A Captain's Duty Read online

  A Captain's Duty

  Richard Phillips

  Stephan Talty

  “I share the country’s admiration for the bravery of Captain Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew. His courage is a model for all Americans.”

  —President Barack Obama

  It was just another day on the job for fifty-three-year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, the United States-flagged cargo ship which was carrying, among other things, food and agricultural materials for the World Food Program. That all changed when armed Somali pirates boarded the ship. The pirates didn’t expect the crew to fight back, nor did they expect Captain Phillips to offer himself as hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew. Thus began the tense five-day stand-off, which ended in a daring high-seas rescue when U.S. Navy SEALs opened fire and picked off three of the captors.

  “It never ends like this,” Captain Phillips said.

  And he’s right.

  A Captain’s Duty tells the life-and-death drama of the Vermont native who was held captive on a tiny lifeboat off Somalia’s anarchic, gun-plagued shores. A story of adventure and courage, it provides the intimate details of this high-seas hostage-taking—the unbearable heat, the death threats, the mock executions, and the escape attempt. When the pirates boarded his ship, Captain Phillips put his experience into action, doing everything he could to safeguard his crew. And when he was held captive by the pirates, he marshaled all his resources to ensure his own survival, withstanding intense physical hardship and an escalating battle of wills with the pirates. This was it: the moment where training meets instinct and where character is everything. Richard Phillips was ready.

  Richard Phillips

  with Stephan Talty

  A CAPTAIN’S DUTY

  Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea

  To all those who go to sea: the U.S. Navy,

  the Navy SEALs, the Merchant Mariners.

  I am proud to be among them.

  To my family: my wife, Andrea, and my

  children, Daniel and Mariah, who helped

  teach me patience.

  Last, to my mother and father, who raised

  me to believe.

  If fear is cultivated, it will become stronger. If faith is cultivated, it will achieve mastery.

  —John Paul Jones, merchant mariner and Revolutionary War hero

  Map

  Introduction

  The heat in the lifeboat had become completely unbearable. The last drops of cool ocean water from my escape attempt had evaporated off my skin hours ago and, even though it was two in the morning, the heat was radiating off the hull and pressing down on me. I felt as if I were sitting on top of the equator. I’d stripped down to my khakis and socks, but I couldn’t even put my feet on the deck because it was boiling hot. My ribs and arms were aching, too, from the beating the pirates had given me, absolutely batshit furious that their million-dollar American hostage had almost gotten away.

  I could see the lights of the navy ship through the aft hatch, dipping up and down on the ocean swells astern, about half a mile away. I’d almost made it. If the moon hadn’t been so bright, the pirates would never have spotted me. I should have been drinking a cold beer in the captain’s quarters right now, telling my adventure story to half the crew and waiting for my call home to go through.

  The ship looked gigantic out there. It was like a piece of home floating so close it seemed unreal. It appeared to be a destroyer, which meant they had enough firepower to blow a thousand pirate ships back to Mogadishu. Why hadn’t they done anything?

  The hard plastic of the molded seats was digging into my back and causing my legs to cramp. I hung my head back, trying to relieve the stress on my neck. I was now trussed up like a deer in the middle of the lifeboat. The Somalis had lashed my hands to a vertical bar at the top of the lifeboat’s canopy and bound my feet together. I couldn’t even feel my fingers. The lanky pirate, the one I called Musso, had pulled the ropes so tight I’d lost sensation in less than a minute. My hands were starting to swell up like a pair of clown gloves.

  I’d been better.

  I stood there, panting, counting the minutes go by. I could hear the creaking of the boat and the slap of waves against the fiberglass hull.

  Then, suddenly, the whole atmosphere in the boat changed. Nobody said a word, nobody moved. I couldn’t see much anyway, just the eyes of the Somalis and their teeth when they smiled or spoke. There was a little moonlight coming in through the hatches, fore and aft, but I could feel the atmosphere change in a split second. It was like an electric switch had been flipped from positive to negative. When someone has a loaded AK-47 pointed at your face, you get to know his mood really well, believe me. If he’s happy or annoyed, if his nose itches, if he’s thinking about breaking up with his girlfriend, whatever. You know. And my skin just felt a change in the air—like something dangerous had slipped into the boat and was sitting right next to me.

  I could catch glimpses of what was going on, but mostly it was what I heard. The first thing was a click. The sound was coming from the cockpit of the boat, where the Leader was sitting. Click. Silence. Click. Silence. Click, click. He was pulling the trigger of his 9mm, dry-firing it. In the darkness, I couldn’t see if the gun was pointed at me, but I felt a cold sensation creep across my chest. The little bastard didn’t have a clip in the gun, or my head would have exploded in a big red spray against the hull. No bullets in the chamber, either. Yet.

  And then out of the darkness I heard the chanting. From the cockpit, the Leader called out something in this droning voice and the other three—Tall Guy, Musso, and the crazy-eyed Young Guy—answered him. I leaned forward, trying to figure out what they were saying. It was obviously some kind of religious ceremony, like a Latin Catholic Mass back in Massachusetts when I was growing up. A few hours ago these guys had been laughing and telling jokes and boasting how they were “real Somali sailors, twenty-four/seven.” You could almost forget they were pirates and I was their hostage. Now everything was different. It was like we’d gone back ten centuries and they were asking Allah for his blessing for what they were about to do.

  I knew what was happening. But I didn’t have to sit there and take it.

  “What are you going to do now, kill me?” I yelled up to the Leader. In the darkness, I could hear him laugh—I saw the flash of his teeth—and then he coughed and spit. Then the four of them went back to the chanting. I tried to move my hands and loosen the rope, but I had to give it to Musso. He could tie a goddamn knot like nobody’s business.

  The prayers came to an end, just like that. The boat was quiet and I could hear the splashing of the waves again. I stared into the darkness, looking to see the muzzle of an AK-47 being raised toward me. Nothing.

  “You have a family?”

  The voice was mocking, self-assured. He was the Leader, no question.

  “Yeah, I have a family,” I said. I realized with a feeling of panic that I hadn’t said my good-byes to them. I bit down on my lip.

  “Daughter? Son?”

  “I have a son, a daughter, and a wife.”

  Silence. I heard some rustling up near the cockpit. Then the Leader spoke again.

  “That’s too bad,” he said. He was trying to rattle me. And he was doing a damn good job of it, actually.

  “Yeah, that is too bad,” I shot back. Whatever they did or said, I couldn’t let them know they’d gotten to me.

  Musso came toward me down the aisle of the lifeboat. He took some white cotton cloth that he’d torn from a shirt and laced it through the ropes around my hands. He didn’t pull them tight, just twined them around the ropes. Then he took out some parachute-type lines, one red
, one white, and started lacing those through. Slowly. His face was maybe a foot from mine and I could see him concentrating hard on what he was doing. The white and red lines were looped around in this intricate pattern that he had to get exactly right.

  It’s a weird feeling, watching yourself being prepared to die. It was like they expected me to go along with my own murder, to be a good victim and not say a word. I felt a jolt of anger shoot through me. These guys were not going to take me away from my family, from everything and everyone I loved. No way.

  When Musso was done, he walked back to the cockpit. The Somalis started talking again—regular conversation this time—and they seemed to come to some kind of an agreement. I saw the Leader hand his pistol to Tall Guy, who came walking down the aisle toward me. So he’d been chosen to do the job.

  Tall Guy sat down behind me on the orange survival suit. For some reason, they had to be standing or sitting on something orange or red during the ritual. He checked the 9mm clip, slammed it back in, and then played with the gun. It was like he was toying with me. The one I called Young Guy, the one who’d been staring at me the whole two days, smiling like a deranged maniac, came over and dragged my feet onto the exposure suit. At the same time, Musso came down and started tugging hard on my arms. They were trying to get me in the right position, I guess, for a clean killing. The Leader was shouting at Musso, “Pull tight!” and then at the other guy, “Get him up!” Musso yanked on the line that tied my hands, trying to get my arms above my head. They wanted to stretch me out. No goddamn way, I said to myself. I’m not going to be your fatted calf.

  As Musso pulled up, I jammed my fists under my chin. “You can’t do it,” I muttered to him through my teeth. “You’re not strong enough.” I thought if I could mess up their ceremony, I might survive a little longer. Musso started to get mad. His nostrils were flaring and he was getting exasperated with me. The sweat was popping off his face, and I started enjoying it—this badass Somali pirate with the automatic weapon couldn’t get me to do his bidding. We came face-to-face. “You’ll never do it,” I whispered to him.

  Musso finally let go of my arms and whacked me in the face. I grinned.

  The Leader was getting hot, too, mixing his Somali and his English as he screamed at the guys. “Pull it tight!” he yelled. Musso studied me and then smiled. He put his hands on my arms and rested them there, like Let’s just chill out, pal. I nodded, but I kept my fists jammed under my chin. Musso grabbed the line tethered to my wrists and yanked up hard. I was ready. My hands raised an inch as the rope creaked tight, but that was it.

  Now the Somalis were really going for it, grunting with the effort, fighting me with everything they had. Musso tried to yank up on my hands; I held them down. One of them pulled my feet onto the orange suit, but I kicked them back. Another was standing behind me with the gun. I was breathing hard, mouthfuls of hot suffocating air, but I was holding my own. I thought in the back of my mind, How long can you keep this up? Not long, I knew. Better say your good-byes.

  All of a sudden, there was an explosion near my left ear. I saw stars and my head kicked forward and dropped into my hands. My whole body went slack. I felt blood spurting out between my fingers and running down my face.

  Holy shit, he really did it, I thought. He shot me.

  My vision was blurred but I looked up at the vertical and horizontal green strut on the bulkhead wall. It looked like a cross, and just staring at it had settled my fears before. As I looked at the cross, the strangest thing came into my mind. I’m going to see Frannie, I thought. Frannie, my dang dog in Vermont, a nutcase from the pound who never once obeyed any of my commands. She’d been hit by a car in front of our farmhouse a month before I left. Now I was going to see her.

  Then I heard Musso. “Don’t do it!” he shouted. “No, no!” I looked up. Blood from my head had spilled onto the white knots. Musso was freaking out.

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t know if I’d dodged a bullet or what had just happened.

  I really should have told the pirates: I’m too stubborn to die that easily. You’re just going to have to try harder.

  ONE

  -10 Days

  PIRACY FIGURES UP 20 PERCENT IN FIRST QUARTER OF 2009: A total of 36 vessels were boarded and one vessel hijacked. Seven crew members were taken hostage, six kidnapped, three killed and one missing—presumed dead. In the majority of incidents, the attackers were heavily armed with guns or knives. The use and threat of violence against crew members remains unacceptably high…. Waters around Somalia continue to be notorious for hijacking of vessels and the abduction of crew for ransom.

  —ICC International Maritime Bureau Piracy Report, First Quarter, 2009

  Ten days before, I’d been enjoying my last meal stateside with my wife, Andrea, in one of the most beautiful towns in Vermont. All you see from the front door of my converted farmhouse are rolling green hills, munching cows, and more rolling hills. Underhill is the kind of Vermont town where young farmers propose to their local sweethearts by spray-painting RACHEL, WILL YOU MARRY ME? on bales of hay. It’s a place where you can walk for three minutes and be lost in a forest so deep and thick and silent you’d think you’re going to trip over Daniel Boone. We have two general stores and one Catholic church, St. Thomas, and the occasional tourist up from Manhattan. It’s as different from the ocean as the other side of the moon is, and I love that. It’s like I get to live two completely different lives.

  As a merchant mariner, I often work three months on and three months off. When I come home, I forget about the sea. I’m 100 percent into being a dad and husband. When our kids, Dan and Mariah, were young, from the moment they got up to the minute they went to bed, I’d take care of them. Neighbors and friends would ask me to babysit, so I’d have five or six kids in tow. I’d make dinner: French toast by candlelight, my specialty. I’d do Rich’s Homework Club. I’d take the kids on class trips. Whatever I do, work or home life, I do with everything I have.

  When I leave my family, it’s for a long time. You need to do something special for them before you ship out, because it might be the last time you see them. When he was growing up, my son, Dan, would goad me, “Oh, I don’t have a dad. He’s never home. Guess he doesn’t love me.” We’d laugh about it—Dan is exactly like I was when I was nineteen: a smart aleck who will find your weakness and hammer it home until you give in and laugh. But what he said about my never being there would come back to haunt me. Because there’s a kernel of truth there. My daughter, Mariah, and Dan would see me every day for three months and then I would be gone to some far-flung corner of the world. It didn’t matter to them that there were other merchant mariners who stayed onboard even longer than I did, that I knew one guy, a radio operator, who was aboard one ship for two years straight.

  As a sailor, you have to put your real life on your kitchen shelf and pick up your merchant marine life. Because on the job, you barely have a personal life. You’re on call twenty-four hours a day to do whatever the ship needs. You eat and sleep and work and that’s pretty much it. It’s like you’ve died and gone to sea. Then you come back and take your real life off the shelf and start living it again.

  You develop rituals to get through the transition from land to sea. Sailors have a phrase, “crossing the bar,” which means leaving harbor for the unknown on the oceans (it also can refer to the death of a sailor), and you have to get yourself mentally prepared to go across. It’s a stressful time when fears start creeping into the minds of your loved ones. It was probably the dangers of my job that were on Andrea’s mind that cold March—pirates, rogue waves, desperate people in third-world ports. All the while, I’d be thinking like a captain, running through a checklist with a thousand things on it: What repairs do I need to see to? Are the guys on my crew dependable? I used to start doing this a month before I left, which would drive Andrea around the bend. Now, after thirty years at sea, I wait until I hit the deck of my ship.

  Andrea and I have a tradition when I’m get
ting ready to leave. First, we argue. About nothing at all. In the weeks leading up to my leaving, Andrea and I always have arguments about little things, about the car or the weather or her hitting her head on the old ship’s bell that hangs near the clothesline in our backyard. She must have smacked it three or four times while putting up fresh laundry to dry, and she always comes in and yells at me to take it down. (It’s still up there, too—sentimental value.) But in those weeks before a job, we get on each other’s nerves, which is nothing more than her being anxious about my leaving and me being anxious about leaving her.

  Andrea is an emergency room nurse at a hospital in Burlington and she’s a fierce, opinionated, loving Italian girl from Vermont. I love her to death. We’d met in a Boston dive bar, the Cask ’n Flagon, down near Kenmore Square, when she was in nursing school and I’d been around the world a few times already as a young sailor. I noticed this cute frizzy-haired brunette girl sitting at the bar, and I just had to talk to her. Andrea was talking with the bartender, since they’d just discovered they had mutual friends. Then, as she tells it, this tall guy with a beard appeared out of nowhere and sat down next to her.

  “You have a problem,” I said.

  Andrea thought, Well, he’s cute enough. I’ll play along.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  “Being the best-looking woman in every room you walk into.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “There are three women in here. Not a huge compliment.”

  I laughed and stuck out my hand.

  “I’m Rich,” I said. “As in ‘filthy.’” That was one of my better lines in the early eighties.

  Andrea cracked up. Then she let me buy her a drink.