The Devil and the Deep Blue Spy

by Tom Savage

  First, Ralph led her over to one side of the mound and pointed downward past the trees. Nora squinted, just making out the shapes in the moonlight. In a cove on the south side of the island, a medium-size speedboat and a large, flat craft were moored at a wooden dock. The speedboat was presumably the one Eb saw arriving for groceries every week at the marina. The big vessel looked like a tourist boat, a big water taxi with rows of benches for about thirty people. From this angle, Nora could see that the curve of the bay concealed the boats from outside view. No one on a passing ship would see them unless they entered the cove, which was too small and shallow for ships.

  “That solves one mystery I was wondering about,” Ralph whispered, and Nora nodded. Now they knew where these people stashed their transportation.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Nora nodded again. “It’s one-thirty now; I’m betting everyone’s asleep. Let’s see their setup and go back to Martinique.”

  “They might be asleep,” Ralph said, “but they’ll have a night watch.”

  “How many?” Nora asked.

  He frowned. “That depends on how big the place is and how many people are down there.”

  “Okay,” Nora said. “Let’s go.”

  Ralph held up his gun in the moonlight, and Nora saw that there was a long, plump cylinder attached to the business end of his semiautomatic: a noise-reducing gas suppressor. With the weapon in his right hand and the blue flashlight in his left, he led the way down the hillside toward the beach. Nora followed, careful to step where he stepped and pause when he did. They entered the trees again, moving slowly. Nora’s anxiety grew as they neared the bottom of the hill. She wondered what they would find there, and she fancied she heard noises all around her.

  Remembering the iguana and imagining lizards, sand crabs, mongooses, and whatever birds lived in this tropical habitat, she tried to ignore the constant rustling. At one point she heard a snapping sound behind her, and she whirled around, convinced that something human was following them, sneaking up behind them in the dark; she even had the actor’s sensation that she had an audience and was being observed. She held her breath, peering into the shadows: nothing. Slowly exhaling, she faced forward again and hurried to catch up with Ralph.

  Nora was grateful for her escort. She knew her husband’s assistant mainly as a voice on the other end of the phone, a rather serious but friendly computer geek who occasionally helped her with her missions. He’d grown up in the D.C. area and attended George Washington University with vague plans of being a computer programmer or a software designer until he’d met his roommate’s father, a recruiting agent for the CIA.

  That’s all Nora had known about Ralph until now, and she was glad to see that he was a confident, capable, motivated junior agent whose loyalty to her husband extended to her. Ralph trusted Nora’s instincts—which was why they were here in this jungle on this tiny dot in the vast Atlantic Ocean, facing an unknown enemy. Nora hoped she’d still have his trust when this was over.

  They had traveled a long way down the hill, and now they came to what looked like the bottom. She could hear the breakers on the beach and smell the salt air from the ocean. A dense carpet of green leaves and fronds had materialized a few feet below them; Nora could see in the weak blue light that it extended outward from the hill in all directions. Ralph came to a halt, holding up a restraining arm before her.

  “Wait,” he whispered.

  Nora waited as Ralph moved a few more feet down the hill and stopped again, leaning down to peer into the darkness. He held up the blue light, scanning the leaves. Nora looked at them, suddenly wondering how they could be there. If this was the base of the hill, why didn’t they see anything of the camp that caused the glow below them? She could still see the glow of light, but it seemed to emanate from under the forest floor. How is that possible? Nora asked herself. Is their camp actually underground? She didn’t think so…

  Ralph was on his knees, staring down. Without turning around, he raised an arm and waved, indicating that Nora should join him. She climbed down the final few feet and knelt beside him. She looked at the carpet of vegetation, then leaned down to look more closely. She drew in another small gasp.

  A blanket of black wire mesh was stretched out under the leaves, effectively covering and obscuring the entire facility underneath it. The wire mesh was attached to the ground in front of them with metal pegs and spread out over the tops of the surrounding trees, which acted as poles, creating a circus-tent effect. Nora realized that it was precisely that: a big top. She squinted to see beyond the camouflaging leaves and fronds and the mesh underpinning for a bird’s-eye view of the compound.

  She saw two long buildings running parallel to the base of the mountain, with a big open space nearly the size of a football field between them. The closer building was directly under them where they knelt, and three—no, four smaller buildings stood in a row off to the side of it. Nora was calling the six structures “buildings,” but they were actually rounded, arched prefabs of corrugated metal, painted in random splotches of dark colors, probably green and brown to blend into their surroundings as much as possible. She couldn’t see very well in the faint wash of area lights down there, but they looked for all the world like Army-surplus Quonset huts.

  Ralph produced his knife and began cutting the mesh.

  “Let’s get down there and have a look,” he said.

  Chapter 36

  When Ralph had cut a hole in the mesh border big enough for them, he crawled through it first and then held it open for Nora. Now they were inside the circus tent, on the hillside above the nearest long building that hugged the base of the hill. Ralph pointed to their right, then led the way off through the trees in that direction, toward the far north edge of the clearing. They scrambled down the last rise to arrive at ground level, still inside the forest.

  The trees here were mostly palms and sea grapes, because they grew in sand. The same rough, dark gray volcanic granules were here as on the main island; even as far away as this small satellite rock, Pelée’s influence could be seen and felt in the landscape. The sound of the breakers was strong—Nora could see the whitecaps beyond the beach through the curtain of mesh that now surrounded them on three sides, with the steep hillside closing them off at the back. They crouched in the sand, peering across the compound.

  “Which side should we start on?” Ralph whispered. “Left or right?”

  Nora shook her head and placed her lips next to his ear. “There isn’t time for that—we have to split up. I’ll take the long building at the base of the hill and the four outbuildings near it. You take the long one closer to the water. I think the one under the hill is the living quarters, because it has more doors and windows than the other. I can look in windows and count sleeping bodies. You need to do the one on the right because that should have offices, and there might be computers, which you know all about and I don’t. Call me when you’re through, and we’ll decide where to meet up.”

  “Right,” he breathed. He was just turning to go when they both saw movement in the distance. They froze, ducking down lower in the sand and crawling sideways toward a sea grape. They lay down flat behind the tree, watching.

  Two men had come out of the building on the left, the one Nora had guessed was the living quarters. They were too far away to see clearly, but both men had dark hair and wore olive-drab camo. Remembering Zeb, the man who’d followed her in Fort-de-France yesterday, Nora decided this was their official uniform. The two men crossed the open area and entered the other long building through a door at the farthest end from where Nora and Ralph lay.

  “Office,” Ralph whispered. “Or guard station.”

  Nora nodded. They waited behind the tree, watching the door where the two men had entered. After a few moments, the men emerged, and now they wore sidearms in holsters at their waists. The taller, heavyset one went left; t
he smaller one went right. They walked the perimeter of the open area in opposite directions, meeting in the middle at this end. Then, together, they moved toward the beach and began checking along the edge of the mesh tarp. They were coming through the trees toward Nora and Ralph, and now Nora saw that the smaller man was indeed Zeb. They were close enough that she could hear their voices. They were speaking Spanish.

  “Damn,” Nora breathed. She looked around for somewhere for them to conceal themselves, but before she could move Ralph stopped her with a hand on her arm and a shake of his head. As he did this, Zeb and the other man stopped advancing toward them. The two men laughed, a loud sound in this hushed place. With cursory glances around the small camp, they turned and walked back toward the final door in the hut on the right and disappeared inside again. The door closed.

  “Lazy soldiers,” Ralph muttered, and Nora could hear the disgust in his tone. “Bad for them, but good for us.”

  Nora nodded and rose from the sand. “They obviously don’t think there’s anything to seriously look out for on this island. Let’s prove them wrong.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Ralph intoned, and he was grinning again.

  They separated and moved off through the trees toward the camp, Nora on the left and Ralph on the right. When he reached the long building on his side, he turned and waved to her, then vanished behind it. Nora arrived at her building and did the same, crouching down and walking between the back of the long hut and the base of the steep hill.

  This was one of the larger Quonset designs, Nora decided, about eighty feet long and twenty feet wide. She’d noticed six doors at regular intervals on the front, and here at the back was a long row of six windows about five feet high and four feet wide. The windows were glazed, and each one housed an air conditioner. Nora wondered just how powerful the compound’s generator was.

  She soon found out. She moved swiftly down the entire length of the building, careful to remain crouched beneath the windows. She would check out the four smaller structures first, then come back along this side of the main building, peering through windows to count bodies in bunks or sleeping bags, or whatever the setup was here. She peeked around the corner at the far end of the structure, making sure nobody was in the big clearing. Then she ran out into the open and plunged behind the nearest outbuilding, racing along to the last one.

  The steady humming and grinding sounds from inside this squat shed told her what it was before she looked in the one small, unglazed back window. The generator was here, taking up half the space, hooked up to an enormous fuel tank. The other half of the hut held another big machine, and she guessed from all the water hoses involved that this was for the desalinization of ocean water. She’d noticed rain barrels at the ends of all the buildings, with drains leading from the metal gutters along the arched roofs. So, they relied on rainwater and whatever they could desalinize from the Atlantic. Beside the building, at the very edge of the compound, was a large, round, flat tank that she first thought was a swimming pool but that she now realized was the storage tank for their water. She raised her phone and snapped photos of the machines and the tank.

  The next building in was about thirty feet long, and she’d already guessed what it was because it had no windows, only vents. She sneaked around to the front, pushed open the door, and peered inside—a row of stalls, a long urinal, and two sinks at one end; a big open space with several shower nozzles at the other. Latrine; no photos necessary. She crouched and ran around to the rear of the third building. The only back window here also had no glass; it was an open hole with a propped-up metal cover.

  This hut was the same size as the latrine, and one side was piled with boxes and two top-opening freezers. The rest of the space was empty. This would be the storeroom; again, no photos. She was about to move away from the back window when she heard something from inside the room, just under the window and out of sight from her: a human voice, whispering. Someone was sitting on the floor against this wall, and he or she was whispering to someone else. Nora couldn’t make out the words, or even the language. She contemplated leaning in through the window and looking down to see who was there, then thought better of it.

  She moved on to the fourth hut, the largest one closest to the main one, and looked in through the window. A light was on here, so she could see clearly. Two refrigerators, another top-opening freezer, stoves, an oven, a big sink, and a large wooden worktable stood at one end: kitchen. The other half of the space housed two long picnic tables and two smaller tables for four. These people had a decent-size mess hall to go with their electricity, indoor plumbing, and water supply. She took pictures of both sides of the room.

  This compound had been here for at least a year, according to Saul’s story about the tourist boat. It hadn’t been financed by Claude Lamont’s hundred million—Mary Ross had withdrawn that in the Caymans and sent it elsewhere a mere five months ago. Had there been an earlier loan from Claude? Possibly, or maybe they had other investors. So, why did they need the new money?

  She smiled, thinking that perhaps they could use it for a good security system; they clearly hadn’t installed one. She and Ralph had expected trip wires, electronic beams, cameras, alarms, or, at the very least, guards on regular patrol. They hadn’t encountered any of these things, and the two watchmen they’d seen were unmotivated. But seriously, what were these people planning that required so much capital?

  Nora forced herself not to think about that now. She checked her watch: 2:26. Time was essential, and Ralph should be just about finished with the other building. It was time to get back to Martinique and send in the Marines.

  She crept to the end of the mess hall and peeked around the corner to check the open space again, preparing to return to the back of the main hut. But before she could launch herself and sprint from cover to cover, she froze. She flattened herself against the back of the hut and peered around the corner again, feeling a sudden cold numbness creep up her spine.

  A man had come out of the long building across the way, the one Ralph was inspecting. He paused for a moment in front of the open doorway from which he’d emerged, at the opposite end of the structure from the door where Zeb and the other sentry had gone. It was also the opposite end from where Nora now stood, so she saw him from a distance, but she could see that he was naked. The wash of dim light from the area lamps mounted on the long buildings showed her that he was very tall and solid and dark-haired, with deeply tanned skin, a hairy chest, and well-defined musculature. Now he turned his face to the light, and Nora stared, raising a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp.

  Diablo.

  Chapter 37

  The phantom terrorist stepped out into the wide quadrangle, away from the long hut, barefoot in the wet grass. Nora brought up her phone and began clicking as he raised his sculpted arms and stretched them above his head, then dropped them to his sides and looked slowly around the compound, taking it all in. He looked straight up at the dripping dome of mesh and leaves and palm fronds that arched some fifty feet above him, blocking out the sky. He rolled his head from side to side, stretching his neck muscles. Then he turned and called softly over his shoulder, toward the open door.

  After a moment, Carmen Lamont appeared in the doorway and came out to join him on the field. She wore the same dark silk robe she’d worn on her balcony on the Tropic Star four nights ago, only now there was no nightgown underneath it. Her dark hair fell loosely around her shoulders, and she was laughing.

  When she reached him, he took her in his arms and kissed her, and Nora clicked a shot of it. Then he grasped her hand in his, placed his other hand on her waist, and began to dance in a slow, sinuous movement that looked to Nora like a rumba. Click. Carmen pressed against him, matching his steps with her own. They moved around in a circle, their foreheads pressed together, laughing as they gyrated. Click. Carmen abruptly pulled away from him, playfully slapping his hand from her waist. She was la
ughing helplessly now, raising a hand to her mouth and glancing over at the long building beside Nora, where the troops were presumably asleep.

  Nora ducked back behind the corner of the mess hall, holding her breath. When she dared to peek around the corner again, she saw that the two sentries had come out of the office or guard station and were looking over at Carmen and Diablo. Seeing them standing there, Carmen uttered a little cry of surprise and clutched at her robe, drawing it more tightly around her. She turned and ran back into the hut. Diablo looked over at the two men and laughed. He raised an arm in casual greeting before following Carmen inside. The door closed.

  Zeb and the other guard had snapped to attention when Diablo greeted them, but they relaxed as soon as he was gone. Nora could hear their laughter across the field, and the big one elbowed Zeb in the ribs. She couldn’t hear their conversation, but she knew what they were saying. They’d just seen their boss’s woman in a thin robe and nothing else, and Nora didn’t need a translator to get the gist of their comments. Still chuckling, they turned to go back inside.

  Somewhere nearby, a door opened and closed. Nora heard the sound on her right, from the front of the long, main building beside her. One of the troops was awake, probably on his way to the bathroom. She had to get away from here. She stepped out from behind the mess hall, preparing to dash the short way to the back of the main building. At that precise moment, a big, bearded man walked out from the front of it, heading for the latrine. He looked to be half asleep, and he wore only a white T-shirt and boxer shorts. He must have noticed Nora’s movement from the corner of his eye. He stopped walking and whipped his head around to stare at her.

  Nora froze, staring back at the man, pinned to the side of the mess hall by his gaze. For one horrible moment, she couldn’t move at all. She and the bearded man stared some more, and his surprised expression changed, darkening to anger. Nora raised the phone and snapped a shot of his face.