My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 649

“Has no one been sent out there yet?”

Park Do-joon turned his head toward the television, a look of disbelief on his face. A news report was playing.

-Currently, the pirates have not made any clear demands. The condition of the crew members is unknown.

“Well, Somalia is practically a failed state.”

Yoon Tae-min spoke, his expression grave.

“No, that’s not the point. Somalia hasn’t just become like this in the last year or two.”

*It’s difficult to expect a negotiation expert, a negotiator, to be present in a country where the civil war has barely stopped. I know that.*

“But this is Korea we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

A cargo ship hijacking occurred in Somalian waters.

The ship that was hijacked by the pirates is of Korean nationality, and naturally, the vast majority of the victims are Korean. So, the Korean military urgently dispatched forces.

The problem is that the timing was too late. Before the Korean military could approach for rescue, the pirates had already boarded the ship, leading to a standoff.

Thus, a hostage situation unfolded.

In fact, almost all hostage situations occur when something goes wrong during the initial act. In such situations, there is little that the police or navy can do.

“The problem is that there’s no one on-site to direct the negotiations.”

“But it’s not like Korea doesn’t have negotiation experts, right?”

Negotiation experts, or rather, negotiators, are not common, but it’s not as if there are none.

“Most of them declined, saying they don’t know anything about Africa. There was one person, but…”

“But?”

“They suddenly found cancer during a comprehensive health checkup…”

“Ugh!”

With negotiations potentially taking months, a cancer patient can’t go there.

*Come to think of it, didn’t it take about a year and four months to resolve this incident?*

If Park Do-joon’s memory is correct, that’s right. Even then, it was only after one person died from illness that the government actively engaged in negotiations.

Before that, if his memory serves him right, they were completely neglected except for the initial stages of the incident, and then the government had no choice but to step in and negotiate.

And the resolution wasn’t through negotiation either. Navy special forces stormed in, a shootout occurred, three pirates died, and one crew member was nearly killed by a gunshot.

“Why did things turn out that way? In this day and age? It’s insane.”

The reason Park Do-joon said this is simple. Contrary to the notoriety of Somali pirates, the Somali waters are currently quite stable.

Various countries are sending warships to provide escort operations to counter pirate ships.

In fact, Korea also sent a warship and carried out a rescue operation from there.

Moreover, that’s not the only countermeasure. Nowadays, ships have safe rooms [reinforced compartments designed to protect the crew from attack]. When pirate ships appear, the crew members enter the safe room, lock the door, and ensure their safety since they can’t outrun them with the slow cargo ship. Naturally, the safe room has at least two weeks’ worth of food and water, giving the navies of neighboring countries enough time to come and eliminate the pirates.

Without hostages, the navy can engage in a shootout without hesitation, making it impossible for the pirates to compete.

Furthermore, to delay the pirates from boarding as much as possible, high-pressure water pumps are installed, which, when activated, draw seawater and spray it around the ship at high pressure.

Since it has the water pressure of a decent fire hose, it’s absolutely not easy to overcome that and climb aboard.

Even if all that is missing, nowadays, they hire armed private military companies locally and have them on board.

Fully armed, they transfer to other contracted ships once the ship departs from the Somali waters and continue their escort duties in that area, so they know the pirates well and are well-equipped.

No matter how fast the pirates’ ship is, if they shoot from the high position of the cargo ship, it’s not easy to even approach, let alone climb aboard. The navy arrives during the chase anyway.

And if necessary, they also play the role of negotiating with the pirates, so in reality, the possibility of a hostage situation on a cargo ship near Somalia is almost non-existent these days.

“Well, that’s…”

Yoon Tae-min smiled awkwardly.

“That company is not in good shape.”

“Not in good shape?”

“They’ve been in the red for years…”

“Don’t tell me they didn’t implement any safety measures?”

“Yes.”

“Are you crazy?”

They didn’t install water spray equipment, didn’t hire mercenaries, and just pushed through with the voyage.

“No, but they would have had a safe room, right? If they had that, they could have bought some time?”

“That ship wasn’t originally operated in that area.”

The ship originally belonged to a Japanese company that traveled around Japan, Russia, or China, and the seas there were safe, so there was no need for a safe room.

Of course, recently built ships tend to have safe rooms in preparation for emergencies, but that ship was old, and the Korean company bought it used and immediately put it on that route without any modifications.

Naturally, there was no proper safety equipment, and they didn’t hire mercenaries because they didn’t have money, so things went wrong.

“This is driving me crazy.”

Park Do-joon frowned at those words. It’s not a new problem that Korean companies are insensitive to safety costs, but as it is, casualties are bound to occur as in the original history.

In the original history, the company went bankrupt due to penalties and damages in a situation where it was already in bad shape.

Since they have a shipping contract, they have to deliver no matter what, even if there are pirates, and it was delayed for a whopping 1 year and 4 months.

Moreover, the cause was saving on safety costs. Even if they had nothing else, if they had at least one mercenary on board, the mercenary could have often resolved the situation by giving the pirates some money and sending them back, so if there had been just one mercenary, this wouldn’t have happened.

“So, we need to negotiate with the pirates on-site…”

“The timing was ambiguous.”

“Rather than that, the… the company refused the negotiation.”

“What?”

“It seems the pirates weren’t initially planning a hostage situation either.”

The pirates demanded $100,000, about 130 million Korean won [approximately $100,000 USD], as a condition for disembarking. It’s a bit excessive, but it’s usually better to negotiate and pay a lower amount than to waste time on the pirate issue.

“But the company refused.”

“This is driving me crazy.”

Instead, the company reportedly yelled at the crew to take down the armed pirates. They said they didn’t have money to give to pirates. Of course, I understand that the company is in the red and doesn’t have money. But if they had used that money to hire mercenaries, there wouldn’t have been a problem, but wasn’t that the company that didn’t hire them because they were stingy?

“So, there was a bit of a scuffle and difficult negotiations.”

Unfortunately, the French Navy arrived at that moment. It’s not just the Korean Navy in that area, and when pirates appear, the nearest navy rushes to help, regardless of the ship’s nationality.

And the French Navy is one of the most hostile navies to pirates.

Naturally, the pirates, facing certain death if caught, took the crew hostage to survive, and as the navies of other countries arrived one after another, a standoff naturally formed.

“So, a hostage situation occurred.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“This is insane.”

In fact, most hostage situations occur due to such unexpected variables.

“There are no other negotiators currently available…”

The only available person needs to undergo cancer treatment.

“But I thought of Park Do-joon. You used to be great at negotiations.”

“That’s…”

Certainly, Park Do-joon studied as a negotiation expert. But he has never been in a real hostage situation.

“The situation is urgent. If we can at least guarantee the safety of the crew…”

“Haa~!”

With no other choice, Park Do-joon sighed.

“So, what will you do? Will you go?”

In the end, Park Do-joon had no choice but to go to negotiate, which he didn’t want to do.

It took a considerable amount of time to get to the Somali waters. Given the situation, he had to take the fastest plane, and when he boarded the Korean Navy’s *Choi Young* ship [a South Korean destroyer], which was confronting the Somali waters, he was exhausted.

“Welcome.”

“Yes.”

In the hot African waters, boarding the ship that had been heated up to the extreme made him gasp.

“Let’s go inside first. There’s no time, and it’s hot.”

Park Do-joon looked at the crew members guarding the surroundings with a pitiful gaze and went inside. Fortunately, the air conditioner was working inside, so it was bearable.

Of course, given the characteristics of the outdated ship, which was essentially a steel plate, it was more about being able to endure rather than being comfortable.

“Let me take you to your assigned cabin.”

“Let’s just drop off my luggage in my cabin and start the meeting right away.”

“You should rest a bit more…”

“No.”

Park Do-joon roughly threw his bag in a corner of the cabin. It was cramped due to the nature of the ship, but it was still something. And it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable. *Wasn’t he originally living in a cramped studio apartment?*

Guided by another officer, he arrived at the scene, where the captain and several officers were gathered for a meeting.

“What were you discussing?”

“We were planning a storming operation in the worst-case scenario.”

Park Do-joon frowned at those words and looked at the table. Roughly, there was a hijacked ship and a ship that appeared to be the *Choi Young*, and various pieces were scattered around.

“Don’t storm in for now.”

“But…”

Park Do-joon cut off the words of someone who seemed to be a special forces member.

“Right now, they are also at a very sensitive point. If we react sensitively, their reaction will be quick as well. It seems like you’re planning to approach using helicopters, but what if they kill the hostages in the meantime?”

“We’re worried about that too.”

“And there’s no reason to storm in so rashly. Now that a hostage situation has started, they won’t easily try to kill the hostages.”

“Why?”

Park Do-joon looked at the officers with a surprised expression.

“Is there anyone here who has served in the Somali waters? Not this time, but last time, or even a long time ago.”

At those words, everyone just looked at each other without saying anything.

*Well, of course.*

Six ships, including the *Choi Young*, rotate every six months for this mission in the Somali waters. So, they usually come back once every three years, and in three years, the sailors have changed 100%, and all the commanding officers have changed as well.

Technical officers may still be there, but their purpose is to repair and operate, not to know about the ship’s operation. So, they inevitably lack insight into political situations and events.

“The situation has become like this by accident, but Somali pirates don’t easily kill hostages.”

“Why is that?”

“It used to be a major source of income, although it’s less so now.”

Stealing things and running away? Frankly, that’s not easy. Where would they take that big ship and hide it? Even if they steal things, selling them is another problem.

“So, the usual source of income for pirates is to capture hostages and extort money. That’s how it used to be in the past. It’s become less frequent now for various reasons.”