The Trade

A former hostage of the Taliban continues the story begun with Captive (2010), digging deeper into the circumstances of his kidnapping.Van Dyk, a longtime student of Afghan history who had reported on the war against the Soviet invaders 35-plus years ago, returned in 2008 to report on the Taliban and their links with al-Qaida. He was taken captive in the mountainous country beyond the border with Pakistan and threatened with death unless certain prisoners at Guantanamo were freed or, failing that, the delivery of a large cash ransom. None of these things materialized, it seems, but he was freed. In this book, Van Dyk probes how it was that he was let go and who the actors were, players in what he calls "the Trade, the growing international business of political kidnappings, according to the US Treasury the most lucrative source of income, outside of state sponsorship, for illegal groups." Inevitably, all paths point back to Pakistani military intelligence, without whose sanction, Van Dyk charges, the kidnapping would not have happened. The author can be winningly rueful, as when he recounts the exuberance that led him to Afghanistan in the first place. "I wanted to be with the Taliban, not just because I was curious about their faith," he writes, "but because they represented a chance to do something worthwhile, and because they were an echo of the warmth of the mujahideen and that earlier, exciting time when I lived with them. It was the lure of the wild." Van Dyk also examines the cases of others who were kidnapped at about the same time, such as a New York Times journalist whom the Taliban called "the Red Rooster," just as they had called Van Dyk "Golden Goose"--meaning, in both instances, a source of ready cash; they were certainly luckier than those who, like Daniel Pearl, were murdered. Anyone with an interest in the geopolitics of the global war on terrorism will find value in this account.

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September 11, 2017
Journalist Van Dyk’s gripping follow-up to Captive—a memoir about his 2008 abduction in Afghanistan—probes the machinations of the criminals, terrorists, and governments behind his ordeal. The book’s tense, sinister first part covers his pre-kidnapping travels to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to interview Taliban figures and terrorists, a journey that required shadowy Afghan fixers to negotiate safe passage from tribal leaders and militants and ended in betrayal and his six-week captivity. Subsequent chapters follow his post-release struggle to learn who kidnapped him and why. It’s a hard slog to pry loose information, taking Van Dyk to the White House, the FBI, and the security consultants and Afghan power brokers who negotiated his release (some of whom may have orchestrated his kidnapping). The answers he gets are often enigmatic, but they paint a portrait of a burgeoning trade in hostages compounded from gangsterism, ideology, clan vendettas, and the subterfuges of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which supports the Taliban while Washington pretends ignorance. Like a Le Carré novel, Van Dyk’s narrative conjures disorientation, danger, and paranoia as he ponders the hidden motives of the smiling, solicitous men he encounters, all the while conveying his deep-seated anguish.

October 15, 2017

Journalist Van Dyk was abducted and held for ransom by the Taliban in 2008. He was released after 45 days. This book is a follow-up to his previous work Captive, which chronicled his kidnapping. Van Dyk uses this volume as a way to heal old wounds and try to find the reasons why he was abducted but then survived. In 2014, Van Dyk returned to Afghanistan to investigate the circumstances that led to his capture. He began to unravel the interconnectedness of how the Taliban operates vis-a-vis Pakistan. He hit road blocks and dead ends to finding who ultimately betrayed him to the Taliban. The narrative is suspenseful and not a light read but reveals a world where problems continue to persist for the United States 16 years after 9/11. This volume can be nicely tied to Aaron B. O'Connell's Our Latest Longest War. VERDICT Recommended for readers who want to understand better current affairs in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for fans of real-life mysteries.--Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

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