by David Rohde
We arrive at a remote location near the Afghan border. Badruddin is already there in a separate car. Apparently, they hope to get close enough to the border that a cell phone tower in Afghanistan will handle the call and disguise our location inside Pakistan. Badruddin gets in our car and hands me a cell phone. The phone’s display shows that it’s on an Afghan cellular network. I think it might be midnight in New York. Abu Tayyeb orders me to give Kristen their cell phone number and have her call us back. They are demanding $7 million in ransom but are too cheap to pay for the phone call.
I dial my home number and the answering machine picks up. I hear Kristen’s joyful voice ask callers to leave us a message.
“Kristen, it’s David,” I say into the machine. “Kristen, are you there?”
No one picks up.
“Kristen, can you hear me? Kristen, Kristen, can you hear me?” I repeat, thinking she might be asleep. “I’m calling, I’m with the Taliban. We’re calling to try to negotiate.”
“Kristen, are you there?” I say, increasingly worried we will miss this opportunity. “Kristen? Kristen?”
Abu Tayyeb orders me to end the call. Fearing I won’t be able to call again, I blurt out “I love you” and hang up. We sit in the car for roughly fifteen minutes. Abu Tayyeb and Badruddin are nervous that the calls are being traced. They fear our car will be targeted in a drone strike. I ask them to let me try one more time. I dial our home number. Again, the answering machine picks up.
“Kristen, Kristen, it’s David, can you hear me?” I say. “Kristen, Kristen, Kristen, are you there? Kristen, are you there? Please wake up.”
“Kristen, it’s David,” I say. “Please wake up, Kristen.”
MY FUNNY VALENTINE
Kristen, February 15, 2009
I hear a man’s voice calling my name as I stand outside the front door. “Kristen, Kristen, are you there?” For a brief moment, I think some strange guy has broken into my apartment and is now pleading to be let out. Then I realize it’s David!
My mom has gone back to Maine for the week, and my brother and his wife are here for the long Presidents’ Day weekend and Valentine’s Day. On Sunday we go out to dinner and a movie, something I have not done in a long time. It’s more apparent to me that I have become a captive as well. This experience is shifting from a crisis to a lifestyle.
I rush to get the key in the door, stumble over to the answering machine and pick up just in time. “David, David!” I say breathlessly. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” he replies.
“I love you, honey,” I add.
“Can you get a pen and paper. I am going to give you a number to call me back on,” he says tensely, adding, “do not trace the call. Do not let anyone trace the call. Do not let the government trace it.”
GOLDEN CHANCE
David, February 16, 2009
The phone rings. Kristen is calling back. I am elated: there will be negotiations. I answer and immediately begin dictating from my notes. “Write this down,” I say. “I cannot talk for very long. You cannot try to call me back.”
“Okay,” Kristen says, “I will write this down.”
I look over the list of things Abu Tayyeb has ordered me to tell her.
“Okay,” Kristen says again. “Hello?”
“Okay, this is the last call,” I say. “This is my last chance.”
Kristen repeats what I say.
“She’s writing it down,” I tell Badruddin and Abu Tayyeb.
“Okay, do not trace call. Don’t use force to try to find us,” I say, as Kristen repeats after me. “It puts us in great danger. We are in the mountains of Afghanistan.”
“Uh-huh,” Kristen says.
“It’s very cold,” I say.
“Yep,” Kristen responds, sounding unimpressed.
“There’s snow and I am very sick,” I say.
“Yeah, okay,” Kristen responds again.
“It’s very difficult for us,” I say. “And the video is on Al Jazeera.”
“Al Jazeera overseas?” Kristen asks.
“I don’t know,” I reply.
“Okay, I do,” Kristen says. “Okay.”
“It was shown once,” I say.
“Yes it was,” Kristen replies.
“We called Atiqullah, the commander that arrested us,” I explain.
I continue to call our captor by his false name, even though I know Atiqullah is Abu Tayyeb. Tahir and Asad still fear that Abu Tayyeb will decapitate them if he learns they revealed his true identity to me.
“Yes,” Kristen says.
“He has come back to help us. He is a very big commander,” I say, trying to play to his ego. “He took many, many risks, he came very far through many, many checkpoints so he could come and he is going to leave now.”
“Okay,” Kristen says.
“And I asked him to let me call you,” I say, my voice cracking.
“Thank you,” Kristen says.
“Because I thought it was the best thing to do,” I say.
“Yes, it is,” Kristen says, reassuring me.
“Okay, Atiqullah will negotiate with the family about money,” I say. “And then the office in Kabul should negotiate with a man called Engineer.” I explain to her that the engineer is their representative for negotiating prisoners.
“I know who he is,” she says.
Kristen then asks me if Atiqullah is aware of the ransom offer. I say yes and then ask Kristen if she knows anything about an agreement for five prisoners.
“I am not aware of that,” she says. “I am not aware of that.”
“Have you heard—do you think that’s not true or you don’t know?” I ask, devastated by her response.
“Uh, I don’t think it’s true,” Kristen says.
My chest tightens. We have been lied to yet again. There is no agreement for prisoners.
Kristen tries to set a time for the next phone call.
“We’re running out of time,” I say, repeating what they’re telling me. “Atiqullah is willing to make a deal now for $7 million. Instead of for $15 million, he will drop to $7 million. And that’s their last offer—and five prisoners.”
I explain that the Taliban say the current ransom offer is “a joke.” They claim that $38 million was paid for the French aid worker whose video I saw. They also believe that the Italian journalist was exchanged in 2007 for prisoners and $15 million in cash.
Kristen says that the U.S. government will not exchange prisoners or pay ransom. “Our government does not do that,” she says.
Abu Tayyeb interrupts us and tells her to speak with the engineer about prisoners. He says any ransom payment must be done through the International Red Cross. Kristen thanks him for trying to work with our family but says that is not possible.
“I just want him to know the ICRC will not help us negotiate,” she says. “I don’t think they will carry funds. So I just want to make sure he knows that.”
Abu Tayyeb says he will call her.
“Don’t let this opportunity end,” I say, repeating one of the points Abu Tayyeb dictated to me. “It’s only a short time. He would like to finish everything within a week. If not, he will leave. He’ll take his guards away from us and we’ll be left with these other people who will kill us.”
I start giving Kristen the names of the people who I think could raise ransom money. Abu Tayyeb says he will call again in four days, but will not name a time.
“She can’t have a translator sitting in her house twenty-four hours a day,” I say. He promises to call on Thursday.
The phone starts beeping. I know some Afghan mobile phone companies charge for receiving international calls. Even though Kristen called us, our phone will soon run out of minutes.
I quickly tell Kristen the remainder of the names.
“Honey,” Kristen says, “we’re doing everything we can.”
The line goes dead. The phone has run out of credits.
MIDNIGHT
Kristen
, February 16, 2009
I’ve just gotten off the phone with my husband. I am surprised that the Taliban let him stay on the phone that long. Then again, I am footing the bill.
I feel a mix of elation and desperation. From what I could gather, David knows nothing of the ongoing negotiations. While I tried to assure him we would not give up, I also had to alert him to the fact that the Red Cross cannot assist in any negotiations. And that a prisoner exchange is not possible.
David’s voice sounded strong. He was also very lucid in his thinking. This is the upside. And I have a promise that his captors will call back in a few days. We even have an assigned time.
“Midnight,” I say triumphantly. Midnight on Thursday.
Midnight? Now I realize that this is the worst choice possible. Does it mean midnight on Wednesday, the very beginning of Thursday? Or the end of Thursday? I exhale an expletive.
GIFT FROM GOD
David, February 16-20, 2009
As we drive back to Miran Shah, I am shattered.Thereisnodeal for prisoners, the Red Cross will not handle a ransom payment, and Abu Tayyeb is refusing to budge from $7 million and five prisoners. Worst of all, I have placed my wife in a horrific position—she is now directly negotiating with our captors. She will feel that she holds our lives in her hands.
Abu Tayyeb asks how I’m doing. “We’re fucked,” I say. Before the call, I had let myself believe that his false name, Atiqullah, “gift from God,” might be a sign he would still somehow save us. Yet again, I am wrong.
We return to the house and the guards stare at me as I walk through the front gate. My face is ashen and my clothes are covered in sweat from lying under a blanket in the back of the car. I sit down next to Asad and tell him in broken Pashto that the call went badly. He pats me on the back and urges me to wash. I take a bucket shower in the bathroom, change clothes, walk in the yard, and try to gather my thoughts.
The call was a disaster. If Abu Tayyeb abandons us and Badruddin sets a deadline, we will be killed one by one.
That afternoon, I watch Asad as he prepares dinner for us. He had no idea how to cook when we were abducted three months ago but has proven to be a fast learner. As a means of survival, he is making himself useful to our captors. He and I still struggle to communicate but connect in small ways. Asad jokes with me when we are alone in the kitchen.
Tahir has become my only companion and my only attachment to reality. We have become close friends, encouraging each other in our lowest moments. He continues to fight like a lion, haranguing our kidnappers for hours at a time and threatening vengeance from his tribe.
In recent weeks, I have started encouraging Tahir and Asad to escape on their own. As Pashtuns, they have a chance of making it to the Afghan border if they can somehow slip out of our compound. Tahir adamantly refuses to leave without me. Under Pashtunwali, I am his guest and abandoning me would shame him for life. As soon as he departs without me, Tahir says, the protection of his tribe will be lifted and the Taliban will kill me.
When the guards leave us alone, Tahir whispers to me about how much he misses his seven children. He is determined to educate his daughters and is unabashedly proud of his eldest girl, who is an excellent student. Asad’s two boys are younger but his face brightens each time he speaks of them. I think of how Tahir and Asad’s nine children will fare without them. As adult males, they are their families’ main providers. If they die, their families will be destitute.
My own death is a growing possibility as well. As the months pass, though, that prospect is gradually becoming less frightening. I tell myself that I will simply go to sleep. On a few days, I accept my death, relish the life I’ve had, and silently relish the idea that our greedy captors will get nothing for me. On most days, I am heartbroken at the thought of never seeing Kristen, my family, and my friends again.
What haunts me most is picturing Kristen as a widow at forty. She is dressed in black, a color she rarely wears, and her sunny countenance is dark. Her glow—the radiant smile that drew me to her at our first dinner together—is gone. I promised her a new life and a family. Instead, I have given her this.
Abu Tayyeb joins us that night for dinner. I ask him to promise that he will stay in Miran Shah until there is a resolution to our case. He does. For the next four days, we wait for him to call Kristen back. Our conversations leave me doubtful that he will ever compromise in a case involving an American.
He weeps at a radio news broadcast about civilian deaths in Afghanistan. A guard explains to me that Abu Tayyeb reviles the United States because of the civilian deaths he believes it causes. Abu Tayyeb says that Americans fixate on wealth, comfort, and fame and ignore the crimes the American government commits abroad. My captors see me—and seemingly all Westerners—as selfish, morally corrupt, and focused on pursuing the pleasures of this world. They believe Westerners will pay staggering sums to keep a kidnapped family member from being executed. They believe that Westerners’ fear of death is their fatal weakness. They are convinced the Taliban will prevail because they do not fear death.
Abu Tayyeb and our guards see the American-led reconstruction effort as a giant fraud scheme designed to enrich Westerners and shortchange average Afghans. They say the American-backed Karzai government is enormously corrupt. And Akbar, our friendliest guard, says he has heard stories that American companies intentionally build low-quality bridges in Afghanistan so they can be awarded lucrative repair contracts in the future. He says Americans came to Afghanistan to enrich themselves, not to help average Afghans.
For years, I have reported on the shortcomings and waste of the American-led reconstruction effort, but I also knew the Taliban caricature of the endeavor is exaggerated. Yes, Afghan expectations of a sweeping reconstruction of the entire country were raised and then not met. And yes, corruption in the Afghan government is a staggering problem.
Evidence of how flawed the American effort even lies on the floor of our bedroom every day. One of the machine guns our guards have was apparently given to the Afghan army or police force and then sold to the Taliban or captured by them. The gun has a tag on it with handwritten instructions in American English that tell users which settings to use when firing the weapon. Our guards ask me to translate the words for them.
At the same time, Abu Tayyeb and his men ignore the fact that the United States has built hundreds of miles of paved roads in Afghanistan and more than a thousand schools and health clinics. They deny widespread news reports that the Taliban have burned down scores of newly built schools to prevent girls from getting an education. And they ignore the Taliban’s killing and kidnapping of dozens of Afghan and foreign engineers and road workers.
He complains that foreigners have not kept their promise to rebuild the country. But the Taliban, in fact, have done more to thwart the reconstruction effort than any other group. In conversations with him, I argue that the United States is not the menacing, predatory caricature that he believes it to be. I also try to counter his belief that all Americans are astonishingly rich hedonists. Nothing I say, though, seems to change his view. He sees himself as the noble defender of a culture and faith that are under assault.
PEACE BE UPON YOU
Kristen, Late February-Early March 2009
Getting a Pashto translator is not as daunting a task as it might seem, at least not in New York. With the help of David’s colleagues at the newspaper, I am able to track down a translator who lives in Brooklyn and will come over to my apartment on Wednesday and Thursday night, when I’ll be waiting for the next phone call from the captors. By this point we have opted to conduct negotiations privately, but we continue to send tapes of phone calls to the FBI in case they are able to pinpoint a call location or provide voice recognition.
I recorded my phone call with David three nights ago. I play it back for Lee, David McCraw, Team Kabul, and our AISC consultants. I send a recording to Michael, in Pakistan, who instructs me to forward the upcoming call to the man he works with in the tribal areas, w
ho asked to be identified in this book as John. John has worked with Michael on prior kidnappings. We will direct all calls with the Taliban to him. At Michael’s request, John has traveled to the region as our family’s representative to meet with a mullah at Swabi who has connections to the Haqqanis. Now he will serve as our primary negotiator. The security consultants agree. I should not be pressured with the responsibility of negotiating directly with the Taliban on my husband’s behalf. This is typical protocol—it’s far too easy for captors take advantage of direct contact with family to frighten or threaten them and thus extort even more money.
Lee comes back to the city to join me in waiting for the impending call, which we plan to relay to John in hopes of making him the primary negotiator. “I thought my days of sitting and waiting by the phone for a man to call would end with marriage,” I joke as I greet Lee.
Our translator arrives at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. He is a Pashtun from southern Afghanistan who has lived in the United States for several years. I serve an eclectic feast of tea, pizza, salad, and snacks—a far cry from the well-balanced cuisine Lee and I have become accustomed to during my mother’s visits. “When does Mary Jane return?” Lee asks with a hint of humor.
To pass time as we all wait, I turn on the television. A Top Chef marathon is on. Our translator is transfixed by the host, Padma Lakshmi. “Excuse me,” he asks. “Who is she? What show is this?” Then a revelation: “This is cable,” he says happily. “I have cable. I could watch this at home, too?” Lee looks up at me from his computer and rolls his eyes. “Yes,” I say, “in the privacy of your own home.”
We share our recent histories. Our translator is from Kandahar. “This is a very interesting case for me. I left Afghanistan because my family wanted me to join the kidnapping business,” he tells me. I don’t know if this is true, but it doesn’t seem far-fetched, given how dire the situation is abroad. He also explains that in Pakistan and Afghanistan, people with relatives in the United States are often kidnapping targets, as it is believed anyone lucky enough to be living in America has money or access to it.
