About noon on Wednesday, the media got hold of my name. Suddenly, local news crews started rolling up to our farmhouse and into our driveway. Andrea’s sister, being a true Vermonter, invited them in for coffee. By early afternoon, they had a full house of local reporters and cameramen sitting on our couch and nibbling on cookies, watching Andrea watch the news. Shane Murphy’s father was still calling his son the captain of the Maersk Alabama—which was technically correct, as the chief mate takes over when the captain leaves the boat—but it made Andrea feel like I’d been forgotten. There was still no mention of me on the national networks.
At this point, Andrea was thinking, This is the scenario. A ship got hijacked. They’ll demand ransom. The company will hold out for a little while. Then they’ll pay the ransom. The crew will get set free and everybody will happy and safe. A couple of merchant mariners who knew me called and said, “Andrea, you know the pirates’ MO. They have a business plan. They just want the money. They don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“I know, I know,” Andrea said.
“Knowing Rich, he’s probably on the lifeboat telling bad jokes. And he’s going to come home with a great story.”
And that’s what Andrea prayed for: just a normal, everyday hijacking. She didn’t want heroics.
Our daughter, Mariah, called back. “Mom, what happened to Dad?” Andrea told her what she knew, managing to keep her composure. That set the tone for the kids. Mariah was strong—deeply worried but not hysterical. “I want to come home,” she said. Andrea tried to convince her to stay, but Mariah was adamant. Dan called, too. Andrea gave him the choice to stay or come back and he chose to stay for the last couple days of exams week. “I want to finish,” he said. “Oh, Mom, I just studied so hard for these things and I know Dad would tell me to stay. He’d say, ‘Stay and finish the job.’”
“You’re right, he would,” she said.
They were right. Do you know how much I paid for that college? Dan stayed to finish his work. By holding it together, Andrea was hoping the kids would be able to handle the news.
When she knew our kids were okay, Andrea went right back to watching TV, flipping channels between all the major news networks. They were her only lifeline to what was happening thousands of miles away. No special arrangements had been made to keep her or the other families informed of unfolding events.
One thing did help her through that first day, she told me later. I never say good-bye when I leave for a job. I hate hellos and good-byes and want to hear only what Andrea calls “the plain living part” in between. So I always say, “I’ll see you later” or “I’ll be back.” One of the two.
That helped sustain Andrea. “He told me, ‘I’ll be back,’” she kept telling herself. “And I believe him.”
She went to bed having no idea what awaited her in the next few days.
I pulled up forward on the port side where the pilot ladder was. Four or five crew members were standing at the top of the ladder. I could see them through one of the lifeboat’s windows. The visibility was much more constricted than on the open MOB—you had to duck and weave to get a view of what you wanted through the foot-long windows.
“Okay, we’re ready for the exchange,” I said to Shane. “Look, make sure you start the Leader going down as we pull up. I don’t want these guys hopping up on the ladder and retaking the ship. Got it?”
“Roger,” said Shane.
“I’m coming in with the lifeboat,” I said. I saw two crew men escorting the Leader along the deck. He had a white rag around his hand.
“Let him come down and when I get a chance I’ll come back up,” I said. We came alongside, bumped up along the Maersk Alabama. The end of the ladder was about four feet above the canopy of the lifeboat. I saw him descending and then he jumped the last bit and I felt the lifeboat rock.
“Pirate aboard,” I radioed. The Leader came back to me. His hand was obviously hurting him, but he seemed to be in good spirits.
I was grinning, too. I’d done my duty as a captain. Now all I had to do was save myself. If I saw a chance, I could take it. The oldest instinct—survival—kicked in.
“Show me how to run the boat,” the Leader said.
I did. I killed the engine and restarted it a couple of times. I showed him how to steer it, start it, where the compass was. He had a course he wanted to steer—340 degrees—and I showed him how to do that. Then I stepped down and let him up into the con—that is, the conning station, which is elevated above the rows of seats. He took the wheel and turned it away from the Maersk Alabama and pushed the speed up.
“What about the deal?” I said, shocked.
“No deal,” the Leader said.
My mistake number three: Don’t make deals with pirates. We should have never made the exchange.
I wasn’t surprised by the double-cross. I still felt I was ahead of the game. I’d solved three of my four problems: my crew, ship, and cargo were safe. And I was depending on my luck and my tenacity to save myself.
The Somalis pushed me toward the front end of the boat. I spotted the hatch up there and I thought of trying to bust out through it and jump overboard. But it was a horizontal hatch door. I’d have had to pull myself up four feet and then dive into the water. I would probably have had a few slugs from one of the AK-47s in my back by then, so I abandoned the idea.
“We’re taking off,” I said into the radio. “No exchange.”
The Leader was getting the hang of steering, sweeping one way and then the other. Once he got a feel for it, he set off in a straight line. Next stop, Somalia, I thought. I knew that’s where the pirates would take me. That was their MO. That’s where they would negotiate the price for my head. That’s where their backers and their reinforcements were.
It was getting close to dusk. In the tropics, the twilight is extended because you’re so close to the equator. And the moon was nearly full. We could still see the Maersk Alabama not too far away. Its running lights were lit and smoke was pumping from its stack, a wake churning behind it.
The pirates looked back in amazement as if to say, Wow, the ship’s running. Imagine that. There it was, the ship that was broken beyond repair, working perfectly. There was the missing crew running back and forth doing their jobs. The pirates were incredulous.
I was just about to key the radio and tell the ship to watch out for other pirate boats when I heard Mike on it, saying, “Make sure no other small boats are coming at us from astern.” I nodded. I knew the ship was in good hands.
I was damned glad to see they were under way. We were still in bandit country, and there was nothing to prevent another pirate team from appearing out of nowhere and taking the Maersk Alabama. If the ship was dead in the water, the crew would have no chance.
The ship turned its bow toward us, and the smiles disappeared from the Somalis’ faces. The Maersk Alabama was coming at us fast, and from that angle it looked like the Queen Mary. I wasn’t worried. I knew if the ship rammed us, the life-boat would just punch under the water’s surface and then bounce back up. I didn’t inform the Somalis of this amazing feature of the modern lifeboat, however.
“That chief mate is going to run us over,” the Leader said.
“Damn right,” I said. “He wants my job. He’s been after it ever since we left Salalah.”