CHAPTER ONE

      The first class of the day was always the toughest. Students shuffled into the lecture hall at Columbia University like shiftless, dead-eyed zombies, their senses dulled by all-night study sessions or hangovers or some combination thereof. They wore sweatpants and yesterday’s T-shirts and clutched Styrofoam cups of soy mocha lattes or artisanal blonde roasts or whatever it was the kids were drinking these days.

      Professor Reid Lawson’s job was to teach, but he also recognized the need for a morning boost—a mental stimulant to supplement the caffeine. Lawson gave them a moment to find their seats and get comfortable while he took off his tweed sport coat and draped it over his chair.

      “Good morning,” he said loudly. The announcement jarred several students, who looked up suddenly as if they hadn’t realized they’d wandered into a classroom. “Today, we’re going to talk about pirates.”

      That got some attention. Eyes looked forward, blinking through the slush of sleep deprivation and trying to determine if he had really said “pirates” or not.

      “Of the Caribbean?” joked a sophomore in the front row.

      “Of the Mediterranean, actually,” Lawson corrected. He paced slowly with his hands clasped behind his back. “How many of you have taken Professor Truitt’s class on ancient empires?” About a third of the class raised their hands. “Good. Then you know that the Ottoman Empire was a major world power for, oh, almost six hundred years. What you may not know is that the Ottoman corsairs, or more colloquially, the Barbary pirates, stalked the seas for much of that time, from the coast of Portugal, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and much of the Mediterranean. What do you think they were after? Anyone? I know you’re alive out there.”

      “Money?” asked a girl in the third row.

      “Treasure,” said the sophomore from the front.

      “Rum!” came a shout from a male student in the back of the room, eliciting a chuckle from the class. Reid grinned too. There was some life in this crowd after all.

      “All good guesses,” he said. “But the answer is ‘all of the above.’ See, the Barbary pirates mostly targeted European merchant vessels, and they would take everything—and I mean everything. Shoes, belts, money, hats, goods, the ship itself… and its crew. It’s believed that in the two-century span from 1580 to 1780, the Barbary pirates captured and enslaved more than two million people. They would take it all back to their North African kingdom. This went on for centuries. And what do you think the European nations did in return?”

      “Declared war!” shouted the student in the back.

      A mousy girl in horn-rimmed glasses raised her hand slightly and asked, “Did they broker a treaty?”

      “In a way,” Lawson replied. “The powers of Europe agreed to pay tribute to the Barbary nations, in the form of huge sums of money and goods. I’m talking Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, England, Sweden, the Netherlands… they were all paying the pirates to keep away from their boats. The rich got richer, and the pirates backed off—mostly. But then, between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, something happened. An event occurred that would be a catalyst to the end of the Barbary pirates. Anyone want to venture a guess?”

      No one spoke. To his right, Lawson spotted a kid scrolling on his phone.

      “Mr. Lowell,” he said. The kid snapped to attention. “Any guess?”

      “Um… America happened?”

      Lawson smiled. “Are you asking me, or telling me? Be confident in your answers, and the rest of us will at least think you know what you’re talking about.”

      “America happened,” he said again, more emphatically this time.

      “That’s right! America happened. But, as you know, we were just a fledgling nation then. America was younger than most of you are. We had to establish trade routes with Europe to boost our economy, but the Barbary pirates started taking our ships. When we said, ‘What the hell, guys?’ they demanded tribute. We barely had a treasury, let alone anything in it. Our piggy bank was empty. So what choice did we have? What could we do?”

      “Declare war!” came a familiar shout from the rear of the hall.

      “Precisely! We had no choice but to declare war. Now, Sweden had already been fighting the pirates for a year, and together, between 1801 and 1805, we took Tripoli Harbor and captured the city of Derne, effectively ending the conflict.” Lawson leaned against the edge of his desk and folded his hands in front of him. “Of course, that’s glossing over a lot of details, but this is a European history class, not American history. If you get the chance, you should do some reading on Lieutenant Stephen Decatur and the USS Philadelphia. But I digress. Why are we talking about pirates?”

      “Because pirates are cool?” said Lowell, who had since put away his phone.

      Lawson chuckled. “I can’t disagree. But no, that’s not the point. We’re talking about pirates because the Tripolitan War represents something rarely seen in the annals of history.” He stood up straight, scanning the room and making eye contact with several students. At least now Lawson could see light in their eyes, a glimpse that most students were alive this morning, if not attentive. “For literal centuries, none of the European powers wanted to stand up to the Barbary nations.