Raj, the fisherman whose boat they’d rented for three months and who was helping them during this project, greeted Upali on the opposite side of the boat with a barrage of Sinhala and a hearty laugh.

“Got the kettle on?” Tusker smiled, handed his weight belt, tank and harness up to Ian, and heaved himself into the boat. He stripped off the upper part of his sopping wetsuit, tying the empty arms around his waist. Months in the tropics had tanned his torso a deep shade of brown, except for a long scar across his left shoulder that stood out as a slash of white. He ran a hand through his wet, sun-bleached hair, which he hadn’t cut since arriving the previous autumn. Without the care of a local barber, it had grown out, saltwater and sun stiffening it to the consistency of dry grass.

In the harbor the last of the fishing fleet was tying up, a mix of rickety wooden vessels with small outboard motors, ugly fiberglass skiffs like the one they were on, and a few traditional oruwa catamarans. The air reeked of rotting fish and diesel exhaust. Tusker had a sudden urge to be back home. It would be spring there, woodsmoke on the wind, the smell of damp soil, still some snow in the shadows. Heading back soon enough, he thought and shook off the daydream.

“Anything promising down there today?” Ian asked once they’d settled in the skiff.

“No luck today, it seems,” Upali said. “Not exactly the way I wanted to finish out the week before I head over to Batticaloa.”

“You sure chose a fine time to abandon us here,” Tusker jabbed him, shaking his head. Upali laughed.

“Yeah, another posh holiday disguised as official business,” Ian chimed in. “What is it this time? Interviewing female interns poolside?”

“All right, all right, guys,” Upali shook his head. “It might be another goose chase, but a fisherman reported snagging his lines on something deep offshore. HQ figured it’d be worth looking into, given all the lost war wrecks over there. I’m going to make a search grid and run some sonar scans.”

“A likely story,” Tusker replied. “You get the glamorous gigs while Ian and I are left here to dig in the mud.” He grinned at his friend and winked behind his sunglasses. “Batticaloa,” Tusker stumbled on the town’s name, “That’s a fair drive to get there, yeah?”

“From here it’ll be a good six hours cross-country. The funny thing is, it’s only about 350 kilometers. In the US, that’d take you two, maybe two and a half hours? But here, it’s all narrow roads and lots of small towns.”

“Oh, I’m well familiar now,” Tusker said. “I certainly will not miss the traffic here when I go back home. Where are you staying over there?”