Deep Shadow

by Nick Sullivan

  Over a meal of lobster, steak, cigars, and rum, Moreno learned that the man he’d brought over was a lieutenant in the Bolivarian Cartel—a cartel that would later become the Cartel of the Suns. The Catatumbo River, the man explained, had the advantageous distinction of traveling through sparsely populated areas from Lake Maracaibo all the way to the Colombian border. The cartel was looking for young men who knew the river to assist them. Moreno quickly agreed.

  Returning home the next day, he found his uncle and bought the boat outright. Within a week he was making his first trips up the Catatumbo to the Colombian border, transporting cartel representatives, drugs, and cash to and fro. Occasionally, the cartel would send the young Moreno further afield, his boat handling skills proving invaluable. Several smuggling trips to Aruba and Curaçao were quite successful, and on a more distant foray to Trinidad, he outmaneuvered a patrol boat, escaping into the mangroves on the west side of the island.

  Over the following years, Moreno became a valuable asset to the cartel and when he turned eighteen he joined the Navy—though only after training his younger brother to continue his work on the Catatumbo. With the help of powerful allies within the Venezuelan Armed Forces, he quickly rose to the rank of Capitán de Fragata—“captain of the frigate”—a rank equivalent to Commander. And now he had his own command… of a frigate. Apropos.

  “Commander, Colonel Muñoz is calling.”

  “Very good.” Moreno handed the binoculars to his aide and headed to the communications station, picking up the headset. “Commander Moreno.”

  “Commander, this is Colonel Muñoz. Everything is proceeding according to plan. You are to proceed to twelve degrees North, sixty-three degrees, thirty-five minutes West and await instructions.”

  “Copy your previous, Colonel. Do you have an ETA for the rendezvous?”

  There was an unusually long silence in the earphones. When Muñoz returned he spoke brusquely. “Not at this time, Commander. You will be contacted. Out.” The radio went silent.

  He sounded… odd, Moreno thought. Muñoz usually had a playful manner, boisterous at times. This must be an enormous shipment for him to be so wound-up. He tore off the notepad page he’d written the latitude and longitude on and handed them to the navigation officer. “Plot a course for these coordinates.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We will be beginning the exercise soon, Commander?” Garcia, his second-in-command asked.

  “Yes. There will be further orders once we reach the coordinates, I expect.”

  The command staff knew they were to rendezvous with a submarine—but they believed it was one of the two legitimate military submarines in the Venezuelan Navy, not a narco sub. While there were several other crew members on the cartel payroll, there was no need for anyone to know the specifics. The plan was to rendezvous with the unnamed attack sub and practice maneuvers in the northern reaches of Venezuelan territorial waters. If any foreign asset got too close, they were to drive it off. There had been recent talk from the United States of unspecified military options to respond to the situation under the Maduro regime. While this was likely just bluster, the Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela were on high alert, and the ruse was perfect.

  Commander Eduardo Moreno looked over the navigation officer’s shoulder at the digital map. The coordinates were for a location eight miles north of the white sand beaches of Isla La Blanquilla. Moreno recalled a weekend of debauchery on that beautiful, sandy oasis. That long-term memory brought up a short-term one: the bottle of Diplomático Rum in his stateroom.

  This mission is a cakewalk—a lucrative cakewalk. A little pre-celebration won’t hurt. “Garcia, you have the conn.”

  Before leaving the Deco Stop bar, Boone and Emily had been treated to a brilliant sunset and had enjoyed regaling the bartender, Penny, with tales of their unusual sighting. She treated them to a couple pints of Bonaire Blonde, a new local craft beer. It was quite refreshing and they might have stayed for another had “Lone Michaels” not walked in. Named for Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live fame, the forty-something fellow was actually named Jack Smith, but his snow-white hair and tendency to always be by himself had earned him his moniker. “Lone Michaels” would spend his evenings visiting various resorts, trying to glom on to others, asking what they were up to and inviting himself along. Penny had given Boone a warning look when “Lone” walked in, scanning for victims, and Boone had quickly settled his tab and pulled Emily toward the entrance.

  “I think he saw us,” Emily hissed. She raised her phone and opened the camera app, deftly switching the view to selfie and using it to look over her shoulder. “He’s coming after us.” Giggling, she started humming the theme to Jaws.

  “Keep walking. I see our salvation.” Ahead, a trio of boisterous young tourists was on their way in from the road.

  Emily squeaked in mock terror. “He’s almost caught up…”

  “We’ll scrape him off in three… two… one… c’mon!” He took her hand and picked up the pace, sliding past and angling behind the incoming group. Behind them, he heard: “Hey guys! Great night, huh? You hitting the Deco Stop? Come with me, I know the bartender.”

  “Those poor bastards,” Emily said somberly as they reached the road and turned right.

  At a quarter past seven, Boone and Emily entered the Buddy Dive Resort, heading toward the sound of tropical music and the flicker of tiki torches. They found a table in the corner and while Emily staked their claim, Boone went to grab a couple plates of food. When he returned, he found Rick and Ron already seated, Polar beers in hand. Emily’s back was to him and the brothers were laughing at something Emily was doing with her hands.

  “I didn’t do it right?”

  “No, you just said you liked his pizza monster,” Rick said, choking on his beer.

  “Well, maybe I do!”

  “What’re you up to, Em?” Boone asked, setting their plates down.

  “Ron was showing me some of that sign language. Ooh! Blackened snapper!”

  Ron stood, “I’m gonna plate up. I’m starving.”

  “Be right with you,” Rick said.

  Boone sat. “So, you hear anything from your friend?”

  “Yes, indeed I did. My ‘friend’ is Lieutenant Mary Murkowski. She’s active duty, working with the Joint Interagency Task Force South, based in Key West. They were very interested in your photos. Lemme grab some grub and I’ll fill you in.”

  He went to join his brother and Emily leaned in. “This is cool, yeah? I’m feeling a secret agent vibe coming on.” Her eyes shone with excitement. Boone could finally see them again, now that the sun had gone down and she had shed her shades.

  “Secret agent, huh? You wanna be a Bond girl?”

  Emily looked offended. “How about I be Bond, and you can be my eye candy.”

  Boone laughed. “Touché.”

  “Now, you’re going to need a sexy pun name. Hmm…” she tapped a fingertip to her lips in thought, the fingernail still festooned with dive flag nail polish.

  Before she could come up with one, the Claassens returned, their plates heaped with ribs, fish, and tropical fruit.

  “Okay, first lemme give you a little backstory,” Rick said as he sat at the table. “I used to be a naval intelligence officer, serving aboard a Perry class frigate, the U.S.S. Hawes. I spent a lot of time in the Southern Command, doing drug interdiction in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.”

  “Wait, ‘intelligence officer’…” Emily leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Were you some kind of Navy spy?”

  Rick smiled. “No, not exactly. Naval intelligence officers are responsible for knowing our opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, tactics, weapon capabilities, sensors— so we can provide the best advice in tactical and strategic situations. Now, it just so happens that the ‘opponents’ I was dealing with, in many cases, were drug smugglers and pirates
. So, when you showed me the photos of your mystery friend, it reminded me of something I’d heard about.

  “The cartels usually rely on small planes, go-fast boats, and standard cargo vessels for most of their maritime narcotics shipments but toward the end of the 90’s, the Coast Guard started hearing rumors about semi-submersibles carrying drugs. They called them ‘Bigfoots’ because, though they’d heard about them, no one actually saw them. That changed when authorities finally seized one off Costa Rica, carrying several tons of cocaine. From that point on, these semi-subs were spotted several times a month on average, but rarely seized because the crews would simply scuttle them if they were about to be boarded.

  “Now, those subs were really more like low-lying barges, riding just at or under the surface with only a tiny conning tower above the waves. Kind of like that Civil War ironclad, the USS Monitor, except instead of the gun turret, it might have a little box with a watertight window. This makes them very hard to spot on radar, but not that difficult to eyeball from the air. Even drones are pretty good at spotting that type nowadays. But right about the time I was working in tandem with the US Coast Guard, we started hearing of a new ‘Bigfoot’. A true submarine, built from scratch by the richer cartels.” Rick dug his phone out of his pocket and pulled up his photos. “Mary sent me a few images.” He handed it to Emily. “There’s the first ‘Bigfoot 2.0’. Found by the Colombians.”

  Emily looked at the image, her brow scrunching up. “It doesn’t look like… well… much of anything.” She held it up for Boone.

  “It was only partially constructed,” Rick said. “Fairly ambitious, our engineers said, and might have become a true submarine, but who knows if it could have ever sailed. But this next one…” He reached over and swiped to the next photo, a small submarine in a warehouse, held upright on wooden chocks. “That one was the first true narco sub ever found.”

  “That looks familiar, all right.” Boone said. “Where was this found?”

  “Ecuador. Though they never tested it, we’re pretty sure it could dive to sixty feet and carry a crew of five or six and about eight tons of cocaine. But Mary thinks what you saw would put that little fella to shame.” He took his phone back and pulled up an email, reading a few notes from it. “The Joint Interagency Task Force South is a multi-agency organization, utilizing assets and intel from fifteen countries, including the United States Navy and Coast Guard. After I sent your photos she spoke to several of her colleagues and they are convinced that what you saw is one of these new submarines they’ve heard about, ‘Bigfoot 3.0’ if you will, designed by former Soviet submarine engineers.”

  “Wait… the sub’s Russian?” Boone asked.

  Emily smacked his arm. “No, designed by Russians. See, this is why I’m Emily Bond and you’re just… Rod Everhard.” She grinned at Boone with an expectant look.

  Boone bit his lip, suppressing a smile. “Don’t ask,” he said when Rick and Ron looked at them with bemusement. “So… submarine…probably built by Russians… please continue.”

  “See, Russia’s navy is a rusty mess and their economy is in the shitter,” Rick said. “We knew some of their engineers were helping the North Koreans and Iranians build some midget submarines, or ‘mini-subs’, but apparently, some of these Russians were tracked to South America. The belief is, Iran’s latest home-grown mini-subs are quite good. Going solely off of your photos it’s hard to say for certain, but if your estimates of its size and performance are correct, Mary thinks your sub was designed by these Russian experts. Just the fact that it has two propellers instead of one is a clue. You see, most modern submarines utilize just one propeller… except for Soviet boomers.”

  “What’s a boomer?” Ron asked, polishing off his fourth baby-back rib.

  “Nuclear missile submarine. They’re quite large and Soviet cold war engineering couldn’t come up with a good enough single screw propeller for them, so they went with two. And those propellers were in circular housings.”

  Boone sat forward in his chair. “That’s what we saw! Twin propellers, with housings around them.”

  “Right. Except no military has built a submarine with twin screws in years—but if you were a Soviet cold war era sub designer, maybe out of work, looking to freelance…”

  “Whoa…” Emily whispered.

  “Just out of curiosity,” Boone said, “this joint task force you mentioned… is the Netherlands a part of it?”

  “They are, and Mary is making sure they know everything you’ve told us.”

  Boone grimaced. “Whatever good that’ll do. The Coast Guard over in Curaçao said it was Venezuela’s problem.”

  Rick snorted. “It’s probably Venezuela’s sub! Their main cartel is pretty much composed of military officers and government officials. But the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard really does have its hands full, and there isn’t much they can do if the sub’s in Venezuelan waters.”

  Boone sighed, sitting back and poking at his snapper with a fork. “So that’s it, then.”

  “Not necessarily.” Rick took a pull from his beer bottle and plunked it down. “You free for a little nautical excursion tomorrow afternoon?”

  “We’ve got a couple morning boat dives…” Boone began.

  “We know, we’re on ‘em,” Ron said.

  “But after that, I don’t know.”

  “We don’t do afternoon boats all that often,” Emily said, excited, “and Frenchy loves being done before two. Plus, we always encourage folks to avail themselves of all the shore dives.”

  “Let’s just assume we’re available,” Boone said. “What do you have in mind?”

  Rick looked at his brother for a moment—it was clear they had discussed this. “Boone, do you know any freelance boat captains who are… a bit unconventional? Someone who might not be overly concerned about crossing borders?”

  Boone held Rick’s eyes for a moment. “I don’t, but I know someone who does. Why?”

  “How about you see if they’re available tomorrow and charter the boat for two o’clock. We’ll handle the expenses.”

  Boone didn’t know if “we” meant the Claassen brothers themselves, or if it meant Rick’s “friends”. He supposed it didn’t matter. “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll talk to him tonight and let you know before we head out for the morning dive.”

  Emily made a little squeak and bounced in her chair. “Secret agent stuff, yeah?”

  Walking back along the dimly lit road to Rock Beauty Divers, Emily pointed up at the night sky. “What’s that one? It’s kinda reddish-orangey.”

  Boone’s childhood friend had had a telescope and he’d learned a lot about the night sky from his brainy buddy. Emily liked to test him. “That’s Arcturus. And you’re spot-on about the color. It’s a red giant.”

  “And you call me ‘nerd’ when I upload a photo,” Emily said, playfully shouldering into him, all five feet of her hitting hard enough that he stumbled into the road. This being Bonaire at ten o’clock at night, there were no cars in sight.

  “Easy there, ‘double oh sexy’. You’re not licensed to kill yet.”

  “I barely touched you,” she laughed, then grabbed his arm and pulled him close. “Here, get outta the road. I’ll keep hold of you, ya silly git.” They walked in silence a moment, Boone enjoying her warmth pressed against his side. “Double oh sexy,” she said softly. “That’s good, I like it.”

  Rock Beauty was only a few properties away from Buddy, so they were back to the dive shop in short order. The lights were off but there was enough illumination from the moon and the lights along the nearby dock. Entering the open-air drying room to get their belongings from their lockers, Boone was acutely aware of her beside him in the dark. A breeze was blowing in from the sea, and the room smelled of salt and neoprene.

  “Boone,” Emily said. “It’s a long way back to Rincon and you usually head back long before now, yeah?
Why don’t you throw your bike in my jeep—crash at my place?” Emily had an apartment in Kralendijk, down the road.

  Boone closed his locker and turned to her. He was over a foot taller than her, and he could see her eyes below, catching the light from the glow of the dock, looking up expectantly. He was fairly sure she wasn’t merely offering a means to avoid a late-night bike ride and he wanted to say yes. But she has a boyfriend, his mind reminded him. You’ve overheard her mention him three times. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that you’re leaving and you still haven’t worked up the guts to tell her. “Em… I… I need to talk to Martin and arrange our, um… ‘unconventional’ boat charter.”

  He could almost feel her anticipation subside, her big smile suddenly appearing, joining her eyes in reflecting the dock lights. “Sure, no prob.” She headed outside to her jeep and Boone grabbed his bicycle and followed. She hopped in before he could reach her. “Safe home, Boone. I need my ‘Bond boy’ well rested for the big adventure!” She started her Jeep and backed swiftly down the alley to the main road before turning south and vanishing from sight.