One of them kicked the prisoner in the back, sending him face-first onto the deck, and bound his wrists behind his back. The man was in tears, explaining that he had a family, that he would come up with the money, if only the warlord would let him live.

But the time for that had passed.

One of the crew rolled an empty fifty-five-gallon drum across the deck and poked a few holes in it with a screwdriver and a hammer, although the barrel was so old and rusty that he hardly needed the hammer.

The prisoner was spewing gibberish now—alternately threatening and cajoling his captors. Two deckhands yanked him to his feet and stuffed him in the drum. Another one dumped an eleven-inch brown rat into the barrel before clamping on the lid.

The rat shrieked its displeasure.

So did the man.

Cries for mercy echoed from inside the barrel as the two largest deckhands lifted it from the deck and balanced it on the ship’s gunwale.

Badeed gave the signal. It was a subtle gesture, no more than a flick of the chin, but two seconds after the warlord did it, the barrel tumbled into the ocean. Water seeped through the holes while the man thrashed inside, desperately trying to escape.

The rat attacked, fighting for the rapidly shrinking space inside the barrel that still had air. Squeals and screams floated over the water as the drum drifted away.

Blood seeped into the ocean.

The waters off the coast of Somalia were excellent fishing grounds and dense with marine life, and the deckhands traditionally made bets on whether the sharks would come before or after the prisoner drowned. The predators usually investigated the barrel with their snouts and their teeth until they found a spot where the rusted metal was soft. Then, like a can of tuna fish, they’d tear open the metal and feast on the meat inside.

The irony was not lost on the warlord.

But no bets were made today. The crew was eight miles from shore, the heat was stifling, and Badeed had an important lunch meeting. The barrel had just dipped below the surface when they fired up the engines and headed for the dock.

EIGHT

THE TWO MEN had met for lunch for nearly a decade. Though families and careers and the other complexities of life often caused their outings to be rescheduled, they were never canceled, for the meetings were more than social gatherings. They were matters of life and death.

Despite a thatched roof providing shelter from the sun, and two overhead fans stirring the otherwise still air, the open-air restaurant was mostly empty. The thirteen armed guards stationed along the dead-end road might have had something to do with it, but no one complained, because Badeed owned not only the restaurant but the town as well.

“You have done wonderful things for your hometown,” said Cawar.