The Devil's Waters

CHAPTER 7





Qandala

Puntland

Somalia

Yusuf’s dhow had rusted during the winter monsoons and his seven months of lassitude. His crew had done a poor job maintaining the boat; it sat neglected at a salty berth in Bosaso, fifty miles west. He’d stolen the sixty-foot trawler two years ago from a Pakistani crew, and there was little pride in its ownership among the Somalis. The two long skiffs, built of wood by local hands, had been kept in better shape, out of the water, painted and oiled, their twin outboards protected and ready. Yusuf sent for the dhow to be motored from Bosaso and then anchored off Qandala. For the next three days he had the boat painted and fumigated, and all engine oil, filters, and belts changed. He found a skinny black cat in an alley in Qandala, named it Sheik Robow, and made it one of the crew, in charge of rats.

When the word went out that Yusuf Raage was taking to bad-weyn again, two hundred men arrived at his gate. He allowed them all inside the adobe walls and let Suleiman choose twenty-four of the most experienced. None of them were teenagers except for cousin Guleed, all of them rer manjo, coastal men, and Darood. Everyone had gone to sea with Yusuf and Suleiman at least once before. There would be no qaat on this venture, nor alcohol. Because the voyage was to be short, Yusuf contacted none of his foreign investors. He and Suleiman would finance this hijacking.

The two cousins told the selected crew nothing of the truth. They provisioned the boat as they normally would for a longer stay at sea, with water and food to last two weeks, plenty of fishing poles. Neither mentioned this was not to be a hunt on open waters; they would not prowl the gulf or Indian Ocean for prey but wait for only one ship no more than 150 miles from Qandala.

Every man in the crew provided his own weapon. Suleiman inspected each gun, found half unreliable. With Guleed he traveled in a technical to Bosaso for a dozen additional Kalashnikovs, two dozen RPGs, and ammunition. While there, they bought five hundred meters of rope and new aluminum grapnels. The cost came to less than three thousand American dollars.

On the morning of departure, Yusuf walked through Qandala with his men around him. All wore loose khameez tunics or Western-style T-shirts and shorts. Weapons strapped across their shoulders, they jangled and stirred up dust. Yusuf led the men past the schoolhouse he had built, so the boys and girls could set aside their books to wave good-bye to him and his pirates. At the end of the road of shanties, he knocked at a door. Yusuf handed the old man who answered, Hoodo’s grandfather, a packet of $10,000.

“In three days,” he whispered. “Maybe four.”

With Suleiman and two dozen Darood beside him toting guns and rocket launchers, Yusuf marched his crew the mile to the beach. There the skiffs waited to take them out to the anchored dhow.

Along the way, Yusuf looked for signs. Lizards would be lucky, and several scurried away from their sandals. Circling gulls meant success, but Yusuf saw none yet. The cat, a happy animal to have been found and adopted, purred on Guleed’s arm. As he approached the gulf, the sky and water made Yusuf wince, they were so blue together. His decade in London as a boy and young man had not made him Christian, nor had it deepened his Muslim roots. Even so, Yusuf sensed that Allah favored him today. The children had cheered, he was wealthy, and Hoodo’s grandfather had smiled. Nothing dead lay along his path to the sea, no poor omens.

At the beach, he passed the spot where he’d knifed Madoowbe. No mark showed in the sand; none was expected. Nor had there been any mention of the killing in the village since it happened, seven months ago. Bold Boy was gone. The earth and man alike cleaned themselves of blood when the act was righteous.

No farewell had been arranged for Yusuf’s armed crew. No families or elders saw them off; three black skiffs waited alone on the beach. Only Yusuf and Suleiman knew the true purpose of this quick voyage. They would protect Qandala. And if in doing so they became the wealthiest pirates in Somalia, so be it.

The crew dragged the skiffs into the shallow, lapping gulf, then climbed aboard. Yusuf stepped into the sea last, but did not put his wet feet into the skiff. He waited. The crew scanned the sky with him. None saw a gull anywhere.



Yusuf stuck his head into the cockpit. Old man Deg Deg stood at the wooden wheel helm, where he’d been for the first five hours at sea. Deg Deg was the oldest of the crew. His name meant “hurry.” Even at fifty he had a spry speed about him. His right ear had been sheared off by an exploding shell twenty years before in the long civil war. He’d been the helmsman for Yusuf’s six previous hijackings.

Yusuf said into the little hole in the side of the old man’s head, “Come with me.”

Deg Deg looped a noose around one of the wheel’s pegs. The dhow would motor straight northwest.

Suleiman gathered the rest of the pirates at midships. Barrels of extra diesel were tied to the rails, mixing their smell with the odor of fresh deck paint and the breezy salt gulf in the afternoon. Fishing nets and floats had been scattered over the deck to camouflage the pirate ship as a fishing boat. All weapons were stowed below and out of sight. Behind the dhow trailed the trio of towed skiffs.

Deg Deg joined the crew. Gold-toothed Suleiman spoke first.

“You should know what we’re going to do.”

With that, Suleiman moved to stand among the men.

Yusuf smiled at his Darood crewmen and two cousins. “A man who has not traveled,” he said, “has no eyes.”

He told the men everything. Sheik Robow’s threat to Qandala. The sheik’s report that the French ship would be running empty, even with armed guards on board. Yusuf’s shared belief with Suleiman that perhaps when they found her, she would not be empty at all. This made no difference. The pirates would take her and save their village from al-Shabaab, if only until another day would come. But until then, they would not flinch.

“The freighter,” he announced, “will be in the Internationally Recognized Transit Corridor. Warships will be close. Suleiman has a plan to trick the guards. If that doesn’t work, we have two dozen RPGs to convince her to slow down.” The men all nodded; this was the only way any of them had ever taken a ship, by violence and intimidation. None of them had ever boarded an armed vessel before.

Yusuf raised a hand, as if in blessing. “This may be the most dangerous hijacking any of us have done. But believe me, the ransom will make each of you a king.”

The men stood silently with hands at their sides. They were not the sort to question. If Yusuf Raage said they would be kings, they would follow and be kings.

Deg Deg was the first to break ranks, headed to the pilothouse. He released the wheel from the rope to take the dhow in hand. The others returned to their chores, chipping away rust, painting, or boiling rice or tea and rolling subaayad patties for lunch.

Suleiman and Guleed stayed behind only long enough to pat Yusuf on the shoulder. They moved to the stern to sit on weathered crates. With a blade, Suleiman showed the boy how to cut and tie cords of the new hemp rope into ladders.

Deg Deg motored toward the protected corridor that ran the length of the Gulf of Aden. Yusuf stepped to the bow with binoculars and a handheld GPS, tracking the dhow’s speed and course. The two thin men scraping rust left him alone.

Yusuf did not scan the horizon. It was too soon; the transit corridor lay thirty more miles ahead. He saw no great cargo ships on bad-weyn, just smaller Somali and Yemeni craft truly fishing, or trafficking in refugees or guns, or other pirates. He could not discern these ships’ business and had no wish to.

Yusuf lay on a warm, bunched net. He closed his eyes to rest and wonder about the secrets of the freighter that, in a few hours, he was going to seize, then sell.