In Batticaloa, the small city on the east coast of Sri Lanka, a Chinese contractor had plans to develop a port for cargo vessels. It would require dredging a nearby lagoon, installing modern loading docks, and laying communications cables and pipework under the sea bed. Rausing Oceanic was hired for much of the underwater construction and commercial diving support. It would turn out to be the perfect cover for Malcolm Rausing’s larger and more ambitious project.

The Deep Blue

Four miles south of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Monday evening.

Just prior to entering Batticaloa, on the west side of the A15 coast highway, sits a large lagoon that floods with the high ocean tide. Every day, as they have for centuries, enterprising local fishermen wait for the tide to ebb to scout the shallow lagoon for mud crabs. These large crustaceans are sold in the town markets up and down the east coast, most often cooked into a deliciously spicy curry. The dish was brought to Sri Lanka by Hindu Tamils from India, but is distinctly non-denominational, eaten by everyone but the most hardcore Buddhists, who eschew eating any sort of sentient being.

As they drove across the lagoon bridge, Tusker watched the fishermen poling the placid water for crabs. Another time perhaps, this scene would seem serene. It reminded him of road trips he’d taken back home, a girlfriend sleeping off an early start while he enjoyed a Lake Michigan summer sunrise. But he could only think of Upali.

The town of Batticaloa lies roughly halfway down Sri Lanka’s eastern flank. In addition to its famous crabs, it boasts a lighthouse built by the British in the early 1800s. The town’s population has changed over its history, first Buddhist Sinhalese, then ethnic Tamils brought in by the British to work, and now, a large Muslim community. It is a small town, with a bustling high street jam packed with shops festooned with competing, mismatched signs and walls dripping with dark mildew. Women in hijabs carry umbrellas against the scorching equatorial sun and dodge the swaying buses that lurch past down the narrow streets.

Batticaloa has had a troubled history. It was at the heart of the eastern territory controlled by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the civil war that ripped the country apart for decades. Then came the tsunami and Batticaloa was ground zero. The low-lying town was consumed by a two-story wave that swept a mile inland, killing over 3,000 people and laying waste to anything in its path.

Road travel was exhausting in Sri Lanka. There was never a stretch of road where you could relax. The countless animals, motorbikes, and people on the narrow, winding roads meant it was constant slowing, stopping, and accelerating, all the while being pitched back and forth nauseatingly.