“Four on the bridge,” I said. “No mother ship yet.” I rattled off the Somalis’ positions on the bridge again and their weapons.
“Cap,” someone said. I looked over. Colin was motioning to me.
I walked over to him. He was sweating and his face was pasty, from the heat or nerves I couldn’t tell.
“Cap, just give them the money,” he said.
I looked around. I hoped the pirates hadn’t heard.
Every captain carries cash in his safe, for supplies and for emergencies. I had $30,000 stowed in mine, in large and small denominations.
“Colin, they’re going to want more than thirty grand.”
“Just give it to ’em,” he said.
I wanted to keep him calm. After his questions about being taken hostage earlier in the trip, I didn’t want Colin freaking out. We were all scared, but it was crucial we didn’t show it. Fear meant weakness, and weakness meant sloppy thinking. We couldn’t afford that.
“It’s an option,” I said. “We’ve already given them cigarettes. We’ll hold the money in reserve in case we need it.” I couldn’t care less about the money, but I wanted to slow things down and give myself a chance to strategize.
“I think you should just hand it over,” he said.
I walked away.
The Leader went over to the VHF radio, very high frequency, which basically lets you talk to anyone from horizon to horizon, a range of fifteen to twenty miles. It had originally been set to Channel 16, which is the international hailing and distress frequency. Everyone monitored that channel—it’s how you call other ships and report an accident onboard. But I’d flicked it to Channel 72 when no one was looking. Nobody ever monitored 72. The Leader might as well try calling the moon.
He rattled off a hailing call in Somali. He had to be trying to raise the mother ship. But he was getting no answer.
I watched the Leader. I knew I had to monitor his mood very closely. All the other pirates were taking their cues from him: when he got angry, they got angry. When he was cool, they were cool. He was like the detonator wires on a bomb. I’d have to watch him very carefully.
I was beginning to wonder just how far I could push the Leader. I wanted to get inside his head. What would he want to do next? How could I get there before he did?
But it’s a fine line between deceiving your captors and getting a bullet in the forehead.
TEN
Day 1, 0900 Hours
“We are like hungry wolves running after meat.”
The bridge was getting steamy. The temperature on the water in the Gulf of Aden can reach 100 and above. I knew we were going to get dehydrated quickly in that glass cage. The pirates had the bridge door, which was usually left open to let in a breeze, shut tight.
“Where are the crew?” the Leader asked again.
“I have no idea where they are, I’m here with—”
“Bring up crew NOW!” he screamed. “You have two minutes. If not, these guys are going to kill you.”
Suddenly the two pirates at the wings rushed in and raised their AK-47s and pointed them over the console at ATM and Colin cowering on the floor. They jabbed the barrels down toward their faces, screaming.
“You want to die?!” they shouted. “Two minutes, we kill you.”
“Calm down, calm down,” I said. “I’m doing my best.”
“Now minute thirty,” Tall Guy yelled, his eyes bulging. He pointed the gun at my belly.
“They’re serious,” the Leader said. “I told you this. Bad guys, bad guys.”
I got back on the PA system. “All crew, all crew,” I called. “Report to bridge immediately. Pirates want you on bridge now.”
The Leader looked at me, his eyes cold.
“Can you do something with these guys?” I said. “Before someone gets shot?”
He just looked at me and shrugged.
“I’m just a poor Somali,” he said. “But I tell you this. You better get somebody up here right now.”
“One minute!” said Tall Guy. “We kill everyone.”
I gestured with my hands, Easy, easy. My heart was racing, my hands felt like they were covered with porcupine quills. Was I going to watch my two crewmen die? If they shot one, I knew, they would go through the ship and shoot us all.
“Pirates threatening to shoot us,” I called on the PA and radio. “They want people on the bridge now.”
“Thirty seconds!” Musso shouted. “YOU HEAR ME? Thirty seconds and you die.”
Tall Guy and Musso rushed toward Colin and ATM and jabbed their AKs violently down, as if they were daggers and they were going to impale my crewmen. The look on Colin’s and ATM’s faces was pure terror. The Leader ran over and put his hands on Tall Guy’s chest and pushed him back.
“Dangerous pirates,” he said to me. “Bring someone now!”
“What else can I do?” I yelled at the Leader.
He shrugged his shoulders.
I keyed the radio. “If you don’t hear from us in one minute, we’ll be gone. You’ll get no quarter from them.” I wanted the crew to know they’d have to kill these guys if the shooting started. There would be no other way out of this. No surrender.
“Bring the crew up now,” the Leader said. “Bring them up to the bridge now or we’ll blow the ship up.”
I stared at him. Did he just say “blow the ship up?”
“Yes, we have a bomb. We will blow up the ship in thirty seconds.”
I didn’t believe them. I’d seen the bucket come up and there was nothing that looked like explosives in it. I began to sense they were bluffing for a quick end to the crew’s standoff.
Young Guy, watching me from the bridge wing, smiled at me. There was something odd in his face, as if he were enjoying what the Somalis were putting us through. As if he were watching this all on TV.
The deadline passed. I took a deep breath. It was our first hurdle—they weren’t willing to kill us just yet.
I was running around shutting off the alarms, which kept tripping and restarting. I would occasionally key my radio and send off a quick update on what was happening on the bridge. Or I would strategize.
I had an idea where the crew was—the aft steering—but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe there were guys still sleeping, maybe wandering the hallways. They were keeping their positions secret, so that the pirates wouldn’t storm down and take them hostage. Later I found out that at that moment, Shane was up in the forward crane, spying on us. And the chief engineer was walking around the ship. The other guys were in after steering, the backup safe room we’d discussed during the drill when the chief engineer brought up the idea of having one. I knew they must be suffering down there; it would be 100 degrees or above. And there were guys in their sixties and seventies on the crew. If I left them there too long, hyperthermia—heat stress—would set in. They would get dehydrated, then the symptoms would hit them: confusion, hostility, intense headache, reddening skin, dropping blood pressure. Then chills and convulsions as the condition progressed. And, finally, coma.
There were really three clocks ticking on us: how long before the arrival of the mother ship; how long before my crew was affected by heat stroke; and how long before the cavalry arrived. I tried to calculate all three in my head at once.
But I knew I had to get the pirates off the ship as soon as possible.
The minutes clicked by.