“Hey, navy man,” he shouted. “American seaman, you want a beer? Come on, we have beer for you.”
They laughed uproariously. The Somalis were convinced that beer was utterly irresistible to American sailors. They weren’t wrong, come to think of it.
The lifeboat was constantly rocking up and down with the swells. It was hard to get a fix on anything outside of it. But suddenly the Bainbridge loomed into view out the aft hatch. I caught a quick glimpse of a sailor on a bow gun, a big .50-caliber monster. Next to him was a photographer shooting pictures, the lens of his camera pointed directly at me.
“Thanks a lot, guys,” I said, waving to them. “Why don’t you use that gun instead of that camera.” Later, as one of the Zodiacs full of navy corpsmen passed by on one of their checks, I yelled out, “Take these fuckers out.”
We were drifting, the engine turned off.
My head was hurting. What seemed so simple—a kidnapping for money—had turned weird. Yemen, suicide attacks, fatwas, Fatah, souls exchanging places. I had to fight to keep my mind right.
The real obstacle wasn’t the Somalis, I told myself. It was fear. Every time I pushed through it, I found that I could persevere. This isn’t over until you say it’s over, I said to myself. I’m not going to give up. I will outlast these guys.
I looked out and saw the Bainbridge had been joined by two other navy ships, the USS Boxer and the USS Arleigh Burke. They were all coming broadside, perpendicular to us. It looked like they were maneuvering into a line. Now that is something ships do only when they’re getting ready to lay out their anchors. Which you normally do only in port. Where am I? I thought. Are we near land? Maybe they were trying to hide something on the other side. A strike force.
Nothing was as it seemed. But at least I could see the ships. Those things are real. Those ships exist. They are my countrymen. That is true.
The mind games started again.
“There are no pirates,” the Leader said. “That’s all make-believe. I’ve been down to your ship. We’ve met before in Mombasa!”
I chuckled.
“I think I’d remember you.”
“I’m not even from Somalia,” he continued. “I live in Mombasa, in Kenya.”
“Yeah, I know it,” I said.
“Us three live in Mombasa,” he said. The Leader pointed at Tall Guy. “And he lives in New York City.”
“Really? What part?”
“Over near Times Square,” the Leader said before Tall Guy could say anything.
“He must be rich. It’s very expensive.”
I was playing with them as they played with me.
“Yes, we work security. Very good money.”
“But you nearly shot me when you took the ship! One of your bullets hit the ship six inches from my head. And when I tried to get away from the lifeboat, you were trying to shoot me.”
The Leader shrugged, as if to say, All part of the drill, my friend.
They even tried their mind-blowing routine on the navy.
“We need a body bag,” the Leader shouted into the radio. “Body bag now.”
“Why do you need a body bag? Over.” It was the navy.
“We had to kill a woman here. She was not halal. She went against the preaching.”
Pause.
“Okay, we will throw over a body bag.”
I thought I was hallucinating again.
“Put the body in the body bag and we will pick it up. Over.”
I’d had enough. “This is Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama!” I yelled.
The Leader put the radio down.
“Crazy navy guys,” he said. “I’ve been working with them for years.”
I ignored him.
“This guy is an idiot. This lieutenant commander. I’m going to kill him, he’s such an idiot.”
“That seems to be your solution to everything,” I said.
He nodded.
“The Leader,” said Tall Guy. “He would love to get a woman to kill.”
Were they trying to impress me, the sensitive American, with how bloodthirsty they were? All they were doing was increasing my disgust.
“I can’t help him with that,” I said.
Around sunset, the pirates resumed the death ritual. The Leader began to chant, the others answered him, and Musso came over to complete the knots on my ropes. They stopped offering me food or water, which is what they’d done before the last time they strung me up. Any time they were getting ready to have a go at me, they cut off my rations.
My gut clenched up.
They began with the halal crap: You can’t touch this rope, don’t touch your mouth, you must stand up, you must stand on the orange exposure suit. I was hopping around trying not to stand on the orange suit and Musso, as usual, was getting fed up with me.
“Just stand on the orange!” he shouted. “You are crazy one.”
He pulled on my hands, trying to stretch my arms out.
“Be a man!” he cried. “Military posture! Military posture! Sit up!”
I was sitting on the edge of the inboard seat. They were shining a flashlight from behind me so I could see a silhouette of my head on the far bulkhead. Tall Guy kicked my legs, trying to get my feet on the orange exposure suit. And every time the boat rolled to starboard, I heard the click of the gun, timed to the rocking of the ship.
I was scared to death. I was hiding it pretty well but it takes only one time for that click to become a boom and you’re dead. I felt a rush of emotion and then a surge of strength, a totally primeval desire for more life. Nothing else, not food, not friends, nothing else. Just ten more minutes of life.
Saturday was the hardest day for Andrea, as well. From what the State Department had told her, she’d expected to hear some big news on Friday. She’d geared herself up for that call. But it never came. That hit her hard, she told me later. She couldn’t even eat. When Paige and Amber tried to make her oatmeal, she joked about being on “the hostage diet.” There was more food than she’d ever seen in our house but she couldn’t swallow a bite of it.
Our son, Dan, came home Saturday and Andrea wanted him and Mariah to keep their lives as normal as possible. Andrea was amazed by how strong the kids were. Surrounded by their friends, they kept up a brave front, without tears or hysterics. She told me a story about Dan that made me smile: Andrea was sitting on the couch early in the evening when my son, in his very Irish way, came and put his head on her shoulder. That’s just something he does. It’s his trademark.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think Dad’s going to be okay?”
“Yes, Dan, I do.”
He jumped up. “Good, I’m going to Luke’s.” Luke is a friend who lives down the road.
Andrea just laughed. “Of course, Dan. Go ahead.”
Off he went.
But that was about her only moment of relief the whole day. Andrea was getting bulletins all Saturday: “The pirates want money and they want to go to land.” Those were their two main demands. And she would say, “Can’t you just give them those two things and get my husband back?” And the officials would say, “Well that’s what we’re working on. Because the fear is, if they get him on land, we may never find him.” Andrea wanted to know if the company was going to pay up and, if the ransom was available, why not just hand it over right away? But she couldn’t get an answer to that—things were too chaotic.
Andrea didn’t care about the firepower or the money or the political message we were sending by negotiating with pirates. She just wanted me back. But it didn’t seem to be happening. And people kept sending her e-mails about previous hostage situations in which the hostages always got killed. That’s what the subject line on the e-mails said: “6 Hostages Killed in Bloody Shootout,” “Grim End for Hostages as Kidnappers Open Fire.” And Andrea was like, “Do you not realize what you’re sending me?” She finally sent back an e-maiclass="underline" “Happy thoughts only, please.”