Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

a suitcase from the thugs in the hospital, and not long after
that all the soldiers on the rear perimeter of the hospital had
been called away for a “meeting.” Coincidentally—or not—
the bad guys chose that moment to slip away.
Things really blew up two weeks later, on the
Philippines’ Independence Day, when Abu Sabaya
announced that he was going to behead “one of the whites”
unless the government called off its manhunt by midday.
We knew this meant one of the Americans and anticipated it
would be Guillermo Sobero.
We didn’t have any direct contact with the kidnappers at
the time because our partners in the Philippine military had
assigned us an intermediary who always “forgot” to make
sure we were present for his phone calls with the kidnappers
(and similarly “forgot” to tape them). All we could do was
send text messages offering to schedule a time to speak.
What ended up happening was that just before the noon
deadline, Sabaya and a member of the Philippine
presidential cabinet had a conversation on a radio talk show,
and the government conceded to Sabaya’s demand to name
a Malaysian senator as a negotiator. In exchange, Sabaya
agreed not to kill a hostage.
But it was too late to fix this atmosphere of
confrontation, distrust, and lies. That afternoon, the hostages
heard Sabaya on the phone yelling, “But that was part of the
agreement! That was a part of the agreement!” Not long
after, the Abu Sayyaf beheaded Guillermo Sobero and for
good measure the group took fifteen more hostages.