The Somalis were peeking through the hatches. I heard noises outside—the electric motor sound and engine noises. The pirates were getting their guns ready, pulling out the clips, checking them, slamming them back in. They clicked off the safeties. Fear was like a physical presence in that boat.
The Leader stayed away from the cockpit and all the pirates slunk back as far into the rows of seats as they could, pushing their backs up against the hull. They were trying desperately to get out of sight. Occasionally they would look out the windows, but almost immediately they’d duck back into their hiding places, as if they were afraid of being picked off.
Musso pulled into the shadows and saw me with the blindfold off. He slapped me, hard, across the face.
“You do that again, you be sorry!” he shouted.
My cheek was stinging, but I was happy to get a rise out of him. I smiled.
“What are you going to do,” I said, “shoot me?”
We heard the noises again. Musso glared, but he was too scared to mess with me right then. He ducked down and slunk back into the second row of seats. Now all the pirates were out of sight, except for Young Guy. He didn’t want to leave me. He was giving me serial-killer looks, with the gun pointed right at my chest. He put the blindfold on and again I pulled it down. The gun muzzle was within two feet of me.
I was in the third seat from the rear, port side, on the aisle. With the ropes, I couldn’t get out of harm’s way. I felt like a piece of beef in a butcher shop window. My fear was spiking. If the pirates were scared, there had to be a reason. It’s strange to see people with guns show abject terror.
All of a sudden, I heard quick shots. It sounded like an AK. I couldn’t see who was firing, but it was close.
I realized the pirates had opened up the forward hatch and fired at a navy ship. The shots seemed to puncture the tension. Now they slowly came out of their hiding places. After a few minutes, Tall Guy even managed to fall asleep in the front of the boat.
I needed to take a piss.
“Hey, I need to go the bathroom,” I said to no one in particular. “I need the bottle.”
Ever since the escape attempt, they’d been making me piss in a bottle. They wouldn’t let me near the door anymore.
“No,” the Leader said.
“What did you say?”
The Leader waved his hand dismissively.
I screamed at the Somalis that they were going to pay for this, that they were going to die in this boat and they were nothing but pirates. They hated that word.
“Shut up, shut up!” the Leader screamed at me.
“I won’t shut up. You’re nothing but freaking pirates and that’s how you’re going to die.”
He started the engine and revved it high. It was clear he knew where he was going.
The Leader erupted, screaming at me to shut up. The other Somalis began chanting again, just a brief version this time, as the Leader pushed the throttle forward and the lifeboat lurched ahead.
“When we kill you, we’re going to put you in an unclean place,” the Leader said. “That’s where I’m taking you now.”
“What does that mean?”
They explained that they knew about this shallow reef where the water was stagnant. It wasn’t part of a tide pool that came in and washed the bay every twelve hours. Any body dropped there would rot and bloat and stink to high heaven.
“Very bad place,” Musso said.
I couldn’t hold it any longer. I felt a rush of wetness on my pant leg. They were letting me piss myself like a goddamn animal.
The rage just welled up in me. I felt degraded. I was screaming at the pirates, just cursing at them and telling them they were going to die.
The Leader yelled back, “Shut up! Shut up!”
The Leader arrived at our destination and killed the engine. I could see the Bainbridge out the aft hatch. It seemed like the navy ship was trying to catch up to us, but the pirates had outrun it.
Now the Somalis started giving me water and food. The Leader insisted I eat Pop-Tarts.
“Fine, I’ll eat the food,” I said. They were reversing their normal rituals. It appeared I wasn’t worthy of a clean death anymore.
“Eat more,” the Leader said, practically force-feeding me the Pop-Tarts.
“Fuck you,” I said.
“You’re not halal, you’re filthy, an animal,” he cried. He forced food down my mouth, to make me dirty. He laughed at me. He walked away and went back up to the cockpit. Turning dramatically, he took his right hand and made a cutting motion, first across his throat, then both wrists and finally across his balls.
“You son of a bitch,” I said. “If you kill me, I’ll follow you. I’ll come back and haunt you.”
They tried to force my feet onto a blue bag lying on the floor. I was sitting on the outer edge of the seat arm, with my feet across the aisle on the opposite arm. I was still trussed up. It was too dark to identify who was doing what, but a pirate with an AK was behind me, shining a flashlight. All I could see was my head in silhouette against the far wall. There was another Somali lying by my side, another AK pointed up at my gut. The boat was really rocking in the swells.
“You can’t die a clean death,” someone said in the darkness.
I felt warmth on my leg again. I was pissing myself. It was so degrading, to have to sit there like a farm animal. I cowered, drained of strength, while the pirates were sniggering all around me.
This is the end, I thought. It’s over. And something in me was happy about it. I wanted the navy to open up on the lifeboat with that .50-caliber gun and just end everything. I didn’t care if I died at that moment—I just wanted the whole thing over with. My frustration boiled over and I was ready for the end.
But then I thought of my family and I told myself I had to go on.
My thoughts were going in two different directions at once. I believed the pirates were going to kill me and I didn’t. I wanted this to be over and I wanted five more minutes of life. I think what was really confusing me was the pirates’ motives. Why would they try to intimidate me? I thought. I have no power to give them their ransom. What is this about? Could it really be just a test?
I heard someone move behind me. It was so dark I couldn’t even tell which of the Somalis it was. He began dry-firing the AK-47 and he ordered me up on my feet. I staggered around, trying to stay upright. He was timing the click of the rifle to the starboard roll of the boat. It was this strange dance. It seemed to go on for three hours. “Sit,” they cried.
I was ready for death. I straightened my back and sat up as tall as I could. The sweat was pouring down my face. My stomach was a knot, like I’d just done three hundred sit-ups at Four Corners back at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
“Military posture, verrrrry good,” the Leader mocked.
This went on for hour after hour. I staggered around trying to get ready for a dignified death while the click, click, click beat like a metronome.
Finally, I’d had it.
“Get someone back here who can fucking shoot that thing,” I said, collapsing on the chair, drenched in sweat. “I’m done. Do whatever you fucking want.”
The Leader looked down at me from the cockpit. “Okay, that’s it, no more action tonight, no action.” The other Somalis relaxed and the tension drained away.
But for the remainder of the night, they started a bunch of new rituals. They put the gun on me and told me to move from this seat to that seat, to pick up this object—a cloth, a hatchet—and place it over there. They hit me if my halal line touched the deck. And I couldn’t drag my ropes on the ground. All the while, they were calling me “animal…crazy…typical American.” It was like I was dirty and they were trying to get me clean through these ceremonies. I was hopping from one place to the other, still bound. At one point, I just toppled over onto the deck when a swell hit the boat.
When morning came, I thought, I won’t make it through another day like this one. Something had to give.
SEVENTEEN
Day 5, 0300 Hours
Now most of the hostage situations we’ve seen off the Horn of Africa have ended with the hostages being released unharmed, and ransom being paid. However, just yesterday, one of these standoffs had a deadly outcome. French hostages…were freed yesterday after being held for almost a week…. It was four adults and a child. They’d been held aboard their yacht as it was seized in the Gulf of Aden Saturday. Now one of those hostages and two pirates died during the rescue operation. Three pirates, in fact, were captured. The French military made its move after the pirates refused several offers, including one to swap an officer for the mother and child who were being held on board. The pirates had also threatened to execute the hostages one by one. It’s unclear if the hostage who died was caught in the cross fire or if the pirates actually killed him.
—CNN, April 11
When I woke up Sunday morning, the boat was dark, gloomy. It matched my mood.
“Hey, Phillips,” the Leader said. “I have a new job now. I’m going to a blue Pakistani tug and check it out for the navy, make sure they’re not Al Qaeda.”
I just grunted at him.
“I’m going to help them, tell them where to get food and fuel.”
The navy came calling again. They wanted proof of life, obviously. I saw them out the back door, floating by on a Zodiac about fifteen feet away, peering in at me. I gave them a wave. The pirates were grouped near the door, half shielded by the hull, their guns pointed outward at the navy guys.
The corpsmen took a quick look at me and asked if I was okay, and I said yeah, and that was it. No James Bond stuff, because there were very tense and paranoid pirates standing three feet away from me. “Here’s our Al Qaeda contingent,” one of the navy guys said, almost joking with the pirates. The Somalis were putting on their tough-guy faces, really playing the part. That feeling of familiarity was so clear. I wanted to shout, “Do you know these guys?” But the Zodiac just passed back and forth a couple of times and left.
The Leader left the ship. I couldn’t see where he went, or how he got there, but he claimed he was going to check out the blue Pakistani tug.
Young Guy took the opportunity to talk with me.
“When we get to Somalia, you want to go to the movies with me?”
“Oh, sure,” I said.
“I’m going out with my girlfriend,” Young Guy said. I looked over at him. The guy barely ever spoke, so this was new.
“You’ve got a date?”
“Yes, a date. With my girlfriend. And her mother’s there. You can go out with her mother.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I will go with my girlfriend and you can go with the mother,” he said. “We will go to the movies.”
He leaned over to me. “And then, to a hotel.”
I laughed.
I wondered, Where am I? Are we close to land, sitting in a little navy anchorage? It was strange to me that there were three navy ships and all this activity that the pirates were describing to me—tugs and other vessels—that wouldn’t occur three hundred miles from shore. I was disoriented. Nothing about what was happening around me made sense.
All of a sudden, I saw a school of dolphins through the aft hatch. There must have been a hundred of them. I picked my head up and tried to track them through the water, but they were gone. A minute later, the dolphins reappeared right in front of the aft hatch. Surfacing and gliding through the water, spray shooting out of their blowholes.
To see a school of them swimming together gave my heart a lift. Maybe this would be a good day, I thought.
But the Somalis wouldn’t leave me alone. They were obsessed with the knots again. They would tie a knot and tell me to undo it. If I touched the wrong string, they’d slap me in the head and tie a second knot. Then, if I didn’t do things exactly right, a third. Pretty soon there were six knots I was trying to untie.
Even Young Guy got tired of the game. “What’s the point?” he yelled at Musso and Tall Guy. They went right back at him.
“What’s the matter? You want to be an American sailor? Huh? We’re Somalis, we’re twenty-four/seven.”
The tension was mounting. The Somalis were arguing constantly, Young Guy vs. the other two. Around noon, the navy dropped off more food, but that didn’t relieve the atmosphere on the boat.
The Leader had been off the ship for an hour. He’s bailing, I thought. He sees something is coming and he’s selling these guys down the river. I learned later that he went to discuss ransom and conditions with the navy, but I don’t believe that. I think the Leader got off that boat because he saw bad shit coming down the pike.
All the while, the other three pirates were still continuing the tutorial on Somali knots. But I’d had enough of that, too.
“That’s it,” I said, “I’m done.” It was 3 p.m. At that moment, I didn’t care if they killed me, I wasn’t going to tie another knot or take another command.
Suddenly, I felt weak. All the strength seemed to drain out of my body. I slumped back into my chair and things went blurry. I couldn’t focus on anything, it was like my mind had let go. I felt dizzy and lightheaded.
The pirates got nervous.
“You need doctor, you need doctor,” Musso said. He got on the radio and demanded that the navy send one to the boat. The Somalis brought water over to me and I drank some and I poured the rest over my head. They had gone from rationing my water to giving me all I wanted.
I was scared. I’d never felt this way before in my life. My heart’s giving out, I thought. This is how it happens. It must have been heat fatigue. I’d always hated heat, but it’d never gotten to me like this.
The navy doctor arrived about an hour later.
“How are you doing?” he called to me from the inflatable.
“Well, I’m fine now. I think I just had a little heat stroke or something.”
“How are the sanitary facilities?”
“Well, you’re looking at it.”
“Can you show me where you go? We want to make sure it’s okay.”
I didn’t get it. I’d told them the pirates wouldn’t let me near the door for anything.
What I didn’t know was, at that moment, there were guns hidden under blankets on that Zodiac. The navy guys were trying to get me near the rear door, where they would have gestured for me to jump. Then they would have opened up on the Somalis. But the pirates weren’t letting me anywhere near that hatch.
They also used the nonduress password “suppertime.” But I didn’t know they had that code—Shane had given it to them.
Before the navy corpsmen left, they handed over more food, some fish and plums, and they told the pirates, “Make sure the captain gets this food. This is not for you. Captain only.” So I tried to eat it, even though I still wasn’t hungry. Those plums were the most delicious things I’d ever tasted. They’d brought four, one for each guy on the boat. I’d wolfed down two before I realized what I was doing.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I eat yours?” I said to Musso. “Here, have my fish.”
He just waved his hand. They were scared I was dying or something, so they were just happy I was eating.
The navy had also sent a pair of blue pants and a bright yellow shirt. I didn’t want to put the clothes on, because I was filthy and the thought of getting this clean shirt dirty somehow offended me. I said to the pirates, “I’ll put it on after I take a shower.” But the pirates insisted. I put them on and the shirt immediately got wet and dirty from the water I was pouring over my head and the general filthiness of the boat.
It didn’t occur to me that the navy gave me a bright yellow shirt so the sharpshooters could tell me apart from the pirates. My brain wasn’t that sharp. I felt like a sluggish animal.
There also was a bottle of A.1. steak sauce. I didn’t find out until later, but a navy crewman had written a message on the label: “Stay strong, we’re coming to get you.” I was devouring the plums and never saw it. And I d
idn’t have my glasses, either, so I wouldn’t have been able to read the message even if I had spotted it. I did wonder why they gave me A.1. sauce with fish—I think that’s all they had aboard the ship as far as sauces go—but I quickly dismissed the thought and handed the bottle to the Somalis.
The Zodiac came back into view. “We’re going to tow you,” one of the navy guys called out.
“Tow us?” I said. I turned to Tall Guy. “What did you do, did you kill the engine? Is the rudder okay? What did you break now?”
The pirates quickly agreed to the tow, which was strange. Why would you want your adversaries to control your movement?
Unbeknownst to me, we were now within twenty miles of the Somali coastline. The navy didn’t want us to land, because the Somalis could have called for reinforcements or tried to sneak me off the boat. But the pirates didn’t want to land either because we’d drifted far from their home port and were nearing land controlled by a rival tribe. They didn’t want to land there because they thought their reception would be a violent one.
By 5 p.m., we were tied up to the Bainbridge’s winch that sat on its fantail, a metal line connected to our bow.
Finally, before they left, the navy handed something to Tall Guy. “Give this to the captain,” they said. He took it, gave it a glance, and handed it to me.
It was my watch.
“Where did you get this?” I said. The last time I saw it the Leader had it in his hand.
“From the pirate,” the navy guy called.
My mind reeled.
The tension on the boat mounted by the minute. As we were being towed from the Bainbridge’s stern, we began to hear splashes, then saw black shapes floating by, one after the other.
“What’s that?” the pirates cried into the radio. “No action, no action.”
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