by David Rohde
Lee offers to drive me to my parents’ home in Maine for the night. I will meet up with him tomorrow before I leave for New York. I call my mother from the road. Unaware of what has been going on, she is excited to hear from me. I tell her I have brought a guest along. I know she immediately assumes it’s David—perhaps he’s come to his senses and returned from Afghanistan early.
I haven’t been to the house since we were married in September. David and I decided to marry there, as we each have fond memories of summer childhoods spent in Maine. We wanted to celebrate with our families at a place that had special meaning for us.
The house sits on a sandy tidal beach. The scenery and light shift as the water advances and recedes twice each day. I have always loved the sense of motion, possibility, and renewal these natural changes provoke daily.
I walk into a perfectly preserved moment. The room is still full of an almost palpable sense of love and hope from our celebration. We are greeted by my mother, Mary Jane, a petite, upbeat brunette with a welcoming smile. Despite her five-foot frame, my mother is a powerhouse of strength, tenacity, and positivity. She is a healthy dose of Sally Field, tempered with a shot of Anne Bancroft. She has been drying the wedding flowers. Full bridal bouquets sit in their original places, vibrant, slightly shrunken, preserved. Two months ago we were rolling up the carpets, dancing in the living room, mingling with friends and family. It’s odd to be in this space alone, an observer. As I glance out the sliding doors, the ocean is calm, glasslike. I am comforted by memory and surroundings, yet pained to be here without David.
I remember that David looked nervous as we exchanged our vows. To lighten his mood, when I declared “For better or worse,” I winked at him on “worse.” This definitely qualifies as worse. I now regret my well-intentioned and whimsical act. Perhaps I should not have tempted fate. I promise myself that when David returns, I will restate this promise sans blink.
My mother has prepared a lobster dinner in anticipation of my arrival. I tell her there is no cause for celebration and bring her up to speed while Lee phones his wife from the other room. Mom is quiet, recognizing that this was always within the realm of possibility, given the nature of David’s work. When I tell her I am shocked and upset by David’s letter—that he was willing to risk everything for the sake of the story, without consulting me—she does not finger point.
“Okay, he made a mistake,” she says. “But you need to move forward from there and think positive if you are going to get through this. Don’t let your mind be clouded by anger. It’s not going to do you any good now. Focus on bringing him home.”
“We just took a wedding vow,” I say.
“And now it’s your chance to live up to it,” she responds.
This is a calm but tough pep talk. Confronted by my worst fear, Mom figures the last thing I need is for someone else to stir the pot. She tells me to remain open-minded and offers to accompany me back to New York. I am slightly surprised but thankful for her reaction. Her outward composure keeps me centered. I recognize that while David took a risk in going to the interview, the kidnapping is not his fault. Blaming him for it provides a momentary sense that he has some control over his circumstances. Our reality is much worse—David and the rest of us are helpless in this situation.
I begin to receive calls from friends offering condolences. Each of them has learned about David’s situation from a “friend at the Times.” I have my first brush with what will be an ongoing battle: keeping David’s case quiet. Throughout the first days of David’s kidnapping, we are able to draw on the camaraderie of the press and the gravitas of The New York Times to keep his story out of the public eye. But any bit of information I relay to David’s colleagues is quickly common knowledge inside the media bubble. I have to fight repeatedly during these early days to protect our privacy as a couple. I begin my battle at the top, with a heated call to Bill Keller, the paper’s executive editor, from my parents’ living room. I tell him that his reporters are spreading the word and ask him to put a lid on it. As the wife of a kidnap victim, I have tremendous leeway. Bill is extremely gracious and apologetic. He promises to limit communications within the office.
A call arrives from the FBI on behalf of the Department of Defense. David’s brother Lee and I face our first big decision: will we give advance approval for a military raid if it could secure David’s release? We are both stunned. “Do you know where he is?” we ask. They cannot say. “How much time do we have to decide?” A few hours.
The Department of Defense ensures us they will not undertake a raid unless they are very confident they will be able to get David and his colleagues out alive. But they give no indication as to how they will assess this risk.
This is the first of many decisions we will agonize over—and revisit during the subsequent months. For now, Lee and I decide against a military raid, unless David or one of his co-captives is severely sick or injured, or if their lives are in immediate danger. We still do not have any information on who is holding him and what it is they are after.
We decide to wait a few days to make a final decision, until we have more information and a sense of David’s physical location. We also want to run this by David’s parents and other siblings. We do not want to make this decision alone. It is shocking to be confronted with this reality and the grim nature of our choices. We want David to return as quickly as possible. But Lee and I agree that David would never forgive himself if anyone was killed or injured during an attempt to free him by force. Still, we wonder whether our delayed response will work against us, whether this lapse in decision making will mean the difference between his returning home or not.
A short time later, we hear back from the FBI. There is no rush on deciding whether to use military intervention. We are advised that while the kidnappers may move David, there is no imminent threat of harm. In the frustrating days and months to come, we will discover that most of the information and advice we are given is pure speculation.
Night arrives—finally. Unable to sleep in the room I last shared with David at my parents’ house, I collapse in my younger brother Jason’s vacant room.
My mind races and my body is completely restless, on full alert. I drag my laptop into bed and scan my e-mail for updates from the Kabul bureau and messages from David’s family. Lee has told his family the news. I talk to my mother-in-law, Carol, David’s sister, Laura, and his younger brother, Erik. Erik and I share our fears. While the situation remains uncertain, we are hopeful. Our collective gut check is that David will return, yet we have no idea how or when. We assume it will be a matter of one to three months, based on what I have learned from the FBI about recent kidnappings in Afghanistan.
I already miss my husband’s voice. We routinely speak each night when he is away. Despite the uncertainty of his whereabouts I’m determined to maintain our nightly ritual. I send an e-mail to my husband. I type three simple words into the subject line in the hope that he will one day read them: I love you.
MILLIONS
David, November 11-17, 2008
I awake to the sound of the guards performing a predawn prayer with Tahir and Asad. I sit silently as they press their foreheads to the ground and supplicate to God. We are crammed with three guards in a small, claustrophobic room in a dirt house. Measuring roughly twenty feet by twenty feet, its only furnishings are the carpet on the floor and a dozen blankets.
The gunman with the flat, expressionless eyes who kidnapped us the day before introduces himself as “Qari,” an Arabic expression for someone who has been trained to properly recite the Koran. He is shorter and skinnier than he seemed when he glared at me from the front seat of the car the previous day. His mentality proves more disturbing than his appearance. He proudly announces that he is a “fedayeen,” an Arabic term the Taliban use for suicide bombers.
Bread arrives for breakfast, and the guards are polite and courteous. No one has beaten us since Tahir and Asad were pummeled with rifle butts during the first minutes of t
he kidnapping. As the day progresses, though, I grow more worried. Atiqullah has not reappeared. There is no talk of our release.
Confined to the small, crowded room as the morning slowly passes, I find it more and more suffocating. Allowed outside only to go to the bathroom, I am accompanied by an armed guard at all times. As the day crawls by, our guards pray methodically and Qari speaks of his eagerness to die. They act as if I am the first American they have ever seen. They stare at me as if I were a zoo animal, a strange, exotic creature they have long heard about but never beheld.
All this makes me increasingly worried about who is holding us. Thieves might release us if Abu Tayyeb comes to our rescue, or they might settle for a quick deal. Instead, our captors appear to be hard-line Taliban.
Several hours after sunset, we are hustled outside and ordered to get into a small Toyota station wagon.
“We have to move you for security reasons,” announces Atiqullah, who is sitting in the driver’s seat, his face still concealed behind a scarf. Arab militants and a film crew from Al Jazeera are on their way, he says. “They’re going to chop off your heads,” he announces. “I’ve got to get you out of this area.”
As we drive away, I ask for permission to speak. Atiqullah agrees. I tell him we are worth more alive than dead. He asks me what I think he can get for us. I hesitate, unsure of what to say. I am desperate to keep us alive.
I have a vague memory of a one-week hazardous environment survival training class that I took in 2002 before being posted abroad. I remember being told by instructors to prolong captivity for as long as possible. The most dangerous period of an abduction is the initial hours. The longer a kidnapping lasts, the higher the chance of survival.
I know that in March 2007, the Afghan government exchanged five Taliban prisoners for an Italian journalist after the Taliban executed his driver. Later, they killed his translator as well. My memory of the exchange was vague, but I thought money was included. In September 2007, the Taliban claimed the South Korean government paid $20 million for the release of twenty-one Korean missionaries after the Taliban killed two members of the group.
“Money and prisoners,” I say.
“How much money?” Atiqullah asks.
I hesitate again.
“Millions,” I say, immediately thinking I will regret the statement.
Atiqullah and his intelligence chief look at each other. Over the next hour, the conversation continues. Atiqullah repeatedly promises to do his best to protect us. I repeatedly promise him money and prisoners.
As we wind our way through steep mountain passes, an American drone follows us. Remotely piloted propeller-driven airplanes, the drones can easily be heard as they circle overhead for hours. To the naked eye, they are small dots in the sky. But their missiles have a range of several miles. We know we can be immolated without warning. Atiqullah glances warily out the window and tries to locate the drone in the night sky. I silently hope that we miraculously might be found. After a few minutes, the drone disappears.
Atiqullah asks for the names and professions of my father and brothers. I tell him the truth. Given the unusual spelling of my last name, I think he can easily find my relatives online. From past reporting I know that the Taliban are not primitive men who live in caves. They operate in cities across Afghanistan and Pakistan that teem with Internet cafés.
My father, Harvey, is a retired insurance salesman, I say. My two brothers, Lee and Erik, work for an aviation company and an ambulance company. My two stepbrothers, Joel and Dan, work for a bank and a restaurant. I hope being forthright is helping convince him I am a journalist, not a spy. More than ever, I am convinced that being caught in a lie will prove fatal.
In the darkness, I can see little outside the car windows. I don’t know if we are passing through clusters of villages or remote areas. After several hours of driving down jarring dirt tracks, we arrive at another small house. Guards cover my face with a scarf and lead us inside in the dark. Atiqullah politely asks me to repeat my earlier statements in the car as a guard records a video of me on his mobile phone. I promise him money and prisoners, recite the names of my male relatives, and list the awards I won for my reporting in Bosnia.
Atiqullah has us answer a series of questions that our families have apparently already relayed to our captors. If our answers are correct, it will prove we are alive. Tahir and Asad are asked to name the first schools they attended. I am asked my wife’s name and birth date and what kind of car I have in New York. When I say I do not have a car, Atiqullah is suspicious that I am somehow giving a secret message.
Finally, Atiqullah asks me if I want to convey anything to my wife. “Tell her that the place where I’m staying is better than the farm in India.” I’m making a reference to a friend’s rustic farm in northern India where we spent a week of our honeymoon. After arriving and discovering it was far hotter than expected, we departed early. I hope the message will prove I am alive, being held in decent conditions, and that it will somehow comfort Kristen.
Then Atiqullah and his intelligence chief disappear. For the next four days, we live in the small house with Qari, the gunman who kidnapped us and hopes to become a suicide bomber. On most days, we hear a motorcycle circle in the distance. More guards have created a perimeter around us.
On the first day, no food or water arrives. For eight hours, we lie on the floor and fitfully try to sleep. My stomach aches. I wonder if the lack of food means they plan to kill us. Qari tells us that an Afghan policeman who secretly supports the Taliban spotted me at a checkpoint. He then warned the Taliban we were coming. I curse myself for not covering my face better.
In brief exchanges, I learn more about Tahir and Asad. In truth, we are strangers. The three of us have never worked together before. Tahir has been working with foreign journalists since 2001 and adores the profession. He brightens when he speaks about other foreign and Afghan journalists we both know. Thirty-four years old, he is a university-educated and religious Afghan who hails from the southern province of Zabul. He has two wives and is the father of seven children, all of whom he moved to Kabul three years ago. He opposed the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and like many Afghans now views the American and NATO troop presence as a foreign occupation. He is deeply disappointed with the United States’ failure to deliver on its promises of stability and reconstruction. A proud Afghan nationalist, he is tired of meddling by foreign countries in his country and wants Afghans to be allowed to decide their own fate.
Asad is twenty-four years old and a scrappy Afghan survivor. He is rail thin, has jet-black hair and beard and dark eyes. Pashtun as well, his family originally hails from Khost province, but Asad was born and raised in Kabul. Married with two young sons, he has worked as a taxi driver in the city and a driver for Tahir and foreign journalists. He and Tahir have become close friends while working together for the past six years.
After dark, someone knocks on the wall of the house and Qari ventures outside. I wonder if our Arab executioners have arrived. Qari and another guard walk in with freshly cooked rice, bread, and meat, as well as bottled water. The guard, whose name is Akbar, profusely apologizes for his lateness. He says Atiqullah has ordered him to see to all our needs. I believe Akbar is the same guard who whispered “no shoot, no shoot” to me on the first day of the kidnapping. The kind treatment surprises and encourages me.
On the second day, Akbar brings us new clothes and warm blankets. I appreciate the good treatment but I am becoming more concerned. There is no word on negotiations. I still hope Abu Tayyeb will hear what has happened and somehow rescue us. Atiqullah is nowhere to be seen and Tahir is barred from calling any of his Taliban contacts.
That afternoon, I decide to pretend I’m sick in the hope it will pressure our captors into resolving our case. After forty-eight hours in one room, Tahir and Asad are increasingly frustrated. I am furious that Kristen and my family are suffering. I go to the bathroom, put my finger in my mouth, and make myself loudly vomit. I return to t
he room, tell the guards that the food is making me sick, and curl up under a blanket. The guards appear alarmed and I think they call Atiqullah. I make myself vomit once more that evening.
The following day, our third in the house, I make myself vomit several times and spend the day lying on the floor playing sick. The guards appear anxious. After dinner, there is a knock on the exterior wall. I expect a concerned Atiqullah to stride through the door. Instead, a young Taliban doctor does.
To my amazement, he speaks English and carries a fully equipped medical bag, replete with a blood pressure gauge, antibiotics, and an intravenous drip. The doctor takes my blood pressure and gives me an injection that he says will make me feel better. I am afraid the needle is dirty but notice it is wrapped in new plastic. I have no choice but to acquiesce to treatment. I am surprised—and depressed—by the Taliban’s infrastructure in Afghanistan. They appear to be well supplied and feel that they are firmly in control of the area where we are being held.
The fourth day, Qari allows us to sit outside in the small walled courtyard. A few hours later, he lets Tahir play a game on his cell phone. I suggest that Tahir try to text “track this phone” or a similar message to the Kabul bureau from Qari’s mobile when he is not paying attention. Tahir agrees. When he asks for the phone a second time, Qari is suspicious. He notices that Tahir and I have been talking quietly beforehand. He starts shouting in Pashto. Tahir says he accuses us of trying to send a text message. We deny it. Qari denounces us as liars. Enraged, and irrational, he picks up his Kalashnikov, points it at Tahir’s chest, and threatens to shoot him.