The Tears of Dark Water (68 page)

But taking hold of the lever and giving it a pull was far more difficult than thinking about it. Once she did it there was no going back, no room for recrimination or regret. She had asked the question in a thousand different ways as Quentin recovered and the trial progressed and the stream of her fondness for Paul deepened into a river. Even after she learned the truth about Ismail, she hadn’t been able to answer it, not until she met Khadija and Yasmin and realized that their pain was no different from her own, though their history and culture and religion were beyond her understanding. When she saw Yasmin shake Quentin’s hand, when her son and Ismail’s sister smiled at each other, she knew the time had come. There was only one way forward—to leave her wrath behind.

She read Daniel’s letter one last time in the light of the Zanzibari sun, and then she turned over the pages and read her answer.

Dearest D,

Is it possible to disentangle the knot of wrong? I’ve tried so hard to do it, pulling the strands one by one, thinking that I’ve identified the wrongdoer. But I’ve only succeeded in making the knot tighter. I’ve fumbled and fretted, assigning blame for the wounds I bear in my soul, but it’s only driven me deeper into despair.

The truth is that everyone is to blame, and no one. When I’ve tried to force one person to shoulder the weight of guilt—my mother or Ted for my childhood, or you or me for the way our marriage fell apart, or Ismail or Mas or the SEAL captain for the shooting—it has only exacerbated the wrong.

The knot cannot be undone. The strands are bound together for all of time. There is only one way to overcome it and that is to cast it over the side and let the sea of forgiveness wash it away.

Today, I’m letting go of the past. I’m moving on. I’m going to love again. I’m going to watch your beautiful son grow up and get married and have children of his own. I’m going to support him when he sails around the world with Ariadne, and this time I have no doubt that he will make it.

Farewell, my husband. Thank you for the good times we spent together and for the glimpse of redemption you gave me in the end. I’ll see you again one day, I think, though I know not where or how. And when I do I will have nothing left to say, except: “All is well.”

~ V

She rolled up the pages again and slid them back into the bottle, twisting the cork until it was tight. When she was satisfied with the seal, she lifted the bottle and threw it as far as she could out to sea. She watched it spiral through the air and land with a splash, bobbing to the surface again. She smiled and picked up her paddle, turning about and pointing the kayak toward land—toward Quentin and Ariadne and Paul. She put the blades into the water and pulled until her arms began to burn from the strain. It was a good burn, the burn of desire. She had not a minute to waste.

It was time to live again.

Author’s Note

On February 18, 2011, a band of Somali pirates hijacked the U.S.-flagged sailing vessel
Quest
in the Indian Ocean, taking four Americans hostage. The U.S. government responded to the crisis with overwhelming force, deploying three Navy ships, a crack team of SEALs, and an FBI negotiator to bring the sailors home. For four days, the pirates sailed the
Quest
toward Somalia while the Navy tried to negotiate a resolution. Finally, sixty miles from the coast, the USS
Sterett
, a Navy destroyer,  attempted a “shouldering” maneuver, hoping to change the sailboat’s course and buy additional time. As the destroyer closed in, three pirates opened fire on the hostages, killing all of them.

I watched the media coverage of the tragedy with a heavy heart and a curious eye, wondering how the government’s extraordinary intervention could have gone so terribly wrong. After the incident faded from the headlines, my literary agent suggested I write a novel about lawlessness in the Horn of Africa. I was working on
The Garden of Burning Sand
at the time and set the concept aside. When my publishers asked for a third book, I dusted it off and dived in.

Before I go on, I should be clear:
The Tears of Dark Water
is not a fictionalized retelling of the
Quest
incident. I took great care to ensure that neither my characters nor the events in the story paralleled real life, beyond the fixed stars of ethnicity, U.S. government policy, and the tactics and procedures of various government agencies, military and civilian. Daniel Parker died only on the page. The deaths of Scott and Jean Adam, Bob Riggle, and Phyllis Macay were all too real. As much as I devoted myself to the research, this novel is a product of my imagination.

The attentive reader will no doubt surmise that
The Tears of Dark Water
is not really “about” Somali piracy. It is about the multi-dimensional fallout of Somalia’s disintegration over the past two decades. Piracy offered me a narrative framework to explore not only how a hijacking and hostage crisis could end in tragedy but also how the breakdown of social order on land could inspire young Somalis to take to the ocean. In contrast to the buccaneers of Blackbeard’s day, most Somali pirates are motivated as much by desperation as they are by greed, perhaps more so. As Sarandac, the leader of the
Quest
pirates, told the Navy during the negotiations (the recording of which I heard at his trial): “The situation in Somalia is bad. It is better for us to die than to return [empty handed].”

At the same time, hostage taking for ransom is an evil that cannot be justified by appealing to the misfortunes of its perpetrators. Some accounts of Somali piracy have construed the pirates as victims rather than criminals, muddying the moral waters and creating undue sympathy for their plight. It requires a fine balance to humanize a wrongdoer without compromising one’s judgment about the wrong. Yet that is the balance I attempted to strike in the story. As much as Najiib and the Shabaab deserved the blame for what happened, Ismail made no attempt to excuse the hijacking on account of their crimes. He took the punishment himself, recognizing that in the realm of criminal activity, as in all human society, a multiplication of wrongs can never make the world right.

As for Somalia itself, I found it to be a truly fascinating place, far more than I imagined when I began my research. Straddling the cultural and spiritual border between Africa and Arabia, it is a land of extremes, where waterless deserts give way to fertile farmland and tropical seacoasts, and where the warrior spirit so evident in the Somali character is tempered by a national passion for poetry. Having visited the country and befriended Somalis from all walks of life, both in Mogadishu and in the diaspora, I echo the great British journalist, Richard Dowden, who called them “people times ten.” Somalis are
sui generis
, unique in many ways, and I consider it a privilege to have immersed myself in their culture, their faith, and their history, both tragic and inspiring.

Although I am not an expert in these matters, it is my view that the future of Somalia is as bright as the young Somalis I met who believe that with the right combination of education, entrepreneurism, ingenuity, and outside support their country will rise again. It is already happening despite the ongoing campaign of senseless violence by the Shabaab. For the first time in twenty years, Somalia has a democratically elected government. Numerous countries, including Britain and Turkey, have embassies in Mogadishu. High-speed Internet has made its debut. Educated Somalis who could live in the diaspora are risking their lives to invest in their country—people like Dr. Deqo Mohamed, daughter of Dr. Hawa Abdi, the Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder of Hawa Abdi Village (www.dhaf.org), and Omar Nor, a journalist in Mogadishu, both of whom I had the privilege to spend time with. Shop by shop, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, the Somali people are rebuilding. It is my hope and prayer that one day Mogadishu will again deserve to be called “The Jewel of the Indian Ocean.”

What a joy it would be to see it.

Corban Addison

March 2015

Acknowledgments

Before I wrote
The Tears of Dark Water
, I went on
a research odyssey unlike anything I have attempted before. Along with immersing myself in the relevant literature, I conducted many interviews with officials in the U.S. government, got to know a former hostage negotiator from the FBI, learned how to sail on the Chesapeake Bay, toured the FBI Academy, the Norfolk federal courthouse, and the Chesapeake Correctional Center, went to the trial of the
Quest
pirates, and spent time with Somali friends in Minneapolis. After that, I flew to the Horn of Africa and sailed in the Seychelles, interviewed officials in Bahrain, landed on the USS
Truman
in the Arabian Sea, spent a night aboard the carrier and two nights aboard the USS
Gettysburg
, traveled to Nairobi, Mogadishu, and the Dadaab refugee area, and then wrapped it all up with a trip to Zanzibar.

Like I said, an odyssey.

I have countless people to thank for opening doors and opening my eyes during this process. If I enumerated their kindnesses, I would make this rather long book even longer. As such, their names will have to suffice. But before I get to them, I want to express my profoundest gratitude to the most important person in my life—my wife, Marcy—whose infinite patience, tolerance, and generosity of spirit remain indispensable to my work. I am honored to be your husband and to walk this fascinating, harrowing, and sometimes exhausting road with you.

In the United States, I wish to thank John Schmidt at the Elliott School of International Affairs; Christopher Voss at the Black Swan Group; Farley Mesko at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies; Captain Alexander Martin, USMC (retired); the Honorable B. Waugh Crigler (retired); Imam Muhammed Musri at the Islamic Society of Central Florida (www.iscf.org); Mohammed Idris at the American Relief Agency for the Horn of Africa (www.araha.org); Derek Berry, Cathy Ellis, Carrie Koenig, and Dr. William Garmoe at the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital; Sheriff Jim O’Sullivan and Sergeant Dave Rosado at the Chesapeake County Sheriff’s Office; Captain Mike McEwan; Dr. Gregory Gelburd; Tim and Rhonda Feist; Jason Scully; Claude Berube; Admiral Terry McKnight (retired); Vijai Rahaman; and Scott McClelland.

In the U.S. government, I wish to thank Donna Hopkins, Marc Porter, Erik Rye, and Pamela Fierst at the State Department; Wayne Raabe, Krishna Patel, and John Fitzgerald at the Justice Department; Beth Lefebvre, Royce Curtin, Willie Session, and Stephen Laycock at the FBI; Mark Garhart and James Blitzer at NCIS; Col. Anne Edgecomb and Cheryl Irwin at the Office of the Secretary of Defense; Lt. Callie Ferrari at the Navy Office of Information East; and Bobby Mathieson, U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In the Somali diaspora, I wish to thank Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed; Ismail Ali Ismail; Jaylani Hussein; Ahmed Saleh Dhoodi; Munira Khalif; Muna Khalif; Yassin Mohamed; Imam Abdisalam Adam; Seynab Sharmarke Mohamed; Mohamed Hassan; and Said Salah.

In the Seychelles, I wish to thank Declan Barber at the Regional Anti-Piracy Intelligence Coordination Center, and Noel Mooney at the Seychelles Piracy Prosecution and Intelligence Cell.

In Bahrain, I wish to thank Cmdr. Jason Salata, Lt. Jessica McNulty, and Lt. Marissa Myatt at U.S. Navy Central Command; Captain Robert Slaven of the Royal Australian Navy; and Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Mills, Lt. Cmdr. James Gleave, and Lt. Cmdr. Iain Beaton of the Royal Navy.

On the USS
Truman
, I wish to thank Captain Robert Roth; Captain Pat Hannifin; Admiral Kevin Sweeney; Lt. Cmdr. John Fage; Ensign Frederick Middlebrooks; Cmdr. William Mann; Lt. Cmdr. Camilo Santiago; Lt. Tamera Larsen; Master-at-Arms Petty Officer 1st Class Thomas Staton; Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Williams; Cmdr. Scott Curtis; and Cmdr. Jason Darish.

On the USS
Gettysburg
, I wish to thank Captain Brad Cooper; Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Sherry; Ensign Kiley Provenzano; Lt. JG Michael Burris; and Lt. JG Caitlin Parks.

In Mogadishu, I wish to thank Fatuma Noor at the AU/UN Information Support Team; the AMISOM soldiers who escorted me safely to Hawa Abdi Village; Dr. Deqo Aden Mohamed and her team at the Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation; Sean Mendis and the team at SKA Mogadishu; and Omar Nor with the Shabelle Media Network.

In Nairobi, I wish to thank Jay Bahadur; Larry and Mary Warren; Anna Mayumi Kerber; Hassan Abdi Ahmed; Dr. Elena Velilla and Heather Pagano at Médecins Sans Frontières; Matthew Espenshade at the Office of the Legal Attaché, Embassy Nairobi; and Peter Njue.

In Dadaab, I wish to thank Mans Nyberg, Duke Mwancha, Eric Groonis, Loutfi Beldjelti, and Venanzio Njuki at UNHCR; Halima Noor; Batula Ali Isaack; Hassan Abdirahman Hassan; Fatuma Abdikarim Kasim; Abshiro Muktar Ismail; Awes Mohamed Gulled; Gerald Ghates; and the Somali/Kenyan security team who escorted me to the Dagahaley camp.

Finally, I wish to thank my fabulous agents, Dan Raines and Danny Baror, for your tireless advocacy and encouragement; my editors, Jane Wood at Quercus Books and Lorissa Sengara at HarperCollins, for your capacious enthusiasm and eagle eyes; and my publishers in every territory for caring so much about the story and getting it into the hands of readers. As an author, I trade in words. Without the passionate assistance of everyone in my publishing universe, my words would never reach the world.