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The STIMPACK Podcast
43 Days to Freedom - Day 28
00:58:18
SummaryDay 28 of the Stimpak podcast continues the story of Jeff Frazier's kidnapping. Negotiations are ongoing, and Chef Rasta is now involved. Jeff's team has an agreement with the kidnappers, but the amount of money is not enough for them. Jeff and...
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Jeff Frazier
Welcome to the Stimpak Podcast. Stimpak is a Haiti focused think tank and interventional ngo. Thank you for listening. Okay, welcome back. This is Jeff Frazier. You're listening to the stimpak podcast, the 43 Days to Freedom series within that podcast. Let's pick it up on day 28. So I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to tell the story of this day, and my head is all over the place. So I'm just gonna start. Might jump around a little bit and I'll apologize for that ahead of time. So day 28 starts out pretty exciting because day 27 left off pretty exciting. You may recall all negotiations have kind of started over, but because each person is getting time with the new good cop, bad cop, with Chef Rasta and Chef two, they're starting over, which is a bummer and can be super intense and involve all kinds of trouble. It's also action. And the action wave has not gotten to me yet, but I can feel that it's coming, right? It's not my turn yet, but around midday, Chef Rasta comes in. Well, he's now called Chef Rasta, so because he got promoted, he started sticking that title in his name. And you should have seen him blush the first time we started calling him Chef Rasta, right? Like the status filled his head like crazy. Anyway, it's ridiculous. So Chef Rosta comes in, I don't know, pretty early in the day, probably 10 or 11. And Stephanie, like a hero, starts arguing on my behalf and essentially saying, hey, the money is what it is. It's, you know, of that, that 10 to $13,000 number. That's what it's going to be. That's what it's always going to be. And you guys should stop making him sit around, right? He's been here 28 days, and since like day 10, it was the same number and it's never going to go up. And. And she, she really nails it, right? And she. I can see her selling him and I can see Chef roster. You know, his wheels are turning. You sure there's not any more money? There's not going to be any more money. I remember us pointing to the calendar on the wall, by the way. We. A lot of people have asked me how I know the days so well. It's because of this calendar that we kept on the wall. Just like old school prison calendar, like with the scratch marks for each day, but we also had encoded it, so to speak. So different symbols that meant different things. So days that we got Food days that we got, water days that we got that somebody got out, or days that someone arrived. And each little different style of tick mark would refer to that different thing. So we could at any point in time look at calendar on the wall and, and know the days. And so that's, that's why I know it so well. So we were pointing at the calendar while making these arguments that, you know, there's. There's not going to be any more money. I remember myself kind of backing up Stephanie's arguments by walking over to the calendar and pointing to the days on the. On the wall that, you know, on day 10, it was $10,000. On, on day 15, it was $10,000. On day 20 is $10,000. On day 100, it's going to be $10,000 was kind of my argument. And you could see he was listening, which is kind of cool. And he kind of left nodding. And Steph, I forget what Stephanie said because she heard and understood things that I wouldn't have caught, but she was pretty confident that we had some momentum going. And I want to say a few hours later, not, not too long later, maybe lunchtime or so, Chef Rasa brings me my phone. And no bad cop brings me my phone and says to. To call my people and to start. So that means it's. It's my turn to negotiate, to kind of get going, which is fantastic. So I'm trying to call Billy because, remember, I've appointed him my official negotiator, and he's not answering. We call over and over again, he's not answering. I've got good signal, so I know it's him. For some reason, I can't figure out why he's not answering, but it's immediately going to a voicemail every time. And I've never asked them this. I need to. I keep forgetting to ask my team this. I think they did that on purpose. I think they. That phone never receives calls, rather it only makes them. And here's why I think that that might be the case, because it super helped me out while I was in. So one of the things that the kidnappers would do is they get a team together, get ready to torture you or beat you or terrorize you. And they wanted to do that over the phone for your negotiating team or your family. And, you know, it kind of takes a crew to do that. And so they would round everybody up and get ready to do that. Well, if you didn't pick up the phone, they didn't do it right. And my, my team would never pick up the phone. Now, I don't know if that. That was by design and, you know, brilliance on that part. I would imagine it was by design, but I don't think I've ever asked them that. But I need to regardless. At this point on day 28, I wanted to get a hold of him, and I couldn't. And so I call Diego. I was like, diego, it's kind of a big moment, and I can't get a hold of my negotiators, and I can't get a hold of Billy. And you call him and tell him to call us. And. And he's like, absolutely. And like, 30 seconds later, Billy calls. Great. Hey, Billy. Big day. You know, it's our turn. It's a huge moment. I'm. I think they're ready to deal. Right. I told him about the conversation that I had that day, and everybody was excited. And anyway, I'm pumped. And he bad cop takes the phone and goes away. And I at. The rest is a little bit blurry, but I remember later on, the number went up a little bit, which kind of made me look like an idiot, because I was arguing that the number wouldn't go up at all. But it goes up a little bit. Chef Rasta comes and tells us a good news. The number went up a little bit. They don't have an agreement yet, but it looks like we're getting close is essentially what Chef Rosta says. So I'm elated. Right. It feels like this is the first time in the whole time I've been there in 28 days that I've had real hope and progress and getting close. And that mixed with everything around me. Remember, the boacale movement is heating up. Clearly the gang is motivated to get people out. I want to say that maybe one person had already gone out under. Yeah, that was true. That's true. Somebody had gone out the day before from the other room. I think it was this doctor that. That had been kidnapped. A dentist. We call him a doctor, but he was a dentist. I know that because I requested him when I had my. My heart shoulder thing. And they did bring him over the day before everything went bad. And he's like, yeah, I'm a dentist. Sorry. So I don't know anything about heart attacks. Anyway, that guy went out, I think, on the day 27. And so, anyway, there's all this excitement around, you know, it feels like it could be really close for me. Great. So let me take a breath there. Okay. Let me read a little bit from Mary's journal from that day. She says, we had some movement today. Billy just talked to you and the gang after you had reached out to Diego. They said they were ready to deal. And then the bad cop answered the second call and wouldn't back down again. So they were talking to Chef Rasta, good cop. And then backup picks up the phone and pushes things back a bit. Mary continues, I heard your voice. I love hearing your voice. You said, quote, this is our moment. Sell it. Close quote. I totally remember saying, I think I. I might have meant either on this call or I get one more call. Yeah, it's on the. The next call when I. I essentially say something to the effect of get everybody praying. This is. This is the time to pray. Let's do this then. Mary continues, I dropped to my knees and prayed in that instant. So much movement this evening. I'm trying so hard not to get overly excited. Paul has secured the money, we believe, and we'll get it to Gunny, who also has some money now for the miracle of the gang actually letting you go. Please, God. Going to bed with so much hope than this. More, so much more hope than this morning. Love you so much. So clearly we're all kind of getting our days mixed up, because it sounds like she's talking about the night of day 27, and she might be right. I might be blurring those phone calls. Clearly there was movement on day 27 to be excited about. And then she jumps to day 28, which is what I was. The story that I was just trying to tell you. Okay, then. Day 28, Mary's journal continues. Praying for miracles today more than ever. We have a shot at an exchange today. So many prayers. Okay, so at some point in the afternoon, early afternoon, I get word that my team has an accord. They have an agreement. And I'm of course, thrilled. I'm thrilled with how low the amount is. I'm thrilled that it's happening. And because of all the momentum around me, I just can't imagine it not being successful. And of course, there's always a high likelihood that the money is going to be stolen, but all of my visual cues in experiential cues suggest otherwise. And so I. I just let my hopes get up. However, since for the probably I think it was, since day 20, I had been pretty clear that escape was a reasonable possibility. And any rational human should prepare for that eventual possibility. And so we had been, like I mentioned, we've been preparing that plan. We had gotten our. Our disguises together. Stephanie and I are Both light skinned. She's. She's a Haitian, full blooded Haitian, but like anywhere, there's varying skin tones and Haiti is certainly segregated by skin tone. And she's a lighter, a fair skinned Haitian. And so she would be spotted immediately, just like I would. So she needs a disguise as well to fit in to the Grand Ravine area, which is very much a dark skinned community. And so we've got to figure out a way to fit in. So she's got some sort of long sleeves. I forget where she got that, but somehow she got long sleeves. She was doing her hair in a way that was normal for the area. She had planned to wear her pants that she had and then she had long sleeves and then can't remember how she was going to cover her face. And then I had some ripped up shirt that I was covering my arms with. And then I had my hat that I came with and had used a portion of my shirt or some other shirt to cover my face. And it cut slits out of the eye so that I could see. So that was my disguise. And then I had pants and the shoes that I came with. So we had this escape plan in the back of our head that really felt like I was gonna leave on day 28 or the night of day 28, whether it was going to be through the door or through the window. And everything seemed to at this point be pointing through to. I was going to leave through the door because it looked like my team had an Accord and it looked like the kidnappers were motivated to let me go. And so I was incredibly hopeful. I was trying not to count my chickens. But it was hard in front of Stephanie because Stephanie is such an optimist. She had me planning every little piece of my reunion with Mary. She had me planning Mother's Day that was coming up, of course, Mother's Day is coming up now. And planned every moment of that celebration because I was going to be home. And it was super fun to think about those things. And it was a great way to pass the time. And so as the evening neared, knowing that typically these exchanges don't happen late into the evening, but they could. I was definitely feeling antsy in kind of counting the minutes. And we would notice every time a vehicle would leave the compound or not the compound, leave the driveway in front of our house and we would see it drive down and see if that was one of the chefs, you know, maybe going to a rendezvous. And then that night, maybe, maybe 5:30 or 6, I get a call from Billy. They, they put him on the phone and he's confirming my identity. Right. And he's like, okay, we got an accord. We're gonna go make it happen. Awesome, right? I'm thrilled they they leave and that's let me read Mary's part from there. I'm sitting here at 7pm and I can hardly breathe. The exchange for money is going down right now. The chances they are going to let you go are small. But I am putting all my faith in our God who can do all things. I know he can. I don't want any of my doubts to hold us back. I heard your voice a few times today. I love you so much. Wouldn't it be the best thing ever to see you tonight or even tomorrow if you were released this evening? My heart can barely handle the thought because the fear is too big. It might not happen. I am holding to the fact that Heavenly Father can do all things. He is in charge. Paul came through for us big time today with the money and country. He is so invested in your return and feels so sick this happened to you. There are so many praying for you right this moment. So many lives have been affected by this. We are all in it. Non stop stomach aches until you are free. We have about an hour of daylight left. Not sure how that will affect things. We have several teams on the ground in hopes to receive you if they release you. Just got the message that the money was exchanged and they're going to count the money now. We are all waiting for them to let you go. I feel like I will puke. Going to bed now. So sad. They of course lied and said they won't release you. The general wants more money. I heard your voice. You didn't even seem surprised or fazed. I wonder so much how you were holding up in there. I was so hopeful. Austin said we are holding firm and not going to give more money. He says they are testing us to see if we will give more. I felt peaceful when he said that. The fact that we had a chance at you again today and didn't get you is so hard. So I remember that night when the vehicle came driving back up the hill. I was pretty pumped thinking this is my moment. Remember I was sitting on a bucket with my back to the wall by the bathroom. So just to hide would be where Chef Jeff's all and door would be and then also the hallway where the kidnappers usually enter and exit from. So I would have been facing right at the window. Western window. That's the main window where we would have planned to Escape from a Bad Cop comes blasting in the door and yelling, and Chef Rasta is right behind him. But corn quiet, and he's just yelling. And I can barely make it out. But I hear they didn't pay enough. You're staying. They didn't pay in early enough. You're staying. Your team is dumb. They need to pay more. And you know, I can't compute it, but it's also like, all happening in slow motion. And I remember asking clarifying questions like, my team. So you had an accord, right? You had an agreement? Bad Cop says, yes, we had an agreement. And did they pay the amount that you agreed upon? Yes, they did, but it's not enough. Your team needs to pay more. And I remember saying again, wait, wait, wait. Didn't you just say that you had an agreement and my team paid the agreed amount? Yes, but it's not enough. They need to pay the hundred thousand like you agreed to before my boss's boss, Chef General, which I can only assume is tilap, demands the full hundred thousand. And we're gonna torture you until we get it. And you're going to be here till you die. And a bunch of other scary, gross things. The comic relief in this moment is that Chef Rasta is like, behind him, like the world's least scary gangster. And like every time Bad Cop says something disgusting, Good Cop, Chef Rosta will be like, yeah, like, like a bad rapper sidekick. Like, uh, huh, yeah. That wasn't funny in the moment, but it is now anyway, so. So Bad Cop is just raging at me and I'm essentially tuning him out. Like, once he, Once I realized what, what he was saying and where he was in the negotiation process, I essentially kind of tuned him out and, and decided as I looked across the room, I was sitting on that bucket again, just kind of dejected. And I looked at the window and I knew I had to go out the window in instead. But that made me very clear on what I had to do. And so from that moment forward, I started planning to actually execute our previous plans to escape. So they. They left in a huff like they had. Had won. Remember, a little while later, they brought the phone, and Billy was on the phone. And that's the part that Mary mentioned around me not being surprised. You know, part of that is because I had already kind of heard the news and of course was frustrated, but I already had my own solution. And in my, in my head, I was kind of thinking, all right, well, I'll see you tomorrow anyway, because I'm going out the window. But I wasn't going to say anything to them about that because I didn't want them to freak out about it or anything. So anyway, that's. That was day 28. The good cop and bad cop left the room and I looked at Stephanie and I said, I guess we're going out the window. And I don't remember how she responded, but I do remember being concerned at that moment. I remember. So Stephanie is incredible. She's this pocket rocket, you know, fiery Haitian. She's awesome. And since, you know, almost day one, she was the biggest proponent of escape. She was always on board for any escape conversation, any escape planning. In the very beginning, I would avoid any talk or thought that seriously entertained escape because it was so dangerous, both emotionally but also in reality, dangerous to discuss. And then as things progressed and day 20 came around and it seemed like escape was not only feasible, but might be wise in order to achieve our, our safety and freedom. So to avoid the increasingly poor treatment of Stephanie and myself, and then the threats that we had just heard began to seem prudent to go out the window. And, you know, looking back, I could, I could judge that decision maybe a little bit differently, but in the moment, it certainly seemed like the most wise choice. And so for me to mention to Stephanie at that moment, hey, this is real. Now, you could tell she was a little jarred by that incredible bravery came across her in the following 30, 40 minutes as we discussed its reality and what would need to begin to go down, moving forward to make it happen that night. And so we began to prepare and think it through and make sure that our disguises were ready, talk about the schedule, when we would start, which step, there were points of no return. So we had a couple days before, began to move the red, the dark red curtain across the window again because you, if you've got an incredible memory, you might remember that we slowly opened that curtain in the beginning. We didn't. We do it slowly because you don't want the guards to notice, right? And in the early days, we didn't want them to care that we had exposed the window and are able to see out. We just, we wanted to see out, but we also just wanted the air to, to blow through the room as best as we could. And nobody ever had a real problem with that. They didn't like it when we stood near the windows. If they ever came in while we were standing by the windows. They didn't, they didn't love that. But they left the red curtain as is. And so in the days Preceding the potential escape, we begin to creep the curtain back over. And so now the, the curtain was covering that western window that through which we plan to escape, which is good. But once you start bending bars, that's the point of no return, right. And, and you're at significant risk once you start wrapping a bunch of straps around that bars. And remember you have to take off the glass louvers as well. And so there's, there's some commitments and some risk there. So we started watching the kidnappers behavior through the door. Remember there's pin holes in the door that you can peek through and, and see what's going on. And if you get brave, you can spider climb up the, the doorway and peek over the top of the door. You obviously would be seen. So you need to be careful. But oftentimes it's really dark and would be hard to see us. So you, you get a little cover that way. So we start talking about the steps and, and when we'll start what. And of course both of us are incredibly prayerful. We, we probably prayed 50 times that night because of course you want to be certain, right. And not leaning unto your own understanding. Right. You, you would love to have a higher power support your decision making. And I did feel clear about doing it, about escaping at least felt clear about progressing down the path to doing that. And so we prepared. I got my ropes lined up, I got my bar where it needed to be. My kind of iron rod bent kind of cross thing that I was going to use to tourniquet the straps to bend the bars. I got that all already. And then we just waited for things to calm down a little bit. And the problem was now that the gang had all that ransom money, they were blowing it. So clearly, the chef general, the chef's chef kicked them down commission cash and you know, they were all using it. So there's lots of food and alcohol and presumably weed going around. And there had to been 10 guards out there partying. So they're, they're on the opposite side of where the window is but they're around a lot and I wasn't sure if they were going to start coming in. And I remember we waited and waited probably till 1 o'clock in the morning and no one had come in all night. Clearly just felt guilty and they didn't want to face me or us. And so nobody came in. They just wanted to party and not have to acknowledge why they were partying. Right. So nobody ever came in to check on us. And I essentially rested on the or I essentially decided they were not going to come in, it was late enough, and that we needed to start bending those bars. So I said another prayer and still felt good about it. Felt clear. And so I started wrapping up the bars, the one that. So the one that I wanted to get through, I had to bend the bottom and the top and squeeze them together to create a gap in the middle. So I started doing that. And I remember the first strap, it went well. And then I started twisting it and it started tearing before I thought it needed to. And that was concerning. It took my brain a while, and it should not have taken a while, but it took my brain a while to figure out I had to creep that down sequentially or repeatedly. So strap it up, twist, and then re. Strap it, twist, restrap it, twist, restrap it, twist. And then you can creep down, creep down without tearing the strap. So that that process took me a little while to figure it out, right? Probably took an hour to. To really figure out how to do it, and then probably another hour and a half to do it, to actually do all the twisting necessary. Meanwhile, Stephanie was on the bucket right by the door, staring out through the. The best pinhole that she could find. Normally you would just bend over at the waist and peek through that pinhole, but if you're gonna be there for an hour, you want the bucket, right? She was awesome. And if they were ever, ever close, she would run back my way and signal me and I would throw the. I would come out from behind the red curtain and pretend like, you know, nothing was behind the curtain, when in reality, there. All the louvers were gone and there was a tourniquet and straps up in that. The. In the bars. If you ever move the curtain aside, we'd have been toast. But luckily nobody ever came to check. But many times it was very tense where it looked like they were coming close to the door. I'm going to come in. But we were okay. And so probably around one or two maybe in the morning, it's done. It's. It's big enough for my head to fit through and my chest to fit through. Luckily, my chest had shrunk dramatically while I was in there. I had measured it and it was. It was probably, probably about that much. I had a 32 ounce water bottle in there that I was using kind of as a ruler, and I had measured my chest and it could fit through there. And I had poked my head through in reality and into that sheet. Remember, there's a. It goes glass. The louvered Glass, then the metal bars and then this sheet on the outside. And so I could stick my head out the metal bars and into the sheet and I could, I could tell it was ready, that we, we could fit through it. And so I kind of cleaned up my mess and told Stephanie that it was ready. And then we just had to pick the right time. And so I continued to watch and wait for the traffic to die down. But these guys were still partying. It's driving us nuts. And so maybe somewhere around 2:30 the party starts dwindling down and people start leaving. One of my big concerns is even if the people were gone, there's always dogs walking around outside. And if a dog sees me, I'm worried that he's going to bark and, you know, sound the alarm. They're not like attack dogs, they're just stray dogs, but they still bark at stuff and I don't want it to be me. So that was one of my concerns. I was always tracking the dogs, right? Where are the dogs? Are they anywhere close? Luckily the dogs weren't around then. Somewhere around 3:00 in the morning, maybe 3:30, I had asked or encouraged Stephanie to sleep. I don't remember if she actually did, but I wake her up or I nudge her and said, hey, it's time. You still up for this? And after some discussion, we agreed, yeah, it's time to go. And it's hard to explain the guts it takes, really do something like that. You know, it's the only thing I can compare it to is if you've ever done anything crazy in sports or extreme sports or maybe you've jumped off a cliff or jumped a bike or a motorcycle or something. There's a phrase that extreme sports people use and which is send it, send it. That send it feeling is nothing compared to what it took to go out that window realizing the danger that was in store potentially. You know what you weigh things like, hey, would, would they kill me in this case? And the calculus says they, they won't kill you, but you don't know, right? Maybe they're going to make an example. Maybe they've been, would be embarrassed and want to make an example out of you. Or maybe they would kill Stephanie and to make me pay. Or maybe they would kill one of the captives left behind and you just don't know. So you're weighing all that. And of course we, we settled on the fact that they wouldn't kill anybody but that there was risk that everyone, including us, would be beaten and, and tortured further. But when you recognize the fact that that's going to happen whether you go or stay, you, it points toward, hey, we should at least give this a shot. And the likelihood of us having success was decent enough to where it made sense to go. But even if it makes rational sense, actually going out that window into this land that is incredibly dangerous, that has gunfire all the time, where there are gangsters running all over the place, shooting their weapons all day, every day, throughout the day. There wasn't any gunfire that evening, luckily, and that gives you a little bit more hope. But it is so scary to go out that window, to actually do it, because it really is a point of no return. One of our hopes was that we would get out on a moonless night or even in the rain, because Haitians hate the rain. And so they'll stay inside mainly. And so that would have been good cover, and from a sound standpoint, and having the full clouds would have made it dark and helpful. And so. But unfortunately, we're in a heavily wooded compound. It's like the most trees in all of Haiti are in this compound, and so we can't see the sky, so we don't know if it's a moonlit night or not. Oh, at about 3:30 or so, we start making our way out that window. So it starts with me, and so I'm essentially going out face up, if that makes sense. And so I start with my back to the window into the bars, and then stick my head and then arms through, and then I grab the bars up above me. And so that kind of holds my weight as I wriggle my chest of through the bars. Then once I wriggle my chest through the bars, then I pull my feet through, and it's no problem. I'm through. And then I kind of, kind of a reverse pull up and lower myself down to the ground. The ground is a little bit below the floor of the house, so maybe, I don't know, two feet lower. And then I look back, I look around and kind of try to assess my environment. And my heart's, of course, racing as I look around because I'm outside now, right? Anybody sees me at this point, I'm toast. Big problem. So I look around and there's nobody. And I can hear a lot better now because there was a fan on on the inside. And I can use my ears to try to figure out if there's anybody around feeling pretty good about it. Maybe a minute or two that I sit down, crouched down underneath the window, just trying to hear the environment. See if there's anybody coming, anybody to worry about. See if I can hear new people out on the porch to our house. And it all sounds pretty quiet. It seems like everybody's going home or gone to sleep. And so I peek back inside. I'd untied this sheet already, so I would have pushed the sheet aside and then motioned back for Stephanie to follow me. And I remember she. She grabs this, like, purse thing that she's always had since day one. It's like a little handbag thing. And it's got, like, matches and a mirror and, like, makeup stuff. Not. Not makeup, but I don't know, girl stuff in there, right? And. But she grabs it. I don't know why she grabs it, but she does. And I think I made fun of her or something for it. She's like, no, I'm taking this. Okay, take it. And. And she hands that to me. I think I put it on the ground, and then I help carry her out of the window. She goes the same way, essentially, that I did and lower her down to the ground. And she's having a hard time. So we end up walking behind the house, so to the north side of the house just to kind of collect ourselves and let Stephanie calm down a little bit and get ready to move. And I leave her there after maybe a minute or two and tell her, hey, I'm going to go look around, make sure it's safe for us to make our way to the man door on the other side. Remember, it's about maybe 50ft, maybe 60ft across a highly visible road. So when we cross that road, if there's anybody in front of the house, they're going to see us 100%. And so our whole plan for our movement is to hide in plain sight, to look like we belong, right? There's Haitians always walk really slowly. Unfortunately, they're a lot smaller than me, typically. And so I. I plan to. To walk kind of hunched over like an older, bigger guy, and to walk with, like, a limp and just really slowly. And then women usually walk behind and. And so she'll walk behind me. And that way, no matter how scared she is, as long as she just follows me, we'll be fine. And I'll keep a slow pace. That's the plan. And so first, while she's settling down, I go out and try to kind of peek around that corner to see if there's anybody on the porch, so to speak, in front of the house, and there isn't. And there's like a Like a ledge that we both have to hop down. Like a landscape retaining wall that we both have to hop down. It's tricky because it's kind of dark. And so I do that. I then motion for Stephanie to follow me. And the idea is that we'll go down the hill just a little bit, maybe 20 yards to get onto the road, and then start walking up the road. That way, if people. People see us from the front of our house, it'll look like we belong there. It doesn't look that way. It doesn't look like we just came out the window. Right? So that's the idea. And so she follows me down 20 yards down the hill, and then we start doing this slow kind of limp walk, really slow up the hill, which is incredibly difficult to do to get yourself to walk slow when everything inside you wants. Wants to sprint as fast as you can, right? So. But we're doing it. And you remember, my presumption is once we get out that man door and we look to the left, we're going to see the tree line. So I'm thrilled to make my way toward that man door. So as we're walking toward the man door, up the road toward the man door, I don't remember if I even looked over toward the front of the house. I think I did, but I might not, have, just out of fear, because if there is anybody over there, we're probably towed. And my only shot is to not look like I care. And I don't want to look right at him because I've got this silly shirt on my face as a disguise. And anyway, I don't remember if I looked up. I don't think I did. And luckily, the man door is open. I walk out the door, and it's not quite what I expected where, like, there's steps on the other side and they're kind of tricky to get down. But I get down the steps, and I'm outside the compound, and I look behind me, and Stephanie's making her way through the door as well. It takes way longer than I expected her to take to get through that door. It seemed like forever. I'm sure it wasn't, but it seemed like it was because I couldn't see her until she came through. And then we're both out, both out of the compound. And all of my assumptions were wrong. Once I got out the compound, it was not a dark night. It was. There were no clouds. There seemed like there were three moons in the sky. It was so bright, it felt like there was A white spotlight on us the whole time. And of course, once you leave the compound, there's no trees at all. So all of a sudden, I just feel incredibly exposed, right? My, this, my terrible disguise depends on darkness, right? I'm wearing a T shirt on my face, right? I don't actually look like Asian, so luckily I add on. So that gives me a little bit of a shadow from the moon. And who knows, maybe. Maybe somebody will think I'm a gangster and I'm wearing a mask. I don't know. But regardless, my. My plan is thwarted. And you may recall I'm supposed to look up and see the tree line. It should be about 150 meters away. And I could not be more wrong. It's gotta be 3/4 of a mile away. It is. And not just away. It's on the other side of like a labyrinth of incredibly complex tin and cinder block neighborhoods. And I don't know how to navigate them. So I'm trying to calmly reassess. And that's something I'm pretty good at. And so thinking through all of our. Our choices. And in the meantime, I tell Stephanie because she's. She's experiencing the same grief that I am because this is not what we were hoping for. And I probably did not. Not probably. I did not prepare sufficient contingency plans if my assumption was wrong. I 100% depended on my assumption being right. And I should have considered lots of other plans if I was wrong and didn't. So I'm trying to make them on the fly, and I'm trying to calm Stephanie down, but she's just disappointed in me. I think she's clearly having a hard time. And so I tell her, relax, Stick with the plan. Let's keep walking this way. Just walk behind me like we planned. Don't walk fast. Don't walk past me. And then we look up ahead maybe 200ft, and there's two guys coming toward us. They're not gangsters. We can, you can tell instantly they've got sticks on their back. They. They're clearly coming down the mountain, having chopped wood, most likely illegally. They're coming down the hill. Stephanie and I are. Are worried that our disguises are not going to work. And who knows, maybe they'll sound the alarm. In retrospect, I probably should have spoken to them or, or turned around and followed them. And maybe they could have helped us somehow. Maybe they hated the gangs and would have side with us. Sided with us. We didn't do any of that. We just were pleased that they didn't stop and question us at all, right. So we just kept our slow walk past them up the hill and we continue walking. I'm trying to think as fast as I can. I still know the direction that I want to go, but it's way too much houses the way that I want to go. And what. Now that I have seen the map of the Google map, I know that I should have made a right and would have had my best chance at the tree line by making a right and going through the labyrinth. But you can't see it. You can't see that path from the ground. So instead we stayed on the road. It's a fairly well made, cobblestone style road, might have been concrete, but pretty well made for Haiti standards. And we're walking along that road for a while. Maybe half a mile to a mile up that road, we make a right and we keep walking. And there's. I'm trying to make my way over to the shadows. There are some shadows, and I want to be in those shadows to help with my disguise. And as we're on our way to those shadows, there's very little out. There's very little life in the, in the, in this area. It's super quiet, no wind, nothing. And we can hear two guys maybe 200 meters ahead talking. They're under a tree. They're in the dark. And we can't see who or what they are until it's too late and they see us. And we clearly look out of place and we, we kind of freeze. And that concerns them more. And they start running toward us and you can see their assault rifles with them as two dudes, little guys. And as they get closer and closer, they're, they're more and more concerned and they, they begin to see how big I am. And they put their weapons up and now they're pointed at both of us. And Stephanie, brilliantly, just incredibly fast thinker says, hey, calm down, we need your help. I think I. I think I pulled out my passport and showed it to him like, hey, I'm an American. And then I slowly pulled off my, my mask with. I don't know if that made him less scared or more scared. Just this was the first time since I had been kidnapped where I thought somebody might actually shoot me. These guys were so scared in this moment, and so that we're trying to settle them down and. And Stephanie brilliantly engages them and says, hey, we have money. If you can get us to this spot, this particular stadium, which is kind of a safe no man's land of sorts. And it's a reasonable distance that these guys might be able to get us there. And they start listening to her, right? This is all happening really fast. Probably takes them a minute or two minutes for, for that conversation to happen. I'm worried because it's happening loud that people in the area might hear that and ruin our chances of getting these guys some money. So we've come far enough that this is a different gang, but they're allied gangs, right? And so, but these guys are so young and so low ranking. Anybody who has the night shift on this road out in the middle of nowhere is low ranking, right? And new. And so we're trying to offer them an immense amount of money. You know, for them. It's small cash for you and I, but a lot for them. Life changing money for them. And so it, it looks like they're going to take this offer, which is thrilling. And I'm so pumped for Stephanie coming up with that idea on the fly. And they say, okay, great, call your contact and we'll, we'll talk to them and, and we'll set up the meeting. And like we don't have phones. We were kidnapped. Of course they knew that already. Like, okay, and, and then we ask them if they have phones. They're like, no, we don't have phones. Like that's how low ranking these guys do. They don't even have phones. They don't have flip phones or prepaid minutes phones. One of them did have a phone, but it had no minutes on it, right? So they start walking us into the labyrinth, right? They're gonna go get a phone. They're not walking us back to the compound, but they're, they're trying to, to hide us essentially. So we walk a ways back into this labyrinth and I'm thinking as fast as I can trying to figure out a solution. Do we run? Is there an opportunity to take off? Can I take these weapons? Should I take these weapons? Because these are tiny dudes thinking through all of that and I, I felt fine just waiting it out. That felt like the, the best course at that time is to, to see what happens because we still had a chance at getting out of this thing with these guys. Maybe these guys are the, the godsend that we hope that they are. And they're actually going to escort us to safety for money, which you know, in many cases in 80 you can, in, you can get just about whatever you want with enough money. And I'm hoping that these guys are wide eyed enough to try it. And they put us in this little house. It's a cinder block, it's got a padlock. One of them stays with us inside the cell. And that guy is its own story. I'll probably save that story for another day. But being locked in that cell with that scumbag for a couple hours was a disgusting, difficult experience. And so they stuck us in this pitch black cell where we couldn't see the our hands in front of our face and padlocked it. They locked us in there with one of the other dudes. And the other guy goes to get a phone, says I'll, you know, I'll be right back. About 20 minutes later he comes back with the phone and some other guy and they hand the phone to Stephanie. And Stephanie goes outside and calls. I forget who she called. One of one of her friends or family and says, hey, I'm in trouble, but we've escaped. Maybe you could meet us with some money. I think they set an amount, it's you know, fairly modest amount, maybe a thousand dollars U.S. something like that. It's a lot of money, but gettable amount. And whoever's on the other line says okay, you know, give me an hour and I'll call you back with a meeting place. But the loose plan was at this stadium. And so we say great, and they stick us back in this cell. Maybe two hours later some other guy shows up. And we're pretty concerned at this point because it's getting light out now. It's, I guess it's probably like 5:00am but the, the sun's coming up and that's concerning because once the sun comes up, they can't meet it or they can't move us. We're still hopeful that hey, we can stay in this room all day long, they can move us tomorrow night. But. And that's looking pretty optimistic at this point. At this point. So then this new guy comes in, it's pretty dark and he's taller than the other guys, looks slightly more well dressed than the other guys. And he says, don't worry, calm yourselves, I'm going to help you. And he uses this phrase that essentially means people. There's no price you can put on people or people are not for sale, or people shouldn't be for sale. I'm going to help you. And gosh, was that a manipulative phrase? Because worked for a while, right? That's a pretty convincing phrase. It's one thing to be an allied kidnapper and be planning to take us back and say something like, you know, hey, we may need to take you back or, or say something evil or whatever, but to say something so kind and I don't know if sensitive is the right word, but incredibly evil and manipulative in its intent. I don't know that I've observed something quite so devious until this moment, but this guy absolutely is. Is going to give us back to the kidnappers. But at this time, he's convincing us he's not. And, gosh, we wanted to believe that so much that it, it essentially worked. It's a. Probably 75% of both of us believe that guy, and we're quite hopeful. And he hugs Stephanie and, like, gives her this. It's disgusting. So that guy then leaves and says, you know, I'll be right back. Well, we're gonna figure out a plan to get you guys to safety. We'll take you to the airport or something, meet your people. Sometimes goes. Time goes by. It's probably 8 or 9 in the morning, maybe not quite that late, probably 8:30. And that guy comes again. There's more people. And I can hear outside the door, they're talking about us. And we hear somebody else who's further away kind of yell. And he uses the term Nexon mill, which means $100,000 guy. And as soon as we heard that, we knew we'd been sold out because they're, they're referring to me. And it's bring me the next. Bring me Nexon Mill. Bring me the hundred thousand dollar guy. And we were, we were pretty devastated, you know, that clearly these guys weren't, Weren't going to bring us to safety. And so they, they take us out, they start walking us through this, you know, shanty town. And now everybody's awake, right? There's people everywhere doing the laundry, bathing, bathing kids. And we're just kind of meandering our way through or working our way through this kind of labyrinth up these steep kind of concrete stairs and other things. And we get to the top of this staircase and there's a road up there and there's an SUV parked and this head chef, who you can clearly tell is in charge, shows up. He's the one who yelled for next on Milk. I'm Nexum mill. Bring me or give me Nexon Mill. And he's, he's looking me up and down and tells us to get in the suv and we climb in and he then gets into the driver's seat and says something like, hey, don't worry. Calm yourselves. I'm going to Take you to safety. Don't worry about it. I'll, I'm going to help you. And again, we, we kind of fall for it, right? Like, not really. Like we're, we're rational enough to say that's unlikely, but part of you is just so hopeful that they, they mean what they, what they say. So I said something like, awesome, you know, we'll have some reward money for you at the airport. When you get us to the airport, make sure that we take care of you. Right? Like that kind of stuff. Stephanie's saying the same kinds of things. And then they, they drive us right by the kidnappers compound and we're kind of freaking out. But then they don't go up, they don't go up into the compound and they go down the hill instead and park in this area. We haven't been before. But we had passed on our way in the first day. And we sit there for a while and old men who clearly are senior level leaders in the gang are coming to the vehicle and are talking with us. And every interaction is the same thing. It's who helped you escape? And we keep saying, no one helped us escape. Well, how did you do that? Because nobody can escape by themselves. And we try to explain how I did it and nobody can understand how, how we bent the bars. But so I think maybe three or four different people come up and ask us the same question. Two or three different, you know, big shots, they're in their 40s, early 50s, which is highly unusual in, in gangland to live that long. And they're, they're not having it, but, oh, interesting story. One of them pops their head in and, and looks at me and I think he might have said Neil or something similar. And then he also said, you're the one who had trouble with your heart. So he knew that also. And as soon as he said that, I was like, dude, I'm toast. We're for sure going back, right? If you're close enough to the gang that, that you know about that day and about that event, you're in the same game, right? We're not just in an adjacent gang. We're in the same essential gang. Right? Allied enough. And so, you know, we're, there's still a, a thread of hope as the day goes on because we're still sitting there that, that SUV for a while. It's probably 10:30 at this point. We're still sitting, I'm sitting in the back of that SUV and they're all pretty relaxed. And then I hear A shout from outside the vehicle, shouting to this. The same scumbag that hugged Stephanie earlier and says, take him back. And you know, then we knew that was it. And we. I think we pled with that dude and tried to make him feel guilty for no reason, knowing it wasn't going to do us any good. But he drives us back up to the compound and we pull up to the compound and there's got to be 25 people standing out around it. They're all staring at the bars. There's people in front, there's people all over it. Stephanie and I don't do not know what to expect. So one of the normal guards pulls us out, kind of puts our heads down again. He clearly thinks it's ridiculous to put our heads down, but he does walks us back in to the. Into a different room now. So now we're in room one or room two. Sorry, we were in room one. Now we're in room two with three other captives. So my two security dudes and then this other guy, and they are just beside themselves that because they. Everybody knew that we had escaped. There was all kinds of screaming. You know, they. They left. They left as soon as they realized it in the morning. Be like, I forget how they found out whether one of the. The other chefs called them and said, hey, your people are. Are missing and we've got them, or whether or not somebody figured out on their own. I would imagine the other gang was the one that notified. But our. The other captives knew because there was all sorts of yelling and commotion. So they were. They knew and they were quite upset with me as well. I remember DJ My a main security driver pulling me into the bathroom and saying, hey, I know that this was Stephanie's idea and you did this just to save her and that you would not have done it if you. You didn't need to save her from trouble. And they're gonna go easy on you because of that. And I remember saying, DJ that's not how it went down. And him looking at me so disappointed anyway. And a little time goes by and somebody comes in, takes all my clothes and my passport and my cards, driver's license, that kind of stuff. And they left me with my like, like boxer briefs. They let me have the keep those. They took their. Took everything else partly just to humiliate me and otherwise to make it harder for me to escape again. But that was day 28 in the morning of day 29. Let me take a breath here and psych myself up for telling you about the rest of day 29. Thank you guys. Appreciate your listening. 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