Over the course of 2010, Klaussen began spending more and more time overseeing the Somalia business remotely, from Dubai. Le Roux didn't complain, since the operation's banking was con- ducted in the city, and much of its equipment was either purchased or shipped through it. The strain of his remote posting had ended Klaussen's marriage in the Philippines, and he started seeing a woman in Dubai. The longer he was away from Galkayo, the more his doubts crept in. Navigating between the day-to-day chaos on the ground and Le Roux's capricious demands had become ex- hausting. One of the compound's cars was hit by an improvised explosive device while Klaussen was away. No one was killed, but several of the guards had ruptured eardrums. When Le Roux in- sisted they could be treated at local hospitals, Klaussen secretly rearranged the budget to fly them to Djibouti for treatment on The Company's dime.

Worse than the trials of running the operation, for Klaussen, was the feeling that he had begun sliding into a moral purgatory. He had long been acutely aware of, and working alongside, Le Roux's violence and criminality. But the new proposals for Soma- lia felt different. With Le Roux's cultivation scheme, Klaussen was potentially becoming an international drug producer. The Sey- chelles tourist-kidnapping plan was even worse: It would cast Klaussen into a role no different than that of violent thugs like Joseph Hunter.

In Dubai, Klaussen finally talked to his girlfriend about his con- cerns. "She had a basic knowledge of what I was doing, not in detail," he said. "She said, 'Do what you have to do. Follow what your heart says, or what your mind says, in this case.'" She would understand if he wanted to keep working for Le Roux, she told him. "But if I was you, I would walk away from it." That was enough for Klaussen.

He flew back to Galkayo, and a few days later roused the entire compound in the middle of the night, announcing that his mother