'We Have Your Husband'
Anguish Continues For Family of Man Kidnapped in Iraq
A sign outside the KarMel Coffee House exhorts people in LaPorte, Ind., to continue their vigil for Jeff Ake, who was kidnapped in 2005. But Liliana Ake said she is afraid her husband is gradually being forgotten as the wait drags on.
(By Andrea Bruce -- The Washington Post)
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Wednesday, June 7, 2006
LaPORTE, Ind. -- A sign stands outside the KarMel Coffee House.
NEW HOURS
7 AM--5 PM
M-F
TUNA SALAD
$4.25
PRAY FOR
JEFF AKE
Jeffrey J. Ake is 48 now, if he is alive. He is also a husband and son and the father of four children who miss him terribly. He is a storyteller, a Rotarian and a small-business owner who thrived in distant capitals.
He traveled to Iraq, tools in hand, on a private contract to repair machines at a water-bottling plant. Early one morning in April 2005, the telephone rang at a lakeside rambler in LaPorte, 80 miles east of Chicago. An Iraqi man, talking fast in poor English, told Liliana Ake, "We have your husband."
Fourteen months later, nothing is known about his whereabouts, while his family waits and neighbors wonder what to expect after so much silence. No American has been held captive longer in Iraq and come out alive.
Many other kidnappings in Iraq carried political motivations, but the Iraqi man who called LaPorte demanded only money. He said he wanted $1 million and he wanted it the very next day, in Baghdad.
