It’s a very significant foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration. Their citizens are in the hands of criminals and people are waiting to see what happens.
The pirates were nervous. They avoided sticking their heads up in the horizontal hatch or getting too close to the vertical ones. They didn’t want to be picked off by a sharpshooter. They knew that if they were all visible at once, the navy could take them out. The doors were open but they didn’t stand out there for a marksman to get a bead on. Damn smart of them.
But they knew the history, too. No one had tried to rescue hostages from Somali pirates. It just wasn’t done. Negotiation and ransom-paying was the order of the day. At that point, no military had attacked pirates operating out of Somalia. And they clearly didn’t want to be the first.
The Leader frequently got on the radio: “No military action, no military action.” Whenever things got tight, he practically chanted it at the navy.
The engine was running constantly. And the pirates were tensed up, as if they were expecting something. I wanted to ask them, What do you guys know that I don’t? But that wasn’t possible. The only times they spoke to me were to call me a “stupid American” or to order me around. The arrival of the Bainbridge had clearly altered how the pirates saw me. In their eyes, a rescue attempt had to be imminent, and so I now represented not only a payday but a very real threat to their lives.
The navy demanded to speak to me on the radio. The Leader handed it to me.
“Are they treating you okay?” came an American voice.
“Well, they’re acting pretty strange but they’re taking care of me,” I said.
“Okay, good. Let me talk to the Leader.”
The hair on the back of my neck rose up. It was almost like he knew the pirates.
Later that night, I was sitting there, and the Leader started dry-firing the pistol. And then the chanting began. The electric charge in the boat changed. It was in their posture, in the way they looked at me. I think I’m able to read people pretty accurately—it’s something you have to learn as a captain, when you’re giving assignments to guys who have your life in their hands, so my sixth sense is pretty well honed. Something evil came on the boat that night.
The Leader was chanting. He gave the pistol to Tall Guy, said, “You do it,” and whispered something to him in Somali. The others were answering, either with one word or with memorized stanzas that they chanted back together. The three pirates got up and approached me. Musso came back and held the ropes around my wrists, while Young Guy positioned himself at my legs. Tall Guy was behind me with the gun.
“Stretch out your arms and your legs,” Musso said.
I shook my head.
“Do it!”
Musso grabbed my wrists and Young Guy began pulling on my legs.
I was fighting them. “You’ll never do it,” I said to Musso through my teeth. “You’re not strong enough.” This went on for about fifteen minutes—taking a break, then grabbing my hands. Or trying to make me laugh so they could catch me off guard.
They rested. Musso looked at me like he was genuinely puzzled.
“What’s your tribe?” he said.
“What? What do you mean, ‘my tribe’?”
He laughed, like How could someone not know what his tribe was?
“Your tribe, your people.”
I was still half-gasping for breath. Now you want to chat? But anything to keep his mind off murder.
“I told you I’m an American.”
He shook his head.
“No, that’s your nationality. What’s your tribe?”
“I’m Irish.”
“Ah, Irish,” he said.
He shook his head.
“Irish, you trouble. You a pain in the ass, Irish.”
I nodded. “You got that right.”
He nodded. Then something changed in his eyes and he jerked up on the rope. I gasped, pulling my hands back down.
All of a sudden, BOOOOM. There was a white flash of stars in my eyes and my head drooped forward.
I thought I was dead. But I wasn’t. Blood was trickling down my hands and onto the rope. Musso flinched.
“Don’t do it!” he screamed.
Tall Guy emerged from behind me, the gun in his hand. His shoulders were slumping and his head was down. His whole body expressed total dejection. As Musso cursed me, Tall Guy went to the front of the lifeboat and just collapsed.
What just happened? I thought. Did he shoot and miss? Or did he just whack me with the butt of the gun? I couldn’t figure it out. The sensation was so much more powerful than the taps he’d been giving me before. He had to have fired.
The Leader spoke up. “No action, no action. In three hours we will untie you.”
I was happy to be alive. But I was pissed, too.
“What did you do?” I yelled up to the Leader.
“Shut up,” he said.
“You tried to kill me?”
The Leader turned his head and spat.
“Shut up.”
“Oh, you mean, ‘Please be quiet, Captain.’”
I heard Musso snicker at that. Even the Leader cracked a smile. That was the first and last I’d get out of him.
“You trouble, Irish,” said Musso. “Yeah. You a problem.”
I didn’t know if they’d tried to kill me or if it was a mock execution. If it was a mind game, it’d been pretty damn convincing. My head was still ringing and the blood was still trickling down my face. But why bluff with me when I had no control over the ransom? And why was Tall Guy looking like he’d failed at something very important? It didn’t make sense.
I decided I had to get ready in case they tried again.
I started to stay my good-byes to my family. I called up Andrea’s face in my mind and I spoke to her like we were sitting at the dining room table at our farmhouse in Vermont. I could see everything—the view of the yard through the dining room window, which runs to a field of tall grass and then backs up to a hill covered with pine.
I said, “Ange, I’m sorry for the call you’re going to get. The one that wakes you up at four in the morning and you already know what they’re going to tell you before they say a word.” I saw her answering the phone, afraid, and tears came to my eyes. I wanted to spare her that pain but I couldn’t. I said, “I love you. I know you’ll cry for a few days but you’ll be all right.” I knew Andrea was a strong person, and I thought, She’ll be okay. Maybe in a month or three months, she’ll be over the worst of it.
Then I thought of Mariah. She is like her mother, emotional as an Italian opera but, deep down, independent and strong. “Be yourself,” I said to her. “Stay strong, because I’ll always love you.” I knew she’d cry a lot longer, and be deeply affected by it, but eventually she’d come through.
I came to Dan. This was where I almost lost it completely. Dan is a lot like I was at his age, tough on the outside but still searching. He hides his pain. He’s not as open as his mother or his sister. And I heard his voice saying, “Oh, I don’t have a dad, my father’s never home. He’s always at sea. He doesn’t love me.” That just went through me like a sharp knife. Because I knew he said it to cover up the pain of my not being there. I worried about Dan more than anyone else.