The Price of Life

by Nigel Brennan

  The next morning I’m a complete wreck. I jump each time someone comes in. I’m trying to ready myself for what’s coming but how do you prepare for death? This is my darkest day since we were taken, and there are times when I just wish that they would finish it. As the day drags on, I fight with myself to take control. I take strength from an old Maori proverb I’d heard years before, ‘Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you’, and by the evening I’ve managed to pull myself out of the hole.

  Saturday, 18 April

  I wake up with a slight headache that quickly turns into a full-blown migraine. It is crippling; with the slightest movement it feels like my head is going to pop. I have to shield my eyes as the variation in light causes incredible pain. As the day continues, my body feels like it is at war with itself. There are aches and pains in every joint as a fever takes hold. I beg the boys for Panadol, telling them I think I have malaria. They seem unconcerned, shrugging their shoulders and exclaiming, ‘Inshallah.’

  I lie there in a pool of sweat, shaking uncontrollably, alternately feeling on fire and freezing cold. I can’t eat anything. Captain Yahya comes in to check on me, holding his hand to my forehead. He allows me to shower several times, which lowers my core temperature, but whatever I have has taken hold, and my immune system feels like it’s losing the battle.

  Being bedridden is not good for my headspace. I’m struggling with what has taken place in the past few days. I can’t help but think that I’m actually going to die here. If not from a bullet then from my body shutting down.

  Sunday, 19 April

  By the morning the migraine has eased but fever continues. I ask the boys again for medicine. Assam at least shows some concern. Touching me he exclaims, ‘Very hot!’ No shit, Sherlock. Going in and out of consciousness, I find it hard to tell dream from reality until later that day when Young Yahya charges in, yelling at me.

  ‘Quickly, quickly, go, go.’

  I go into autopilot. I struggle to stand as my vision turns white; stars circling my head, I stumble towards the door. ‘Bag, bag,’ I hear him command.

  Turning back around, my vision clearing, I pick up what belongings I can. He takes my arm and leads me into Amanda’s room. I take up the position in the corner, happy to sit down as he closes the door.

  Looking over at Amanda, I can see compassion in her face. We steal glances at each other. I just want to lie down in her lap and hear her say everything is going to be all right. Yahya suspiciously watches us, his foot jammed up against the door. Seeing the fear in Amanda’s eyes is almost like reading her mind. Yahya catches on and orders Amanda to face the wall.

  I drop my head onto my knees and listen as things are being moved around in the next room. There’s the sound of unfamiliar voices, but I’m too weak to really care what they’re saying. Finally I hear the front gates close, then a knock on the door: the coast is clear.

  Yahya orders me out of the room; as I leave I try to give Amanda a smile.

  Whatever’s just taken place has put the boys on edge and they continue to carry their guns for the rest of the day. It makes me think that they’ve been spooked and a move is imminent.

  Later that evening, Jamal throws a blister pack of Panadol on the floor. It’s incredible how such a simple thing can lift my spirits: I pop four tablets at once, praying that they will have some effect.

  Nicky

  Moore Park

  Tuesday, 21 April

  Another message is left on the NOK phone answering machine. We hear about this one almost immediately. The message starts with ‘Hey Nic.’ Oh god, that cuts me to my core. This message is for me. I feel bitterly disappointed that I wasn’t there for Nige.

  ‘It’s crunch time,’ he says. ‘We have no clean water and we are running out of food. They are saying they want the money.’ Nige is uncharacteristically economical with his words and he sounds exhausted.

  Then he’s pleading, ‘Can you call me back? Please, call me back.’

  Ben plays both messages to us. Nigel’s morale must be at an all-time low. The only two calls he’s made since our POL in September last year and he gets the answering machine both times. I desperately want the AFP to be accountable for how he’s feeling; in fact I want them to be accountable for how shit we are all feeling. I should have been allowed to answer that call. Nige should have heard one of our voices, to make sure he knows we haven’t forgotten about him.

  I want to call him back. The response I get from the AFP is that ‘it is not in the strategy’ and I am point-blank not allowed to. I don’t have access to the number that Nigel rang in on and the AFP will not give it to me.

  I point out that Lorinda has not had to adhere to this strategy as she has been able to call Amanda back. Yes, well, that was the RCMP taking matters into their own hands, I’m told. The negs with her were aware of the no-communication strategy but chose to disregard it as Lorinda was so distraught.

  Something’s got to give. It’s just not working. Ham and Amy and the kids are up for a few days and we decide we have to put the extra money on the table that Aunt Alison has offered Dad. She has said to Dad that it’s a gift. This is something that sits badly with us. Since my grandparents’ deaths many of Dad’s family have become estranged. I know it’s not uncommon with wills and probates but I’m sure, as with every family, when it happened it was still a shock: How did it all come to this? Dad’s family arguments are ugly and not something I want any part in.

  I’m already up to my eyeballs in debt. We’ve had to sell the house on the beach, so we are now in the cottage. The cottage is far too small for us and it’s hard to swallow the loss of everything we’ve worked for over the years. The kids have mixed feelings about the move. There’s every chance we will lose the farm as well. If we can’t get Nigel back, the blow will be too crushing. I discuss it with Ham and Matt; there is no way I can pay back Alison’s money, whether she wants us to or not.

  We are all pretty financially taxed and the issue is raised: if it’s getting both of them out and if this money is getting paid back, the Canadians will have to wear half. There has to be a point at which they take financial responsibility for Amanda.

  With this in mind, Ham and I sit down to compose an email, very politely broaching the issue of Jon and Lorinda helping us to pay back Alison’s US$250K, or pursuing fundraising options. We send it off.

  All hell breaks loose. The only description that comes close is ‘shitstorm’. Ben rings, absolutely furious: ‘What sort of threats are you making to the Canadian family?’

  ‘Threats?’ I reply, ‘I know we can seem pushy but we didn’t threaten them.’

  It appears that rather than answering the email, Jon and Lorinda have taken it straight to the RCMP. Meanwhile, the AFP has the shits with us big time because we’ve been communicating with the Canadian family without their knowledge. In sharp contrast, the RCMP has full confidence that their family will pass along everything they are told. I’m pretty sure the RCMP has pointed out to the AFP how ordinary they are in being able to achieve the same sort of order with our family. We’ve made the AFP look bad in the eyes of their Canadian counterparts. Tough titties, is our collective response.

  The upside is that everyone now knows we have double the amount of money on the table. How’s that for efficiency?

  Nigel

  The Couch House

  Friday, 24 April

  In the evening we’re transported again. Just before I am taken to the courtyard, Jamal says sternly, ‘No talking to Amina. Okay?’ I nod. In the car, Amanda is beside me, our interlinked hands concealed by our bags.

  We drive into rough bushland, following a dirt track. At times I’ve been my own worst enemy as I’ve hung onto hope, but that seems to have evaporated and now I’m just living with fear.

  We finally pull up and it’s not until we drive into the compound that I realise we are back at the dark house.

  Exhausted and mentally fried, I’m marched back into my shoebox-sized
room and left to kick the dead cockroaches into a corner.

  Lying there under the net, with the concrete floor hard and cold underneath me, I realise that I now have Amanda’s mattress, which isn’t as compressed as mine. Then the sudden thought that I no longer have my pencil. To lose it feels crushing, but my fear that Amanda will get caught with it is much more concerning. Unable to do anything about it, I try to look on the bright side; she may find it gives her a way to communicate with me.

  The boys have been able to strip me of my initiative and power, the things that give me my individuality.

  But the human spirit is an amazing thing, and whenever I think I am completely empty, spent, I somehow manage to find a spark, something that steels my determination to go on, not to be broken but to fight to see the end of each day.

  MAY 2009

  All pitch in

  Nigel

  The Dark House

  Tuesday, 5 May

  With each new month it’s harder to stay buoyant, all the more considering I’ll likely spend my thirty-seventh birthday in captivity. My hopes are slightly raised when Ahmed comes to the house. I hear his voice in the courtyard as he speaks with the boys. I wait my turn; it’s been many weeks since he last spoke to me.

  Time ticks by, and then I hear the front gate open and close. The only person I can rely on for information and he’s left without even bothering to see us.

  I have a small victory, though: Romeo brings me a pencil. Then Abdullah comes into the room carrying a plastic bag, while several of the boys loiter near the door. He hands it to me, and I can feel it’s a book. It’s my Qur’an. I say ‘Alhamdulillah’ over and over, and kiss it. I’m hamming it up but I’m also genuinely grateful that I’ll now have something to do. The guards all look very pleased with this reaction. Abdullah asks with a big smile, ‘You are happy now?’

  ‘I am very happy. Thank you, thank you,’ I reply. I will use it to show them what they are doing to us is completely against Islam. My plan now is to pore over every page, every word, to become a scholar of this book. I’ll find a way to convince them that what they are doing is for the love of money and against Allah.

  Nicky

  Bundaberg

  Thursday, 7 May

  Amanda rings and leaves a message on Lorinda’s mobile phone. The message is, ‘Mum, I’m really, really sick. Some woman in Nairobi keeps saying, just take the money or kill us.’

  We get our arses dragged over the coals because Mick has supposedly put Amanda in danger, yet here is an AFP negotiator telling the kidnappers they should kill them. When I ring Ben and go off my brain again, he denies this version of events. Patiently, he explains to me it’s the kidnappers’ tactic to get more money out of us. Now I’m aware that Pamela is the lead neg in Nairobi, I’m not sure I can take his word for it.

  Nigel

  The Dark House

  Saturday, 9-Sunday, 10 May

  In the early afternoon the boys start packing up the house. Then Jamal brings me a plate of food. Having not received a meal during the day for well over six months, I know that something’s up. As soon as I finish, Jamal walks back in and tells me to get everything together. We have never been moved during the day before.

  I’m ordered from the room and out to the courtyard, where all the boys stand, looking ready for battle with their ammunition belts, hand grenades and guns. I’m shoved into the boot of a four-wheel drive.

  Amanda climbs in next to me. The boys argue over who has to sit in the back with us. Finally Romeo clambers in awkwardly and the tailgate is slammed closed. He takes up half the room as we are jammed up against a 50-litre drum of diesel. Three boys and Captain Yahya jump in the backseat; Joseph, with his massive machine-gun, struggles into the front seat, and I don’t recognise the driver. I’m worried what it means that Ahmed isn’t joining us for the ride.

  We drive through the rabbit-warren streets until we come to a busy market area, where we pull up on the side of the road. We’re sitting ducks, with hundreds of people milling around, our only protection the tinted windows.

  There’s a four-wheel drive pick-up beside us with Ahmed in the front. He jumps into our vehicle and we take off again down a side road. Looking over my shoulder, I notice an escort vehicle, a four-wheel drive with a massive machine-gun anchored on the back and eight guards, their faces covered, all toting AK47s. We turn right onto the main road, and my heart sinks. Mogadishu is the other way.

  The sun sets over the African bush and we slow down as we enter a small village. There are dozens of masked gunmen on the sides of the road, and we stop at a checkpoint swarming with militia. Ahmed leaves the car. As the minutes tick by, I torture myself with possible scenarios. We edge towards the boom gate, and I wonder how they are going to explain the two gringos in the back of the car.

  The gate lifts, and we’re waved through. We turn onto a gravel road; it looks more like the moon’s surface than a national highway. We are now heading south. We pass through many checkpoints; at each one I notice a black flag with white writing scrawled across it; this is Al-Shabaab country. Passing each one unchallenged, we continue ghosting the two red tail-lights up in front, dust peeling from the road as we speed headlong into the darkness.

  An hour before dawn we enter a town; three- and four-storey buildings line the road. We pass the occasional palm tree and there’s the smell of salt water in the air. The only living creatures I can see are gangs of feral dogs. We eventually pull up at a nondescript apartment complex and we’re shoved out of the car and up a staircase. I’m pushed into the living room, Amanda into an adjoining bedroom.

  Completely exhausted by the twelve-hour journey, I no longer give a fuck what’s happening or where we are and collapse.

  I wake feeling strung out but the journey isn’t over. Several days later we’re taken to yet another compound. Once we arrive, I take in my surrounds. The new room is 4 by 5 metres, and there are two small windows with closed wooden shutters. It’s already sweltering in here.

  Ahmed walks in and ignores my request to open the shutters; he’s only come to make sure the windows are secured. There’s no light in here at all. I lie back down in the dark and listen to the sound of a nearby diesel generator’s thump-thump-thump.

  Moving from one house to another always means a period of adjustment but this time it’s different. While we were near Mogadishu it seemed things could happen quickly if the negotiations got back on track. Now we’re twelve hours from anywhere, in a town whose name I don’t even know.

  Nicky

  Moore Park

  Friday, 15 May

  James rings to ask Mum and Dad to send an official letter to the minister stating we have an extra US$250K for the ransom. Everyone has known about it since we sent the email to Jon and Lorinda. At least now we’ll find out how the Australian government plans on using it.

  Nigel’s birthday is looming. I’ve rung Gayle, Ben and James, voicing my concern over how I think Mum is going to cope – that is, not well. While she says she’s still feeling optimistic, I see her moments of despair more often. While the Canberra lot sympathise, the overall attitude is ‘suck it up’.

  Ben points out that Amanda had her birthday in December and Lorinda didn’t make a song and dance of it. The implication is how much better behaved Lorinda is than Mum; she doesn’t carry on about her child’s birthday during this ordeal. I’m not sure that Amanda’s birthday is in December but I let it go. As it turns out, her birthday is after Nigel’s. When Lorinda does make something of it, Ben’s response will be, ‘Oops, we didn’t realise … You know how it is in North America; they have the day and the month swapped around.’

  Gayle’s doing her best, but it’s awkward. Even though we haven’t been told anything, it’s clear to us that her role is being wound down. The irony is the longer the situation goes on, the more we need her help.

  Nigel

  The Beach House, Kismayo

  Saturday, 16 May

  I overhear a conversation of
Abdullah’s in which he mentions ‘Kismayo’ a number of times. I recognise the name as a southern coastal town run by Al-Shabaab. Our new home.

  In the late afternoon Assam and Mohammad arrive at the house, and the boys all sound happy now their little crew is back together. Assam comes in to see me; he looks rejuvenated and tells me he has spent time with his family. Bully for him.

  Every night, just on evening prayer, the generator splutters to life and four fluorescent lights flicker on across the road. After eight months without it, electricity seems novel and exciting, though I can barely see to the far wall of my room. But it’s enough for me to work on reading the Qur’an and writing down verses I can take to my captors.

  Nicky

  Brisbane

  Monday, 18 May

  On Nigel’s birthday Mum, Dad and I are summoned to Brisbane for a meeting with Ben and Tim. Oh, I geddit: this is them doing something to mark the occasion. We meet in a generic donga on the Brisbane airport grounds. No one else is in the office – it’s just us and the hum of the air-conditioner.

  First, we go through the standard diplomatic update.

  With a flourish we are presented with a letter from the Somali prime minister expressing his solidarity with our family. We have a letter from the head of the country that Nigel has been kidnapped in and not a thing from our own PM.

  The Beach House

  Amanda’s room

  Toilet

  Nigel’s room

  Kitchen

  Boys’ room and weapons hold

  Captain Yahya’s room

  Prayer area

  Verandah

  Courtyard

  Finally, we get down to the business at hand. ‘There is a new TPI who has approached us’, an older Australian gentleman. ‘I met him while I was over in Nairobi and he’s very credible,’ says Ben. ‘The Canadians have talked to him and got on board straightaway.’ TPI 14 is an Anglo guy who works for an NGO. He’s not in-country but has representatives on the ground who he believes can get in contact with the gang holding Nigel and Amanda.