Chapter 164 – With nowhere left to turn for help
Arabic. It was Arabic?
The man clearly couldn’t read it. He searched around frantically, but found nothing that gave him the slightest clue. All he could do was try making a call—but he couldn’t remember any phone numbers.
He rummaged through his pockets. His wallet had been cleaned out; there was nothing left inside. Apart from that, all he found were a handful of peanut shells, a pill bottle, and a small hip flask.
Taking a few deep breaths, the man dialed 911 as an international call.
“911, what’s your emergency?” A female operator answered.
“Hello, I’ve been buried alive.” The man was breathing heavily, gasping between words. He didn’t even pause before desperately crying for help. “Please, you’ve got to save me. I can barely breathe.”
“Sir?” The operator sounded confused.
“I’m buried alive in a coffin! Hurry and save me! Send someone to find me!” His right hand clutched the phone tightly while his left held a lighter against his chest. His eyes darted nervously around the cramped darkness, fixed on the weak flame. His fingers tightened unconsciously, as though he was gripping his very lifeline.
“Sir, slow down. What’s your name?”
“Paul. Paul Conroy.”
“All right, Mr. Conroy. Can you tell me your current location?”
Paul squeezed his eyes shut in agony.
“I don’t know.” His voice was frighteningly hoarse. His gaze wandered frantically from side to side, unable to find anything to focus on. “I’m in a coffin! I don’t know where I am. Please save me. I’m terrified.”
“You’re in a coffin?”
“Yes.” Paul felt as though he couldn’t breathe. It was as if invisible hands were wrapped around his throat. The suffocating pressure made his face flush red, and even speaking took considerable effort. “An old-fashioned wooden coffin.”
“Are you at a funeral home?”
“No, no, no.” Paul shook his head repeatedly, but confusion crept into his voice. The truth was that he had no idea where he was. “I don’t know. No.”
“How are you calling me right now?” The operator still seemed unable to grasp the situation and continued her questioning in a measured tone.
Paul was on the verge of suffocation. His mind had become a complete blur.
“What?”
“If you’ve been buried alive in a coffin, how are you calling me?” the operator repeated.
“Uh… a cellphone. There’s an old cellphone in here.” Paul instinctively pressed himself upward, searching for even the tiniest gap that might let in a breath of fresh air.
“Are you calling from your own phone?”
“Yes. No—not mine, not my phone. But yes, I’m calling on a cellphone.” Paul’s brain felt like mush. Every response came purely from instinct. He barely knew what he was doing anymore. His eyes were filled with confusion and panic.
“So when you climbed into the coffin, there was already a cellphone inside?”
“Yes.” Paul nodded instinctively, then immediately frowned. “What? No—I didn’t climb in here.” His teeth were beginning to grind together. He still couldn’t get any fresh air, and the operator was wasting precious time.
“Then how did you get into the coffin?”
“Someone put me in here.” Paul’s hands clenched into fists. His eyes squeezed shut as he forced each word through gritted teeth.
“Put you in a coffin?” The operator sounded sceptical.
“Yes. Please, you have to save me!” Paul could no longer manage complete sentences. The words came out one at a time.
“And you’re saying the coffin was buried underground?”
The questions seemed endless.
Paul raised his left hand to rub his throbbing temple, only to burn himself on the lighter. He winced in pain.
“Yes! I’m a truck driver. I’m an American citizen.” He gulped down breath after breath, struggling to continue. “It’s… it’s hot in here. I can’t breathe.”
“Do you know your location?” The operator now sounded somewhat exasperated herself.
“I… I already told you. Somewhere in Iraq. Please, save me!” Paul had become completely incoherent. Aside from Please, save me, his mind was a blank.
“Iraq?”
“Yes. I’m a truck driver. I’m an American citizen. I work for CRT.” At last, his brain seemed to start functioning again, and the words came in a rush.
“Are you a soldier?”
The question filled Paul with sudden fury.
“No! For God’s sake, are you even listening to me?” he shouted in one breath. “I’m a truck driver. I’m an American citizen. I’m a contractor working in Iraq. We were attacked in Baqubah. They… they were all killed.”
The flow of words abruptly broke off. Paul gasped for air, his heart pounding so hard that it felt as though he might suffocate.
And then it hit him.
He was the only survivor.
Every one of his coworkers had been shot dead.
The realisation washed over him without warning, leaving him dazed and hollow. For a moment, he fell silent.
“Who was killed?”
The operator’s question pulled him back to reality.
“The other drivers.” Paul suddenly let out a short, humourless laugh. The sheer unreality of it all crashed over him. A trace of bitter mockery curled at the corner of his mouth.
“You’re saying all of this happened in Iraq? The country Iraq?”
Paul let out a dry, bitter laugh. The bleakness of the situation was simply too real, too immediate. The irony was overwhelming.
“Yes. Please listen to me, all right? Just listen to me!” The laughter vanished from his face as he spoke earnestly. “The military gave me an emergency contact number. I kept it in my wallet, but now I can’t find it.”
The operator interrupted him helplessly.
“Mr. Conroy, this is the Youngstown, Ohio emergency dispatch centre.”
The frantic rise and fall of Paul’s chest suddenly slowed. It was as if time itself had frozen.
“Ohio?” Paul was stunned. Every muscle in his body seemed to lock in place.
“Yes, sir.” The operator finally sounded more at ease. “You said you’re in another country. I’m not sure how your call was routed here. If you’d like, I can transfer you to the sheriff’s office.”
“You don’t understand. Forget it.” Paul shook his head and immediately hung up.
He glanced at the battery indicator.
Only three bars remained.
That was not good news.
Gavin couldn’t help finding the situation absurdly ironic. Calling 911 for help had apparently been the wrong choice from the very beginning. The operator had never actually helped him. Her endless questions had never gotten to the heart of the matter. Their fragmented conversation had never truly clarified the situation. Not only had it wasted precious battery life, but it had also wasted the limited oxygen inside the coffin.
Most ridiculous of all, in the end Paul had discovered that 911 couldn’t solve his problem at all.
Gavin knew it wasn’t the operator’s fault, but he couldn’t stop worrying. Now that this opportunity had been wasted, how was Paul supposed to save himself? And on the other side of the world, in Iraq, how could anyone possibly come to his rescue?
The suspense suddenly surged.
Gavin could feel the adrenaline flooding through his body. He unconsciously shifted in his seat, only then realising that he had been sitting tense for so long that his muscles had begun to go numb. Yet the urgency, the terror, and the suffocating dread remained lodged in his throat, leaving him unable to look away.
Paul extinguished the lighter once more.
This time he didn’t panic.
Instead, he forced himself to calm down and organise his thoughts. Then he flicked the lighter back on and began making calls again.
He called his wife, Linda, first—both her home phone and her cell phone. Unfortunately, she answered neither. He could only leave messages on both voicemail systems, explaining the danger he was in and hoping that once she heard them, she would immediately seek help.
After that, he dialled 411 directory assistance, hoping to obtain the FBI’s phone number. But the operator stubbornly insisted that he specify a particular state and city. Frustrated and furious, Paul blurted out, “Chicago.”
The call was then transferred to the FBI office in Chicago, where he explained what had happened.
“My convoy and the other drivers were delivering kitchen supplies to a community centre. Then some kids started throwing rocks at our trucks. A bomb exploded up ahead and destroyed one of the vehicles. After that, a group of men came pouring out of the houses nearby and opened fire on us right there in the street…”
Paul paused for a breath before continuing.
“I was near the back of the convoy. I think a rock hit me in the head and knocked me unconscious. I don’t remember anything after that. When I woke up, my hands were tied, and I was lying inside a coffin.”
Paul did everything he could to explain the situation, but the agent on the other end of the line remained fixated on the details.
Why had the children been throwing rocks?
Who exactly were the gunmen?
Why had they opened fire?
And if everyone else had been shot, why hadn’t Paul been hit?
The agent’s aggressive tone made it sound as though Paul himself were one of the terrorists, calling only to cause trouble. Before long, he had begun digging into Paul’s personal identity and background information.
Anger. Calm.
Anger. Calm.
Paul’s emotions swung back and forth in a relentless torment.
Then things got even worse.
The phone lost its signal.
The call dropped.
Holding his breath, Paul pressed himself against the walls of the coffin, desperately searching for reception. Inch by inch, he shifted around in the darkness, hunting for a signal. At last, he found one.
After a moment’s thought, he called his company’s office.
What followed was yet another exhausting battle.
Introductions.
Explanations.
Emergency procedures.
Questions.
More questions.
By the end of it all, the operator transferred him to the Human Resources manager, Alan Davenport.
Paul protested furiously. He didn’t need Human Resources. He needed emergency response.
It didn’t matter.
The call was transferred anyway.
Then came the waiting.
A long wait.
An endless wait.
A wait that seemed to stretch on forever.
And in the end, all he got was voicemail.
Once again, he painstakingly explained everything from the beginning. But before he could finish, the recording reached its time limit and cut him off.
The line went dead.
Staring at the phone as the busy signal echoed in his ear, Paul finally snapped.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
He lashed out wildly, punching and kicking with all the strength he had left, venting every ounce of rage into the suffocating darkness around him. He raged and cursed until there was nothing left.
Until exhaustion consumed him.
Then he simply lay there.
Lost.
Empty.
Still.
Quiet.
Even the sound of his breathing seemed to fade.
Helpless.
Nothing but helplessness.
The profound sense of powerlessness seeped through the screen and emerged from that endless darkness. It was even more terrifying than despair itself.
Despair was straightforward.
This was something worse.
Again and again, Paul had managed to grasp hold of a rope of hope, convinced that if he followed it, he could escape. Yet every attempt ended the same way.
The FBI.
His company.
Even his own family.
Every institution. Every person.
One after another, they all shut him out.
Round and round he went, only to end up exactly where he had started.
Hope would flicker to life, only to be snuffed out moments later.
The emotional impact of that cycle—hope born, hope extinguished, over and over again—was overwhelming in its sheer magnitude.
Gavin found it unbearably cruel.
And unbearably ironic.
Beneath the horror and suspense, a deeper weight slowly emerged, settling heavily in his chest.