Deep Shadow

by Nick Sullivan

  “Very astute. I am from Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa. Many of us are from there, and from her sister city, Melilla.”

  “The phone call… from the convoy… that was you?”

  “No, that was Mohammed Martinez. He is from Caracas.”

  Muñoz tried to focus, still shaking off the cobwebs from being pistol whipped aboard the submarine. “Mohammed…”

  “Well, his birth name was Jesús.” Zougam smiled. “We Muslims do have irony, you know. Mr. Martinez was jailed by your President Maduro for speaking out on behalf of the downtrodden. In prison, he found religion. Our religion.”

  “You… you’re terrorists!”

  Zougam looked offended. “That is your word for us, not ours. We are warriors of the Islamic State, here to carry the fight to the enemy.”

  “The cocaine! Where is the cocaine?”

  “You are worried about the coke?” Zougam was incredulous. “Well, we took it of course. After we killed the drivers and guards. We will sell it to the Colombians for a bargain price.”

  Muñoz looked angry, some of the shock wearing off. He tried to straighten up but the two men holding him kept him in a firm grip. “Let me go, and I will pay you handsomely. You have the cocaine… you got what you came for!”

  Leaning in close to the cartel leader, Sulayman Zougam smiled. “We didn’t come for the cocaine. We came for that.” He pointed over the man’s shoulder at the submarine.

  Muñoz tried to turn his head and Zougam gestured for his men to let the cartel leader go. Muñoz looked at the submarine and watched a pair of Mediterranean looking men carrying a large cooler between them. He turned back to Zougam, a question on his face.

  “What is in the cooler, your eyes ask. Well, I’ll give you a hint. It’s not stolen kidneys. Or drugs. Or beer.”

  “Just fucking tell me.”

  “Semtex.”

  Muñoz’s face registered confusion… then surprise… then comprehension.

  “Ten tons of it,” Zougam said. “Well, not in that one cooler, of course. The trucks are full of them.” Zougam switched to lightly accented English. “That’s the amount of cocaine the bow storage was designed for, right Hamid? Ten tons?”

  “That’s correct,” the Uzbek replied in English. The explosive is less dense than bricks of cocaine so it will be a tight fit. Semtex has an RE factor of 1.35 so it’ll be the equivalent of thirteen and a half tons of TNT.”

  “Hamid is very good with numbers,” Zougam said. He stuck to English so Samarkandi would not be left out. Most of the terrorists had been recruited for their ability to speak Spanish, the better to infiltrate into Venezuela, but they all spoke English and most spoke various dialects of Arabic.

  “What are you going to do with all of that?” Muñoz asked.

  “That is none of your concern. But here is some more irony for you. Even though you have no idea what we are going to do with it… you are going to help us do it.”

  “Fuck you. I will never help terrorists!”

  “Oh, I think you will. Lenox! Bring her!”

  A man with skin as dark as obsidian came from behind the trucks, a woman over his shoulder, her arms tied behind her back. The struggling female figure kicked her bare legs and shouted muffled protests through the cloth the terrorists had gagged her with. The man set her down on her feet, holding her from behind, his grin highlighted by an enormous gold tooth. Atop his head was a black do-rag, festooned with numerous novelty pins from different countries. “Here ya go, hoss,” he said in a Caribbean accent. Lenox Bua was from Trinidad, an island with the statistical distinction of being the largest per-capita source of fighters to ISIL in the Western Hemisphere. The woman’s face was a mask of defiance, showing no fear at all.

  “Ana!” Muñoz’s expression flashed from concern to rage. “You animals, if you’ve hurt her… if… if you’ve…” he trailed off, his jaw clenching.

  “Raped her? Colonel Muñoz, I am a warrior for Islam, not some savage. Lenox, what happened to the man who tried to rape one of my captives in Benghazi?”

  “You shot him tru da dick. Den you cut his head off.”

  Zougam held his hands out, palms up. “See? I am a gentleman. I will not rape your daughter. No. But if you don’t help us communicate with the Venezuelan frigate Hamid tells me of… if you don’t convince the commander that the cocaine shipment is going ahead as planned and ensure his ship escorts us… if you don’t do these things, here is what I will do. I will cut your daughter’s feet off and dangle her from the side of a boat. What do they call it? Chumming?”

  “Dat’s what dey call it, hoss,” Lenox said.

  From the look on the cartel leader’s face, it was clear he understood that Zougam would do it. “You will release her if I cooperate?” he asked, more subdued.

  “Yes. You have my word. Now, it is time for us to part ways. You and your daughter will be joining some of my men on a little boat ride to another location.” He gestured to the men who had been holding Muñoz. “Take him to the fast boat. Your own mission will begin shortly.”

  As the men dragged Muñoz away, more and more terrorists passed by, carrying coolers between them. Two young men, empty-handed, were on their way back to the trucks for another load. Zougam caught their eye and waved them over; they turned as one and approached. Rachid and Sayyid Oukabir were twins from Melilla, and Samarkandi found them unsettling. They seemed to move as one organism and both possessed wild eyes that blinked with far less frequency than seemed healthy for human eyeballs. They would both be aboard the sub, and though they made his skin crawl, Samarkandi was confident they understood their tasks.

  “How long until the submarine is loaded?” Zougam asked.

  Sayyid looked at Rachid who looked right back at his brother. After a moment, Sayyid addressed his leader. “In an hour. We have loaded nearly a third of the explosives already…”

  “…and now that our brothers have gathered up the cartel corpses, more of our fighters can assist with the transfer,” Rachid finished.

  “Good,” Zougam said. “Continue.” He waved them off and approached the cartel leader’s daughter. She stared daggers at him and he smiled at her. “You are very brave for a woman. I respect that. Rest assured, you will be well treated. That is, of course, if your father cooperates.”

  Ana Muñoz violently shook aside a lock of raven hair that had fallen across one of her deep brown eyes. She mumbled something through the cloth between her lips.

  Zougam reached out to remove the gag but something in her eyes caused him to hesitate. “You’re going to spit in my face the moment I remove the gag, aren’t you?”

  Ana was silent, her chest heaving with anger.

  “Yes, I thought so.” Zougam withdrew his hands. “You will be joining your father on his little island excursion—in case he needs any “incentive” once the time comes for him to assist our efforts.” He nodded to Lenox. “Take her to the boat as well. And blindfold the two of them; I don’t want them casting meaningful looks at each other during the transit.”

  As the Trinidadian dragged Ana toward the beach, Samarkandi cleared his throat. “Apologies, Sulayman, but I must ask again: why are we not going to Curaçao? We could be there by noon.”

  The terrorist leader moved closer to Samarkandi and lowered his voice. “I have something much more ambitious in mind. Once we are underway I will tell you all you need to know. However, after Phase One, we may need to make adjustments to my plans. You can navigate as we go, yes?”

  “Yes, the GPS will require occasional visits to the surface to update but I have detailed charts. I can bring us safely to any location in the Caribbean.”

  Zougam snorted. “Safely. Interesting choice of words.”

  Samarkandi said nothing. Zougam was silent for a moment as well before nodding and turning toward the beach. “What do we call her?”


  “I believe Igor and Señor Muñoz had settled on Sombra.”

  “Ah. ‘Shadow’. Appropriate. We shall keep the name, but I prefer it in the Arabic: we will christen it Zil,” Zougam said. He chuckled. “Irony again… ‘christen’. Now, go aboard and make ready for departure. I want to sail before morning prayer.”

  As the leader of the terrorist cell headed for the shore, and cooler after cooler of Semtex was carried to several waiting skiffs to load onto the submarine, Hamid Samarkandi glanced up at the sky, a movement across the moon catching his eye. Flamingos. A large flock of flamingos, leaving their roosts and heading north across the sea. Beautiful.

  Dawn had broken when Boone pulled up to his favorite spot to eat his breakfast. A little yellow rock proclaimed the name of the location: “1,000 Steps”. All shore dive sites on Bonaire had brightly painted yellow rocks with the name of the dive on them. Leaning his bike against the wall behind the dive marker, Boone grabbed the bag from Martin Petersen’s snack, and descended the stairs to where they curved to the right. “1,000 Steps” only had about sixty-seven steps but it sure felt like a thousand when you were hauling your tanks and gear back up them after an hour-long dive. Hopping up onto the wall that served as a bannister, he reached into the bag and brought out an enormous pastechi. Boone laughed. Martin was always chiding him for being too thin and did his best to fatten him up. When Boone had pointed out that Martin was skinny too, the old man had nodded sagely and said, “True, but I compensate with my big personality. You? Well… you better eat more.” Okay, Martin, you win, Boone thought, tearing into the savory pastry.

  Boone’s perch was the halfway point in his bike ride to the dive shop and provided a nice overlook of the ocean, allowing him to observe conditions. Bonaire was outside the hurricane belt—with her arid climate, the weather rarely cancelled a dive day, but it was always good to note how much chop was out there. The sun was just rising on the other side of the island and in the rosy glow, the seas looked calm despite a mild breeze. A good day for diving. Far to the north, Boone could make out another flock of flamingos heading for Goto Meer. He enjoyed the sound of the surf and the soft rustle of the branches of a nearby Divi-divi tree. An iconic sight in the ABC islands, the tree leaned over and grew at nearly a ninety-degree angle, permanently bent by the trade winds that blew in from the northeast. With few exceptions, all Divi-divi trees on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao pointed west.

  Polishing off his breakfast, Boone headed back to his bicycle and pedaled up the hill, avoiding the Queens Highway that ran along the ocean—it was the scenic route, but it was one-way the wrong way and narrow in spots. Instead, he took a dirt trail short-cut to the main road into town. In a few minutes, he turned in at a little alley next to a new set of condominiums north of Captain Don’s Habitat, coasting to a stop at the Rock Beauty Divers dive shop. No one else was here yet—just the way he liked it. His boss usually didn’t arrive until half past seven and the shop didn’t officially open until eight. Being an early riser, Boone liked to get some of his maintenance done during the serenity of the morning.

  He ditched his sneakers for some sport sandals and pulled off his sweaty shirt, exchanging it for the staff T-shirt in his back pack. Holding it aloft, he took in the logo—a yellow and black angelfish called a rock beauty encircled by the words “Rock Beauty Divers”. He pulled the shirt over his head. I’m a divemaster in the Caribbean… how cool is that? Even though he’d been at it for nearly six years now, he still couldn’t quite believe it. Living the dream.

  Boone Fischer had been born into two cultures, his mother a country girl from Tennessee, and his father a sailor in the Dutch Navy. They’d met when his mother was vacationing in Aruba and Boone had been born a year later. Boone was blessed with dual citizenship and spent several vacations in the Dutch Caribbean. His father had engendered a fascination of all things aquatic in the young Boone, teaching him to snorkel when he was quite young; he became a certified diver when he turned ten. When he was twelve, his parents had separated, his father returning to the Netherlands. His mother continued to raise him in Kingston, Tennessee and while they couldn’t afford to travel to the islands, she often took him to aquariums in Chattanooga and Gatlinburg. After high school, Boone went to work as a presentation diver at the Ripley’s Aquarium in Gatlinburg, raising money for college. Heading to the University of Miami for a degree in Marine Science, Boone was fortunate enough to arrange a semester abroad in Bonaire. Within a month, he knew what he wanted to do. After graduating in Miami, he returned to the ABC islands, working for a dive op in Curaçao for three years before landing his current gig at Rock Beauty. He’d been working here for almost three years—was he ready to move on? Boone had a nomadic mindset and was always looking for the next adventure but Bonaire was special.

  As Boone finished filling up the remainder of the empty scuba tanks, he thought about his time here. He’d made some wonderful friends, more than he had in Curaçao. That being said, he felt like he’d seen nearly everything there was to see in these waters. Except dolphins. Elusive buggers. But those were a rare sight on any island, and here he had a great rental house, and he loved the food, the music, and the beautiful, desert-like landscape.

  Do I really want to go? Well, it was a little late now—he already had his plane ticket, and his boss here and the dive op on Saba were already planning for the transfer. And I still need to tell Emily, Boone thought. He’d wanted to tell her about it in person, and now that she was back… He sighed. Enjoy the day, and maybe we’ll talk tonight.

  Boone was about to take a cartful of tanks to the dock when he heard a vehicle pulling into the alley. A bright green Jeep Wrangler Cabrio crunched along the crushed coral surface. The top was down on Emily’s pride and joy and the blonde driver was bobbing her head to an island beat. Boone couldn’t actually hear the song—early in the morning, Emily used earbuds to listen to tunes while driving with the jeep’s top down—but she tended to gravitate to calypso, reggae, and an occasional bout of Jimmy Buffett. She stopped the jeep and hopped out, dancing to the pulse of the music. Seeing Boone, her face lit up and she began to shimmy along the alley toward him, phone held in one hand, the other held high, pulsing with the music. Before she left for the UK, Martin had given her a CD of a local music style called “Bari” and she’d transferred it to her phone. He guessed that was the likely culprit for her performance. Stepping over to the whiteboard next to the closed door of the shop he grabbed a dry erase marker and wrote “Bari?”

  She clicked the music off and removed the earbuds. “Your snack buddy did me right! This ‘Papa Papiamentu’ guy is ace! We should go see ‘im, yeah?”

  “I thought you’d like him, so I checked. Papa P plays at the Kunuku Arawak out on the Atlantic side once a week.”

  “Brilliant, it’s a date. Now, let’s go bring in the boat.”

  As they headed down to the dock, Boone said, “You’re here early.”

  “Yeah, well, I wanted to get here before you got the boat. Don’t want you smashing it into the dock again.”

  “I didn’t ‘smash’ it into the dock… I just came in a little hard.”

  Emily giggled and gave him a sly look. “I’m not going to touch that,” she said, stripping off her shirt and shorts, revealing a lime green bikini.

  “You sure love your green, Em.” Boone tossed his shirt next to hers and shrugged off his sports sandals, leaving everything on the dock.

  “My first pair of fins was green. My dive trainer said they were great, easy to see. Figured I’d stick with a good thing.” She ponytailed her hair with a band she kept on her wrist.

  “You got in late. You get enough sleep?”

  “I got plenty of kip in the Amsterdam airport, no worries.”

  “How was the wedding?”

  “It was aces! My sister looked amazing. And I had a great time the rest of the trip—got to catch up with a lot of people.” She looked at him. “Y
our face is a bit red, you get a rash or something?”

  He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Just a little aggressive on my morning shave, I guess.”

  The side of her mouth quirked up. “Mm hm. How long did it take to shave it off?” When Boone hesitated, she burst into laughter. “What, you think half the staff wasn’t sending me pictures of your furry face!”

  Boone smiled at her. “It’s good to see you again, Em.”

  Her laughter subsided and she smiled back. “You too, Boone.” She turned and started down the pier. “Let’s get to work, yeah?”

  Ignoring the skiff that some of the other dive staff used to bring in Rock Beauty’s boat, Kleine Dancer, from its mooring, they prepared for their ongoing competition, a friendly race to the boat. Boone was a powerful swimmer and usually won, so Emily had declared he had to perform a task before he could plunge in after her, the task changing every time.

  “Let’s see…” Emily looked around the dock, tapping her lower lip with a fingertip. Boone noticed the nails were painted red with a little white diagonal stripe on each.

  “Are those… dive flags?”

  “Yeah, you like ’em? I was bored in the airport. One of the girls at Sand Dollar had ‘em and I totally stole the idea. I’m gonna do my toes next.” She waggled her toes at him and suddenly her eyes lit up. “Oh! I know.” She grabbed her flip flops and walked them over to the edge of the pier. Grinning at him, she tossed them into the ocean, away from the dive boat. “Oh no, my flip flops! They can’t swim! Save them! And then you can go for the boat.” Throwing him a mischievous wink she arced gracefully into the water, swimming for the Kleine Dancer.

  Boone hurled himself in and stroked for the flip flops, bobbing in the waves. He reached them in seconds. Green. Of course. Now where am I gonna…? He slipped his hands into them, making a pair of paddles and tore into the water, angling for the boat. He could see Emily splashing along, halfway there. The flip flops on his hands were actually a hindrance so he aimed for the boat, took a deep breath, and plunged under the surface, employing a dolphin kick to eat up the distance. A skilled swimmer can swim much faster underwater, and he rarely did this in his contests with Emily. But she threw those flip flops awfully far, he thought, knifing through the water. He spotted the boat ahead, Emily’s shapely legs kicking away above. The bow was closest to him and she was angling for the stern, nearly there. Boone shot to the surface, took the flip flop straps in his teeth, and launched himself at the gunwale of the bow, using his wiry forearms to pull his thin frame up before throwing his legs over and landing lightly on the deck. Emily was just hauling herself onto the swim platform, breathing hard, looking both exhausted and exhilarated. She laughed, pointing at him.