and they drove to their hotel on the outskirts of Boston.

The next morning they headed towards the Foley family’s home town, Rochester, New Hampshire. The eighteenth of October 2014 dawned with sparse clouds in the sky. On this day James would have been forty-one years old.

In August 2014 the American freelance journalist had lost his life in the Syrian Desert. He was the first western hostage to have his throat slit by the British ISIS fighter known in the media as ‘Jihadi John’.

Daniel had been held captive in Syria for thirteen months, spending eight of them in the company of James and other western hostages. Daniel had thought highly of James, who was always optimistic, even though he had been imprisoned since November 2012. They had had plenty of time to get to know each other and Daniel had listened to James’s anecdotes about his siblings and parents. Now he was on his way to meet them and to pay his final respects to a friendship that had started, and ended, in captivity.

The trees leaned forwards invitingly along Old Rochester Road, the narrow country road that wound its way through New England. Bright red maples stood out among the green pines, and shades of yellow, orange and brown clung to the branches like a final breath before winter fell. The scent of winter’s impending arrival mingled with the smoke from Daniel’s and Arthur’s cigarettes. Daniel scrolled through the music on his iPhone and played the melancholy song ‘Add Ends’ by the Danish band When Saints Go Machine – a song he had listened to countless times since James had been murdered.

Nestling between the trees were tall, well-kept houses and there were pumpkins carved into cheerful faces with star-shaped eyes or else frozen in menacing screams. These jack-o’-lanterns kept a vigilant watch from the lawns and driveways. Even the local grocery store was overflowing with them, almost blocking the entrance.

When they turned into the Foley family’s road, the orange changed to black. They passed a large house where a hooded skeleton guarded the door. The road curved among scattered houses and American flags that were stuck in the grass by the asphalt. The whole neighbourhood was in mourning for the tragedy that had befallen the family in the white house at the end of the road.

The large lawn at the front of the property was dense and damp, and light shone through the windows towards the driveway, where a couple of cars were parked. Daniel strode purposefully towards the front door, followed by Arthur. He knocked and entered when he heard voices. James’s parents, Diane and John Foley, greeted them as soon as they stepped across the ‘Welcome’ mat. Diane gave Daniel a long, maternal hug, her thick, dark hair brushing against his face as she held him close. She squeezed his arm and led him around the crowded kitchen to meet the family. Above the door between the kitchen and the living room were painted the words: ‘With God’s blessing spread love and laughter in this house.’ It smelled of coffee, perfume and toast.

‘Meet Daniel.’ Diane introduced him with a mixture of gratitude and pain in her voice.

After a year in captivity, Daniel had finally got the sense that he might be close to being released. James decided to send a message to his own family through Daniel, but he didn’t dare write a letter. If it were found, it would jeopardize Daniel’s release and might never reach his family. Instead, they sat next to each other in the cell and James dictated the words that Daniel repeated to himself over and over again until he could remember them in his sleep.

As soon as Daniel had been released and had arrived back in Denmark, he called Diane and repeated James’s message, word for word, over the phone. It was the only and final greeting the family received from their son in captivity. Diane wrote James’s words down to remember them.

For the memorial service she had printed out the words so that the guests and the rest of the world could read them too. The title was: ‘A Letter from Jim’. It included a note to his grandmother:

Grammy, please take your medicine, take walks and keep dancing. I plan to take you out to Margarita’s when I get home. Stay strong, because I’m going to need your help to reclaim my life.

‘Thank you, Daniel,’ said James’s grandmother in the kitchen as she gave his hand a squeeze. The slight lady with the pearl earrings wiped her eyes and looked as if she was about to collapse under the weight of her sorrow.

To his younger sister Katie, the woman with the long, smooth hair, James had said this:

Katie, I’m so very proud of you. You’re the strongest of us all! I think of you working so hard, helping people as a nurse. I am so glad we texted just before I was captured. I pray I can come to your wedding.

James’s brothers Mark, John and Michael were also standing in the kitchen. They all wore dark suits and shared the same features as James: brown eyes under wide, dark eyebrows and a broad smile. Daniel felt as if he had known them for a long time, as James had talked about them at length, because he missed them so much. Daniel also knew that the brothers had been longing for good news about their brother. His message had given them a new burst of hope for a while:

I have had good days and bad days. We are so grateful when anyone is freed, but of course yearn for our own freedom. We try to encourage each other and share strength. We are being fed better now and daily. We have tea, occasionally coffee. I have regained most of my weight lost last year […] I remember so many great family times that take me away from this prison […] I feel you especially when I pray. I pray for you to stay strong and to believe. I really feel I can touch you, even in this darkness, when I pray.