by David Rohde
A large man with short dark hair protruding from the sides of his cap, Atiqullah appears self-assured. He speaks calmly and confidently, and is in clear command of his men. He offers me back the eyeglasses his gunmen had taken from me and tells me to stop sobbing, a tactic that had eased the suspicions of my captors in Bosnia. Weeping is a great shame, he explains, and it upsets him and his men to see it. Later, I will learn that the Taliban consider crying to be a sign of guilt. If a person is innocent, he does not fear death, because he knows God will save him.
“You will be treated well,” he assures me, citing Islam’s mandate that prisoners not be harmed. “I understand foreigners get sick. You will be given bottled water. If you need to see a doctor, you will see a doctor.”
“Whatever we eat,” he adds, “you will eat.”
His beliefs appear to be a combination of Pashtunwali and fundamentalist Islam. Gracious treatment of guests is a Pashtun hallmark. Deep suspicion of nonbelievers is an excess of radical Islam. Since the Taliban emerged in the early 1990s, religiously conservative rural Pashtuns have been their base of support.
With Tahir translating, I try to convince him to release us. I tell him that we were invited to Logar Province to interview Abu Tayyeb and hear the Taliban’s side of the story. We are journalists, I say, and I served as The New York Times’ South Asia bureau co-chief from 2002 to 2005. I describe the articles I wrote in Bosnia exposing the mass executions of 8,000 Muslims. I tell him Christians there imprisoned me when they caught me at a mass gravesite and accused me of being pro-Muslim. I tell him I had won the Pulitzer Prize and a half dozen other journalism awards for helping expose the massacres.
I hope I am convincing him that I am an independent journalist. I hope I am convincing him that the United States is not a monolith and some Americans defend Muslims and are rewarded for it. For years, I have thought that if the Taliban ever kidnap me, my work in Bosnia would protect me. I would be investigated online, declared a friend of Islam, and, I hoped, released.
Finally, I take off my wedding ring, show him the engraving of my wife’s name on the inner band, and explain that we were married only two months ago. Tears roll down my cheeks again and I beg him to free us. The melodrama is intentional. I have read that a captive’s best chance of survival is getting their captor to see them as a human being. I hope my display of emotion will help us.
Atiqullah grows angry, orders me to stop crying, and tells me I will see my wife again. But he denies our requests to call Abu Tayyeb or a Taliban spokesman Tahir knows. He says he controls our fate now.
He hands me back my notebook and pen and orders me to start writing. American soldiers routinely disgrace Afghan women and men, he says. They force women to stand before them without their burqas, the head-to-toe veils that conservative Pashtun villagers believe protect a woman’s honor. They search homes without permission and force Afghan men to lie on the ground, placing boots on their heads and pushing their faces into the dirt. He views the United States as a malevolent occupier.
Atiqullah produces one of our cell phones and announces that he wants to call the Times bureau in Kabul. I give him the number and he briefly speaks with one of the newspaper’s Afghan reporters. He hands me the phone. One of my colleagues from the paper’s Kabul bureau is on the line. I say that we have been taken prisoner by the Taliban.
“What can we do?” my colleague asks. “What can we do?”
Atiqullah demands the phone back before I can answer. My colleague—one of the bravest reporters I know—sounds unnerved.
Atiqullah turns off the phone, removes the battery, and announces that we will move that night for security reasons. My heart sinks. I hoped that we would somehow be allowed to contact Abu Tayyeb, the commander we had arranged to interview, and be freed before nightfall. Now, as we wait in the house, I know that my colleague will be calling my family and editors at any minute to inform them that I have been kidnapped.
After praying, our captors serve us a traditional Afghan dinner of rice and flatbread. After sunset, they blindfold us, load us into cars, and drive us into the darkness.
Atiqullah is at the wheel. A man who has been introduced to us as “Akhundzada,” Atiqullah’s “intelligence chief,” sits in the passenger seat with a scarf over his face as well. I am seated in the backseat between Tahir and Asad. Roughly thirty minutes into a jarring drive down dirt roads, Atiqullah allows me to take off my blindfold. We traverse a barren, moonlit desert landscape of dust-covered plains and treeless hills. I recognize nothing. We could be anywhere in Afghanistan.
With Tahir again translating, I ask for permission to speak and offer to answer any questions Atiqullah might have. He assails Israel and accuses the United States of being a greedy colonial power bent on stealing the Muslim world’s resources. He is doctrinaire, but we are not being beaten or abused.
After a roughly two-hour drive, we arrive in a remote village where Atiqullah says we will spend the night with his guards. He is leaving and will return the following day. His men lead us into a small, one-room dirt house. A half dozen of us—three guards and three prisoners—lie down on the floor under musty-smelling blankets. I think of my wife and family. By now, they must know.
“FUN FEARLESS FEMALE”
Kristen, November 10-11, 2008
I am sitting atop Times Square. From the thirty-eighth floor, I can see all way to the mouth of the Hudson River. I have just assigned a photographer to shoot a portrait to accompany a first-person magazine account titled “My Bra Saved My Life.” We will photograph the once injured hiker who hung her bra out as a beacon to alert passersby. Nothing attracts attention like a bright red sports bra with size D cups, apparently. In a pinch, it’s a real lifesaver. I smile to myself. This is a far cry from my husband’s line of work.
I am about two weeks into my new job as photography director at Cosmopolitan magazine. My train of thought—the combination of humor, absurdity, and mass-market appeal my new job straddles—is interrupted. It’s 4:30 P.M. I wonder why I have not yet heard from David, even though I know that power outages are common in Pakistan, as are travel delays. Perhaps he has not yet figured out how to access the Internet from his guesthouse. He’s there on assignment and is researching a book on the history of American involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001—what went wrong and what should be done to remedy the situation. This is David’s final reporting trip to the region. He was scheduled to depart Kabul for Islamabad this morning.
The phone rings. It’s my brother-in-law Lee. Not a good sign. “Hello,” I say. “Nice to hear your voice, but I am not so sure I want to be hearing from you. What’s wrong?”
Lee is the person my husband has designated as a first point of contact for all “worst case scenarios.” In the event of a mishap during a reporting trip, the plan is that Lee will be alerted and will in turn contact me. A former member of the Air Force and a pilot, Lee has nerves of steel, but is also a sensitive guy. Three years older than my husband, he has gotten David out of several tight situations. He is the consummate big brother, responsible and protective.
He laughs, understanding my predicament. “Well, it’s not good. But it could be worse.”
He tells me that David never returned from his last interview in Kabul, a meeting he had arranged with a Taliban commander. This is news to me. David left a note at the bureau with instructions on what to do should he fail to return in three hours. Lee tells me that David wanted him to wait twelve hours before reaching out to me. “Screw that,” he says. “I figured you would want to know. And I do not want to deal with this alone.”
Right away, my brother-in-law gains a spot near and dear to my heart. He is right. I would have been absolutely livid had he waited to inform me. David’s need to “protect” me sometimes infuriates me.
“Christie and I are in Florida on vacation,” Lee says, referring to his wife. “Stay calm. Take a moment to take this in.” My mind reels as I try to process what he is telling me. Then he co
ntinues, “You should jump on the next shuttle to Boston. We’ll meet you at Logan.” From there, we will drive back to his house in southern New Hampshire for the night. Apparently a meeting has been scheduled with the local FBI bureau there for early tomorrow morning. The FBI agents contacted Lee after David was reported missing to the United States Embassy in Kabul.
Shuttle to Boston? I am new on the job and a little busy at the moment arranging the photo shoot. I am trying to locate a reasonable facsimile of the sports bra worn by the hiker, to run as a still along with her portrait. My rational mind grapples for control. Of course, I quickly realize this is absurd. I need to get to the airport as fast as possible. David is my number one priority. I fight a wave of overwhelming terror, fear, and uncertainty. I am momentarily immobilized, numb, as I glance out the window.
It’s a crisp afternoon. The sky is clear, the river calm. Despite the tidiness of my new, modern surroundings, I feel as if my life has plunged into disarray. I thought I was prepared for this kind of call. Before we married, David and I discussed the inherent risks in his work as a foreign correspondent. We talked about several worst case scenarios, including injury and even death. These tragedies are concrete and would follow a prescribed protocol. But I never anticipated what to do in the uncertain face of David going missing. Here it is, I think, my worst fear come true.
I call the managing editor at Cosmopolitan and say something vague about a “family health emergency” and that I need to head to New England. She is gracious and does not ask questions. I tell her I will probably be out the next day or so. “Do what you need to do,” she says. She knows that my parents live in Maine. I secretly hope the magazine thinks I am running off to comfort an ailing elderly relative. The real explanation is too absurd to believe.
By the time I leave my office and head home to collect my things, I am composed and steady. I have prided myself on being able to stay calm in tense situations. And this is not my first brush with terror. I live a few blocks from Ground Zero. I recall the shock of being displaced for three months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the exhaustion, uncertainty. And all my adrenaline-fueled mistakes: forgetting to eat, sleep, and rest. What I learned then protects me now. On my way to Boston, I resolve to take better care of myself this time around, and to call on family and friends for support when necessary.
It’s 9:30 P.M. when I arrive at Logan Airport. I wait in the sterile baggage terminal. It’s Monday night. A bit deserted. No one else in David’s family has been alerted aside from his brother Lee. By chance I hear from my own brother, Jason. He is calling to check in and catch up. All he knows is that I returned from my honeymoon three weeks ago and started a new job. I try to keep my voice calm and upbeat. Jason is exuberant chatting about what a great time he had at our wedding at our family’s home in Maine. My sister-in-law chimes in on speakerphone. They are both so happy for us.
When he takes me off speakerphone, I ask if I can tell him a secret. “This is going to sound so far-fetched,” I say. “I am sitting at Logan. David went into an interview and never returned. We think he’s alive, but do not know where he is.” My brother is a rock. I know he feels terrible for me, but I also know he will not share this information with anyone.
I meet Lee and his wife, Christie. Their two-year-old is asleep in her stroller. We drive to their home in coastal New Hampshire. The last time I was here was five months ago, during a visit with David. It’s about eleven o’clock, an exhausting seven hours after I first heard the news. Tonight, none of us will get any sleep.
At eight the next morning, Lee and I go over to the local FBI office, which is nestled discreetly in a bland suburban 1980s-style office park. We are greeted by several agents. This, I will learn, is typical. They travel in packs. They sport clean haircuts and monosyllabic names: Jim, Tom, John, Joe. One would be hard-pressed to pick any of them out of a police lineup. They are nondescript and practically identical in their uniformity.
The FBI is the lead agency in all kidnappings of American citizens, whether at home or abroad. We are a bit baffled, though, as to why we were instructed to meet them in New Hampshire, given that David and I live in New York. It turns out to be agency protocol, which was set in motion when the newspaper’s Kabul bureau notified the U.S. Embassy that David did not return from the interview. The case was immediately reported to the FBI, then to David’s employer. The newspaper then called Lee, who is still listed as David’s emergency contact. I make a note to update this information when David returns. Because Lee’s phone number bears a New Hampshire area code, local field agents there were assigned to get in touch with our family. If I was the contact, we’d be having this meeting in New York City.
The local case agent informs us that David was abducted along with his driver and translator as they headed to interview a Taliban commander outside Kabul. I proceed to reel off the name of everyone David has mentioned to me in the past two and a half years who is affiliated with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States government. It’s a long list. The interview is largely a one-way flow of information. As we talk about the situation, I begin to feel like I am better versed in the tribal areas of Pakistan and the nuances of Afghan culture than the local agents. This is a little disturbing, since most of what I know is limited to what I have absorbed from David—and from visiting his colleagues, briefly traveling with him to Pakistan, and reading popular books like Three Cups of Tea and The Kite Runner.
Lee is asked to provide a DNA sample, a cheek swab. This is to help identify David in a worst case scenario, or if any evidence is found in Afghanistan that could indicate the location where he is being held captive.
The agents ask whether David is a friend of the Taliban, and whether the book is about them. I explain that he is writing about the struggling American effort in the region. I edit my words carefully before speaking, fearful of saying anything that could mislead them into thinking that David is somehow in cahoots with the Taliban.
Lee and I leave the interview several hours later with the understanding that another set of agents will be assigned to our case in New York City. We are to update the agents if we receive any new information about David from his colleagues. In turn, the agents will keep us posted on any new developments on their end.
Calls begin to flood in: David’s literary agent, the editor of The New York Times. The newspaper alerted David’s book publisher about the kidnapping. David’s agent, in turn, was contacted by his publisher. Despite the fact that Lee and I have made no public announcement of David’s predicament, word has traveled like wildfire among the journalism community.
I am relieved to hear from a colleague of David’s in Kabul. Upset but calm, this reporter informs me that David left behind a note addressed to me. I ask the reporter to read it over the phone. I sense a hesitation. “He has rather unfortunate handwriting,” the reporter jokes between tears. “I will scan and e-mail it to you and send the original in the mail.”
A few hours later, the infamous note appears in my BlackBerry inbox. I smile: David’s colleague is right about the handwriting. The letter has been scribbled on a page from a notebook. The whole thing feels rushed, like an afterthought. Knowing David, though, he probably agonized over its content. Kristen—
I believed I had to do this to make this a credible book. Most people in Helmand support them now and I need to tell that part of the story. I honestly believe this is a calculated risk that will be ok.
Scribbled in the margin is a phrase that makes my heart sink: This is my passion and I must do what I love.
The letter continues:If I get kidnapped, use money from my book advance. Do not involve money from your family or mine. This is my responsibility.
I love you so much and am sure this will be ok. Please go and be happy and move forward if things go very wrong.
I love you so very much and thank you for giving me more joy and love than I’ve ever known.
I love you,
David
Afghanis
tan has been David’s preoccupation for the past seven years, since 9/11. For me, it has been a source of intrigue, sadness, and anxiety—a needy child or mistress that requires his attention, often with the cost of long separations. The events on the ground in Afghanistan have a direct impact on David’s moods and motivations. It has been a challenge for me to support such an all-consuming interest.
I was introduced to David by a mutual friend two and a half years ago. We were both in our late thirties at the time and ready to move on to a new phase of life, one that we each hoped would include family and children. Our relationship progressed steadily, despite several month-long periods of separation to accommodate David’s overseas reporting trips. These separations were often a strain on my nerves as we both struggled with the tensions inherent in straddling two very different worlds together.
The note does not comfort me. Part of me immediately recognizes that he’s thrown us under the bus at month two of marriage. I know that David is writing the book in part to distance himself from his dangerous work as a war correspondent. But pursuing an interview with a Taliban commander was a bachelor’s decision. I have just committed the rest of my life to David. I haven’t even unpacked from our honeymoon. But if I—we—are going to get through this, I’m going to have to forgive him and set aside my anger. At some point, I am also going to have to deal with the fact that I am angry. I realize he took a risk imagining a positive outcome. David does not think that lightning can strike twice. But it has. This is his second detainment. He was jailed in Bosnia for ten days in 1995 while reporting on the mass execution of Muslims in Srebrenica.
I feel like I’ve been hit by a thunderbolt. I recall our engagement. David proposed to me on a sailboat in the middle of New York Harbor. “Let’s lead a big life,” he said. I agreed. This is not exactly what I had in mind. I glance at my engagement ring, a pear-shape diamond set on its side. I remember thinking it looked like a teardrop on first viewing. I somehow worried this was a premonition of things to come, but later convinced myself it was a raindrop, which was a more refreshing and fitting thought. Rain is a recurrent theme for us. There was a torrential downpour just before we set sail in New York that day. Hurricane Hannah struck on our wedding day. I often liken the extreme, unpredictable shifts in our circumstances to weather patterns.