Derrick didn’t blink. “I understand the command structure, Captain, and I appreciate your candor. I’ll be candid, too. I’m not here to offer you gratuitous advice. You’re the best at what you do. I’m the best at what I do. As long as we’re working toward a common goal, I’m onboard with you. If at any point I feel that my advice is being ignored, my team and I will take the next chopper out of here.”
Redman squinted at Derrick in surprise. It was a look Derrick had received before from commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. They were alpha males, accustomed to deference. But Derrick didn’t care. However elite their training, they weren’t immune to hubris or human error. And they had an institutional bias in favor of force over compromise. For Derrick to negotiate effectively, he needed Redman to give him time and stay out of the way.
“Roger that,” Redman said at last. “I assume your team is ready?”
Derrick nodded. “We have two negotiators—me and Rodriguez here. We also have a Somali linguist on hand to translate. We set up a table with a radio unit and voice recorder. The guys in CIC are going to make a backup recording as well.”
The CIC, or Combat Information Center, was the nerve center of the
Gettysburg
, where all of the ship’s weapons and communications systems were controlled.
“Very well.” Redman surveyed the faces around him. “Our mission is simple—to get the Parkers back
before
the sailboat reaches Somalia. We will not allow the pirates to take them ashore. Is that understood?” When no one spoke, he said, “All right then. Let’s get up to the bridge and make ourselves known.”
Derrick first sighted the
Renaissance
at a distance of five miles. With the sails stowed, its mast was invisible against the haze on the horizon, and its hull looked like a buoy bobbing on the cobalt sea. Redman stood beside Derrick, looking through binoculars and communicating with his sniper teams as they moved into position. Masters was in the captain’s chair, issuing orders to the conning officer.
“Decrease speed to twenty knots,” Masters said, “and come three degrees to starboard. I want to approach the sailboat off its stern quarter.”
“Full ahead at twenty knots,” echoed the conning officer. “Right standard rudder to course 332.”
“Decreasing speed to twenty knots,” said the helmsman. “Confirm right standard rudder to course 332.”
Derrick felt the
Gettysburg
slow and heel to port as it carved out the turn. Through his binoculars, he saw the boom and starboard flank of the
Renaissance
come into view.
“Speed is now twenty knots,” the helmsman called out. “Heading is now 332, 330 magnetic.”
“Very well,” said the conning officer.
“Mr. Evans, what’s the distance and closure rate?” Masters asked the officer of the deck, a lanky young man hovering over the radar display.
“Five thousand yards, sir,” Evans replied, “and closing at fourteen knots.”
“Call it out every five hundred yards,” Masters ordered.
Evans spoke the countdown with metronomic consistency. At two thousand yards—one nautical mile—Masters decreased the cruiser’s speed to twelve knots and adjusted the heading to 329, paralleling the course of the
Renaissance
. Derrick could now see the sailboat’s cockpit through his binoculars. It was empty. The pirate skiff was trailing behind, tethered to the sailboat’s transom.
“There’s no one on deck, Captain,” said the watch officer.
Masters nodded. “I imagine they saw us some time ago.” He turned to Derrick. “Why don’t I hail them on the bridge-to-bridge and then turn things over to you?”
“Good,” Derrick said. He took a seat at the chart table, now free of clutter, and picked up the radio handset. Rodriguez was sitting to his right, legal pad open and pen in hand. He would serve as Derrick’s “coach”—a second set of ears listening for anything Derrick might miss. Ali Sharif, the Somali linguist, was standing by the captain’s chair, ready to assist.
“One thousand yards,” Evans called out.
“This is good for the time being,” Redman said.
“All right,” replied Masters. “Let’s slow down to six knots and keep this distance.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Evans affirmed, as the conning officer relayed the orders to the helm.
Masters met Derrick’s eyes, then held up his own radio handset and pressed the button to transmit. “Sailing Vessel
Renaissance
, Sailing Vessel
Renaissance
, this is the captain of the USS
Gettysburg
a thousand yards off your stern quarter. Do you read?”
Silence fell on the bridge as everyone waited for the response. Five seconds passed, then ten. Masters pressed the button again. “Sailing Vessel
Renaissance
, this is the American warship
Gettysburg
. Please come in. Over.”
Suddenly, Derrick heard a crackle of static. “Warship, we have hostages,” said a male voice in lightly accented English. “They are alive and well. If you want them to stay that way, you will fall back to a distance of four miles and make no attempt to approach.”
In an instant, two things happened at once. The watch officer exclaimed: “Captain, there’s a man on deck with a gun!” And Redman reported: “Warning shots fired. Single shooter. Dark-skinned male. Probably an AK-47.”
Derrick leapt to his feet and looked out the window just in time to see the pirate disappear into the sailboat, pulling the hatch closed behind him.
“That was just a tantrum,” Redman said evenly. “Agent Derrick, you’re on.”
Derrick’s stomach tightened as he picked up the radio. “
Renaissance
,” he began, adopting a steady yet soothing tone, “my name is Paul, and I have authority to negotiate on behalf of the United States government. We don’t want anyone to be harmed. But the safety of the hostages is your responsibility. We need to talk about how to resolve this so that everyone gets out alive. Over.”
He set the radio down and waited pensively for the pirate’s reply. In time, the accented voice spoke again: “We will not negotiate until we reach Somalia. If you attack us, we will kill the hostages. Their blood will be on your hands.”
Derrick pursed his lips. The pirate’s deliberate manner of speech, and the quality of his English, indicated both intelligence and education. “What is your name?” he asked. “I told you mine. Over.”
“My name doesn’t matter. Your government wants something and we want something. If you leave us alone, we will all get what we want. If not, all of us will lose. The choice is yours.”
Derrick refused to take the bait. “If we’re going to talk, I’d like to call you something. Would you prefer I make up a name?”
The pirate took a moment to respond. “You can call me Ibrahim.”
“Thank you, Ibrahim. I want to give you a heads up about what I’m hearing from the Navy. They’re not going to let you take the Parkers to Somalia. They’re American citizens, and the Navy is not going to abandon them. That means we need to find a different sort of compromise. Over.”
An eerie silence followed. Derrick waited patiently while Ibrahim considered the ground rules. As lead negotiator, it was his job to convince the pirates that they weren’t going to get away with their crime. It was a hard truth for any hostage taker to accept. For that reason it had to be stated early, repeated often, and reinforced at every turn by the guys with guns.
“Ibrahim,” Derrick said after a while, “are you still there?”
Suddenly, a new voice came on the radio. “
Gettysburg
, this is Captain Parker of the
Renaissance
. My son and I are well. The pirates don’t want to hurt us. They will release us as soon as our family pays a ransom. But the negotiation has to happen on land, not at sea. Those are their terms. Over.”
Derrick nodded at Rodriguez. They had gotten proof of life faster than he had anticipated. “Captain Parker,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly, “it’s good to hear your voice. My name is Paul, and I’m committed to bringing you and your son home. Unfortunately, we can’t let you go to Somalia. We need to negotiate a solution before we reach the coast. Over.”
Derrick heard the sounds of a scuffle. Then Captain Parker cried out: “No, no, leave us alone! We didn’t do anything!” Seconds later, he came on the radio again, sounding scared. “Paul, they’re pointing guns at us. They’re saying they’ll kill us if you don’t let us go. Over.”
“I understand what they’re saying,” Derrick replied calmly. “But it’s against their interest to harm you. They know that as well as we do.”
Daniel Parker didn’t seem to hear him. “We can work this out. My family will pay them when we get to Somalia. There’s no need for violence. Do you read me? We can work this out.”
Derrick waited a beat before changing the topic. “Captain Parker, how are you for food and water? Do you have enough to eat? If you don’t, we can help you with that.”
At this point, Ibrahim came on the radio again. “If you want the Captain to stay alive, you will back off to four miles and leave us alone.”
Again, Derrick disregarded the threat. “How about fuel? Are you running low?”
“We don’t need fuel,” the pirate said in exasperation. “Go away or the hostages will die.”
Derrick glanced at Redman and threw the pirate another curve ball. “How am I going to do that, Ibrahim? I’m the negotiator, not the captain of the ship. The Navy says they’re not going to let you go. I need your help to find a solution that doesn’t involve violence. I have a few ideas, but I’m open to yours. How do we deal with this? You tell me. Over.”
The silence extended for thirty seconds, then a minute. “Ibrahim, do you read me?” Derrick said. “Ibrahim, come back. Over.” But there was no response.
Derrick put down the handset and faced Redman. “Well, we got proof of life and we got him thinking. I say we pressurize him a bit. Nothing heavy, just something to confirm that we’re serious.”
The SEAL commander nodded. “Let’s put a bird in the air and start shooting with the FLIR.” FLIR stood for Forward Looking Infrared, an imaging system capable of recording heat signatures along with ordinary video. Redman looked at Evans. “How long until the
Truman
and
San Jac
arrive?”
“They’re scheduled to join us at 22:30 this evening, sir,” said the officer of the deck.
“Good. We’ll get some Hornets to fly over the sailboat in the morning, and we’ll put the RHIBs in the water. We’ll tell them we’re just doing exercises, but it’ll make the point.”
Derrick shook his head. “The chopper and the flyover are good ideas. But if I’m a pirate and I see boats in the water, I think an attack is imminent.”
“We could keep the RHIBs out of sight behind the
Truman
,” Masters said.
“What if we offer them something?” suggested Alan Rodriguez. “They don’t want provisions or fuel, but what about a secure radio? Bridge-to-bridge operates on VHF. It’s audible to everyone for miles around. We could tell them that negotiating over VHF isn’t in their interest. That might give us an excuse to show off one of the small boats.”
Derrick had to suppress a smile. Rodriguez had performed the sleight of hand like a magician, tempering Redman’s overly muscular approach while making it appear that he was agreeing with him.
“I like it,” Redman affirmed. “I’ll get my guys to put some gear together.”
“And I’ll put the bird in the air,” Masters said, picking up a phone and issuing the order to CIC.
Redman faced Derrick. “How long before you go back online?”
Derrick stood up and looked out the window at the
Renaissance
pitching and rolling on the swells. At a distance of a thousand yards, the sailboat looked like a child’s toy alone on the empty sea.
“When they see the helicopter,” he said, “I imagine they’ll come to us.”
Vanessa
Annapolis, Maryland
November 10, 2011
Vanessa was in the kitchen making breakfast when she heard the phone ring. It was just after sunrise on the second day after the hijacking, and she was already feeling edgy and claustrophobic. Mary Patterson was sitting across from her at the bar on the island, typing something on her BlackBerry, and Curtis and Yvonne Parker were in the living room chatting with Duke Strong from the Sagittarius Group. Vanessa glanced at the phone sitting in the office nook and then looked at the FBI agent.
“Let them leave a message,” Mary said.
Vanessa collected the handset and shook her head. “I don’t recognize the number.”
Seconds later, she heard the chirp of a new voicemail. She listened to it and took a sharp breath.
“Who was it, dear?” asked Yvonne, walking toward her from the living room. Her mother-in-law was a regal woman with short white hair, crystalline blue eyes, and porcelain skin that, apart from a few spreading wrinkles, made her look a decade younger than her sixty-six years.
“A reporter from CNN,” Vanessa replied with a trace of disdain. She returned to the kitchen and put the phone on the island, replaying the message on speaker. When the recording ended, she said, “This is just the beginning, isn’t it?”