I was caught in a bind, though. I wanted to make enough noise so that the navy would see me and put the Bainbridge between me and the Somalis, or just take them out. I knew they’d be on heightened alert. I knew there was some sailor watching the lifeboat through high-powered binoculars or a rifle scope and I wanted them to be able to see it was me in the water and not one of the pirates. But if I made too much noise, the Somalis would run me down.
I was gasping for breath as I swam. I was not in the best cardio shape. I could feel my heart pumping and I thought, Jesus, just let me make it to the ship.
I turned and looked back. The moonlight lay across the ocean like a white tablecloth and I could see the pirates as clear as day. They were headed straight toward me, with Tall Guy clinging to the side—they hadn’t even bothered to pull him in. I didn’t know if they’d spotted me or if they just assumed I’d be swimming toward the navy ship, but they were fifty feet away and closing fast.
I sucked in a breath and dove again, hearing the lifeboat approaching. Five feet down, paddling upward to keep from surfacing, I saw the wake of the boat above me, ghostly white. The pirates passed directly above my head, and then turned and did a full circle.
The lifeboat stopped and the pirates killed the engine. They were right above me. They must have spotted me, I thought. No way they got that lucky.
I started to drift up slowly. I surfaced near the stern of the lifeboat. I reached up and touched the side, then dove right back down. But there was nowhere to go. If I swam away, I’d surface and they’d be able to spot me in a second. I swam back toward the lifeboat and came up by the bow this time. I grabbed hold of the edge of the boat and just hung on for dear life, hoping the pirates wouldn’t see me. I hung there for thirty seconds and I could hear them running and screaming around the boat. I was in the shadow of the boat itself. To see me, they’d have to lean out and catch sight of me below.
The lifeboat was rocking in the swell, and I had to hold on hard to avoid losing it and floating free. The Somalis started up the engine and began going around in slow circles. I grabbed the engine cooling pipes that come under the boat’s keel and I held on to them as I moved along with the lifeboat.
The pirates stopped the boat and I came up on the other side of the bow. I heard footsteps and immediately dove back down into the water, swam under the hull, and came up on the other side. From playing hide-and-seek on the five-hundred-foot Maersk Alabama, I was now doing the same thing under a twenty-five-foot boat. I could feel my chances slipping away.
I’d lost any hope of getting to the navy ship. I had no idea if they were steaming right at us under full power, or if they were still sitting dead in the water, but I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I made my way up to the forward port side. The pirates were running around the exterior of the boat, shouting at one another as they peered into the water.
I heard footsteps coming toward me and dove to the other side of the boat, my hands going one over the other on the cooling pipe. I dove down, pulled myself along the pipe, and came up midship on the starboard side. As I surfaced, I came face-to-face with Tall Guy. He screamed.
My heart stopped. I lunged at him, grabbing his neck and trying to force his head under the water. He was holding on with both hands to the safety rope that was tied to the boat and he had it in a death grip. I shoved his head under the water and his scream turned to a burble of air. He gasped and came up, his eyes and teeth bright white in the darkness. He kept screaming in Somali, spit and water flying out of his mouth. I was going to try to drown him but he had that safety rope so tight I couldn’t get him down in the water. He was unexpectedly strong. There was a rush of footsteps toward the starboard side. I could tell the other pirates were running toward us, their feet drumming on the fiberglass.
I let go of Tall Guy’s neck and dove back down. The bastards knew I was under the boat. Will they shoot through the deck? I thought. They were fucking cowboys with those guns and I wouldn’t have put it past them.
Now I was like a rat caught in a tiny room. I had nowhere to go. I came up on the other side but I saw a shadow and heard voices coming close to me. I took a ragged breath and slipped under the water again. When I came up on the other side, I saw a pirate right above me with the muzzle of an AK-47 a foot in front of my head. It jerked up and fired two shots—BOOM BOOM—that slapped into the water just above my head.
“Okay,” I cried out. “You got me. You got me.”
The pirates kept the gun on me while they screamed, “We kill you! We kill you!” They pulled Tall Guy into the boat through the hatch and then they came for me. They were helping me into the boat at the same time they were beating me. They were so out of their minds with rage that they couldn’t even wait until I’d collapsed into the lifeboat before they started whacking me with their fists and the butt of the 9 mm. As I raised my arms over my head, they whaled away at me.
After about a minute of kicking and punching, they brought me over the side of the boat and tied me to a horizontal bar on the canopy. Musso did the knots and he trussed me up good. I was on my knees and he took my hands and tied them to the bar and then pulled my arms up until my shoulders creaked. He tied my feet to the base of the seat in front of me.
And then they really went to work on me.
If I’d been captured by some burly guys, I’d probably still be getting plastic surgery, because the Somalis wanted to tear me apart. They were spitting mad, stomping on the deck, spittle flying as they abused me. But they were thin guys and they didn’t have a huge amount of power behind their blows. Honestly, my sister Patty hits harder. I could feel my face and my ribs getting bruised up but I knew I could survive that. What really worried me was the gun. Young Guy was whacking me with it in the knee and every time he did, the muzzle would pass by my torso. He’s trying to beat me, I thought, but he’s going to shoot me instead.
“We kill you now! Kill you!” They were like angry bees.
They didn’t let up. One would take a break and pace up and down the boat and then come up and start slapping and kicking me again. But there wasn’t room enough for all four of them to get a shot at me. So they’d take turns.
Finally they wore themselves out pounding on me. They were gasping for breath and so was I. And I was back in that oven. That hurt almost as much as the beating.
“I’m losing sensation in my hands,” I yelled at them. “You have to loosen the knots.” I felt like the rope was going to sever my hands. The pain was excruciating, like pins and needles multiplied a thousand times.
Musso came over, untied the knots, and retied them looser.
They stopped beating me.
The Leader screamed at his guys in Somali, but I could tell what he was saying from his gestures: “There will be two guys on him always. And one by the door. Always.” From this point on, the guns were always on me, a few feet away, pointed at my torso.
That was the end of any joviality on their part. I’d killed the jolly mood but good. The mask had been torn off. They were shocked that I’d tried to escape. I wasn’t playing by the rules and I’m sure they felt I was endangering them by trying to save myself.
Their attitudes toward me changed completely in that instant. I’d been their hostage before, but I’d been a human being. I’d joked with Musso and Tall Guy and I’d even had some fun with Young Guy. Now that was broken. They looked at me like I was an animal, a thing.