The Tears of Dark Water (53 page)

His father had earned enough to educate his children through the eighth grade. After that, he expected them to work. Dhuuban had done odd jobs before landing a position as a police officer in Hobyo. He stayed there until he didn’t receive a paycheck—apparently, the regional government’s budget was always in crisis. At that point, a friend had introduced him to Gedef, who was putting together a “coast guard” unit to drive foreign vessels out of Somali waters. Dhuuban had heard stories of million-dollar payoffs and joined Gedef’s crew, bringing his own gun.

He had met Afyareh at the seaside camp where Gedef maintained his skiffs. The commander assigned Dhuuban to Afyareh’s crew. After a few weeks, an Omani dhow appeared offshore, and they took two skiffs to meet it. Dhuuban didn’t know how Gedef had obtained the dhow, but the Omanis never questioned Gedef’s orders. They sailed for many days and nights into the ocean without sighting a ship. At last, when their food became scarce, they picked up the
Jade Dolphin
on radar. They tracked it overnight and mounted an attack at first light.

Dhuuban recounted the disastrous hijacking attempt with some animation—the explosion of Gedef’s skiff, the search for survivors, recovering Mas, trying but failing to locate the Omani dhow, and making the decision to take refuge in the Seychelles. Megan pressed him for his personal feelings about Mas. He hesitated slightly, then said: “I was happy he survived. He was my friend.”

Then came the
Renaissance
. Dhuuban described the capture of the sailboat in almost friendly terms, emphasizing that they never intended to harm the hostages. Their objective was to take the sailboat to Somalia, negotiate a ransom, and let the Parkers go. “Killing is bad for business,” he said at least three times in the course of his narrative. “We wanted money, not blood.”

Next, Megan led him through the stages of the naval intervention, eliciting his recollections about the
Gettysburg
’s approach, the commencement of negotiations, the appearance of the
Truman
and
San Jacinto
, the first day of flight operations, and the offer of the secure radio. “After you saw the small boat on the water,” she said, “did you have a discussion about what to do next?”

“
Ha
,” Dhuuban mumbled, and Sado translated: “Yes.”

“What was the nature of that discussion?”

“We thought it was a trap. We were afraid of the boat. We argued for a while, and then Afyareh told us he had a plan. He said he had permission to negotiate with the family.”

An interesting choice of words
, Megan thought. “Permission from whom?”

“From Gedef’s relatives. They were the people with the money.”

Megan glanced at Ismail. “Did Afyareh say which of Gedef’s relatives gave him permission?”

“
Ha
,” Dhuuban replied. “Gedef’s father. He was in charge.”

“What did you think about that?” Megan asked.

Dhuuban paused. “I believed Afyareh. He always told the truth.”

Megan digested this.
Khadija said the same thing. But why did Dhuuban hesitate? Did his view of Ismail change?
“What did the others say about the idea?”

“Mas didn’t believe him at first. He asked Afyareh for proof.”

Megan raised an eyebrow. “What kind of proof?”

“He asked Afyareh to swear it on the name of Allah.”

“Did he?”

“
Ha
. That was when Afyareh called the Captain’s family.”

“Tell me more about Mas,” Megan said. “He was Gedef’s cousin. Did he resent that Gedef had made Afyareh his lieutenant?”

Dhuuban shifted in his seat. “Afyareh spoke English. He had experience hijacking ships. That is why he was lieutenant. I don’t know what Mas thought about it.”

Power dynamics
, Megan wrote on her pad.
Explore further.
Then she moved on, walking Dhuuban through the negotiations with the family, the haggling between Afyareh and Curtis, the deal they reached, and the delivery terms. “What did you think about the ransom amount?”

“We wanted two million,” Dhuuban explained. “Afyareh said to give Curtis more time. But Mas thought it was a bad idea. He thought the Navy would do something if we waited. So did Liban.”

“What did Afyareh say about that?”

“He changed his mind. Then he called Curtis.”

Another clash
, Megan thought.
But this time Mas prevailed. Is that a shift in influence?
She led him through the ransom drop and the counting of the cash and then focused on the breakdown with the Navy. “What happened when the helicopter took off?”

Dhuuban puckered his lips and started to suck on his teeth. “Afyareh didn’t like the helicopter. He said the Navy was lying to us. He told them to put it away or he would kill the hostages.”

“The Navy recalled the helicopter, didn’t they?”

Dhuuban nodded.

“But you didn’t let the hostages go?”

Without warning, Dhuuban gave her a broad smile. “We saw that the ship was too close.”

Megan frowned.
What the hell does he have to smile about?
“Who saw that the ship was too close?”

“Afyareh. He got very angry about it. He started talking about how America has hurt Somalia. He said we needed to fight back. He told the Navy to move the ship or he would kill the hostages.”

“What did the others say?” Megan persisted. “What did Mas say?”

Suddenly, Clifford Greene stirred from his slumber: “Objection to form.”

Megan simplified the question: “What did Mas say about the ship?”

Dhuuban smiled brighter. “None of us liked it. But Afyareh was angriest. He started yelling at the Navy. He yelled at the negotiator. He said the Americans had betrayed us. They broke the deal.”

I’m not buying this
, Megan thought.
Mas demanded proof that Ismail had permission to negotiate with the family; he commandeered the decision about the ransom amount; but then he sat on the sidelines while Ismail ranted about America and the proximity of the ship? Dhuuban isn’t telling me something.

“What happened next?” she asked, leaving the question wide open.

“The Navy sent boats toward us,” Dhuuban replied. “They turned on bright lights. That was when Afyareh lost his mind. He shot the Captain. Mas wrestled with him, but Afyareh won. Then he shot Timaha and told us to go to the boat.”

The words knocked the wind out of Megan. She glanced at Ismail, hoping to see a flicker of feeling, but his face was sculpted out of granite. “I’m almost finished. Just a couple more questions. The gun that Afyareh used to shoot Timaha, was it the same gun he used on the Captain?”

Dhuuban’s smile faltered. He sucked his teeth for a while. “I think it was the same gun.”

Bingo
, Megan thought.
The first crack in the façade.
“When all of this happened, you were close to the Somali coast, isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” Dhuuban said, smiling again.

“Were you near Hobyo or somewhere else?”

Dhuuban’s eyes fell, then rebounded instantly. “We were close to Hobyo.”

Megan stared him down. “No, you weren’t. You were near Mogadishu.”

“Objection,” said Greene. “Is that a question?”

But Dhuuban ignored him. “Mogadishu?” he beamed. “Why would we go to Mogadishu?”

You’re lying
, Megan thought.
I see it now. But I don’t know what’s true and what’s false.
“I’m finished with this witness,” she said tersely. She stood up and looked at Kiley and Ismail. “Come with me.”

She led them down the hall to the meeting room where they had done their preparations. After Kiley closed the door, Megan confronted Ismail. “This would be a whole lot easier if you would talk to me. I feel like I’m playing chess in the dark.”

Ismail stared back at her. “The time isn’t right.”

She gave vent to her frustration. “Maybe you
are
crazy. He’s lying under oath and you’re letting
him get away with it. This is your
life
on the line.”

“He’s a good boy,” Ismail said with an affection that surprised her. “I don’t blame him.”

Megan shook her head, livid but unsure what to do about it. “Fine. The least you can do is help me understand his behavior. What was with all the teeth-sucking and smiley faces?”

Ismail spoke frankly. “When he was sucking his teeth, he was thinking about what you had just said. And when he was smiling, he was nervous.”

Megan’s mind raced with the implications. Dhuuban had started acting strangely when she asked him about the helicopter taking off, but his answers had come easily until she asked him the questions about Ismail’s gun and the boat’s location on the water.
He wasn’t prepared for them
, she inferred.
They forced him to improvise. That’s when I saw the lie.

“Now I’ve told you something, haven’t I?” Ismail said.

Her anger began to abate. “I suppose.” She checked her watch. It was ten thirty. “We’re on schedule. Let’s go talk to Osman.”

It took Megan seven hours to complete the remaining depositions. By the time she dismissed Mas from the chair she was exhausted but satisfied. The interviews had given her fresh insight into the minds and personalities of Ismail’s accusers, and they had highlighted the point in their common narrative where fiction started to blend with fact—the launch of the Navy helicopter.

Osman was the least articulate and most immature in the bunch. During her questioning, he had alternated between periods of brooding silence and loud bursts of speech. Sondare was a sweet, shy teenager whose story had broken her heart. He hadn’t wanted to go with the pirates; he had wanted to go to school. But his mother was too poor to feed his five brothers. He had stolen a gun from a friend and joined Gedef’s crew at the last minute. Mas was more calculating than the others, and also more composed. He had answered her queries calmly, looking her in the eye. He was also the only one who didn’t seem intimidated by Ismail, trading numerous glances with him during his deposition.

It was the smiles that gave away their charade. Sondare had turned into a beacon when he talked about the shooting. Osman had emerged from his passive-compulsive funk and smiled at her, too, though less eagerly. Even Mas had showed his teeth a couple of times, but only when she surprised him with the questions that had tripped up Dhuuban. Sondare and Osman guessed that Ismail used the same weapon to shoot Daniel and Quentin. But Mas professed his ignorance, claiming that his struggle with Ismail had obscured his view at the end. He also gave a cagey response to the question about the sailboat’s location. “Afyareh was boss,” he said. “I don’t know where he took us.”

Bullshit
, Megan wrote on her pad.

When Mas left the room with his lawyer, Megan looked at Eldridge Jordan. “Can we talk?”

Jordan nodded. A thirty-something African-American with an oval face and intense eyes, he was a graduate of Princeton and Virginia Law—the kind of upwardly mobile prosecutor who would one day be a judge. They took seats in the meeting room, and Megan got straight to the point.

“Eldridge, I respect you a lot. I respect Clyde. But the evidence isn’t adding up. Their story is scripted. They follow the script until they hit a blank, then they start improvising. Daniel and Quentin were shot with different weapons. It doesn’t make sense that Ismail was the only shooter.”

Jordan tented his hands. “There was a scuffle. He lost control of his gun and picked up another one. If we had weapons, we could get fingerprints, but they’re at the bottom of the ocean. All we have is testimony. And right now your client agrees with them. He is not denying he pulled the trigger.”

“Did you notice how they started to smile when we talked about the shooting?” she asked. “That’s what Somalis do when they get nervous.”

Jordan’s eyes darkened. “If your client has more to say, we’re willing to listen. But right now, our theory is the only one supported by the evidence. The jury can decide if we’re right or wrong.”

Megan shook her head, trapped between a client who wouldn’t talk and a system that placed his fate into the hands of twelve ordinary people with no legal training and no knowledge of Somalia other than the horror stories they saw in the news.

“I’ll let you know if something changes,” she said and headed toward the door.

Yasmin

Middle Juba, Somalia

Late April, 2012

When the rains of the
gu
began to fall, Yasmin’s world transformed. The desert ground, once as dry as an elephant’s hide, softened into loamy clay, giving birth to fields of grass and colorful flowers that seemed to exist for no other reason than beauty. The Juba swelled with the runoff and the languid current quickened into a lively rush, filling the air with water music.