Proof of Life

TWENTY DAYS ON THE HUNT
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FOR A MISSING PERSON
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IN THE MIDDLE EAST
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Daniel Levin

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Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2021

Published by

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Post Office Box 2225

Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of

Workman Publishing

225 Varick Street

New York, New York 10014

© 2021 by Daniel Levin. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048421

eISBN: 978-1-64375-175-7

E3-20250430-PDJ-PC-COR

For Reem and Samar

La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous
persuader qu’il n’existe pas.

The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you
that he does not exist.

—Charles Baudelaire,
Le spleen de Paris: Petits poèmes en prose

INTRODUCTION

This book tells the story of my search for a missing person in Syria over twenty grueling days in 2014. It is a true story. This is not a history book about Syria or a journalistic account of a dreadful war full of horrific atrocities. This is also not a moralizing tale. It is hardly newsworthy to observe that evil exists everywhere, or at least everywhere humans exist, and it is certainly not unique to Syria or the Middle East.

The disappearance of the man at the center of this account did not make the news. At first, it was not even noticed, and then, once discovered, it was ignored by everyone who was in a position to help. It is a story about loss and sadness, about violence and death, about unspeakable cruelty and greed—the daily menu in Syria’s devastating war. But it is also a story about courage, strength, and perseverance, about loyalty and wisdom. It is the story of all the monsters I encountered who were driven by their ravenous appetite for power and wealth. But it is also the story of some brave and inspiring souls who helped me selflessly and often at massive personal peril. Their acts of courage and sacrifice were my consolation, especially in those dark moments when the lines between those monsters and my own demons began to blur. Their support was my sustenance when those who should have cared didn’t. These individuals—these angels—helped because they had lost everything but still managed to hold on to their humanity, which stood in brutal contrast to those who could have helped but chose not to and who had lost nothing but their humanity.

Throughout these twenty days in 2014, the pressure was unrelenting. Until the very end, I lived with the incessant feeling that my head was being held underwater. I tried to manage my distress, manipulate my own consciousness. I learned to categorize my fears by the degree to which they paralyzed me and also by the way they affected my focus and my memory. It was my memory in particular, my ability to recall these events and dialogues, that was strangely impacted by intimidation and my sense of danger. I learned that physical threats tended to sharpen my mind and etch the moment in my recollection like an engraved image. Later on, when the particular threat had subsided, I would be overcome by exhaustion, but the memory always remained intact. On the other hand, psychological threats, usually unspoken but menacing, tended to cause an immediate trauma, a momentary blackout that led to a frustrating memory void. These blackouts would last just a few moments, but my thoughts and feelings during these intervals ended up lost forever.

As the stakes grew higher, I became increasingly cognizant of my own isolation. During the frequent stretches that I was by myself, I felt exposed and vulnerable—on the street, in an airport or hotel lobby, in a taxi, and even as I made my way to the toilet in the back of a restaurant. I often had the feeling someone might be following me but resisted turning around to check, because I knew that if I did, I’d eventually stop forging ahead. Sometimes, as the pressure mounted in my loneliest, darkest hours, the nature of this nagging sensation morphed into something more vicious, more violent. In those moments, I felt like I was holding a hand grenade that was missing the pin and would detonate as soon as I dropped it out of the sweaty palm of my hand—killing not only me but also all those around me, whose safety was my responsibility.

During these three weeks, I received a crash course in the art of collecting and cashing chips—doing something of value for someone else in order to receive something of value in return at an opportune moment. As a result, I found myself permanently enmeshed in an intricate, dizzying web of favors and counterfavors. While I navigated these treacherous environments, the sensory overload triggered by adrenaline and fear was exhausting. I found myself being constantly tested, which sharpened my peripheral perception to the point of paranoia. I expended tremendous energy just trying to figure out whether I was manipulating those around me or whether I was the one being manipulated. What kept me minimally sane and aware of my own vulnerabilities was the wisdom of my dear friend Jacques de Pablo Lacoste who used to remind me that if you’re sitting around a table playing poker and you don’t know who the sucker is . . . chances are, it’s you.

I knew that my sanity and survival, as well as my success, depended on my ability to recall every detail, no matter how incidental it may have seemed in the moment, and so I observed every behavioral nuance around me. Every language accent or piece of clothing could reveal vital information or help me determine whether I was in a safe environment or in a dangerous predicament. Every ritual could provide vital clues—from a handshake or kiss on the cheek to a gesture that might seem innocuous and good natured on its face but could carry a darker, threatening message.

I chronicled everything in a diary and recorded several of the conversations with my phone, which I then transcribed into Swiss German. An Israeli acquaintance who had been an officer in the famed Unit 8200 of the Israeli military’s Intelligence Corps advised me, for safety’s sake, to transcribe and then immediately delete the recordings. He demonstrated how easy it was to hack into my phone and access its data, including the stored recordings. In my heightened state of alertness, it didn’t take much to convince me to follow his recommendation. The Swiss-German twist was something I learned from a Russian friend who had remained close to Vladimir Putin since their days together in Dresden in the late 1980s. Apparently, and to this day I’m not sure whether he meant this tongue in cheek, Swiss German was one of the very few local tongues the KGB had struggled mightily to crack. My friend likened this dialect more to a throat disease than a language.

When I couldn’t write in the very instant or hadn’t been able to turn on my recording device, I reconstructed the events and conversations in my diary before the end of each day. The transcripts of these notes are rendered word for word in the dialogues throughout this book. Not a word was altered and no conversation was summarized when I was able to deliver it exactly as it had taken place, but I did edit the dialogues to eliminate empty fillers such as “umm,” “get it?,” “I mean,” “you know,” and “so” at the beginning of sentences, as well as “like”—yaani in Arabic.

I recognize that my own memory can be biased and noisy, and at times I was surprised when, much later, I read my own notes, diaries, and recording transcripts because I had remembered some incidences and exchanges differently. Whenever I could, I tried to reconfirm my recollections with those who had been present. At times, their memories and impressions diverged from mine. In the interest of accuracy and objectivity, I have included these discrepancies in footnotes throughout the book. I have also pointed out in footnotes those instances in which I had to rely on others for information and was unable to verify it independently.

As mentioned, some people helped me greatly and supplied me with crucial bits of information at the peril of being discovered and facing draconian, even fatal, consequences. Most of these individuals and their families are still in harm’s way, and I have used pseudonyms and altered certain traits or changed minor details of a few venues in order to prevent the possibility of reverse-engineering their identity or location. Lastly, I had to protect myself by concealing the identities of particular individuals. I did not, however, anonymize a single perpetrator, and I did not alter or embellish the physical appearance of any person. Those descriptions are factual and unvarnished.

The following names, listed in alphabetical order, are pseudonyms: Alex, Aliya, Bassel, Clyde, Fuad, Huby, Jamil, Loubna, Paul, Reem, Saif, Samar, Sami, the Sheikh, and Tatyana. All other individuals are called by their real names, including each person in the postscript.