With the confidence that I always have in approaching the customs agents I carried my luggage and stopped at the customs counter and handed the agent my passport. More often than not when I had presented my American passport at the same counter before the agents had just glanced at the passport and asked if I had anything to declare. As usual I replied, "No" and then he asked a question I had not ever been asked before.

“Where did you come from?”, he said.

I replied, “Bahrain”.

His response was, “No, before Bahrain”.

I replied, “Athens”.

And then he said something that sent a chill up my spine, “Ah, yes” in a tone that indicated that he had been expecting my arrival. Other than one previous time when I had indicated I had something to declare, he told me to open up one of the bags. “Open the black bag”, he said. Without hesitation, because I had nothing to hide, I began to unzip the black suitcase. Before I could finish he interrupted and said, “No, not that one”. “It’s this one”, he said, pointing to my green backpack. “It’s this one” reverberated through my mind and I felt twinges of fear and anxiety and real uneasiness as I tried to understand what the meaning of his words really was. I thought, “What does he mean that ‘it’s this one‘?”

As soon as I had unzipped my backpack he instructed me to stand away. There on top were my camera and some calendars, with pictures of Mykonos, I had bought. It was immediately obvious he was looking for something as he rustled with his hand through my belongings. After what seemed like forever but was only seconds he pulled out my black toiletries bag and said, “This is it”. Immediately I understood that he really was looking for a black bag and initially he erred in asking me to open the black suitcase. It was the black toiletries bag that he wanted!

“Why? What is going on here?”, crossed my mind as my fear of something really bad increased.

The toiletries bag was rectangular and running the length of the top side along the center was a zipper. Each end folded over to allow the bag to compress or expand easily. He laid the bag on the desk and told me to open it. Nervously I did and when I did all that was there was my toothbrush and toothpaste. Normally it would have been filled with other items but in my haste to pack at the hotel and get to the airport I threw the rest into the suitcases. So I was relieved for apparently what he was looking for wasn’t there. I said, “There’s just a toothbrush and toothpaste.” Then he motioned me to stand back and said “I don’t think so.” With that he put his hand into the bag and reached under one of the folded ends and when he drew his hand out he was holding the vial that had contained the cocaine that my friend had shared with me in Athens two days earlier! Panic and shock immediately overtook me. In a split second my mind processed what my eyes had seen and I knew I was in a very difficult situation. Through my confusion I heard him ask, “What is this?” I could tell that the vial was empty except for a few grains of cocaine stuck to the inside surface so all I could think to say was “It was some medicine my doctor had prescribed but you can see I’ve finished it.” He ignored what I said and said, “Let’s have a look.” He proceeded to take off the cap, rubbed his finger along the rim of the bottle, and put his finger to his mouth.

With the words, “This is cocaine. Close your bags. Follow me and bring them with you.”, I felt an electric shock run through my body and the thought shot through my mind that I should just make a run for it but as quickly as the idea came it was replaced by the thought that that would only make things worse and I would never get away and likely be shot in the back.