“Come off it, Derrick,” Redman said. “Ibrahim now has the hostages
and
the ransom money. In poker, that’s four of a kind. He’s not going to let the Parkers go unless he knows we have a straight flush. Ten thousand tons of Navy-grade steel says we do.”
“That’s not the way he’s going to see it,” Derrick objected. “He knows we have snipers. Parking this ship on his doorstep is an invitation to doubt us. And if he doubts us, he’s going to escalate.”
“I’m not interested in psychotherapy,” Redman replied, exasperated. “I’m here to rescue the hostages. He’s dragged this on long enough. He needs to know this is the end of the road.”
Derrick had objected again when Redman ordered the helicopter to chase away the boats—probably curious fishermen—launching from the beach. But the SEAL commander hadn’t budged, agreeing only to permit Derrick to issue a warning over the phone. When Ibrahim didn’t answer, Derrick knew what was going to happen next. Ibrahim’s eruption hadn’t surprised him, nor did the silence that now enveloped the bridge.
We fueled their fears
, he thought.
They’re returning the favor.
Suddenly, the Captain’s phone buzzed. Masters picked it up and listened briefly. “It’s Daniel Parker,” he said to Derrick. “He’s asking for you.”
Derrick shot Redman a look that said:
This is exactly what I meant
. “Captain Parker,” he said in a friendly tone. “How are things over there?”
“Paul!” Daniel said, sounding breathless and afraid. “You have to
do something
. You have to get the Navy to
listen
. If the chopper isn’t back on the ship in five minutes, they’re going to kill us.”
Derrick steeled himself against the empathy he felt for the Captain. This was a moment when he had to be firm. “Daniel, I need you to calm down. Who’s saying that to you? Is Ibrahim saying that? Because that isn’t the deal we arranged.”
“Yes, it’s Ibrahim,” Daniel croaked hoarsely. “But the others are with him.”
“Have they processed the contents of the package?” Derrick asked.
“They were almost finished when the chopper took off,” the Captain replied, quieting down a bit. Suddenly, Derrick heard the distinctive clatter of rifle clips being changed. “
Stop it!
” the Captain shouted. “Put the guns
down
! Paul, they’re pointing their guns at us. You have to do something
now
.”
Derrick locked eyes with Redman. “Captain, I hear what you’re saying. I want you to tell Ibrahim that I’m going to talk to the Navy. I need him to be patient. The chopper is miles away now. It’s going to take time to get it back on the ship.”
“Okay, okay,” Daniel replied and repeated the message.
At this point, Ibrahim came on the line. “Your five minutes is now four. I am not the one breaking our agreement. If you do not act quickly, the Captain will die.”
When connection terminated, all eyes in the bridge turned toward Redman and Derrick.
“He’s bluffing,” the SEAL commander said. “If he kills Captain Parker, there’s no chance he’ll reach the mainland with the money.”
Derrick nodded. “I agree. But it means he’s getting close to the edge. I strongly advise you to land the helicopter. It wasn’t part of the deal.”
Redman turned to the officer of the deck. “Mr. Evans, what is the status of the boats you saw?”
“Sir, the vessels are no longer closing. Range is two and a half miles.”
Redman pointed his binoculars toward Somalia. The sun had set minutes before, and the afterglow was quickly fading, ushering in the first stars of evening. He turned to Masters. “Can you patch me through to the helo?”
Masters picked up the phone and gave the order to CIC. Seconds later, Derrick heard the pilot’s voice come over the audio system. With concise questions, Redman confirmed that the boats were skiffs carrying fishing nets and buoys, that there were no weapons visible, and that both vessels had ceased their forward movement. Redman thanked the pilot and hung up.
“Let’s get the bird on the deck,” he said. “Call the
Truman
and ask Captain Ellis to put one of his choppers on standby. I don’t like the boats sitting there, but I can’t make them leave.” He faced Derrick again. “Get Ibrahim back on the line and tell him to look out his window.”
Thank God
, Derrick thought, punching the redial button on the sat phone. The pirate answered immediately and Derrick relayed the message. Ibrahim grunted and told him to wait. Derrick watched out the window as the Seahawk returned from the west, skimming low over the water. The helicopter made a tight circle around the cruiser and then descended to the deck in a riot of sound.
“Do you see it?” he asked Ibrahim, when the rotor noise diminished. “It’s powering down.”
The pirate didn’t mince words. “We want the helicopter inside the ship.”
Derrick put the phone on mute and spoke to Redman. “He wants us to put the bird away. I think we should do it. We have the chopper from the
Truman
if we need it.”
“What is he going to ask for next?” the SEAL commander growled. “The Navy band to play while he sails off into the sunset?” He glanced at Masters. “Put the Seahawk in the hangar bay. But that’s it. That’s the last concession I’m prepared to make.”
With a nod, Derrick unmuted the phone and passed along the news.
There was a moment in every negotiation when Derrick realized that the outcome was no longer in his hands, that everything he had been working toward came down to a choice on the part of the hostage taker: to accept something as a hedge against the possibility of getting nothing—or worse, being imprisoned or shot to death—or to cast off all moral restraint and press for unconditional surrender. Smart kidnappers always settled for something. The ones Derrick worried about were the fools, the mentally deranged, and the ideologues who interpreted death as martyrdom.
Derrick had no doubt about the category to which Ibrahim belonged. The young pirate was the most capable villain he had ever encountered. He was a dynamic negotiator with a nimble mind, both courageous and calculating in the face of risk. He knew when he had leverage to exercise and when he had reached the limits of his power. He had never accepted the full burden of compromise, always pushing the Navy to meet him in the middle.
For this reason, Derrick felt little fear as he watched the dusk fall over the sea. He sensed the tension around him like static in the air, heard it in the hushed voices of the sailors as they busied themselves with routine tasks, saw it in the creases on Gabe Masters’s forehead. But he was largely immune to it, as was Frank Redman. It was intriguing that the two of them, having clashed so often in the heat of the crisis, had reached the same conclusion: that Ibrahim was about to concede.
It took the
Gettysburg
’s ground crew fifteen minutes to move the helicopter into the hangar bay. When Masters confirmed that the Seahawk was secure, Derrick called Ibrahim again. The phone rang and rang without answer. After ten rings, he thought about using the radio again but decided against it. The transmission would be audible to anyone with a VHF receiver and a line of sight to the cruiser at sea or on land. After the twentieth ring, Derrick frowned.
This isn’t like him. What’s going on?
At long last, Derrick heard the click of a connecting call. “Ibrahim,” he said preemptively, “the helicopter is inside the ship. It’s time to make the exchange.”
When the pirate replied, Derrick knew that something had changed. Perhaps it was the timbre of his words, or perhaps it was the words themselves—spoken in accusation, not conversation—but Derrick sensed the tremor like a seismograph picking up an earthquake.
“You moved the ship,” Ibrahim said.
Derrick felt a surge of adrenaline and dread. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I mean. My eyes do not lie.”
“It’s getting dark,” Derrick said, deflecting the truth. “Things look different at night.”
Ibrahim would have none of this. “You have betrayed our trust. You must move the ship. We will not release the hostages until you are one mile away. You have five minutes to comply.”
The line went dead.
Derrick felt a shock of fear. He glanced at the clock—it was 18:13—and then at Rodriguez who was sitting at the chart table. He saw the doubt in the negotiator’s eyes. He turned toward Redman, preparing himself for a battle he had to win. “He’s serious this time. This isn’t a bluff.”
Redman’s face looked like chiseled marble in the darkened bridge. “Let’s talk outside,” he said. When Derrick and Masters joined him on the bridge wing, he spoke succinctly: “His position is a violation of terms. He got the drop and counted the cash. Now he’s having second thoughts.”
“You’re wrong,” Derrick rejoined. “I met with him. I looked into his eyes. He was willing to trust us as long as we trusted him. Now he thinks we broke the covenant. In his mind, all bets are off.”
“Precisely,” the SEAL commander retorted. “Which is why negotiation is no longer advisable. It’s time to demonstrate to him that he doesn’t have a choice.”
Derrick’s heart dropped. “You don’t get a man to climb down from the ledge by surrounding him with guns. You convince him that living another day is better than the alternative. We should agree to move the ship if he releases Quentin Parker.”
Redman stared him down. “Your advice is duly noted, but the way I see it, Ibrahim has reneged. I don’t have authority for an assault, but I can turn up the heat. It’s time for Arachne.”
“Frank,” Masters broke in, surprising Derrick, “we’ve known each other a long time. I have enormous respect for your team. But Paul is right. Ibrahim is in a dangerous place. If we go tactical, he’ll see it as preemptive. There’s no telling what he’ll do.”
“Are you saying we should move the ship, Gabe?” Redman demanded. “Because that’s not the way we do business. We don’t let our adversaries dictate terms.”
“I agree,” Masters said. “But this isn’t about us. It’s about two American sailors in harm’s way. If there ever was a time to tread lightly, it’s now.”
Redman looked flummoxed. While he could ignore Derrick’s objections, he couldn’t dismiss the opinion of a naval officer equal to him in rank. As Derrick watched, the SEAL commander checked the time and made a snap judgment.
“I’ll grant Ibrahim’s request if he puts Quentin Parker in a life preserver with a safety light and sends him overboard. We’ll pick him up in one of our RHIBs.” He paused, looking between Derrick and Masters. “But I’m not going to tolerate delay. We have spectators and we’re drifting toward Mogadishu. He can have ten minutes to think about it. If he doesn’t meet the condition in that timeframe, we’re doing it my way. Is that clear?”
Derrick came within a hair’s breadth of saying, “I don’t deliver ultimatums,” but the flash of iron in Redman’s eyes convinced him otherwise. The SEAL commander had given him breathing room. It was scarce, yes, but he had to make it work.
He got Ibrahim on the phone again and explained the counteroffer. He heard staccato bursts of chatter in the background, all in Somali.
“You’re changing the bargain, Paul,” the pirate said, interrupting him. “You moved the ship while we were counting the money. Why did you do that? To bring your snipers closer so they can kill us? I remember a lesson my father taught me. If a merchant says he’ll bring you ten camels but he only brings nine, you pay him for the nine and demand the last one for free. You broke our trust. We aren’t going to pay you for the tenth camel.”
Derrick didn’t react. “Ibrahim, moving the ship wasn’t part of our agreement either. We can renegotiate, but you need to give us something in return. You lose nothing if you let Quentin go. You can hold on to the Captain until we’re far enough away for comfort. That’s the best I can do.”
“You’re not listening, Paul,” the pirate said, growing strident. “The one who breaks trust has the obligation to restore it. If you had not moved your ship, we would be on the beach by now and the hostages would be in your hands. You moved your ship. It is your duty to move it again.”
Derrick looked out at the night, struggling to control his racing thoughts.
I need more time. I have to find a way to reach him again.
“Ibrahim, do you recall what you said when we first spoke? You want something, and I want something. You have what you want—a bunch of money and a boat that will take you to the beach. You’re almost home. I still don’t have what I want. We need to help each other get to the goal line. Take some time to think about it. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
“No!” Ibrahim snarled, losing all pretense of control. “You think because you have bigger guns, because you are American and we are Somali, you can make us bend? Read your history. That’s the same arrogance that brought down Corfield and Garrison. Our guns are pointed at the hostages. Back off or we will eat them like meat. Do you hear me?
Back off or we will eat them like meat!
”
Corfield and Garrison?
Derrick thought, his mind processing at light speed.
Garrison is the American general who presided over the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. But Corfield?
For some reason the name sounded familiar. He searched his memory and then it came to him—a footnote in the brief Frazier gave him. Richard Corfield was the British officer charged with putting down an anti-colonial rebellion led by Mohamed Abdullah Hassan, a Somali mullah, in 1913. When Corfield’s Camel Constabulary engaged Hassan’s Dervishes, Corfield perished, after which Hassan penned a poem celebrating his demise.