A Captain's Duty

house,” I said. “Not until the kids finish college.” It’s amazing what goes through your mind as a dad. I thought of the unfinished repairs on the house. I wondered if there was enough money in my insurance policy for the kids to finish school. The basics.
    I began to see all the people I was going to meet in heaven. My father and my uncle and Tina, Andrea’s stepmother who had died just a few days earlier of cancer. I hadn’t gotten to see her before she passed. I was going to see James, my brother’sson, who’d died unexpectedly the previous October at too young an age. It was comforting. Each of their faces flashed in front of my eyes.
    And I was going to see the best-looking dog and the worst-acting dog in the world. Frannie. The dog that never came when you called her name…a real nutcase. Just thinking about her made me grin.
    I’ve always said that, when the time comes to die, if I can think back and laugh about what I’ve done and experienced, I’ve had a good life. It’s not about the money or fame or fortune. It’s how you live your life. And I’d had a lucky one.
    But I wasn’t giving up on it yet.
    I stared up at the green strut on the bulkhead that formed what looked like a cross, and I closed my eyes.
     
    Three hours later, the sun was just about to come up. The pirates started the chanting again. I started to think that they were on the Muslim schedule of praying five times a day, and that these death rituals were timed around that. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Young Guy looking at me. He could see I was emotional and he was really enjoying my grief and the pain I was about to cause my loved ones. In my peripheral vision, I saw the others watching me, too.
    That pissed me off.
    I wouldn’t let them see me cowering or quaking in front of them. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. The anger washed away the faces of my loved ones. I had to deal with these bastards now.
    I looked Young Guy full in the face and then I looked away. Isteeled myself. I emptied my eyes of emotion and made my face as hard and cold as I could and tried to look as fanatical as possible. I looked back at Young Guy, really projecting that mad dog look into his face. I started to laugh. Then I looked away again, smiling.
    “You think you’re in charge,” I said, “but none of us are getting out of this alive.”
    His face crumpled and he drew back. He looked at me as if I were some kind of lunatic.
    I cackled. In my peripheral vision, I could see the others looking at me like I had two heads.
    “You’re mad, you’re mad,” Young Guy said.
    “Me? Irate?” I looked at him. “No, I’m not mad. But I am crazy.”
    Well, fuck them. Both sides can play mind games.
     
    That afternoon, the Leader was on the radio with the navy interpreter, speaking in Somali.
    “How’d it go?” I said, after he’d finished. I wanted to get any information I could.
    “With those guys?” the Leader said. “Oh, I work for them.”
    I was surprised he answered me but even more surprised by what he’d said.
    “You work for the U. S. Navy?”
    “Of course,” he said nonchalantly. “This is a training mission. I do these all the time. We take ships and then see how the navy responds. Your company hired us. There are no pirates out here anymore.”
    “You’re serious?”
    He nodded.
    “I know these navy guys a long time. We’re friends!”
    My brain seemed to go in two directions at once. My first thought was That’s ridiculous. But then I thought, Well, he does seem friendly with the navy guys. And there was what looked like a navy insignia on the butt of the 9 mm along with the kind of lanyard navy personnel use. How did they get that? And why hadn’t the navy rescued me when they had the chance?
    Crazy thoughts were flying through my head. I could feel the beginning of paranoia creeping up on me.
    “We told your chief mate,” the Leader said. “He knew this was a test.”
    “Uh huh,” I said.
    “And your chief engineer. The navy and your company gave us this job.”
    I remembered the faces of Shane and Mike when we were getting the MOB ready. There had been real fear there. The Somalis had to be lying.
    “Right. And was trying to kill me part of the job?”
    He laughed. Then he coughed and spit.
    “Kill you? When did we do that?”
    “You almost killed me on the ship. And in the lifeboat you fired an AK about a foot above my head.”
    He waved the gun in front of him.
    “Warning