A Rope and a Prayer (12 page)

He tells me that David is also probably thinking about escaping—something he thought about constantly. He advises me not to go public and not to use force to get David out, because it is too dangerous.

He does not know who it was that orchestrated his own release, but tells me there is a man who worked on his case, an Irish national who lives in the region named Michael Semple. Several people involved in his own case, Jere says, have told him that Michael saved his life. I have already heard about Michael Semple from David and his colleagues at the newspaper. He is a former European Union and United Nations official who was banned from Afghanistan by the current Afghan Karzai government for trying to negotiate with the Taliban. He believes there are moderate Afghans and Taliban—and that maintaining communication is essential. Michael has been working in Pakistan and Afghanistan for twenty-five years and is fluent in several local dialects. Irish by birth, he is Muslim and now resides in Pakistan.

Michael is also someone the newspaper has used as an analyst. The Kabul bureau turned to him for advice soon after David’s abduction. He has provided his assessment of how our dilemma might play out and has analyzed at great and rather eloquent length the depth of our predicament based on his experience working to resolve other kidnappings. The Kabul bureau has forwarded these written accounts to me.

Jere provides me with Michael’s personal e-mail and a suggestion of what to write to make my introduction.

Soon after I write to Michael, I receive his response:

While his response is ambiguous, he is prompt in his reply. I decide to try to stay in regular contact with him. I feel his counsel will prove to be beneficial.

On my walk home toward the subway, I receive a call from a colleague at
Cosmo
. There is a celebrity cover shoot tomorrow and she is calling to make sure all the details are in place: catering, lighting equipment, car service. It is quite a shift, but a welcome one, from the conversation of the past few hours. There is always a sense of emergency and importance around these shoots, which are orchestrated with the thought of preventing catastrophe. A celebrity no-show, a controlling publicist, a stubborn hairstylist, insufficient catering—these are the things that instill panic in my other world.

 

 

David has been held captive for nearly a week.

An individual who calls himself “Atiqullah” has been contacting the Kabul bureau of
The New York Times
. He claims to be holding David and company. I learn that the two men taken hostage with David are Tahir, an Afghan journalist, and Asad, their driver. Tahir is married with two wives and seven children. Asad is married with two kids.

After spending the weekend with his family, David’s brother Lee has returned to New York.

To keep us occupied and optimistic, the Kabul office and the FBI suggest that Lee and I compose a list of proof of life questions (POL), for David. They think another call will be forthcoming and want to ascertain whether the individual on the line does indeed have possession of David, Tahir, and Asad and that they are still alive.

This proves to be an arduous but somewhat amusing task. The gap between our culture and that of the captors comes into focus. Our team suggests that we compose questions that will elicit positive feelings from David without offending his handlers. They suggest “What is the name of your first pet?” Lee points out that their first pet was named Scotch, as in “Scotch and soda.” This is not going to work. The Taliban have banned alcohol. The same is true for music, so references to the first song we danced to at our wedding is also discouraged. I am advised against mentioning anything related to our courtship—first kiss, first date—for fear I will seem like a loose woman.

Finally, we settle on “What is the name of your best friend’s daughter who was the flower girl at your wedding?” “What is your wife’s maiden name?” And “What is your wife’s birthday?”

The POL questions are relayed to Chris Chivers, an intrepid reporter and longtime friend of David’s who has been answering the regular calls from David’s captor Atiqullah. He then sends us written transcripts of each call along with bits of information he and his colleagues discover in their local outreaches. He relays the contents of the latest phone conversation and answers to our POL questions over a conference call with me and Lee.

According to the Taliban, David claims my last name is Lohan—as in “Lindsay Lohan.” There is no proper translation of the name Mulvihill, apparently. I do not know if the Taliban are joking around or if David is protecting my anonymity. Perhaps all Irish American names sound the same in Pashto.

The answer to the best friend’s daughter question comes back as “David does not have a daughter.” True, David does not have a daughter. But his friend does, and they have neglected to provide her name. We make note of this for the next round: names do not translate.

The birth date they provide for me is correct. This is somewhat of a relief, but not enough to assuage my fears as I worry this information could easily be found on the Internet.

Fortunately, David provides a statement that puts me at ease: “Tell my wife that life is better here than when we were on a farm in India.”

I am immediately transported back to our honeymoon in Rajasthan, one month ago. The first thing I recall is the birds, their insistent chant. We lived with three pigeons that were in a perpetual state of agitation. They flew through the halls every time we moved between rooms. In the otherwise idyllic desert setting—the rolling hills of Rajasthan, the blooming roses—the wildlife was very aggressive. Atomic geckos jumped from window frames. Bugs worthy of
National Geographic
close-ups emerged at night when we donned our headlamps: walking sticks, damselflies, beetles. Some kind of creature howled—I assumed it was a wolf, but David brushed it off as a stray dog. The housekeeper clarified it for us when we inquired about the strange noise, “Ah, yes. The jackals.” We joked that this was the least romantic honeymoon ever.

We neglected to gather a few details prior to our visit, namely that temperatures were unusually high that month. With temperatures soaring above 100 degrees, we relied on a generator to cool the place in the late afternoon and slept outdoors on the roof when it was impossibly hot. It was quite beautiful. We had a makeshift four-poster bed, completely encased in mosquito netting. Mornings we would awake to the sound of singing birds—and the errant pigeons, clearly annoyed by our presence. Their song was quite distinctive. It sounded like they were chanting something . . . a protest. Superstitious, I spent days trying to decode it.

“Listen to the birds,” I said over breakfast one morning. “It sounds like they are saying, ‘Let’s all escape, let’s all escape!’

“Wow, are you that miserable here?” David asked.

“No, but listen to them. They’re saying ‘Let’s all escape’—hear it? They have British accents,” I jokingly insisted.

He looked at me like I was slightly crazed—of course, due to the sweltering temperature I could claim heatstroke.

“Maybe they are a reincarnation from the colonial era,” I mused, referring to the British occupation during the Raj. He smiled and laughed reluctantly. He had to admit, it did sound that way. I hoped it was not some premonition of trouble ahead.

David and I lived in a large expanse of rooms at the house, while the staff all slept in one room. The farm had an on-site groundskeeper, a cook, a sweeper, and a gardener. All this would cost a fortune elsewhere, but in India it was a matter of a few dollars a day. According to societal norms, we were supposed to ignore them and go about our business. We lacked the ability and desire to do so.

“Life is better than when we were on a farm in India.” I think about the intent behind David’s statement. The farm did have a generator and an in-house cook. It was quite large, with modern plumbing and a green yard, which was a stark contrast to the rugged desert terrain. I take this to mean David is being fed and taken care of and that, perhaps, he is sitting in a home with electricity. The reference to “better than India” makes me think that he may indeed have been moved to a location beyond Afghanistan—perhaps Pakistan. I think he may be playing on the old rivalry between India and Pakistan. Telling his captors Pakistan is better than India would be a smart move, and I would not put it past David to realize this. Still, I am terrified by the thought that he has been moved into Pakistan.

David took me along for a brief trip to Lahore, Pakistan, in the spring of 2008 just after he had finished reporting on the country’s presidential election, after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. It was my first and last visit there. “The cultural center of Pakistan.” This is how David referred to Lahore, known for its poets, artisans, and parks.

We drove into the city on a March day to discover that a twin suicide bomb attack had killed four people at Pakistan’s Navy War College in the center of the city hours before our arrival. We stayed at the Pearl Continental in a room in the back, away from the parking lot and car entrance as David had requested as a security precaution. We never went anywhere during our three-day stay without our driver close by. And we never lingered anywhere for very long.

The air in Lahore was thick and smoky, burnt. I was never certain of the source: coal, exhaust?

We spent a day with Ahmed Rashid and his wife and later toured a modern, American-style university and the National College of Arts. The students all spoke English and were inquisitive, friendly, and eager to talk to us. On our drive to Badshahi Mosque, a main tourist attraction, women in transit appeared curious and tried to make contact with me. Many of them would lift their veils and smile from the backs of motorbikes. Whole families of five rode on one bike—the babies relegated to the handlebars or their mothers’ laps. Occasionally, they would stare quizzically at my Western uniform of jeans, a khaki jacket, and a loosely tied headscarf.

As I try to understand the circumstances around David’s kidnapping, I am thankful to have had this experience. For me, it reinforces the reality that there are decent, moderate people in Pakistan and that they, more than anyone, are victims of violence and unrest brought on by a few extreme individuals who seek to limit their freedoms. I am terrified at the thought that David has been transported into the tribal areas of Pakistan. The recent calls to the Kabul bureau have been traced to this area.

I know that unlike Lahore, it is a lawless region, one in which the United States has no jurisdiction or ground presence.

The same day as the proof of life questions are relayed, we receive word from the captors that David has told them he is worth $10 million. Lee raises an eyebrow at this. “Oh, really,” he says. They also want ten prisoners released from U.S. custody in Bagram and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for David’s freedom and that of Tahir and Asad. They claim that when David was being imprisoned in Bosnia several Serbian military officers were released from custody in the negotiations to free him. This is a complete fabrication, and these are demands we know we can never meet.

We are advised by the FBI that over time and with regular communications, the demands should drop and shift from money and prisoners to a strictly financial transaction.

There is speculation that the group holding David is part of the Haqqani network, a terrorist faction of the Taliban that have been linked to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. They are able to operate in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the tribal areas. In recent months, they have taken responsibility for the January 2008 bombing of the Serena Hotel in Kabul. The Kabul bureau has been trying to make contact with Abu Tayyeb, the Taliban commander that David planned to interview. They, along with members of the FBI, now think Atiqullah and Abu Tayyeb are one and the same, as their voices and accents are strikingly similar. And they also believe that David and his colleagues were set up. They think Abu Tayyeb may have handed David over to the Haqqani network, or that he is working on their behalf.

The mention of prisoners reinforces our belief that David’s case should remain private. Publicity, we feel, will only increase his political value. We fear more than anything that he will become a public relations pawn or be used by the Taliban as an example of the power they hold in the region.

A day after the Taliban’s demands are relayed, Lee and I are contacted by the Department of Defense through the FBI’s New York office. Officials there are once again asking whether our family will give approval for a raid if the military is able to locate David, Tahir, and Asad and feels confident it can get them out alive.

At this point, Lee and I are willing to grant them permission. But we do not want to make the decision without talking to David’s parents, knowing that the risk involved could be great.

From the seventeenth floor office at the
Times
that has now been assigned to us for our regular visits to the newspaper, we set up a conference call with David’s parents, Harvey and Carol. We explain our current understanding of the situation. There is a pause, then Harvey speaks. “I am very confident that you are both doing everything possible to secure David’s release and have his best interest at heart,” David’s father says. “You do not need to ask me for approval going forward. I trust you will do what is best. You have my full support in making whatever decisions you see fit.”

David’s mother agrees.