The earliest Somali pirates had been men with no schooling and no hope, men like Badeed who’d had taken to the sea in small skiffs, targeting ships that were anchored or sailing close to shore. They would threaten the crews with guns, steal their possessions, and maybe score some portable electronics if they were lucky.

Glorified muggers.

But the ships adapted quickly and sailed farther offshore—out of range of the little fishing boats and their smoky outboard engines.

But the Somalis adapted too. They used larger fishing boats, often seventy feet long, to tow the skiffs offshore where they could wait for targets of opportunity in the shipping lanes. Once a ship was spotted, the skiffs would race after it, firing automatic weapons and sometimes RPGs at the bridge until the ship’s master stopped the vessel.

The strategy worked for a few more years, with minor evolutions in tactics on both sides—the most significant of which was when the Somalis started kidnapping crews for ransom. Some of the hostages were held on the ships, some on land. Some were released within days and some were held for years. Some died in captivity.

The rising tide of violence eventually led to defensive measures that worked: armed vessel protection detachments, razor wire, water cannons, and increased involvement from the world’s navies.

By 2015, the age of the Somali pirates had come to an end.

But Yaxaas knew there was still money to be made.

The country’s strategic location on the Horn of Africa hadn’t changed. It was only the pirates’ rudimentary tactics and equipment that had been outmatched. He’d studied the world’s top special operations forces and concluded that if the pirates could devise new tactics and keep them secret, they could be victorious once again.

He started by recruiting from the competition.

It wasn’t difficult. The twenty-first century’s global surge in special operations forces had invariably left a few men out in the cold, men who’d felt they weren’t adequately appreciated or appropriately compensated by their governments. Others were just out for a thrill—after years of combat and intense training, they didn’t want the adrenaline rush to subside, ever.

The result was the same. They were for sale.

Yaxaas didn’t look at contractors from established firms. He wanted independent operators: mercenaries who’d accumulated a black mark or two over the years—sailors and marines who had tier-one skills but lacked the moral compulsion to use them the way in which they’d been trained. He wanted men who cared more about the tactical situation than the strategic one.