THE NEXT DAY one of our captors came to get us. We were all blindfolded, placed in cars, and driven about fifteen minutes toward what we assumed was the center of Tripoli. People screamed epithets at us, and my captor told me to put my head down in my lap for my own protection.
We arrived at an office in the Foreign Ministry building in downtown Tripoli, where our Times colleague David Kirkpatrick was waiting for us. It was so surreal—our being led out of cars as prisoners, broken and mentally scarred, at the same time that David waited for us in a shiny conference room, fresh out of his five-star hotel, with a mobile phone connected to the outside world. How could it be that we were captive and he was operating freely in Tripoli? The meeting began. Everyone talked about logistics, getting us out, getting passports made for those who had theirs confiscated. David explained that the Turkish Embassy was acting as proxy for the American Embassy, and then he got someone from the State Department in Washington on the phone so we could each work out our passport needs. When the phone came to me, I heard the voice of this cheery American girl who introduced herself as Yael and reassured me that they were going to get us home, and I cried at the mere sound of a fellow American. I was overcome with hope.
We weren’t released right away. But eventually we were transferred to another location, in the middle of Tripoli. In a room on the ground floor, TV cameras were set up on tripods and Libyan and Turkish diplomats had gathered. I actually believed we might be released. We were told to take our seats. I had dressed in a hand-laundered green Zara tunic and Levi’s jeans—the outfit I had been wearing the day of the kidnapping. While we waited for the formalities to begin, one of the Turkish diplomats there to help negotiate our release handed me his cell phone and told me to speak into it. He somehow had Paul on the line: It was the first time I had heard Paul’s voice since the ordeal began, and I fell apart.
“Baby?” I whimpered between tears. “I am so sorry.”
“I love you, baby.” Paul was firm, loving, and reassuring. “I will see you soon. Do you have your passport?” After a few more words of tenderness, we ended the conversation.
I returned to the room just in time for our official handover to begin. A Libyan diplomat handed each of us an envelope with $3,000 in it to compensate us for the cash that had been stolen from us at the time of our detainment. I stupidly declined mine, saying my cash hadn’t actually been stolen (though $35,000 worth of camera equipment and gear was gone). Then the Turkish and Libyan officials signed documents, handing our custody over from the Libyans to the Turks. I was convinced the Libyans might change their minds.
We were escorted into the crisp March air. It was the first time we had been outside without blindfolds. I hadn’t seen the sky for six days, and as we walked toward the diplomatic vehicle waiting to take us one step closer to freedom, I looked up at the cornflower-blue sky, dotted with fluffy clouds, and took a deep breath. The car ferried us to the Turkish Embassy. This was the second time the Turks had helped me, and I would forever be indebted to them.
Libyan and Turkish diplomats arranged a convoy to the Tunisian border, where we would be handed over to a private security team hired by the Times. I called my mother and then my father and Bruce and told them I was safe and how sorry I was to have put them through so much stress. My father replied very simply, “We love you. This was not your fault. You were only doing your work.”
From left: Stephen Farrell, Tyler Hicks, Levent Sahinkaya (the Turkish ambassador to Libya), Lynsey Addario, and Anthony Shadid in the Turkish Embassy in Tripoli before being released to Tunisia.
It was difficult to get words out. We were all emotional, and I didn’t want to talk long. Conversation only brought my fragility to the surface, and I preferred to keep it tucked away until we were properly released and in private, rather than at the Turkish Embassy on a phone line that I assumed half of Libya’s intelligence services were listening in on. But I realized how selfless my parents were: Regardless of how much pain they suffered as a result of my professional decisions, they always supported me. They had given me a boundless inner strength.
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