by Tom Vitale
“Affirmative,” Josh said. “Great stuff here. Damien almost got hit by a firework, but he was able to use Todd as a human shield.”
“Keep up the good work,” I said.
I saw Zach was smiling and peered over his shoulder. In the monitor was a toddler on his father’s shoulders; both of them were looking up, and fireworks exploded, momentarily illuminating an expression of awe.
“It’s like the first fourth of July on steroids,” Zach said, having come around. Tony was clearly enjoying himself as well, but still not saying anything. My train of thought was interrupted by a loud ker-BLAAAM as I got hit in the back by a fireball. When I turned around, Reda and the rest of the local crew were laughing. “Someone did that on purpose!” I shouted, really pissed off.
“Did you get the shot?” he asked Zach. “That’s in the show.”
“On the bright side, now that I’ve been hit, I know that they don’t hurt,” I said, checking to see if my jacket was singed.
“Yeah, just as long as you don’t get shot in the eyes,” Zach said.
It kept getting better and better. A live box of Roman candles tipped over, sending rockets bouncing off the pavement, skipping, hitting the steps, and shooting into the spectators. Fizz, whap, crack, BAM. People yelled and waved the Libyan flag from the backs of horn-blaring pickup trucks. Every part of this would be totally illegal back in the States, and it was going to make some great TV.
“Are you getting the car doing the donuts?” Tony asked, referring to a BMW drifting dangerously close to the crowd. Before Zach could answer, there was another explosion, and a bright red rocket hit Tony in the back of the head. “Ouch,” he said, rubbing behind his ear. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”
“How does it feel to finally be in Libya?” I asked, trying again to get Tony to say something usable.
“Please stop,” Tony said. “I got nothing to say, and you’re harshing the buzz.”
“It’s just we’re getting so much great footage and—”
“STOP!” Tony shouted. “Will someone please kill him?”
“This is fantastic!” Reda said, laughing. “There were fireworks under Gaddafi, but never a party like this! This is freedom for the first time in forty-two years!”
Reda was right. The energy was amazing, and we’d captured the historic feel. Even though Tony wasn’t going to talk, it was still one hell of a first night. Someone sparked a joint and passed it to Tony. He took a hit and said, “How do you say… shakran?”
“You know shakran?” Reda said excitedly.
“Mastool,” Tony said. At which point Reda doubled over laughing.
“What does mastool mean?” I asked.
“It means I’m totally wasted!” he said. “Mastool!”
SHOOT DAY TWO WE FILMED a scene at a traditional Libyan tea house with Tony and an expat journalist who’d grown up in Libya and returned post-revolution. They marveled at the “against-all-odds” victory, the kindness and optimism of the population, as well as the exuberance of the previous evening’s fireworks-related celebrations. They also discussed the immense challenges facing the country. One of the biggest issues involved the militias who’d fought Gaddafi and weren’t taking orders from the new central government. One detail in particular caught my ear. Recently there had been reports of militias rounding up and torturing gay men. While researching Libya before the trip I’d read that, along with things like alcohol, the official policy toward homosexuality was pretty much zero tolerance. A lot of places we went there was some sort of prohibition on being gay, so for shoots I just casually put it aside, as if you could take off being gay like taking off a sweater.
That evening we returned to Martyrs’ Square for the second day of Muhammad’s birthday celebrations, expecting a repeat of the previous evening. So it came as a surprise that there was barely anyone there, just a few lone cherry bombs in the distance. The mood had changed. It wasn’t hostile per se, but certainly not the exuberant, friendly, frenzied welcoming atmosphere of the previous night. It seemed the second shoot day was far less remarkable than the first. That is, until I went to bed.
Around three a.m., I was woken up by a knock at my door. “Tom, it’s Damien. We need to talk.” Entering Damien’s hotel room, I was confronted by Zach, Josh, and the security guys, all of whom were looking very worried.
“The British foreign office has issued a statement that they are aware of an imminent threat in Benghazi,” Damien said. “Apparently there was an attack by jihadists that’s not being reported in the news yet, and Westerners are being urged to leave immediately. There is now a very direct kidnap threat running right across from Algeria and Liberia down to the south of Libya, including the vicinity of Tripoli. The vibe at Martyrs’ Square was clearly ominous, and you’ve had a number of sidekicks drop out. It’s my feeling the local population knows something’s up and don’t want to be associated with us. We’ve been on the jungle drums and though it’s not confirmed yet, our intel informs us two Western female journalists were abducted here in Tripoli.”
“Holy fuck! What are we going to do?” Zach asked.
“Bowler will be taking watch tonight. In case anything happens, there’s a plan to escape. Tony has been advised,” Damien said. “Remember as we practiced in the HET course, in a kidnapping situation, control your emotions. It’s likely your captors will be nervous, unstable, and anxious. Follow their instructions… if conscious.”
Holy shit, I hadn’t expected this. Over the years we’d been to some tough places with Damien, but this was the first time we’d been woken in the middle of the night and told our lives might be in danger. After I finished packing just in case, I sat on my bed, my mind racing with everything from mortal terror to contingency plans for the episode. Obviously, I wouldn’t be getting any sleep, and I assumed Josh wouldn’t either. I went over to his room.
“I stood for what must have been like an hour and a half with the lights off halfway between the bathroom and the bed,” Josh said. “I was afraid to make a fucking move because I thought I heard something outside.”
“Josh, it’s going to be okay,” I said. “Tony’s invincible, remember?”
“I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that side characters like us can’t get picked off.”
Fuck, Josh was right… This was the worst time to be stuck in a dry country.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, TODD CAME down to breakfast well rested and saw the rest of the crew, dark circles under our eyes, silently drinking coffee.
“Ummm… did I miss something?” Todd asked.
“You didn’t get woken up?” Tony said in surprise. “Gee, Todd, forgetting you is starting to be a regular thing.” A couple weeks earlier while Josh and I prepared for the Libya shoot, Zach, Todd, and Tony had been deep in the Colombian jungle. While there, Damien had accidentally left Todd at a rest stop in FARC territory. Or so the story went. A similar thing had happened in Haiti when we switched hotels. We only realized Todd wasn’t with us once we’d checked in to the new one. Todd was rightly starting to develop a complex about being left behind in hazardous environments.
“Apologies, Todd. I pledge to do my sincere best it doesn’t happen again,” Damien said. I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not; it could be hard to tell. “Unless you prefer a pacifier, bottle, and a nap, let me get you up to speed,” Damien continued. Yup. He was being sarcastic.
Despite the recurring Todd lapses, at this point we had a longstanding and trusting relationship. Since that first shoot together in Haiti when we’d all decided to stick it out through food riots and with a hurricane bearing down on us, Damien had accompanied us to Mexico at the peak of drug cartel kidnappings, and the worst thing that had happened was Tony flying off the handle when I “surprised” him with the pink stretch limo transport beat in Tijuana. The last season of No Reservations, Tony convinced the network to approve a shoot in Iraq. Due to the higher than usual risk, in addition to security accompanying us in the field, the insura
nce company required us to take what’s called Hazardous Environment Training (HET). With Damien’s flare for the dramatic, his course wasn’t going to be anything less than a full-immersion experience. Due to more relaxed laws surrounding guns and explosive ordnance, Damien had opted to hold the training in rural Virginia.
“Welcome to Virginistan,” he’d said as we arrived from New York.
Damien presented us with laminated press badges and written information including a faked Wikipedia printout as well as a stern warning to take the training course as seriously as we’d take our upcoming trip. Damien had devised a complete backstory of civil unrest and political overthrow. Virginistan even had its own currency, which we were to treat like real money. Basically, Damien had endeavored mightily to provide a realistic experience designed to prepare us for Iraq… and scare the hell out of us in the process.
Virginistan highlights included getting sunburnt while using a knitting needle to pick my way through a supposed minefield and an actor vomiting Dinty Moore stew to simulate the effects of shock. As the course progressed, there were medical training, live ammunition handling, checkpoint exercises, kidnapping scenarios, and fake blood. Despite what I’d been told, unfortunately the fake blood stains did not wash out. Regardless, I had to say, Damien put on one heck of a good show.
When we finally deployed to Iraq, we were definitely more prepared. Everyone survived, but there were a few intense moments—like when we inadvertently stopped to take a piss break in Mosul, a well-known red zone. And the time when a kidnapping false alarm resulted from Tony’s driver not speaking enough English to follow instructions. One of Damien’s team misread the situation, and, fearing a hostage situation, nearly gave the driver the “good news” (Tony speak for snapping the driver’s neck). When I saw Tony after the little “misunderstanding,” as it became known, he was visibly shaken. “It was just like fucking Virginistan!” Tony said in between drags of his cigarette.
Now, here we were again. But this was no simulation.
“If we knew before we came to Libya what the situation was going to be, we would’ve told you not to come,” Damien said.
“Do we need to leave?” I asked. “Is it that bad?”
“The unfortunate thing for you is I’m not here to tell you what to do. Ultimately you, as the director of the show, are responsible for your crew,” Damien said in an ominously deliberate voice. “I’ve given you the best information I can. You’ll have to make the call.”
“I can’t make that decision for everyone,” I said, shooting a worried glance at Josh, who looked as nervous as I did. “We should take a vote each day and decide as a group.”
“All right,” Tony said, breaking the silence. “Libya was a high-risk environment, we all knew that when we signed up. Who’s in? Who wants to keep going for another day?” Todd and I raised our hands. A moment later Josh and Zach followed suit.
“Very well,” Damien said. “In that case I’ll have to insist on a few changes in the way we operate. The production will need to move faster, be in and out of each location quickly.”
“What exactly do you mean by quickly?” I asked.
“We’ll evaluate on a case-by-case basis. But I estimate around one hour maximum,” Damien said.
“One hour?!” I practically choked. On a normal day, setup and lighting alone usually took about two hours, then another one to two hours with Tony, and some time afterward to film food prep. An average food scene required approximately five-plus hours. These days it took us an hour just to get out of the van. Literally. So I couldn’t imagine being in and out in that time.
“I understand this style of working presents some challenges to your flow,” Damien said. “But in order to mitigate risk, I feel it’s a necessary precaution if we want to keep operating. I’ll be timing you today to see how it goes. Also, to reduce our exposure, we’re going to shake up the schedule and not let locations know in advance we’re coming.”
“The restaurants will be furious!” I said.
“You all are a very resourceful bunch,” Damien said. “I trust you’ll find a way.”
Coordinating sidekicks, locations, and timings was going to take a feat to pull off. He was spot on about one thing, though: we were very resourceful.
“I DON’T KNOW WHY YOUR guys are telling you that,” Jomana said. She was CNN’s Libya expert. Although I didn’t feel right telling the crew to stay, I did have the power to pull the plug if it seemed prudent, and I wanted another opinion. “Government officials are claiming the UK warning is unfounded. Yes… I’ve heard about the kidnapping of the Western journalists, but it’s not true. These are rumors designed to stir up tensions and cause fear in order to undermine Libya’s stability. It’s the same thing with the supposed attack in Benghazi. Nothing has happened there.”
The night before when I’d updated the office on our situation, they immediately checked in with the CNN International desk. CNN was aware of the warnings but still felt Tripoli was stable. The information I was getting from both CNN and now Jomana painted such a different picture. I needed to find Damien, but before I did, Zach popped out from behind a large potted fern.
“Dude, we got to get the fuck out of here. This is not what we signed up for! Did you see how freaked out Damien looked? I’ve never seen him like that before!”
“I know,” I said. “I’m far from happy about what’s going on. But I just talked to our contact at CNN and I got a very different story. I don’t know, but it seems like Damien might be jumping the gun…”
My gut was telling me to trust Jomana over Damien, but I wasn’t exactly impartial. We had a TV show to make, and bailing on the second day of the shoot wasn’t a good look. This was only the fourth episode of Parts Unknown. If we pulled the plug for what turned out to be no reason… well, there was no going back now. At least not without a credible threat. When I found Damien, he was looking down at his phone and laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Oh, just looking at some pictures,” Damien said, smiling. “From my annual pilgrimage to the Nevada desert.” Damien was referring to his Burning Man trips. Apparently desert raves were how he chose to blow off steam in between assignments.
“Here I am corralling the ponies,” he said and flashed me the picture. Unfortunately, there was no way to unsee what I’d just been shown. Indelibly imprinted on my mind was an image of a late middle-aged tent orgy, the participants naked on all fours, each ball-gagged and sporting what looked like matching sparkly silver batons with extra-long tassels. The batons had been inserted somewhere I didn’t think the manufacturer had intended them to go. Unless they weren’t batons… In contrast to the ponies, Damien was fully erect, a whip in each hand. He was covered from head to toe in silver paint, and only silver paint. “The ponies were disobedient,” he said reproachfully. “They left me no choice but to teach them a very firm lesson.”
“Right. Um, I spoke to Jomana from CNN,” I said, cutting to the chase. “She’s been in touch with her sources, and had a different take on the situation…” When I finished explaining to Damien what I’d learned, I could tell he was not happy about having his authority challenged.
“With all due respect to Jomana, she is in Tunisia,” he said coldly. I didn’t know who to believe. It was like both Jomana and Damien had been given the same information, and each was twisting it in the complete opposite direction. But I thought there wasn’t much chance they were both lying. I couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on and had no choice but to speculate.
ON THE VAN RIDE TO our lunch scene—the first attempt at Parts Unknown guerilla edition—I thought about all the things that could go wrong. The camera guys didn’t work well under this kind of time pressure. The restaurant didn’t know we were coming. What if they said, “No, come back tomorrow?” What if the sidekick didn’t show up thanks to the last-minute schedule change? We were going to have to get everything as we went—no coming back later for exteriors, food prep, o
r inserts—because at any moment Damien might shout, “Get in the vans!” And what if Damien was right about the threat to our safety? But most terrifying of all, Tony was sitting next to me. He hadn’t traveled with the crew to location in seven years, and I wasn’t sure what would happen if he had to watch us set up. Reminders of the artifice of making TV had been known to throw Tony off his game and could have negative creative implications.
“I’m starting the clock,” Damien said as we arrived. It was showtime. Tumbling out of the van, I was met by a strong breeze blowing off the Mediterranean and the smell of fresh fish. Reda went inside to secure permission, the camera guys started unloading gear, while I met Omar the sidekick. Straight away I got a good vibe. He’d been a travel agent before the revolution, when he took up arms to fight Gaddafi.
“You and Tony stand out front, choose your fish, then go inside and eat,” I said, dramatically abbreviating my usual pre-shoot sidekick pep talk. “Be yourself while we film, it’s simple!”
“That’s the best way to do it!” Omar said.
“The restaurant said yes!” Reda reported. Everything was going according to plan so far. Surprisingly.
“What do they do? They just grill that?” Tony asked, walking up to the diverse array of sea creatures spread out over ice in front of the restaurant.
“Yeah, they open it and grill it,” Omar said. “Some garlic, some sauce. It’s really awesome. One of the best foods in Libya.”
Okay, the scene had definitely begun, ready or not. Zach and Todd had started filming, but they were in each other’s shots and yelling about who should move. The crew vans and piles of equipment were lying out in the background, and our driver was talking up the taxi stand, probably explaining we worked for CNN. We obviously weren’t keeping a low profile. Damien was watching disapprovingly.