Treason by Newt Gingrich, Pete Earley Read Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t long after that when everything changed. When the TBI and PTSD happened. Jennifer remembered buckling a seat belt around Noodles in the family’s Land Rover outside their Cairo apartment. She remembered Benjamin, who was sitting up front in the car with their mother, looking back and teasing her.
    â€œYou’re too old to play with stuffed animals,” he’d scolded her. He was four years older and thought he knew everything.
    â€œStop irritating your sister,” their mother had said.
    The three of them were going to see their mother’s parents. Sarah and her parents were Egyptians and none of their Cairo relatives called them by their American names. Their grandparents called Benjamin “
Baabar
,” which meant
lion
. They called Jennifer “
Ablah
,” which meant
perfectly formed
. Everyone was gathering at the grandparents’ house because it was Wafaa El-Nil, an Egyptian holiday that commemorated the yearly flooding of the Nile.
    Jennifer’s American father, Gunter, wasn’t with them that morning because he’d been called away on business. Benjamin had told Jennifer that their father was a CIA spy but they couldn’t tell anyone—especially in Egypt. That seemed odd because her father was nothing like the spies, she’d seen on television, who were handsome, knew karate, and drove fast cars. Benjamin had made her promise that she couldn’t tell anyone and she hadn’t, except for Noodles the Unicorn. She knew Noodles wouldn’t tell anyone.
    When Jennifer was finished putting a seat belt around Noodles in the Land Rover’s backseat, she attached her own belt. Her mother turned the Land Rover’s ignition and suddenly everything became black.
    When Jennifer woke up, she was inside a huge mansion. She was alone except for Noodles the Unicorn. The mansion had lots of rooms and in each room was a window and when she went into the rooms and looked through each window, she saw different sights. Behind one window was a world where people had wings and flew. Another window looked out on purple hills covered with bright red flowers. There were frightening monsters with long fangs and scales living outside the window in another room. Jennifer was afraid when she saw them because she knew those beasts would eat her. Noodles was afraid too. Their favorite room in the mansion contained a window where people spoke to her, although sometimes what they said made her sad. A man in a white coat said her father had pulled her out of the Land Rover but he’d not been able to rescue Noodles the stuffed animal. Just the same, Noodles was with her inside the mansion and that made her happy because she had someone to talk to. A man in a black coat with a white collar told her that her brother, Benjamin, and her mother, Sarah, had been killed by a car bomb. That same man had explained that her father had brought her back to the United States from Egypt. One afternoon, her father, Gunter, had appeared on the other side of the window and said he was returning to Africa without her.
Why would he do that?
She wasn’t sure, but he’d left her behind.
    Sometimes Jennifer got lost in the rooms in the mansion where she lived. One day, a woman named Miriam was waiting outside the window to speak to Jennifer. She was crying. She told Jennifer that her father, Gunter, had been murdered in Germany.
He was supposed to be in Africa
, Jennifer thought. Miriam said the Falcon had killed him.
A bird? No, that wasn’t right. A man. A horrible man with a bird’s name.
    Eventually, Jennifer didn’t leave the room with the window where people spoke to her. She liked being there. Slowly, the other rooms in the mansion began to disappear. One morning when she woke up, the mansion was gone and so was Noodles. It was as if Jennifer had stepped through the window and when she did, the mansion and Noodles had vanished. But Jennifer knew both were still