The Devil's Waters Read Online Free PDF

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 officerswill 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 behindhim, 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