JOSH BAKER, HOST:
Hello. I just want to make you aware that this episode contains some strong language.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: It's been three months now since an American freelance journalist went missing in Syria. His name is Austin Tice. He's 31 years old. Tonight, Austin's parents are in Lebanon, hoping to learn more about what happened to their son.
BAKER: By November 2012, it's been two months since anyone has seen Austin publicly. The last sighting was in a staged abduction video that appeared on YouTube. So his parents, Debra and Marc, travel to Beirut. They know Austin is somewhere across the border in Syria, but this is as close as they can get to him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARC TICE: We're here to appeal for help from people in the region and especially to whomever is holding our son, Austin, that they treat him well, keep him safe, let us contact him and, most of all, return him to us as soon as possible.
BAKER: On a small stage, they peer through a sea of microphones placed there by the press. This is the beginning of a media campaign to bring global attention to Austin's case.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DEBRA TICE: Our main purpose is to try to make contact with our son and to bring him safely home.
BAKER: There's an exhaustion in their faces that comes from being parents who can't reach a missing son, and that's a feeling shared by many families. Throughout the civil war, Syrians are disappearing in huge numbers, and Austin isn't the only American.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: At least 11 American citizens have been jailed, tortured or killed.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: James Foley was working for a French news outlet.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: Female American hostage.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #5: Another U.S. reporter, Steven Sotloff.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #6: Syrian American aid worker Layla Shweikani.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #7: Majd Kamalmaz, a 61-year-old American psychotherapist who disappeared.
BAKER: I've had friends and colleagues go missing in Syria. And when you spend time around hostage cases, one criticism comes up again and again. America has a hostage problem, not because it lacks power. It has highly effective intelligence agencies, diplomats, law enforcement and a military that can seemingly go anywhere. But each part of that system has its own priorities, so they don't always work as one or share information effectively. So opportunities to help people can get lost inside that system. And this is what Debra Tice has told me she feels happened to Austin's case for the first 18 months of his abduction.
D TICE: OK. I bought a really nice Earl Grey.
BAKER: I love Earl Grey.
In her daughter's kitchen, over many cups of Earl Grey, I asked Debra about February of 2014 when she decided to go to Syria to look for her son alone.
How did you arrange to go to Damascus? Did you just get on a plane or what did you do?
D TICE: I made sure that nobody knew what I was doing, and I flew to Beirut, got in a cab and went to Damascus.
BAKER: You got in a cab and drove all the way to Damascus?
D TICE: Yep.
BAKER: Weren't you scared?
D TICE: No. No. The only thing I was scared of was that my government would find out and prevent me from going. That was the only thing I was afraid of.
BAKER: How long did you plan to be there?
D TICE: I didn't have a plan. I ended up being there 3 1/2 months.
BAKER: And what were you hoping to achieve?
D TICE: I had no idea, but at least I would be there. I had pictures of him that I gave out - flyers. I met with quite a few people in the Syrian government.
BAKER: Debra, who has never been to the region before and doesn't speak Arabic, is now inside the Syrian regime's surveillance state.
D TICE: This guy told me that he had Austin, and he wanted, like, $150,000.
BAKER: For Austin.
D TICE: And then he showed me a picture that I had.
BAKER: He showed you a picture of Austin?
D TICE: Yeah. But it was the one that McClatchy had printed.
BAKER: Oh, so he'd taken it off the internet?
D TICE: Yeah. And then when he showed me the picture and I got really angry, he said, OK, $20,000. And he's menacing me on my chair.
BAKER: He's trying to intimidate you.
D TICE: He had his guy come in, and his guy had on an AK and a knife and a pistol. I'm praying like crazy like, what do I say to this person? And then I ended up saying things that I would not think God would tell me to say. But I have my mother pointer finger right on his nose, and I'm just threatening him. Finally, the foreign minister invited me to meet him. But while I was walking there, I got a call from Marc that said, have you heard that the United States has closed its embassies in Washington, D.C.? We'd already closed them.
BAKER: Oh, they've closed the Syrian embassy?
D TICE: Yes, and the two consulates.
BAKER: To try to stop the Assad regime committing more atrocities against civilians, America has sanctioned the regime and limits official communication with the Syrian government. For Debra, this timing is terrible. It traps Austin's case in a diplomatic standoff.
D TICE: And so moments before my meeting, the meeting was, of course, canceled. I never had a chance to get it again. I did all I could in Syria. I did everything I could think of.
BAKER: Was it difficult to leave Syria?
D TICE: Yes. It felt like abandonment. It felt like I was failing and abandoning my son. That's how it felt.
BAKER: A few months after Debra's visit to Damascus, the stark reality of the Syrian hostage crisis is laid bare.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #8: U.S. officials are trying to verify the authenticity of a video that purportedly shows the violent killing of an American journalist.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #9: It shows a man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling in a desert area, and then he is executed by a man in black who is standing next to him and the man in black...
BAKER: James Foley, an American journalist who once tried to help find Austin, is executed by ISIS on camera. The video is addressed to President Obama. ISIS say his death is a warning about America's intervention in the region. It's a moment of horror felt globally.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: Families of hostages have told us, and they've told me directly about their frequent frustrations in dealing with their own government. It is true that there have been times where our government, regardless of good intentions, has let them down.
BAKER: In June 2015, almost three years after Austin's disappearance, President Obama overhauls the American hostage recovery system. Pressure has been building from the family members of hostages like Debra Tice and Diane Foley, James's mother.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: As a government, we should always do everything in our power to bring these Americans home safe and to support their families.
BAKER: Despite the changes, Austin still hasn't been brought home, and Debra has consistently told me that she feels let down. So what has the American government been doing to find Austin Tice?
I'm Josh Baker, and from BBC Radio 4 and NPR's EMBEDDED, this is Where Is Austin Tice? Series 3 of "I'm Not A Monster Presents..." Episode 6 - A Meeting in Muscat.
There are typically three ways a government can get someone like Austin home. The first is money. Some governments pay. The United States doesn't. The second is the military option, special forces going in to rescue him. But that's the Hollywood answer. In reality, it's incredibly dangerous, and it would only work if they know exactly where Austin is, and the United States doesn't. The third option is to talk to the captors. But the Syrian regime won't admit they have Austin, and the Americans won't officially talk to them.
I recognize that...
ROGER CARSTENS: Hey, there he is.
BAKER: ...Deep voice walking towards me.
CARSTENS: Good to see you, man.
BAKER: How are you?
CARSTENS: I'm doing all right. Doing all ri