By: Brady Noble
It was 10:37 EST when the announcement came, a Disney cruise with between several hundred to a thousand people on board was commandeered by hijackers 50 miles off the coast of the island of Barbados. They were heading southeast, yet motives and intentions remained unclear. They were armed with ex-soviet assault rifles, and took control over the vessel by swarming it with small boats. Their demands were extreme: five billion US dollars as well as complete control over the state of Hawaii.
A glimmer of hope appeared when it became apparent that there were United States authorities within close proximity of the ship. The Pentagon’s Response Team believed that this could be used to the advantage of the hostages, reducing response time. There was however a consensus that more backup would be needed in the event of either a hostage negotiation or a raid of the ship. The idea of using either satellite data or helicopters/drones was proposed, and it became clear that the latter would be far too risky.
Another opportunity came when the Response Team was able to connect directly with one of the hostages. A female passenger by the name of Maria was reporting to the team that one of her fellow passengers had suffered a heart attack, with no medical personnel on board. She was instructed by the Pentagon staff in performing CPR on the patient, who was breathing and still had a pulse. When asked by the team for useful information regarding the hijackers, the line went dead. With another barrier in place, it was established that direct contact with the hijackers must be made.
A note from the hijackers then came in. They announced that they had reduced their demands from five billion to two billion, while still requesting Hawaii. A potential solution was proposed, giving the hijackers counterfeit currency, in the hope that they would release some of the hostages. However, the majority believed that the team should not negotiate, as that was policy. Other solutions included jamming the radar with ships and having snipers shoot the hijackers. Most on the committee were apprehensive to this plan, feeling that the hijackers may or may not resort to murdering the hostages. Instead, acting against policy, they made an offer to the hijackers: five hundred million dollars as well as the island of Maui. They had no intention of actually giving this away, they just wanted to see if the hijackers were negotiable. However, before that offer could be sent, the hijackers sent another offer: one-hundred fifty million dollars as well as Hawaii.
After a few minutes of debate, the hijackers sent one last offer with an ultimatum: one-billion dollars as well as complete amnesty by the US government. They additionally stated that for every five minutes that the deal was not accepted, a civilian would be executed.
With mounting pressure, the team made a final decision, the deal would be accepted, while a simultaneous raid on the ship would be conducted.
At the end of it all, approximately half of the hostages were killed, as well as half of the hijackers. The rest of the hijackers fled to Columbia. Most on the team viewed the operation as a success. There were dissenters however, including one who screamed “congratulations, you just killed a hundred civillians!” Despite this, the President has deemed the operation a success, and praises the team for their work.