Deep Shadow

by Nick Sullivan

  The bike ride back to Rincon only took Boone a half hour on average, but tonight he decided to add a few minutes, taking the scenic route along the coast on the Queen’s Highway. The moon was well past full but it sent a beautiful carpet of pearlescence across the ocean to Boone’s left.

  Should I have said yes? A sizeable portion of the real estate in Boone’s brain had certainly wanted to. And Emily had crashed at Boone’s place before a couple times, once after a raucous night at Martin’s “snack”, another time after a late-night concert at one of the little local music venues in the north of the island. Nothing had happened. They were just friends, right? And, now that he thought about it, she’d offered to let him crash at her place before; after they’d been out late with a group of divers in downtown Kralendijk. He barely knew her at the time and hadn’t thought anything of it. But there had been something different about this offer.

  He’d been on a few dates during his time on Bonaire but hadn’t been in a serious relationship since Curaçao. Maria was a beauty from Colombia and they were together for nearly a year and a half but when Boone decided he wanted to switch over to Bonaire the two of them had drifted apart. They still messaged each other from time to time but he hadn’t seen her in ages.

  He was about to leave the coastal road for the inland track toward home when a silver streak above drew his eye. Here, far from the lights of Kralendijk, the stars crowded the night sky. And there—another streak. He pulled his bike over to the side and watched intently. The Perseid meteor shower had peaked over a week ago but Bonaire was still on the tail end of it. Of course, now that he’d bothered to pull over, the universe decided not to indulge him any further. Given what I saw today, I can’t really complain, he thought.

  As Boone cycled into his Rincon neighborhood, he saw that things were hopping at Washington Snackbaai. Martin’s snack officially closed at eleven but he’d stay open until midnight if customers were enjoying themselves. Some younger men were laughing and clapping while one of their number did a little dance, bottles of beer in their hands. A couple older gentlemen were playing All Fours at a plastic table and another was seated on a stool, talking to Martin through his counter window. Martin waved to Boone as he dismounted his bike, pointing at a bottle of beer with an inquisitive raising of his brows. Boone shook his head and pointed around the side of the brightly painted storefront. Martin nodded, saying something to his customer before disappearing from the window. Boone reached the backdoor to the kitchen and leaned his bike against the wall.

  “Bon nochi. You’re here late. You have enough to eat today?”

  Boone smiled. “Did the barbecue at Buddy, so yeah. You look like you’re having a good night.”

  “Yes, busy night! Little Nora had a birthday party here and I’m almost out of ice cream. And you? How was your day?”

  Boone told Martin about his day. The old man, who’d seen nearly everything there was to see on this little island, goggled at Boone, his mouth open.

  “An actual submarine? You sure it’s not one of those Atlantis thingies, like they have in Aruba?”

  “No, Emily suggested that, but after talking to a couple Americans who are diving with us we’re sure it was a narco sub.”

  “Makes sense. Our friends down south are getting bolder every day. Darcy says their boat runs have tripled in the last year.”

  “Actually, Martin, Darcy is who I wanted to talk to you about. Is he around?”

  Darcy DaSilva was a colorful character on the island, though he was only here about half the time, making boat runs to and from the ABC islands and Venezuela. Sometimes these little trips were aboveboard, sometimes not, but one thing Darcy was not known for was running drugs. Martin Petersen was one of the few men he trusted—and one of the few who had his current phone number.

  “You’re in luck, he’s on island. Saw him earlier in the day. What do you have in mind?”

  “I need to charter him.”

  Martin narrowed his eyes. “What for?”

  “Let’s just call it a ‘fishing expedition’. My new friends are paying.”

  Martin nodded. “What time and for how long?”

  “Two o’clock and open ended.”

  “Okay, I’ll call him. When you come by for your breakfast, I’ll let you know what he say.”

  “Thanks, Martin.”

  “You’re welcome. Now get in here and help me with some dishes.” As Boone smiled and went into the kitchen the old man followed. “So, Dutchy… if you’re going fishing for a submarine, what sort of hook you gonna use?”

  The Zil rode along the surface, charging its batteries and feeding fresh air into the ventilation system. The scrubbers could keep the air fresh for several days and the lithium batteries could last just as long if the speed was kept very low. On top of that, Samarkandi had procured four large industrial buckets of lithium hydroxide—in the event the scrubbers went down, the chemical powder could be spread across the deck to soak up carbon dioxide from the air while repairs were made. Lenox Bua, the Trinidadian terrorist, knew all these things.

  “Why we running on de surface if we don’t have to?” he asked. He was outside on the deck, getting some fresh air with Hamid Samarkandi, who stood beside him, his hand gripping the rope line. The Trinidadian was on his second cigarette, which seemed to defeat the purpose of going up for some “fresh air”.

  “This vessel is still largely untested,” the Uzbek engineer explained. “Since we know the only military asset nearby is the frigate, it is sensible to keep our air fresh and our batteries charged, saving our underwater time for daylight hours.”

  “But what if de frigate sees us? It gwonna know dis ain’t no navy submarine.”

  “True… but they’re not close enough to see us. Zougam has been careful to keep them well over the horizon. As long as we’re in Venezuelan waters, we should be able to travel unmolested—her maritime borders extend all the way to the Northern Caribbean.”

  “So, how come Venezuela has so much ocean territory, huh?” Lenox sounded annoyed.

  Trinidad and Venezuela’s coasts were only a few miles apart, and Samarkandi suspected their respective maritime boundaries might be a sore spot, especially for a Trinidadian fisherman—and Lenox Bua had been a fisherman before becoming radicalized. Zougam had told him so, and it was one of the reasons Lenox had been selected. His knowledge of navigation and marine engine repair made him ideal. Another consideration, was his accent; between Lenox and the jailhouse convert, Mohammed Martinez, the mission had both a native Venezuelan and an English-speaking islander to put on the radio, in the event they needed to communicate with curious mariners during their transit. Of course, the idea was to avoid communication of any kind, with the exception of calls from the lighthouse or frigate. But the Trinidadian had asked him a question.

  “Venezuela controls an island west of Dominica,” Samarkandi said. “Aves Island.”

  “Wait. We just came from there!”

  The Uzbek laughed and shook his head. “No, different island. That confused me too. Isla Aves de Sotavento is where the lighthouse was. Isla de Aves, or just ‘Aves Island’, is different. Apparently, both have many birds roosting on them, and the Spaniards who discovered them weren’t too creative about the names. Actually, the similar names and all those birds have led to some territorial disputes. The names caused some confusion in treaties, and the birds were shitting so much, people came to try to collect the guano for fertilizer and gunpowder.” Samarkandi thought a moment, then started raising fingers, one by one. “Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, America, Britain—they all claimed it. Finally, Venezuela showed up with a warship and soldiers and just took it. Built a ‘scientific naval base’ there, basically a big hut on stilts, to give them a permanent presence.”

  “Does anyone live dere?”

  “Aside from the scientists, no. It’s just four acres of sand and bird shit, one hurric
ane away from becoming a sand bar. But because it’s just eighty miles from American waters, it’s quite valuable to us.”

  Lenox grunted understanding and the two men stood in silence for a while before the Trinidadian spoke again. “You a smart cookie. You tink dis crazy scheme can work?”

  “Inshallah, it will. Assuming the submarine has no serious mechanical difficulties, we should be able to reach the Northern Caribbean without interference. The most dangerous part will be once we cross out of Venezuelan waters.”

  The Trinidadian grinned in the moonlight. “Not really the most dangerous part, though… is it?”

  Samarkandi was silent. It was one thing to talk about martyrdom in the abstract, and quite another to have it in your immediate future. Growing up, Hamid Samarkandi had not been overly focused on religion, turning instead to science—a choice many in the Central Asian Republics were able to make while part of the hyper-secular Soviet Union. Hamid’s younger brother Hussein had had other ideas, joining the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a group formed by a former Russian paratrooper after the dissolution of the USSR in 1990. The IMU had nearly been obliterated and its leader killed when the Americans came to Afghanistan, the Uzbek jihadis having made the fatal mistake of fighting alongside the Taliban. Hussein went to Uzbekistan for a time and while Hamid was designing submarines in Iran, he managed to return home to visit him. He had tried to talk his brother into leaving with him, but instead his brother had brought him to an itinerant imam who had led Hamid to see many things quite differently. When Hamid returned to Iran he began attending a Salafist Sunni mosque in Bandar Abbas on a regular basis.

  In 2014, having been driven into a remote area near Kandahar, the IMU declared its allegiance to the Islamic State and Hamid learned that his brother had rejoined them. Very shortly thereafter, his brother and a substantial number of Uzbek fighters were killed in an American airstrike. The next day, Hamid Samarkandi quietly pledged himself to the Islamic State. Iran was no friend to ISIL, so he jumped at the opportunity to join Igor Popov in Venezuela, closer to the cursed Americans. Shortly thereafter, he was contacted by Sulayman Zougam. Plans were made, the submarine built, and now they were sailing toward the infidel with ten tons of high explosives in the bow. Soon, they would strike a blow against the murderers of his brother.

  But while Samarkandi had joined the cause with a warrior’s fervor, some of his white-hot hate had cooled in his years in Venezuela. He had spent more time around the cartel members and Popov than he had his own kind and had not gone to mosque more than a handful of times. He had watched some American movies that had been quite entertaining and had enjoyed himself the few times he had joined Popov in Caracas. He hadn’t done the things the Russian had done, of course, but still… possibilities. If he achieved martyrdom… there would be no more possibilities. When he had watched those flamingos take off, the day his brethren had captured the sub, he had thought How beautiful. I will never see that sight again. But he felt he had been chosen—that any choice he might have made had been taken away from him. It was his fate, his purpose, to see this through to the end. He would do his duty, but he no longer believed there was anything glorious about it.

  “You are right, Lenox. The most dangerous part of our voyage will be the end of our voyage.” He looked to the man. “Are you ready?”

  The man shrugged and flicked his cigarette butt overboard. “I been ready since da coup failed.”

  In 1990, over a hundred members of a Trinidadian Islamist group, Jamaat al Muslimeen, tried to overthrow the government of Trinidad and Tobago. One group attacked the parliament in Port of Spain, seizing the prime minister and his cabinet and holding them hostage. Lenox had been part of another group that stormed the offices of the only television station on the island. In the end, the coup had failed, and the only reason Lenox and his compatriots weren’t dead or rotting in jail was because a Trinidadian court had upheld an offer of amnesty that was put forth to end the sieges without further bloodshed. The amnesty offer had later been withdrawn, and while no mass arrests followed, Lenox had thought it best to relocate, fighting in Libya for the Islamic State.

  “Hamid! Lenox!” Zougam called from the base of the ladder to the deck hatch. “Come below. It’s time to contact Omar.”

  Descending the steps into the conning tower, Samarkandi’s palm encountered something sticky. He lifted his hand, revealing a small, dark stain on the metal railing. Dried blood. Popov’s blood. Scrubbing his hand against his pants, Samarkandi made a mental note to clean the railing at the first opportunity. He joined Zougam beside the radio station at a small desk to the side of the helm. The bearded terrorist leader was leaning over Mohammed Martinez, who was manning the radio.

  “Raise them,” Zougam said.

  “Langoustine, Langoustine, this is Pargo Rojo, do you read?” Martinez used a pair of invented fishing boat names to make radio contact.

  “Pargo Rojo, this is Langoustine. We read you. Are the dorado biting?” That was Omar. Of the North African terrorists, his Spanish was the cleanest, having been schooled in Madrid.

  “They are good. Why don’t you head to these coordinates and try your luck there.” Martinez then listed coordinates that were slightly to the north and east of the current location of the Venezuelan frigate, Mariscal Sucre.

  “Thank you for the tip! I owe you some beers. Langoustine out.”

  Omar would now be putting Muñoz on the radio to contact the frigate, ordering her to shift further to the north and east. The Zil would adjust as well, shadowing the frigate fifteen miles off her port stern. This would place the untested submarine closer to the shallower waters of the islands to the east, in the event it had any mechanical difficulties.

  “Well done, Mohammed,” Zougam said, patting Martinez on the shoulder. “Keep listening in case Omar has any difficulty with Señor Muñoz.” He walked past the Oukabir brothers who were sleeping on air mattresses along the inner hull, making his way to the nautical chart Samarkandi had spread out on a table near the GPS. “Where are we, Hamid?”

  Samarkandi consulted the GPS and placed a fingertip on the chart. “Here. Two hundred miles west of Saint Vincent. We have a couple hours before sunrise, plenty of time to move northeast before resuming our bearing for the eastern tip of Saint Croix.”

  “And after we pass that, on to Saint Thomas,” Zougam said. “Excellent. We will raise the periscope for a moment, find the largest clump of cruise ships, and approach from beneath.”

  “If the depth allows,” Samarkandi cautioned. “If not, we may need to come alongside one. But the most effective attack would be to catch a large one as it is arriving or departing. Sink it in open water.”

  “You know submarines, Hamid, but I know explosives. We have ten tons of Semtex—if several ships are packed together at the piers, that cluster will be our target.”

  King Cock decided that the hedge right next to Boone’s bedroom window was the ideal spot to announce his existence to the world this morning, and Boone nearly hit the ceiling. He dressed and headed out for his pre-dawn exercise, deciding on a route that would take him to the crashing surf on the northern coast and the row of twelve huge windmills that had been installed there. Returning home from his ride, he showered and packed his bag, stuffing it with some extra clothes, power bars, and a few bottles of water. Heading out, he walked his bicycle to Martin’s snack.

  “You’re late,” the old man said as Boone entered the kitchen.

  “You’re early,” Boone retorted. “I thought I’d have to wait for you to open.”

  “That damn rooster,” Martin muttered. “One of these days, he’s gonna be in a pastechi.”

  “So, did you talk to Darcy?”

  “I did. There’s an old pier to the north of the Black Durgon Inn. He’ll meet you there at two.”

  “We might be a few minutes late. Depends on how quick Em and I can close up.”

  “He
’ll be there until two thirty; then he said he’d need to scoot.”

  “Understood. Thanks, Martin.”

  “You planning on doing anything foolish, Boone? I mean, more foolish than your average day of foolishness?”

  “You know, I joked about it last night, but I really think I called it like it is—this is a fishing expedition. I can’t just let it go—’oh well, I saw a submarine, that was cool… now, back to looking for eagle rays.’ We’re probably going to go back to the dive site and see what we can figure out. I don’t know, maybe it’s still there, sitting on the bottom?”

  “You know it isn’t.”

  Boone sighed. “Yeah.”

  “So, if you decide you want to follow it to where you think it went…?”

  “I’m assuming Darcy might have some ideas about that, from what I’ve heard about him.”

  “You know what’s going on with our neighbors. It can be dangerous out there. I would tell you to be careful, but since I’ve seen you go up against a knife with your bare foot I’m not sure you’d listen.” He handed Boone a big bag.

  “That’s way too much pastechi for me, Martin. I—” He stopped when he took the bag and felt just how heavy it was. He looked inside. The objects within were wrapped in pastry parchment but Boone could tell what they were.

  “Your Glocks?”

  “On loan. You remember how they work, right?”

  Martin had had a run-in with a local gang several years ago. The Bonairean police had busted the group up, but not before Martin had sought out some personal protection for his business. He had taken Boone shooting with them to the ranch of a local friend and the two of them had practiced on defenseless cacti. Martin had declared Boone’s accuracy “not too terrible”, which meant he thought he was pretty good—and Boone had hit most of what he’d aimed at.