This is Jockel Podcast number 354 with Echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

In August 2000, the militant Islamic group Abu Sayaf in the Southern Philippines broadcast that it captured a CIA agent.

The truth was not as newsworthy or as valuable to the rebels.

Abu Sayaf had kidnapped Jeffrey Schilling, a 24-year-old American who had traveled near their base in Holo Island.

A California native, Schilling became a hostage with a $10 million price tag on his head.

At the time, I was a supervisory special agent attached to the FBI's elite, crisis negotiation unit, the CNU.

The CNU is the equivalent of the special forces of negotiations.

It's attached to the FBI's hostage rescue team, HRT. Both are national counter-terrorist response assets.

They are the best of the best.

I was a natural for the Schilling case. I had spent some time in the Philippines and had an extensive background in terrorism from my New York City days assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

JTTF. A few days after Schilling became a hostage, my partner Chuck Regini and I flew to Manila to run the negotiations.

Along with Jim Nixon, the FBI's highest official in Manila, we conferred with the top Philippine military brass.

They agreed to let us guide the negotiations. Then we got down to business.

One of us would take charge of the negotiation strategy for the FBI and consequently for the US government.

That became my role. With the support of my colleagues, my job was to come up with the strategy, get it approved, and implement it.

Our principal adversary was Abu Sabaya, the rebel leader who personally negotiated for Schilling's ransom.

Sabaya was a veteran of the rebel movement with a violent past. He was straight out of the movies.

A terrorist sociopath killer. He had a history of rape, murder, and beheadings.

He liked to record his bloody deeds on video and then send them to the Philippine media.

Sabaya always wore sunglasses, a bandana, a black t-shirt, and camo pants. He thought it made him a more dashing figure.

If you look for any photos of Abu Sayaf terrorists from this period, you will always see one in sunglasses. That's Sabaya.

Sabaya loved, loved, loved the media. He had the Philippine reporters on speed dial.

...