The Devil's Waters (4 page)

The two shook hands. Yusuf’s larger mitt swallowed his older cousin’s slim fingers.

“
Mahad sanid
.”

“
Mahad sanid
,
saaxiib
.”

Yusuf turned a circle in the wheelhouse, granting his memory a last panorama. The captain’s leather chair, the bank of radar
monitors, compasses, controls, the wheel and throttle, high above a mountain of containers. These had all been his. Stolen, yes, but answerable to him. That was sufficient power to envision himself this ship’s true captain, not its captor. The money in his sack did not release him so quickly from this image as he’d like.

“Yusuf.”

“Yes.”

“Time to go.”

Yusuf shouldered his leather bag, $400,000. The weight impressed him, helped him shrug off the lure of the
Bannon
.

“Hold the door open, cousin.”

Suleiman pulled back the starboard door. Yusuf lifted the hard plastic cask. He hefted the barrel outside, onto the starboard wing. With one great shove, he heaved it over the rail, to fall to the ocean a hundred feet below.

The chest opened its white and emptied innards, a clamshell with the pearl gone. The current dragged it down the length of the ship and away. Shots rang in salute. The French photographers’ plane, believing the bullets were aimed at it, skittered off to a safer distance.

Sharks thrashed at the heads and hooves, the scraps of the goats tossed overboard. The Somalis, raised to believe in animal omens, cheered. Fires burned in fifty-gallon drums cut in half, filled with charcoal, fitted with grills. Hoses washed away blood from the slaughter, drawing more sharks.

The
Bannon
’s cooks pitched in to prepare the meal. When the meat was done and carved, the Malays ate with their guards, glad to be rid of them soon but glad, too, for a hearty meal. Ashwin and his officers stayed apart, clucking tongues at the mess, finally free to express their disdain. Suleiman circulated, keeping order. Yusuf watched from four decks above in the smoke of the braziers.

Below, his men concocted stories to spread
once back on shore. Perhaps the blood they’d washed overboard had belonged to a Malay crewman they’d butchered. The sharks ate the pieces of his body. They spoke of the many seamen they’d had to kill to capture this ship, then beaten the rest to keep it. The cruelties of Yusuf, the cleverness of Suleiman. How the captain, owners, and insurers of the great freighter
Bannon
bowed to them. The terrible things done at the command of Yusuf Raage, the bloodiest of Somali pirate chiefs.

Yusuf did not come down for the meal but stood in full view throughout. He let the tales about him whip up with the rising shore breeze.

After an hour, with the sun low over the rocky coast, the meal was abandoned, the fire pits left to smolder. Five fast skiffs sped out to the
Bannon
from shore. Yusuf climbed down from his perch. His cadre of young guards, filled with goat and curd, some glassy-eyed from chewing
qaat
leaves, lined up on the starboard rail. Weapons hung lazily over their shoulders and in their hands, the job done, money and sleep on their minds.

Guleed, younger and even thinner than Suleiman, lowered the long gangway. The metal stairs dipped to the waterline. Yusuf beckoned for the Indian captain, Ashwin.

“You did not eat, Captain.”

“Nor did you. Captain.”

“I’ll eat tonight.” Yusuf shook the bag in his grip. “I’ll eat well. Right now, I need you and your officers for one more chore.”

“We are finished. You have your money.”

“I don’t have it in my vault. Nor do I have myself behind my walls.” Yusuf pushed a finger at the purpling dusk. “It would be a very easy matter for a warship helicopter to visit us while we’re headed for shore. We’ll be very exposed. Wonderful targets. You see? Everyone wants to hold up a Somali pirate’s head.”

Ashwin seemed disappointed. “You are a clever man.”

Yusuf chortled. “Who starts these rumors? Yes, perhaps. Now, to the point. You will ride in the skiff with me. Each of your officers
will go in one of the remaining boats. After the sharks have not eaten us and we’re on shore, the skiffs will bring you back here. You may weigh anchor and go wherever you like.”

Ashwin did not wait for Yusuf’s dismissal. He turned to inform his officers.

The first of the skiffs puttered alongside the dropped gangway. Suleiman, waiting on the platform, climbed in. He carried his own bag and the dollar-stuffed duffel for the financiers. Five militiamen clambered aboard with him, then Chugh, the
Bannon
’s first mate. This was repeated until all the Somalis and Indian officers were on their way toward shore, each skiff bearing one of the money satchels. Yusuf stepped off the gangway into the last boat. He reached up to Ashwin, allowing him to be the final man off the ship. In the fading afternoon a shark’s shadow rippled under the surface.

The skiff skipped over the even seas, running flat out. Yusuf did not know the boy at the tiller, but the lad beamed, seeming honored. On the sandy shore, a reception party waited for Yusuf and the money. The
Bannon
grew small in the skiff’s wake.

The two miles to shore went fast. Yusuf stood in the bow, a figurehead for the skiff. Nearing the beach, the boy did not glide in to have Yusuf step out in knee-deep water like the other skiffs but powered onto the shore, wedging the hull into the sand for a dramatic arrival. Yusuf braced himself at the bow, then hopped over the gunwale. He did not turn to Ashwin to bid farewell.

One hundred meters inland, the beach became a hardscrabble desert. Scrub brush grew in the sand, wind-tossed plastic bags hung snagged in the scraggy branches. Huts of rock, driftwood, and mud had been raised at the rim of the beach by Qandala fishermen who had no boats. The town itself stood two miles away at the end of a dusty track.

The late-day sky remained quiet, without helicopters or photographers’ planes. A lone buzzard wheeled. Yusuf looked up to the bird and marveled that it knew.

Yusuf’s twenty militiamen formed up behind
him, Suleiman in the lead. Even the boy in the dried-out skiff jumped down with a rattling old AK-47 to stand with Yusuf. The boy must have been Darood.

To Yusuf’s right, out of the way, a handful of old men in long robes were gathered. Each gray beard quivered while they spoke among themselves. They were not the law. No one was.

Across thirty meters of sand, with gun stocks pressed to their hips and barrels level, stood a firing line of Rahanweyn, as many as fifty. Yusuf did not bother to count; he was well outnumbered. Their weapons were a mix of vintage carbines and beat-up submachine guns, enough for fools to feel brave. At their head slouched Suleiman’s brother-in-law, Madoowbe. This was his proper
naanay
; privately he was called Wiil Waal, “Bold Boy.” He was too fond of chewing
qaat
.

Yusuf motioned forward young Guleed.

“Take the money bag to the
odayal
. Stay over there.”

“No, cousin.”

Yusuf patted the teenager’s narrow shoulder. “Who would you have me send? Who else can I trust?”

Guleed spit in the sand. He stared after it a moment, committing himself to the duty of murdering Wiil Waal later. He jogged off with the bag. Yusuf called after him, “Good boy.”

When the elders had received their cash, Suleiman gestured for the satchel with $300,000 that was to be given to the Rahanweyn. He dropped the bag at Yusuf’s bare feet.

In the beached skiff, Captain Ashwin ducked, to peer over the gunwale.

Yusuf spoke to Suleiman at his side. “Do not raise guns. There’s no need.”

“You and I define need very differently.”

“He’s your family. I’m sorry.”

“He’s a
footo delo
.” An asshole.

Yusuf chuckled. He let the laughter
stay in his voice when he called across the beach to Madoowbe.

The man shouted in reply, “
Salaamu alaykum
.”

“I have your money. A very good amount.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred thousand dollars.”

Wiil Waal’s men whistled and stirred around him. Though he would surely cheat them, this was enough to go around. The tall man took several strides ahead of his clansmen. When he did, he revealed the woman behind him. Suleiman’s sister, Aziza.

Bold Boy would put his wife in this sort of danger. He would use a Darood woman as a shield against Darood men. Yusuf spit in the sand where Guleed had.

He propped a hand against Suleiman’s advance.

“You do not lead while I’m alive.”

Suleiman did not retreat, but did not press forward.

Madoowbe called across the darkening beach, “How much do you have in your own bag, Yusuf?”

“
We’el
,” someone behind Yusuf muttered. Bastard.

Yusuf held it up for Bold Boy to see.

“Four hundred thousand.”

The Rahanweyn leader strode farther away from his clotted guns. He stood alone and fearless halfway to Yusuf like a gladiator on the sand. Bold Boy waved his arms as he spoke, agitated and high.

“I have fifty men here who worked for you for three months. Hauling everything you needed back and forth to that fucking ship.” This lash at the
Bannon
struck hard in Yusuf’s ear. Bold Boy spoke like a farmer, with no love of the ocean.

“Your men did a fine job.”

“We did. And now you tell us that you, one man, are worth more than my fifty. We had expenses!”

He yelled this as if it were some final argument that could not be overcome.

“You keep our bag, Yusuf. We want yours.
We earned it.”

Ten steps behind Bold Boy, his wife, Aziza, pressed hands to her mouth. Yusuf knew her, and she him. He would never hand over the satchel on his shoulder, for it was not money he would surrender.

Yusuf heaved his duffel to the sand.

“Come get it,” he said. “
Ha cabsan.
” Don’t be afraid.

Madoowbe turned to his fifty clansmen for a short, manic laugh. He asked them, “Why would I be afraid?”

He pivoted back to Yusuf, pointing with the barrel of his gun. “Bring it to me.”

Yusuf bit his lip. Bold Boy had forgotten his place.

Madoowbe waited halfway between the two armed clans. This looked like courage. Yusuf hefted his satchel. To Suleiman, he whispered, “Do nothing.”

Yusuf took the fifteen strides slowly, kicking his sarong with his steps. Madoowbe covered him with the rifle.

“Will you shoot me?” Yusuf closed the distance until he pushed his chest against the black ring of the rifle’s barrel. “In front of the elders? My clan?” Madoowbe’s eyes were wide and wild,
qaat
-stained and seeing more than he ought, that he might kill Yusuf the pirate and take all the money.

Yusuf dropped the satchel. He had no desire to die today. To live, and to save his clansmen, he gave himself over to wickedness.

“Wiil Waal.”

Madoowbe slatted his eyes. Yusuf dared him to his name. Be bold. Boy.

Yusuf surged forward and pushed his chest into the barrel, moving the gun backward, for an instant raising Madoowbe’s finger off the trigger. In the split second that gained him, Yusuf shoved the gun barrel down, aiming it into the sand. Madoowbe squeezed, firing near his own feet. Yusuf flashed his free hand to the small of his own back, snatching the onyx-handled knife from his waistband under the
khameez.
In a blinding backhand sweep, the well-whetted blade hacked
deep below Madoowbe’s left ear, slicing the neck vein. Swiftly, with a crossing flick, Yusuf slashed again at the Rahanweyn’s throat. The two gashes cut a sudden V below Madoowbe’s chin, both burbling. Bold Boy jerked back a step, coughing. He spit blood from his lips and new gills onto Yusuf’s blouse, spraying red over the bag of money. Yusuf caught him before he could spin away, snatching Madoowbe by the tunic. He took away Madoowbe’s rifle, barely held. Bold Boy wriggled, painting more blood on Yusuf.

Madoowbe’s mouth rounded, gasping for air that would not reach his lungs. His eyes batted in shock and at what frightful thoughts he might have. His long legs bowed. Before he could collapse, Yusuf gripped Bold Boy’s hair. He let the Rahanweyn’s knees bend but held the torso erect. Madoowbe knelt to Yusuf, dying. He continued to spew blood from his heartbeat and wasted gasps.

With tacky hands, Yusuf twisted Madoowbe around to face the fifty Rahanweyn. Madoowbe spilled out the smell of copper, of earth. Yusuf raised his own nostrils above the ruby draining out of Bold Boy, soaking in the sand. He reached for the salt air of the ocean at his back. Let me bleed that, he wished, should I die in the next seconds, not this farmer’s smell. I am
rer manjo
, of the sea people.

Yusuf threw Madoowbe’s rifle down beside the money satchel. He tilted the man’s head left and right, working him like a marionette, to shame him and make him look like a puppet in front of the fifty rifles. The noggin was loose and quiet in Yusuf’s grasp; Bold Boy was dead. Yusuf tossed him on his face into the wine-dark sand.

He bellowed, “Rahanweyn!” He flung a blood-bathed hand at the clan. To a man, they pointed back with their weapons.