A Captain's Duty

thought, Wow, they must be close, to kick up this much water . But later I learned it was the Bainbridge ’s hoses—they’d pulled up right next to us and were spraying us, trying to keep us from heading toward the coast of Somalia. I didn’t care what the reason was. It was so refreshing, like being in a sprinkler on the hottest day of the year. I was like, Oh, don’t leave. This is heaven.
    The Leader got up. He was very nervous. “No action, no action,” the Leader was calling into the radio. “No military action, no military action.”
    I looked out the aft window and saw a helicopter skid hovering there. It was surreal. It was maybe ten feet away and if I could have jumped and caught it, I would have been free.
    “Okay, we’re going to kill the hostage now.”
    I looked over at the Leader. He was on the radio. His face was taut.
    The helicopters flew off. I could hear the noise of the rotors receding. I didn’t really expect Navy SEALs to rappel down and take the ship. That would have been suicide for them and for me. I just missed the spray, and so did the pirates. It died off as the helicopters left.
    The pirates started with the bullshit again.
    “There are no pirates in Somalia,” Tall Guy said. “That’s just media. We were hired by the navy and your company’s security officer and your chief mate and engineer knew about it.”
    Tall Guy even told me the pirates were bidding on a navy contract to do Raycon work—operating what is essentially an electronic lighthouse off Somalia. He asked me to sign up. “Sure,” I joked, “I’ll work six months with you in the Gulf of Aden.”
    As much as I knew it wasn’t true, there was that tiny sliver that wanted to believe. I thought, Maybe this heat is causing me to hallucinate. Maybe this is a drill.
    “Tell me something,” I said. “The night before you came, there was someone on our radio saying ‘Somali pirate, Somali pirate.’ Was that you?”
    The Leader nodded.
    “Yeah. That was me.”
    “Somali pirate, Somali pirate, we are coming to get you,” he said, and it was the voice from the radio. He laughed, and the other pirates joined in.
    “Nice,” I said.
    “I love to see the ship speed up and run away. You guys scare so easy!”
    “So you do this all the time?”
    “Yeah, all the time. The ship goes into maneuvers, the hoses come on, the lights come on. We watch and laugh about it.”
    The other pirates found this hilarious.
    “So how much is the ransom you’re asking for?” I asked.
    “What do you think?”
    “I have no idea. But the Americans won’t pay anything for me. Not a dime. You should know that. You’re going to die on this boat with me. Unless you let me go.”
    The Leader stared at me for what must have been a full minute.
    “Not true. Americans pay the most.”
    I shook my head. “They won’t pay you, but they will let you go. Americans are stupid. We keep our word, unlike you guys. We’ll let you go. If you release me, we’ll even let you keep the boat.”
    The Leader just laughed at me.
    “How much you worth, Phillips? Two million?” He literally spat. “I would as soon kill you for two million. That’s not even worth my time.”
    “That’s nothing? You stole my crew member’s shoes!”
    He shook his head.
    “I hijacked a Greek ship. I killed the captain, because they only offered me two million.”
    The Leader started giving me his whole pirating history. “I took a Lauritzen,” he said. Lauritzen is a French shipping company that specializes in refrigerated cargo. The Leader swore up and down that he’d hijacked one of their ships not too long ago. “I took six million off that.”
    “Six million?” I said. “So what are you still doing here?”
    I laughed in his face. But he went back into his spiel about going to work on a Greek ship as an AB. He was trying to confuse me, I knew, trying to make me think he was legit so the next time an opening came up, I’d hesitate.
    I looked out one of the hatches and saw an inflatable zooming by. It looked like a Zodiac with a few men inside. I thought, We must be near land.
    “I see him,” said Tall Guy. “Who is this guy?”
    “I am going to lure him onto the boat,” the Leader said. “And then we will kill him.”
    “Yes, that would be good,” Musso said. “Get as many people here and kill them all.”
    I heard more outboards, zooming this way and that around us. Musso ran over to one of the hatches with the glass broken