The Trade: Inside the Clandestine World of Political Kidnapping

by Jere Van Dyk

In 2008, American journalist Jere Van Dyk was kidnapped and held for 45 days. At the time, he had no idea who his kidnappers were. They demanded a ransom and the release of three of their comrades from Guantanamo, yet they hinted at their ties to Pakistan and to the Haqqani network, a uniquely powerful group that now holds the balance of power in large parts of Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. After his release, Van Dyk wrote a book about his capture and what it took to survive in this most hostile of circumstances. Yet he never answered the fundamental questions that his kidnapping raised: Why was he taken? Why was he released? And who saved his life?

Every kidnapping is a labyrinth in which the certainties of good and bad, light and dark are merged in the quiet dialogues and secret handshakes that accompany a release or a brutal fatality. In The Trade, Jere Van Dyk uses the sinuous path of his own kidnapping to explain the recent rise in the taking of Western hostages across the greater Middle East. He discovers that he was probably not taken by the anonymous "Taliban," as he thought, but by the very people who helped arrange his trip and then bargained for his release. It was not a matter of chance: CBS, Van Dyk's employer at the time, launched a secret rescue and, he learned later, paid an undisclosed ransom to a tribal chief who controlled the area in which he was kidnapped and who delivered him and his guide safely to a US Army base.

In 2013, Van Dyk returned to the Middle East to unravel the links among jihadist groups, specifically that of the Haqqani network. His investigation finally paid off in 2015, when Van Dyk was taken to a discreet room in a guesthouse in Islamabad where he met Ibrahim Haqqani, part of the leadership of the Haqqani network who has been seen by very few outsiders since 9/11. There, Van Dyk learned of the Haqqanis' links to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the ISI, and the CIA and their involvement in the kidnapping of Bowe Bergdahl and many others.

Back in the United States, Van Dyk saw the other side of the kidnapping labyrinth as he became involved with other former hostages and the families of recent kidnapping victims murdered by the Islamic State. Van Dyk's investigation shows how America's foreign policy strategy, the terrible cynicism of the kidnappers, and a world of shadowy interlocutors who play both sides of many bargains combine to create a brutal business out of the exchange of individual human lives for vast sums of money.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

423 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2017

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book mostly a slog. Why? Perhaps it was the piled on short, choppy sentences (ala Hemingway). Or perhaps the swirl of characters both listed at book's beginning and to my frustration finding that some were unlisted. Shortcomings, yes, but Van Dyk deserves admiration. He was an intrepid American reporter who was willing to risk his life on the Afghan/Pakistan border. His objective: expose the international kidnap/ransom industry, "The Trade." As a non-Muslim foreigner, he was subjected to many half-truths and lies amidst a few truths as he sought out information. He was captured and imprisoned in a dark hole (that experience recounted in an earlier book). Here is a stream of consciousness, a guilt trip effort seeking atonement as to why he was ransomed while other journalists (Daniel Pearl, James Foley) were beheaded. End of slog.

[Nancy Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine you're a Western journalist reporting from the murderous tribal borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Your fixers have set up a meeting with elusive Taliban leaders -- an astounding coup! But in a spectacular betrayal, you're captured and held prisoner, your life in jeopardy from day to day. Your nightmare lasts for six weeks before you're released. That's Jere Van Dyk's story, and one that he told in his previous book, Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban.

After the horrors of captivity, wouldn't you just go home and stay home the rest of your life?!? Not Jere Van Dyk. Haunted by his ordeal, he's determined to find out who exactly took him prisoner and how his release was gained. So he goes back! "The Trade" is Mr. Van Dyk's account of his hunt for the true story behind his kidnapping and release. Who actually took him at gunpoint? Who held him in a dank cell and staged his mock execution? How is it possible he was released, given that the U.S. government's policy is to not pay ransoms? Who exactly was involved? In a broader sense, the book examines "The Trade," Mr. Van Dyk's term for the lucrative business of political hostage-taking for ransom.

Mr. Van Dyk's narrative is claustrophobic in its intensity. People smile as they lie to him. They disorient him with their labyrinths of truths, half-truths and lies. He is endlessly walking into situations over which he has no control. Although he has a trusting nature, he comes to realize he cannot believe everything -- or maybe anything -- he is told. Who is a friend and who is an enemy? His quest leads him back to the darkest moments of his life and reignites his anguish and heartache. He reflects on his upbringing in a small, separatist faith community and how its warmth and inclusiveness lead him again and again to seek that brotherhood elsewhere. The Afghanistan he knew as a young man on an adventure trip and as a reporter embedded with the mujahideen in its war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s is forever etched in his mind and relentlessly calls him back. "Don't worry," says one of his contacts, "If you have no other friends in the world, you can come to us. We are your friends. You were with us during Jihad. We will never forget this." Even so, in the end Mr. Van Dyk has to conclude, "I was an outsider here."

In writing this book, Mr. Van Dyk expresses not only his desire to learn the truth about his own capture, but he seeks what he calls redemption, the opportunity to express his gratitude for those who worked so hard to save his life and the chance to speak for all those captives, some of them friends of his, whose outcome was one of brutal death -- Daniel Pearl, Nicholas Berg, Jim Foley, Steven Sotloff and others whose lives he does not want forgotten. In the language of faith, redemption speaks of atonement, and with this book, Mr. Van Dyk has achieved a seeker's reconciliation with his past.

[Corey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish

[Florian Bieber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good about the dynamics of kidnapping and the position of the person kidnapped. Too long and too complex in terms of cast of characters though.

[Geoff Walling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't find this particularly illuminating except to convince me that the author is nuts. It was good enough that I read it all the way to the end, but it could have been better.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid read!

[Carol Seidl · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book's title and jacket, along with the author's credentials and firsthand experiences, portend a gripping account of an obscure aspect of middle east hostage taking. I bought the book hoping to learn about the "business of kidnapping". I've read other hostage accounts, but this promised to provide new insights on the subject. After making my way through the first 125 pages, I’ve paused.

The book seems hastily thrown together. It reads as if the author took journal entries from before and after his kidnapping and threw them into the book with little effort to coalesce his experiences into an overarching, cohesive story. The book has numerous typos and the presentation is extraordinarily fragmented. The biggest takeaway from Part 1 is that the author was hell-bent on entering western Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region (despite warnings from friends, colleagues, Afghans, Pakistanis, even shady and suspicious acquaintances). There, he hoped to meet with inner circles of the Taliban and reconnect with a member of the Haqqani family, who he had briefly met more than a decade prior. Not surprisingly, he was kidnapped and so ends Part 1.

Van Dyk has written another book about his captivity which seems to have been well-reviewed. Part 2 of this book begins immediately following his release. I didn't read too far into Part 2 before giving up. The same fragmented style continues, where what seems like one rapidly-scrawled journal entry follows the next. If I were to continue through to the end, I might learn something about the hostage trade, but it would take some effort, and the author seems too close to the story to be objective. In the end, I don't want to labor over a book on which the author seems to have spent little time. I wish that Van Dyk had been able to organize his conversations/experiences/hypotheses into a well-formed, sweeping account, rather than what feels like a day-by-day core dump.

That said, I’m grateful for Van Dyk’s attempts to get stories that few have the courage to pursue.

[Catherine Claridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in a tumble of rambling thoughts and recollections of the events and subterfuge that surrounded his abduction, the author weaves a story that is thick and difficult to fully digest. However there are some shocking allegations of government involvement and perspectives from those involved that gave me pause.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than what I thought in a good way. More depth about about our own contributions to the menace of Islamic jihadists we now confront.