Suspend belief for a while, and excuse me if you find any errors in my recounting of actual world events. I tried my best within the time available, but admit to having bent a few facts a bit.
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Jenny was only supposed to have been gone five days!
My thirty-year old wife Jennifer, or Jenny to all and sundry, worked for a large travel company who jetted holidaymakers round the world to exotic and sometimes less so places. She'd started in their offices in London straight from University and had steadily worked her way up the management scale, her quick brain not held back by her pretty face and pert slim body, or for that matter, though she would never admit it, her penchant for short skirts that showed her long legs off. Ok, so maybe she was a bit of a tease and a flirt, but that was all part of her outgoing personality, and she never let it go too far, or get out of hand. Not exactly a feminist, and to be honest not exactly looking like the archetypical one, Jenny was however outspoken about women being able to make it in the business world. It did lead to the occasional heated discussion between us, but the making up afterwards inevitably made up for it.
It was January 2011, and Jenny was over in Egypt negotiating and renewing contracts with some of the very many tourist hotels that were there, unaware at the time of the political unrest that was about to break out and engulf the country. She'd 'done' Cairo as she described it to me when she rang me on the second day, and was pleased to be on her way to Luxor, many miles south down the Nile, and home to some of the most incredible ancient sites in the world. If you've never been to see the temples and Valley of the Kings, then you've really missed out, even though Tutankhamen's tomb is no longer easy to visit.
"I'm really looking forward to going back there Ken," she'd told me just the night previously. "The local manager has promised to find time for us to go on a short cruise on the Nile."
"Sounds romantic Jenny," I teased her. "Don't let him get too friendly."
"Ahmed is twice my age and twice your waist size," my wife laughed back. "He's a nice enough guy but not my type."
"Pleased to hear it honey," I laughed back, unaware that Ahmed wasn't the man that I should have been worrying about. Unaware for that matter, of how dramatically that trip on the Nile was about to affect both our lives.
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The uprising in Tunisia had burst on the world just before the Christmas and had been basically well accepted in the Western world, the regime of President Zine Abidine Ben Ali being seen as displaying a lack openness and fairness. Democracy became the by-word of the times, though some might think that there has been little more of that in the region despite the list of popular uprisings.
What perhaps caught some people out was quite how quickly Egypt followed in Tunisia's footsteps, and Jenny found herself in the middle of it when it did break out.
"Don't worry Ken," Jenny calmed me down when I at last managed to contact her on her mobile phone. "The problems are mainly in Cairo and it's quite calm down here. I'm drifting down the Nile with a glass of something nice and cool in my hand, and nothing could be more relaxing."
Little did we know that soon after our short conversation, her calmness would be shattered as terrorists, depending on who's side you were on of course, boarded the river cruiser shot two of the crew and took over. It's not clear exactly what happened in the confusion, or even quite sure what they were trying to achieve, but all I know is that later that evening I got a formal visit that was to change everything, and informed that my wife had been taken hostage with a dozen or so other Europeans.
The news, as you can imagine was shattering, and for several hours I simply couldn't take it in, my normally well ordered brain telling me that it was all a horrible dream and that it would soon pass if I ignored it.
But of course it didn't!
No news was better than bad news they say, but the next few days without any of it was nerve wracking, as I wondered whether I would ever see my beautiful wife again, and whether I'd ever hold that slim pliant body in my arms again. Grown men shouldn't cry they also say, but it was difficult. Damn difficult, and it wasn't made any easier when 'the man from the ministry' informed me that neither Mubarak who was still hanging onto power, or the jumble of loosely connected groups that were opposing him made statements condemning the kidnapping.
"Is that a good thing?" I asked him hopefully.
"Depends," Jones, the man from the ministry answered unhelpfully. "I couldn't say that it's a bad development though."
I hated him, but without reason of course, as he was only doing his job, and as the days turned into weeks his constant assurances that they were doing everything they could do were more than welcome, if not helpful. They found the boat abandoned a week later the crew having disappeared, no doubt as confused as to who's side they were on as most of the poor sods probably were. One body was found, a Russian tourist, though quite why he was executed was a mystery, but of the others there was no sign. Eleven poor souls on a relaxing trip down the river caught up in the political turmoil that they couldn't understand and probably had little interest in, wondering whether they'd ever see their loved ones again, much as I and the other suffering families were doing.
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When the news came through I felt physically sick, and though the media are doubtlessly only doing their job, to hear that the terrorists had been found and surrounded, on the news on the television was not what I would have chosen. But no news of the hostages or that they were even alive, the fate of the Russian uppermost in my mind as I waited impatiently for further information. Again, Jones to the rescue, with almost hourly telephone calls with the tiniest bit of news, none of it bad, but little of it encouraging.
Then the news that had been worrying me, as confused information filtered through infuriatingly slowly that 'forces', whoever they were, had attacked the energy facility that the terrorist where holed up in. People were killed and then they weren't. The hostages were freed and then they hadn't been. There'd been a blood bath, and then magically no shots had been fired.
Who knew the truth? Nobody did, as the press went into a frenzy of speculation, while clearer heads knew that they'd just have to wait and see.
Then the phone call from Jones came through; the one that I'd been praying for but dreading.
"What did you say?" I sobbed as I heard his calm voice, convinced that my ears were playing tricks with me.
"She's alive," he repeated. "The Egyptians let the terrorists go free and all the hostages were released unharmed."
Oh my God! At last I allowed myself to cry.
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The worst five weeks of my entire life and I still couldn't make sense of why any of it had happened, and all Jones had ever been able to offer was a shrug of his shoulders. One innocent Russian and at least two locals dead, eleven people put through an awful ordeal and so many families and friends sick with worry, and it was all summed up with a shrug of his shoulders. He couldn't help it, couldn't offer any more, and it all came down to world politics.
Jenny's homecoming was a surprisingly low-key affair. She was one of only three Brits in the group so there was no huge welcoming party from the press at the airport when she flew in, and was immediately whisked away for a short debriefing. It didn't take long but seemed an eternity as I waited in a private room at Heathrow, leaping to my feet as the door at last opened and faithful old Jones escorted my wife in. We stood there silently staring at one another, lost for words, fearful that we'd lose one another again, but unsure of how to approach each other.
"Take me home Ken," she said simply, and we fell into one another's arms, Jenny bursting into tears and me fighting to hold mine back.
