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al-Islam should their interests turn to Qandala. You may continue to stay pirates in your little
rer manjo
village.”
    Yusuf drew himself to his full height. “If?”
    Robow did not release his grin. “You are like a fish yourself, Yusuf. You see a bait and you go straight for it. Though you know there is a barb. Yes, if. If you do me one favor. A favor, by the way, which will benefit you, also.”
    Yusuf looked to his cousin on the roof of his home.
    “What is it?”
    “I understand you have hijacked five ships so far.”
    “Six.”
    “Excellent. I want you to hijack one more. A very important ship to us.”
    “What is on it?”
    “Consider it empty for now. Capture it, and bring it to me here in Qandala. Once we have our hands on this ship, the West will pay a great deal to buy it back. More money than you have ever seen. We will, of course, split the proceeds. Each of our shares will be magnificent.”
    “Why me? There are athousand pirates.”
    “Because you have a reputation, Yusuf Raage. You are greedy but reliable. And more importantly, you are a blood-soaked man. Walk with me. I’ll tell you the rest.”

    Yusuf pulled Suleiman from the party, into the house. Aziza shot the two a dour glance, unhappy to have her brother waylaid from the festivity. Yusuf closed the door solidly to leave no doubt that she should make no objection.
    In the study, he unrolled a nautical chart across a table. He stabbed a finger on the sheet between Abd al Kuri and Cape Guardafui, where the Indian Ocean flowed into the mouth of the Gulf of Aden.
    “Robow says the freighter will be right here.”
    Suleiman smoothed a curling corner of the chart. “So will a hundred other ships. Why this one?”
    Yusuf pointed to a chair. “Sit.”
    Yusuf’s home had been built with pirate money. Others used their gains to buy property in Kenya or the Emirates, often driving up prices. Yusuf Raage kept the villagers of Qandala employed when the monsoons held them off the water. Let Mombasa and Dubai men care for their own. Three years back, when his house was done, he’d ordered a school constructed for the village, boys and girls alike. What would happen to it if Sheikh Robow came back, or the guns of Hizb al-Islam?
    “I don’t like it,” Suleiman said, taking his seat.
    Yusuf stayed at the table. With a story to tell, he needed his hands and legs.
    “The ship will enter the gulf in twenty days.”
    “What’s on board? Why do the Islamists care?”
    “Robow says the freighter is empty. But there are armed guards.”
    “That makes no sense.”
    “What does it matter? When didwe start caring about cargo? We take ships and crews. We hold them for ransom. Tankers, freighters, fishing boats. Empty or not, all the same, they have men running them. We’ll take this ship and crew, bring them to Qandala, drop anchor, and sell them back. We’ve done it before.”
    “I don’t like it.”
    “You’ve said that.”
    “I stand by it. Let this go, cousin.
Maya
.” No.
    Yusuf put fingers inside his beard to find the right words.
    “After this, we’re finished. We’ll be rich enough to quit.”
    “I’m rich enough now. So are you. The monsoons have been over for two months. We haven’t gone out once. I figured we were finished already. And I don’t mind.”
    Yusuf sat across from Suleiman. The two were
tol
, cousins through brothers. They’d grown up together, as children here in Qandala, then as young teens in Plumstead, East London, when their fathers left war-choked Somalia for the West. They’d attended public school together, and in the Somali gangs committed crimes shoulder to shoulder. Suleiman was never comfortable in the English mist. He longed for his desert homeland and the blue ocean. He’d stayed long enough to learn English, read the Qu’ran in that language, then, twenty-five years ago, at age eighteen, came home to Qandala. He joined the rebellion against the Barre government, then became a fisherman. Yusuf followed