After two hours, with a blast of the ship’s horn, the Atlas Cove leaves the formation. Several of the crew on the Sam Simon choose to stay below deck when the fishing vessel sails towards Mauritius to prepare for the season in Antarctica.
Every time Cataldo has previously called up the Bob Barker, Peter Hammarstedt has tried to discern his state of mind. Perhaps this could give him a warning of what the man would get up to later. He has never heard him so upset and stressed out as he is now, and thinks he has achieved what he wanted with the manoeuvre: to demoralize Cataldo. But the last message from the Thunder on this day worries Hammarstedt.
“You sent a lot of letters to the ship. You are worried about the Indonesian crew, and now all the Indonesians are nervous. One person attempted to take his life. Over.”
32
“YOU ARE NOTHING”
THE COAST OF CENTRAL AFRICA, MARCH 2015
For breakfast the next morning, Hammarstedt serves up an offer Cataldo will most likely refuse.
“Good morning, is this the captain of the Thunder?”
“Yes, how are you, good morning, go ahead, over,” Cataldo answers.
“We are concerned with the message yesterday about the self-harm, and we wanted some more information about that,” Hammarstedt says through the interpreter.
“That is information from the ship, and everything’s fine. The only problem is when you get too close and start to harass us and bother us, that’s the problem, over.”
“We have doctors on board and we can lend medical assistance.”
“Yes, here, too, I have the medical assistance preparation, there is no problem.”
“If you are concerned about your Indonesian crew, we wanted to offer you the possibility of transferring them to the Sam Simon and pay for their flights to go home,” Hammarstedt suggests.
“No, negative, negative. They are fine here working with our contracting agency. They are content with us, they are fine. We have all the food and their salaries, everything’s fine. The problem is you. When we get to port we will make everything clear with you and the authorities,” Cataldo answers.
The Thunder’s captain seems calmer and more collected on the radio than he had the day before, when the fishing vessel the Atlas Cove joined the chase for a brief period of time.
“If you are concerned for your Indonesian crew, you should go to port. The only reason why we are here is because we are waiting for you to go to port, and we won’t leave you until you do so,” Hammarstedt says.
“But you are no one. You are no authority, no army, no one to order me to go to port. I only take orders from my contracting agency and from the country of my flag, Nigeria. Until this point they have said nothing to me, so we will remain here. That is the idea, and that is what we are going to do.”
“OK, if you need medical assistance, or medicines, radio us. We will be here on channel 16, thank you.”
“OK, OK, thank you. We have everything here on board, medical supplies, food, everything. We have enough to be here nine months without any problem, over.”
Nine months! Hammarstedt prays a silent prayer that he’s bluffing. Then he gives the order to prepare the dinghies.
“We will launch the boat at 2 o’clock,” Hammarstedt says over the ship’s internal communication radio.
He wants to try once more to throw bottles containing messages to the Indonesian crew on the Thunder.
“Greetings Indonesian crew, we understand that you cannot come and speak freely while your captain is on board but we will always be standing by on VHF 77 and should you have the opportunity, just transmit a message and we’ll try and receive it,” he writes in the new message.
Hammarstedt sees no activity on the deck of the Thunder. He guides the Bob Barker in close to the Thunder’s starboard side and blasts the ship’s whistle for half a minute to provoke a reaction. He also sends one of the two dinghies out in front of the Thunder’s bow to distract the officers. Suddenly he sees movements on deck and calls up the dinghy:
“There are three of them out on deck now!”
Perhaps one of them will manage to snatch the message out of the water.
On the Thunder, Captain Cataldo has decided to respond to the information siege and calls the Indonesian third engineer up onto the bridge. He sailed on the Spanish trawler the Pitufo – “The Smurf” – for several years and speaks a few words of Spanish. Cataldo has written a few sentences down on a piece of paper in advance and asks the third engineer to read them out loud to Hammarstedt. None of the others in the Indonesian crew are informed of what is about to happen when Cataldo calls up the Bob Barker.
“We have received the letters that he has sent. And the person in charge of the Indonesian crew is going to talk to you now, so that you will hear from them that they don’t want you to bother them again. He is going to tell you now. Over,” Cataldo says.
“OK, go ahead,” Hammarstedt asks.
Then the microphone changes hands. In faltering Spanish the engineer reads out the message.
“I mariner from Indonesia, please, your small boat, not possible anymore, and um, no throwing cans here, because here mariner no problem, here good. Lot of food, when I call the family, no problem. Captain good, and company much good too, food also a lot, and salary, there is no problem. Everything, everything good.”
“I got your message, could you give me your name and talk about the person that attempted to take his life?” Hammarstedt asks.
For a moment everything is silent, and then Hammarstedt once again hears Cataldo’s voice.
“No, we can’t do that. That stays here. It is this ship’s business. That’s
