A Captain's Duty

by Richard Phillips

  But who were these Somali men talking to my kidnappers?

  My first thought was The Somalis have sent reinforcements. That was a common tactic among pirates. They would call for fresh troops and boats would come out and relieve the original bandits. But how would they sneak a skiff past the navy and come right up to the lifeboat? I couldn’t believe that had happened. The Bainbridge would intercept anyone trying to approach our vessel, of that I was sure.

  Then it had to be the navy’s Somali interpreter. But why were they talking about fatwas and Yemen? I thought again of the Leader’s claim that he knew the navy guys, and it sure sounded like he was familiar with these two. The tone of their voices was intimate, as if they’d known one another for years. The guys on the outside of the boat were pleading with the Somalis, trying to get them to see reason. But the pirates were having none of it.

  The debate raged on. I could tell from their posture and inflection that Musso and Tall Guy were gung ho. I got the feeling that they didn’t want to give up for anything, that they wanted to fight to the death. Young Guy was just nodding, with an attitude that seemed to say, Whatever you guys decide, count me in. But he didn’t seem to have an opinion of his own.

  The Leader was conflicted. Of all of them, I think he had the best sense of how much danger they were in.

  I could see it was a desperate time. They talked about death; in English they would say “death.” And they would say “family.” And “fatwa” again. And then, “Oh fuck.”

  I kept quiet. It seemed the interpreters were trying to negotiate for my release. When they left, I could hear them walk along the deck and get into a boat. I heard the engine start and then fade into the distance.

  I knew that no compromise had been reached. It had been a tense debate and when the negotiators left, the mood on the lifeboat was even more tense, more expectant. Something is going down, I thought.

  Later, the navy swore to me that none of their personnel had ever been on that lifeboat. But I wasn’t dreaming. There had been an attempt to reason with the pirates and it had failed.

  The sun came up. I’d been on the boat for two days and three nights. The heat began to rise. The pirates were down to their underwear.

  That morning, they began by discussing—mainly in English, I’m sure for my benefit—when they should kill me. They went to get the Leader, who was dozing in the aft end of the boat. I could see his thin legs on the floor. But they couldn’t wake the guy up. No matter how many times they prodded him, he kept snoring away. Finally, they gave up, saying, “Oh, we’ll kill him later.”

  Man, I thought, they can’t even wake the guy up to execute me.

  Time passed slowly. I was tensed up, waiting for the next try at a ceremonial killing. The episode with the negotiators—at least I thought they were negotiators—was lingering in my brain.

  I heard helicopters approaching, that whap whap whap of the rotor blades. I could feel them settle above us, because the wash from their propellers buffeted the lifeboat. Spray flew into the lifeboat through the windows. I thought, Wow, they must be close, to kick up this much water. But later I learned it was the Bainbridge’s hoses—they’d pulled up right next to us and were spraying us, trying to keep us from heading toward the coast of Somalia. I didn’t care what the reason was. It was so refreshing, like being in a sprinkler on the hottest day of the year. I was like, Oh, don’t leave. This is heaven.

  The Leader got up. He was very nervous. “No action, no action,” the Leader was calling into the radio. “No military action, no military action.”

  I looked out the aft window and saw a helicopter skid hovering there. It was surreal. It was maybe ten feet away and if I could have jumped and caught it, I would have been free.

  “Okay, we’re going to kill the hostage now.”

  I looked over at the Leader. He was on the radio. His face was taut.

  The helicopters flew off. I could hear the noise of the rotors receding. I didn’t really expect Navy SEALs to rappel down and take the ship. That would have been suicide for them and for me. I just missed the spray, and so did the pirates. It died off as the helicopters left.

  The pirates started with the bullshit again.

  “There are no pirates in Somalia,” Tall Guy said. “That’s just media. We were hired by the navy and your company’s security officer and your chief mate and engineer knew about it.”

  Tall Guy even told me the pirates were bidding on a navy contract to do Raycon work—operating what is essentially an electronic lighthouse off Somalia. He asked me to sign up. “Sure,” I joked, “I’ll work six months with you in the Gulf of Aden.”

  As much as I knew it wasn’t true, there was that tiny sliver that wanted to believe. I thought, Maybe this heat is causing me to hallucinate. Maybe this is a drill.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “The night before you came, there was someone on our radio saying ‘Somali pirate, Somali pirate.’ Was that you?”

  The Leader nodded.

  “Yeah. That was me.”

  “Somali pirate, Somali pirate, we are coming to get you,” he said, and it was the voice from the radio. He laughed, and the other pirates joined in.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “I love to see the ship speed up and run away. You guys scare so easy!”

  “So you do this all the time?”

  “Yeah, all the time. The ship goes into maneuvers, the hoses come on, the lights come on. We watch and laugh about it.”

  The other pirates found this hilarious.

  “So how much is the ransom you’re asking for?” I asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I have no idea. But the Americans won’t pay anything for me. Not a dime. You should know that. You’re going to die on this boat with me. Unless you let me go.”

  The Leader stared at me for what must have been a full minute.

  “Not true. Americans pay the most.”

  I shook my head. “They won’t pay you, but they will let you go. Americans are stupid. We keep our word, unlike you guys. We’ll let you go. If you release me, we’ll even let you keep the boat.”

  The Leader just laughed at me.

  “How much you worth, Phillips? Two million?” He literally spat. “I would as soon kill you for two million. That’s not even worth my time.”

  “That’s nothing? You stole my crew member’s shoes!”

  He shook his head.

  “I hijacked a Greek ship. I killed the captain, because they only offered me two million.”

  The Leader started giving me his whole pirating history. “I took a Lauritzen,” he said. Lauritzen is a French shipping company that specializes in refrigerated cargo. The Leader swore up and down that he’d hijacked one of their ships not too long ago. “I took six million off that.”

  “Six million?” I said. “So what are you still doing here?”

  I laughed in his face. But he went back into his spiel about going to work on a Greek ship as an AB. He was trying to confuse me, I knew, trying to make me think he was legit so the next time an opening came up, I’d hesitate.

  I looked out one of the hatches and saw an inflatable zooming by. It looked like a Zodiac with a few men inside. I thought, We must be near land.

  “I see him,” said Tall Guy. “Who is this guy?”

  “I am going to lure him onto the boat,” the Leader said. “And then we will kill him.”

  “Yes, that would be good,” Musso said. “Get as many people here and kill them all.”

  I heard more outboards, zooming this way and that around us. Musso ran over to one of the hatches with the glass broken out.

  “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-mail: “Happy thoughts only, please.”

  Andrea asked the State Department if they could get a message to me. They said they would try. So she wrote something out quickly. Someone in the U.S. government must be convinced that my wife is a nutcase, because what she wrote was “Richard, your family loves you, your family is praying for you, your family is saving a chocolate Easter egg for you unless your son eats it first.” I knew why she wrote that. Da
n would eat my Easter egg or anything chocolate, and she knew if she injected some humor into the note, I would know she was okay.

  Andrea told me that one thought kept running through her mind that day: Where do these pirates think they’re going to go? That really worried her. The pirates had three enormous navy ships surrounding them and they were still holding out, which told her how desperate they really were. So either they were going to give up or it was going to be a murder-suicide. That was the 50/50 in her mind. And the longer it went, the likelier the second outcome became.

  “The feelings seemed to come in cycles,” she said. “For a while, I’d believe I was going to see you again. And then the darker thoughts would come. A voice in my head would say, ‘He could die, these things don’t turn out well.’ I would have to push those thoughts away, but they always came back.”

  By late Saturday night, the pressure and the disappointment got to Andrea. As much as she loved my sisters, the songs and the humor were wearing on her. Finally, she couldn’t do the jokes anymore. She couldn’t play along with the laughter. It just wasn’t funny. One of my sisters said to her, “Oh, you’re going to make so much money from this, you’re going to retire.” And Andrea snapped. “Do… you… really… think,” she said, “that Richard got on that lifeboat so we could be millionaires?”

  Saturday was a huge letdown for Andrea and the rest of my family because nothing happened. Now Sunday seemed like the last chance.

  Back on the boat, all of a sudden I heard this electric sound, like a humming. It sounded like a drone or an electric engine. The tension in the boat ratcheted up in an instant. The pirates scattered and ducked away. I looked over at Young Guy and there was just abject fear in his eyes.

  The pirates ran up and slammed the hatch doors closed.

  It’s coming, I thought. They must see boats on the water aiming at us. Maybe whatever the navy ships had lined up to hide…

  The Leader barked something to Young Guy in Somali. He came over and sat across the aisle from me. That seemed to alleviate the fear in his eyes. He began clicking the AK-47 trigger and smiling with mad-dog eyes. Tall Guy began opening the gas cans and tying the hatch latches with bits of rope. Musso ran over with a rag and tied it around my eyes. I brought the side of my head down to my shoulder and managed to pull the blindfold down.