Week 3 Synopsis
Episode 3 Synopsis (“Contact”):
It’s another sandy, hot night in the desert and the Pakistani policeman leading the patrol is not happy about it. He’s a city cop, blast it; he shouldn’t be out here, trying to hunt down a bunch of elusive rebels! Gosh-darn it, he’s just so fired up he’s about ready to pith anyone.
Meanwhile, a blithely unsuspecting Yugo is radioing back to Mayuki: everything’s going well, he says, and he’s on his way to meet with Ali. Reiichi’s “professional” radio works great: the Pakistani authorities pick up the transmission immediately, and although it takes them a while to figure out that the “code” they’re listening to is actually Japanese, they quickly grasp the situation and decide that Yugo is an unstable element in an already-volatile situation. Searching for the source of the transmission, the angry policeman finds the cart in which Yugo and Laila are riding. Fortunately, Yugo sees them coming and has Laila climb a luckily-placed tree with the radio equipment; the soldiers do not see her in the night and although Yugo and the cart’s driver get roughed up a little bit, the troops leave when they get bored. The driver’s had it: he’s not risking his own neck for someone idiotic enough to use a radio in a battle zone. He kicks Yugo off, but offers to take Laila to the next town; when she refuses Yugo forces her to go. Then he takes off into the desert, alone…
OK, not really alone, because there’s no way a woman as scantily-clad as Laila could actually drop out of the show. She follows Yugo through the desert, helpfully leeching his ration and spilling his water, until the two are abruptly cornered by an army helicopter. Through sheer dumb luck they escape the recon chopper and take shelter in a nearby cave—which is also an ammo dump for Ali’s rebels, two of whom are approaching at this very moment. Yugo has the mute woman hide, and then pretends to be lost. The rebels don’t buy it, and as they begin beating Yugo, Laila leaps out and attacks them. Leaving Yugo tied up they prepare to rape her. Yugo tries to fight them, and just as things look really bad for him one of them suddenly gets a throwing knife to the head. A rebel officer has showed up, and he berates the surviving soldier for being an idiot—not because of the attempted rape, or because of the whole “kill the negotiator” thing, but because he was about to fire his gun in an ammunition dump. The officer ties all three people up and leads them, blindfolded, to Ali’s camp. There Yugo and Laila watch in horror as Yusuf Ali Mesa himself shows up to execute the remaining soldier. Ali demonstrates his famous neck-twisting technique, and then declares that this is what will happen to all who oppose the will of Allah. (His troops begin chanting Ali’s name, suggesting that they are perhaps not really there to serve God.) Ali’s final words do not bode well for Yugo’s future:
“The negotiator dies at dawn!”