The Tears of Dark Water (5 page)

Ismail forced himself to be patient. Osman was Mas’s best friend. “We’ll keep searching,” he said and turned the skiff around again.

He watched the
Jade Dolphin
recede into the distance while his men looked for survivors. The RPG shell had missed. Perhaps Gedef had only meant to scare them. Ismail would likely never know. The attack had degenerated into a fiasco. But the mission itself could be salvaged. The dhow had enough food and fuel for another week at sea. Other pirate bands had hijacked ships with one skiff. It was hazardous, but preferable to the alternative. They couldn’t return to Somalia without a prize. Gedef’s investors would have their heads.

“Look!” Osman shouted, staring toward the east and the sun. “It’s Mas!”

The young man was floating on a piece of wreckage in water turned molten by the sunrise. He was half drowned, but he turned his head in their direction. Ismail brought the skiff alongside him, and Osman and Guray pulled him into the boat. He curled up in the fetal position, spit drooling out of his mouth. Apart from shock and exposure, he appeared to be uninjured, except for a two-inch-long laceration on his right cheek.
Just my luck
that he would survive and not Gedef
, Ismail thought
.

Mas was a 22-year-old hothead, jealous and contentious. The only son of Gedef’s uncle, he had worshiped at Gedef’s feet and questioned Ismail’s place in the band. “Afyareh is
fakash
—from a rival clan,” he had said many times. “He fought for al-Shabaab. He can’t be trusted.” Gedef had ignored him. The pirate bands were largely meritocratic. Skill mattered more than clan, daring more than creed. Gedef elevated Ismail because he was gifted at hijacking ships; he didn’t care that Ismail’s father was Sa’ad, not Suleiman like the rest of them. With Gedef dead, though, Mas could be dangerous. Ismail would have to watch him carefully.

He fetched the handheld radio from the waterproof bag behind his seat and switched it on, pressing the “talk” button. “Abdullah, Abdullah,” he began, “come in.” He listened to the static but heard nothing. “Abdullah, Abdullah, this is Afyareh, can you hear me?”

He frowned and looked toward the sun. The radio had an effective range of eight miles on the water.
The dooni should be close enough
, he thought
. Why is Abdullah not answering?
His men were staring at him, all but Osman, who was tending to Mas.

“Don’t worry,” he said confidently.

He took control of the tiller and massaged the throttle, driving the skiff through the low waves. He pointed the bow east and watched the horizon for a shadow, a discontinuity, anything that might be a glimpse of the dhow. Every few minutes, he let go of the throttle and tried to raise Abdullah on the radio. Each time, he heard only static.

After half an hour, he began to grow worried. His men were watching him anxiously, Osman included. Mas was still semi-conscious, but he had begun to babble. He would soon come to his senses, and when he did, he was sure to provoke a fight.

“Abdullah, Abdullah,” Ismail said for what felt like the hundredth time. “This is Afyareh. If you can hear me, please respond.” A minute later, he decided to lie: “Abdullah, this is Afyareh. Gedef is with me, but his radio is dead. What is your position?”

Liban was the first to ask what Ismail feared: “Do you think they left us?”

“No, no,” Ismail said forcefully. “They are just out of range.”

As more time passed, however, Liban’s question began to fester. Guray and Osman started to complain about Abdullah and Shirma, the guards they had left on the dhow to manage the Omani fishermen. Dhuuban perched himself in the bow and held his skinny knees to his chest, staring at Mas as if he had brought a hex upon them. Liban fingered his Kalashnikov as if it were a talisman. Only Sondare kept the faith, sitting beside Ismail and hanging on his every word, as if at any moment Abdullah’s voice might break through the static and provide a rational excuse for his silence.

But Ismail’s assurance was feigned. Inside, he was profoundly troubled. Abdullah was an experienced pirate and fiercely loyal to Gedef. He wouldn’t abandon them without cause. But with cause . . . Ismail’s mind raced with the possibilities. What if he heard the explosion and saw the flames? The
Jade Dolphin
had surely alerted the authorities about the attack. What if Abdullah heard chatter on the radio about a disabled skiff and a Seychellois coast guard vessel en route to the scene? Or what if the Omanis had mutinied? There were five of them. They might have overpowered Abdullah and Shirma in a moment of distraction and turned the dhow toward home.

He searched the horizon again, squinting against the glare. He checked his handheld GPS unit for the coordinates. After nearly an hour of cruising, they were close to the spot where they had left the dhow. The day was clear; visibility was excellent. But the dhow was nowhere to be seen.

“They’re gone,” Liban declared, looking Ismail in the eye.

Osman gripped the stock of his gun. “If I ever get my hands on Abdullah, I’m going to put a bullet in his head.”

“What are we going to do?” Dhuuban moaned from the bow.

At once, a shouting match broke out among the men. Ismail allowed them to vent their frustration while he pondered their situation. He knew exactly what they had to do, but he dreaded it at the same time. It would drive him further away from Yasmin—much further. But any distance was better than death.

He lifted his Kalashnikov and fired a burst into the air. “
Shut up!
” he said harshly.

Silence descended on the skiff. Osman and Guray took turns glaring at him, but no one disputed his authority. He looked at the six faces around him, shining with sweat and fear, and told them the truth as clearly as he could articulate it.

“We have no food. We have water for two days at most and three quarters of a tank of fuel. Does anyone know how far that will take us?”

He asked the question to put them in their place. He was the only one among them who had committed the engine specifications to memory.

“Two hundred and fifty nautical miles,” he answered for them. “Maybe two hundred and seventy-five, if the seas are calm.”

No one spoke. He had their complete attention. He held up his GPS unit. “The closest land is Coëtivy Island in the Seychelles. That’s one hundred and twenty nautical miles from here. Mahé is two hundred and seventy nautical miles away. Both islands are in the same direction. I don’t want to be a refugee, but neither do I want to die. If we ditch our weapons in the sea, we can claim asylum.”

“We are Somali,” Liban objected. “They would say we are pirates.”

“They would have no evidence,” Ismail replied. “We would pretend to be fishermen.” He gestured at Osman. “He can teach us everything we need to know.”

Osman shook his head. “We don’t have nets or bait. And there are too many of us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ismail countered. “If we tell the same story, they will have to accept it. Maybe they will send us back to Somalia. Maybe they will let us stay. Either way, we don’t die.”

It was then that Mas spoke, as if from the grave. “I think we should find another ship.”

Ismail didn’t allow his distaste to show. “And how do we do that without radar or AIS?”

Mas clenched his teeth. “I want the Land Cruiser Gedef promised me.”

“And I want a big house by the sea and four wives,” Ismail replied, playing the part of the pirate boss without really meaning it. “We don’t get there if we’re dead.”

Mas didn’t reply, but his eyes smoldered.

“We could do both,” Liban suggested and heads began to nod all around. “Maybe we’ll find another ship closer to Mahé.”

Ismail watched the consensus grow until even Mas seemed placated. It was the plan he had envisioned all along. He had no interest in giving up until he absolutely had to. But he needed their consent to save their lives, and his own.

“It’s a good idea,” he said. “We’ll head toward Mahé. But if we run across a ship—” He looked each of them in the eye. “—then,
inshallah
, we will take it.”

Vanessa

Silver Spring, Maryland

November 7, 2011

Dr. Vanessa Parker put down her pen and stared at her hands, cursing the moisture in her eyes. It was late in the day; her last patient—a young woman with a bladder infection—had just left; and she was filling out her report for the file. It was a simple task, nothing more than a few scribbled notes and a signature, but she couldn’t manage to write a coherent sentence. Her usually tidy thoughts were a jumbled mess. She felt the burning in her cheeks, the flush of emotions she couldn’t control.
It’s done
, she thought.
You can’t change it now.
But that wasn’t entirely true. Time wasn’t the issue. It was desire.

She sat back in her chair and stared at the photograph beside her computer. She had taken it a year and a half ago at their summer house—a cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee that had been in Daniel’s family for generations. Daniel and Quentin were sitting on the dock, the forest behind them bronzed by the late-afternoon sun. Daniel’s arm was draped over his son’s shoulder and they were smiling. Their powerboat, a 400-horsepower Nautique, was off to the side, tethered to the pylons.
The quiet before the storm
, she thought.
How did we miss the warning signs?

The door to her office was open, and she heard a knock. She blinked away her tears, hoping it was Aster, her long-time colleague and best friend. She turned around and tensed. Chad Forrester was the last person she wanted to see.

“I’m sorry, Vanessa,” he said, looking at her awkwardly. “I’ll come back later.”

“It’s okay,” she replied. “I’m about to leave.”

He examined her intently. “Are you all right?”

“Of course,” she said too curtly. “What can I do for you?”

Forrester narrowed his eyes but decided to leave it alone. At thirty-five, he was the youngest of her three partners and the darling among patients and staff. A graduate of Duke University and Duke Medical School, he had the approachable demeanor of a favorite cousin. As a physician, his personality was a gold mine. For Vanessa, however, it had become a minefield.

“I’m having some people over on Friday night,” he explained. “Nothing formal, just a friendly autumn party. If you don’t have plans, I’d love for you to come.”

“Thanks,” she said, “but Aster and I are going to St. Michael’s.”

Forrester’s smile returned. “A girlfriend getaway?”

She nodded once and didn’t elaborate.

“Good for you. I can’t remember the last time you got out of town.”

“My thoughts exactly.” She left her patient report undone and put on her coat, which Forrester correctly interpreted as his cue to wrap up the conversation.

“We’ll miss you on Friday,” he said. “Enjoy your evening.”

When he was gone, she put her computer to sleep and went to the ladies’ room. She grimaced when she saw her reflection in the mirror. Her porcelain skin was pink and blotchy, and her mascara had smudged, leaving dark circles under her eyes.
No wonder Chad looked at me strangely
, she thought
.
She wiped away the residue and composed herself. She didn’t know why she was in such a rush to get home. With her husband and son on the other side of the world, only Skipper, their golden retriever, was waiting for her there. Still, she felt it, the compulsion to move, to do something—anything—to silence the guilt raging inside of her.
You need to choose
, her conscience said.
You can’t make him wait forever.

She took a deep breath and left the restroom, feeling like a fraud. The practice was quieting down after a busy Thursday. The physician assistants and lab techs were already gone, and the office staff were tidying up their workspace. She waved to the receptionist and escaped through the back door.

It was only five thirty, but night had already fallen. She glanced around the parking lot and walked quickly to her Audi SUV. Her practice was located in an office park in Silver Spring, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The neighborhood was safe, but she had been mugged once—in Manhattan when she was a college student—and she had no intention of letting it happen again.

Suddenly, she heard her name. “Vanessa, wait!”

She turned around and saw Aster Robel striding toward her, her handsome ebony face and white coat colored amber by a nearby streetlamp. Aster was Eritrean by birth, but her family had fled Asmara in 1981 during the endless war with Ethiopia. She and Vanessa had met in their first year of medical school and had bonded like sisters. Though they hailed from different worlds, they were both refugees from childhood. Their suffering had hardened them and turned them into overachievers, obsessed with transcending their roots. When they saw this in each other, they had never looked back.

“I talked to Chad,” Aster said, a residual trace of Africa in her English. She examined Vanessa’s face and saw her doubt. “Daniel sent another letter, didn’t he?”

Vanessa nodded, holding back her tears.

“Are they still in the Seychelles?”