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attachéabout the pirate situation. If it weren’t for the incessant meetings, he might be able to get some work done. As he heads out, he glances at his computer once more. There are now 368 e-mails, at least a couple dozen marked URGENT.
    Most are probably pirate-related. He had worked all weekend on the pirate situation, much to Miranda’s dismay. Friday, a British Royal Navy ship picked up a Mazrooqi dhow that had been boarded by Somali pirates and was attacking a Finnish vessel. In the confrontation with the Brits, three Somalis and two Mazrooqis were killed. But even with the pirates all either dead or in captivity, Finn’s work was just beginning. It was the embassy’s responsibility to figure out what to do with the boat, the crew, and the corpses. First, he wants to repatriate the Mazrooqi corpses, which requires getting diplomatic clearance to send them in a British helicopter over Mazrooqi waters. Then he needs to figure out what to do with the Somali bodies. Both Mazrooq and Somalia refuse to accept the pirates’ bodies. Not a lot of countries clamoring for decomposing criminals, actually. So Finn then has to figure out how the navy could give the Somalis a proper Muslim burial at sea. Merely tossing them overboard could trigger a diplomatic crisis with unpredictable consequences.
    After the dead are taken care of, Finn needs to decide what to do with the living. The surviving Mazrooqis must be brought home. He has sought assurances from the Mazrooqi Foreign Minister that the surviving Somalis would not be put to death if they were brought to trial here; the UK forbids the death penalty. The Foreign Minister has thus far refused to guarantee this, saying that to do so would undermine the independence of the justice system. So then where are the Somalis to be sent? Maybe Kenya? Finn reminds himself to put in a call to the British High Commissioner in Nairobi later this afternoon, to see if he can sort out a way to get the prisoners tried there.
    The Defense Attaché is waiting in his office when Finn gets back from the staff meeting, legs crossed, reading a dog-eared copy of Hisham Matar’s
Anatomy of a Disappearance
. “How did you get here so fast? Didn’t we just come from the same meeting?”
    â€œTeleported. A new stealth technology we’re trying out in the navy.” Leo closes his book without marking his place. He memorizesthe page numbers, he’d told Finn. A shared love of order was one of the many things that bonded the two men.
    â€œGlad to hear it. Might come in handy with the pirate situation.”
    â€œFigured if that kid Harry Potter can do it, why not the world’s best military?”
    â€œI think he apparated, actually.”
    â€œSame thing, from a technical standpoint. Good to know you’re keeping up with contemporary literature though.”
    â€œI do my best. So?”
    â€œWell, the good news is that we have permission for the helicopters. They’ll bring the Mazrooqi bodies back here later this afternoon.”
    â€œAnd the living?”
    â€œThem too.”
    â€œI’ve got a call in to the president’s imam to find out how to bury the Somalis at sea.” Finn flips open his pocket-size calendar. Paper. He’s endlessly mocked for his old-fashioned tastes, but he’s sure that if his entire schedule were on something electronic, he’d accidentally drop it in the toilet. At least paper dries out. “At three p.m. If he actually rings then, and you know how unlikely that is, I’ll let you know our instructions.”
    â€œDo we need to get ahold of a Quran?”
    â€œProbably. But I don’t know. Ever been to a Muslim funeral?”
    â€œSeen them go by my house. With the corpse on a stretcher under a rug. Not sure where they go with it though.”
    â€œFind out. Could be useful someday. Not with the Somalis, of course. They’re off to make a whole lot of fish