Deep Cut

by Nick Sullivan

  “Kill me now.”

  Just then, a Saba Police car came down the hill and passed by the dive boat, its white body adorned with orange and blue stripes. It pulled up near the Customs and Immigration office and a burly man with a mustache got out of the driver’s seat while Sid got out of the passenger side. Boone exited the boat and headed toward them. In the rear of the vehicle he could see the shape of a man.

  “Hey, Boone!” Sid called out. “Come meet my father.”

  The mustachioed man advanced to greet Boone, extending a meaty hand. “Boone Fischer, I’m Captain Clark Every. Dutch Caribbean Police.” He had a slight Saban accent, but not nearly as strong as some Boone had heard on the island. “I want to thank you for keeping my boy safe the other day. He was pretty banged up after the explosion, and you got him safely off that smuggler’s boat. Speaking of which…” He motioned Boone over to the car. Clark reached in to the driver’s door and lowered the rear windows. The man in back looked up at them. “Say hello to Santiago Velasquez. At least that’s what his papers say his name is. We caught him trying to get back aboard the Wavy Davey. Santi, this is the man who crashed your pretty boat into a submarine.”

  “Actually, that was Emily who did the ramming,” Boone corrected.

  The man looked at them sullenly, then back down at his shoes.

  “We’re pretty sure he had an accomplice, but Santi isn’t talking, and I can’t hold him any longer. As soon as the grocery ship heads out and the Edge ferry docks, I’m taking him over to Sint Maarten.” Clark gave the island name a little touch of Dutch, indicating the Dutch half of Saint Martin, as opposed to the French portion. “Sid, I need to talk to Immigration. Make yourself comfortable. Mr. Fischer… a pleasure.”

  As his father strode away, Sid joined Boone on the left side of the car. “Where’s Emily?”

  “She’s still on the dive boat with Anika.”

  “Hey, Sophie told me about the sparring and the, um… aftermath.”

  Boone waved it off. “Water under the bridge. I think. But tell her I’m on a sparring sabbatical. And Sid, I’m sorry if—”

  “Oh, no worries. Sophie’s been dying for a good sparring partner. She’s tried to train me but it’s just not my thing. Honestly, I’m happy to let someone else get beaten up for a change.”

  “Hey, I’m thirsty.” The prisoner, looking up at them, appeared tired.

  Sid sighed and turned to Boone. “Keep an eye on him, would you? I’ll grab some water bottles from Pop’s.” With that, he trotted across the road.

  As soon as he was across, the prisoner spoke in a low voice. “You sink the boat, uh?”

  “Yeah. Explosion broke her back.”

  “She was a beautiful boat.”

  Boone nodded, not saying anything.

  “You find the money?”

  “We did. It was in a hidden compartment in the flybridge.”

  Santiago nodded. “It sink too, yes?”

  “Probably. The navy said they didn’t find it. The bag was full of money and gear. We took a couple of the guns out, but the rest would have weighed the bag down.”

  “Wait. You said bag. Just one?”

  “Yes…”

  “Ese maldito cabrón!” the man swore, kicking the seat back before muttering, “Se llevó la mitad.”

  Boone waited for more, but the man had returned to sullen silence. Sid was coming back across the road, several water bottles in his hands. Boone intercepted him. “I picked up a little Spanish in Curaçao. That bag of money and weaponry we found on the boat? Pretty sure there was second bag in that compartment. Someone took it before we boarded.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Not in so many words. Your dad thinks there was another smuggler? I think he’s right.”

  The sun was low in the sky and the man in the coveralls checked his watch. Sunset was still an hour away. Three nights of fruitless waiting, but he could afford to be patient. If there was one thing he could learn from those he served, it was patience. Many waited for hundreds of years. Thousands. In the grand scheme of things, a few days here or there was an eyeblink. Besides, he still had a week to make his selection. Rising from the camp chair in the unfinished cottage, he dropped to the floor and powered through a set of savage push-ups. Every fifth push-up, he paused to listen. Other than the breeze through the trees, the waning day was silent… until he reached ninety-five. Voices. Rising to a crouch, he moved toward an empty window frame and peered out.

  There. Coming along Ladder Hill Road. A young couple. They looked to be in their early twenties and carried themselves like locals. The boy had what looked like a rolled sleeping bag on his shoulder and they each carried a bottle of beer. The boy stole a quick kiss from the girl, and she giggled and swatted him on the butt. The man in the unfinished cottage smiled. His patience had been rewarded. Sure enough, the couple went to the head of the stairs that led to the old customs house. The man checked the equipment in his pockets as he made a quick assessment: the girl had been a bit taller than he liked, but within the range of acceptable. The boy—no…the young man—had been in good shape. It would not be a sure thing. His instrument would be required.

  Reverently, the Servant grasped the taped handle of the machete and headed for the gap in the wall.

  “I see the customs house,” Emily called back to Lucky.

  “OK, good.” He grabbed a boat hook and joined her at the wheel, pointing to a spot ahead. “The buoy’s right there. You get us moored and then suit up and enjoy the dive. I’ll stay up top.”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.” Emily took the pole and headed for the bow as Anika finished up the dive briefing.

  “Remember, don’t shine your lights directly on the fish—predators have learned to use that to target prey. If you see something you want to share, circle your beam of light around it. You’ll find all sorts of things you won’t see during the day. Moray eels come out to hunt, so you may spot some free-swimming through the coral. If you’re lucky, you may see an octopus or two. And don’t forget to look up from the coral from time to time—sometimes we get a school of Caribbean reef squid and they may give you a little light show. They flash patterns of color along their bodies to communicate. Any questions?” When no one replied, she clapped her hands together. “Good! Everybody take a moment to check your dive light again. I will have a spare… and I’ll be the one with the little strobe hooked on my BC. If your light goes out, come find me. Gear up and we’ll get started before the sun goes down.”

  Boone stepped to the dive platform to lower the ladder and check the current. The sea was still quite placid and as the boat came to rest on the mooring line, he could make out the bottom.

  “Boone, you have a backup too, right?” Anika asked, joining him at the stern.

  “Yeah. Actually, I’ve been using my backup as my primary. My main light is almost too bright for a tropical night dive.”

  “Don’t you dare turn that thing on,” Emily said, gearing up nearby. “His dive torch is ridiculous. That cannon will burn our retinas out and drive all the little squiddies away for miles around.”

  “In Bonaire, I tried it out and scared off a school of squid,” Boone admitted to Anika.

  “He did, the wanker. They were floating all around me. We were having a nice little chat!”

  “Emily loves squid,” Boone explained.

  “I do!” Emily declared, breaking into song: “I love squid and squid love me and we’ll have tea in the deep blue sea!”

  The Wisconsin divers nearest the stern laughed at this spontaneous performance.

  “You are certifiable,” Boone said, shaking his head with a grin plastered on his face.

  “Then I demand my certificate!”

  “All right everyone, conditions look good,” Anika announced. “Everybody in the pool.”

  “Lucky, you’ll hold down th
e fort, yeah?” Emily called out.

  “I’ll be here,” he said.

  One by one, the divers turned on their lights and entered the water. As the sun kissed the horizon, they sank beneath the waves.

  Well, they wasted no time, the Servant thought as grunts and moans rose from the small, white building. The customs house was little more than a tiny concrete shack topped with a red metal roof, doorless doorways on two sides and glassless windows on the other two. The sun had set several minutes before, and the shadows softened into a twilight gloom. Ten yards away, the Servant crouched in a stand of dense vegetation. The couple was clearly enjoying themselves, and as the sounds of rutting continued the Servant felt… resentment. He shook off the feeling, shifting his posture, keeping his muscles loose and warm. As the night grew closer, his eyes drifted to the light on the water far below. He had noticed the dive boat as he came down the path of stone stairs, trailing his quarry. A night dive, no doubt. He had done a fair amount of scuba diving himself in his time in the islands and knew it would be a shallow dive—likely over in an hour at most. He wasn’t sure how far sound would carry, so he would have to wait.

  The darkness grew. The sounds of passion crescendoed… then dissolved into merry laughter. Flashlights flicked on in the tiny building and the clink of beer bottles chimed in the night air. After a time, soft patches of glowing light played in the dark water near the distant dive boat as divers began to ascend.

  Boone was the last to reach the surface, keeping up the rear and making sure all four Wisconsinites were accounted for. Emily and Anika were already aboard, assisting the divers with their gear. Overhead, the night sky teemed with stars, the phosphorescent glow of the Milky Way arcing across a portion of it. This moment at the end of a night dive was one of Boone’s favorite experiences in life, and here on the western side of Saba there were very few lights to spoil the view. Floating in the darkness, Boone glanced up at the dark cliffs of the island… and saw light. He squinted. The moon was just coming up in the south and would be full in a few days so he could just make out the customs house on the slope above. The light was coming from there, spilling out of a window on the wall facing the ocean. Every so often, a portion of the light would move. Flashlights. Boone watched a moment longer but found that his gaze had drifted to the side of the little building. To the shadows. A dark copse of foliage, no different than any other blob of shapes up on that slope. He shivered.

  “Boone? You planning on joining us, or should we just leave you for my squid army to devour?”

  “Wouldn’t it be a squid navy?” Boone said, still looking up into the gloom, but swimming backward toward the Shoal ’Nuff.

  “You make a salient point,” Emily replied. “But quit fannying around, I’m chilly.”

  Boone turned away from the dark shape of the island and ascended the ladder.

  “What were you looking at?”

  Boone pointed. “Couple flashlights in the customs house, I think.”

  Lucky joined them, helping Boone shed his tank to speed things along. “Probably some kids looking to fool around,” he said. “We had a make-out place like that when I was growing up in Corpus Christi. Local playground. There was this little fort…” Lucky trailed off with a wistful sigh and headed to the cockpit as Anika returned from the bow, boat hook in hand.

  As the Shoal ’Nuff throttled up and swung south, Boone looked back toward the customs house. One of the lights was on the move.

  Bathroom break. And the dive boat is leaving. Perfect. Clearly, those he served were aiding him. He had planned to strike when they coupled again, but that carried the risk that one might flee before he could subdue them both. This opportunity was ideal. The Servant rose, moving swiftly and silently to the nearest doorway.

  “Hurry up, Michael. I’m cold,” the girl inside said in a pouting voice.

  “Don’t chu worry, I’ll warm dat sweet bumpsie,” came the young man’s voice. “Back in a lick.”

  The Servant could see the flashlight moving in some bushes on the far side of the little building, over twenty feet away. After what you were just doing… modesty? He quietly placed the machete on the ground and leaned into the doorway. The girl was sitting up in the sleeping bag, her back to him, looking out the other door toward her paramour. He reached her in two quick steps.

  The rear naked choke, or “blood choke”—similar to the sleeper hold of wrestling fame—was an efficient method of quickly rendering an opponent unconscious. Wrapping one arm around the neck while the other gripped behind the head to the opposite arm, the elbows were drawn together and the resulting pressure clamped down on the carotid arteries, cutting off blood flow to the brain. When applied correctly, the victim would lose consciousness in a matter of seconds. Tonight, it took six.

  The Servant counted an additional six as he listened to the sounds of the young man relieving himself, mumble-singing some sort of pop song as he did so. He released the hold and gently lowered the girl to the sleeping bag before retrieving her flashlight and clicking it off. Slipping back out the door he’d entered through, he retrieved his machete and moved silently to the upslope side of the building.

  “You ready for round two, gyul?” The flashlight moved in the bushes and the Servant flattened himself against the wall. “Hey, why you out da light?” Footsteps drew near. “You hiding from me?” The young man laughed as he reached the doorway. The laughter stopped. “Lisa?” The light that spilled around the wall vanished as the flashlight moved into the building.

  The Servant crept along the wall, picturing what he would see when he rounded the corner, his right arm already rising above his left shoulder, the machete held at an angle. Reaching the door, it was exactly as he’d envisioned, the young man crouched over the girl, wondering if she was playing a game. His head started to lift as a sound reached his ears: the low whoosh of the machete as it swept diagonally down, burying itself in his spinal column. A gurgle, a series of spasms and it was over. The fallen flashlight threw jagged shadows in the tiny room.

  Jerking the machete free, the Servant glanced at one of the walls, illuminated in the glow of the flashlight. Words, carved into the walls of this historic little building. The names of nobodies scraped into the concrete, some with dates, some with places. Grafitti, the Servant thought with disgust as he wiped the blood from the machete on the dead youth’s T-shirt. Some people have no respect.

  “Well, it’s official,” Lucky said. “Irma is a hurricane.” The Scenery Scuba dive staff were clustered around his laptop, looking at the latest from the National Hurricane Center website. “Sustained winds at 92 mph, pressure 983 millibars.”

  “Just a Category 1,” Chad commented, referring to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane categorization.

  “Nearly a two, though,” Emily said.

  Lucky got up from his desk chair and stretched. “Considering the winds were just over sixty when I went to bed, that’s pretty rapid intensification, ’specially for the overnight hours. But the track is still up in the air. Could miss us entirely. I’ll talk to Lynn up at Sea Saba, see what they think. They have the most experience with this sort of thing. They dealt with Hurricane Lenny back in ’99.”

  While Emily plopped into the empty chair and started looking through the latest advisory, Boone checked the chalkboard behind the desk. The afternoon was blank, but every slot for the morning was filled. “Looks like a full boat,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Lucky said. “I’m thinking only one of you can go out with Anika and Chad today.”

  “Rock, paper, scissors!” Emily announced, popping up out of the chair. “One… two… rock!”

  Boone had gone along with it and now held his flattened hand out, already grinning and shaking his head. He knew what came next.

  “Bam, bam, bam!” Emily playfully battered Boone’s “paper” hand. “Rock beats everything, Boone! You should know that by now.”


  Boone looked at the quizzical faces surrounding them. “It’s, uh… it’s kind of a thing. Best to just roll with it.”

  “As always, you lose annnnnnd… I’ll stay,” Emily said, flopping back into the chair and clicking on a satellite image of Irma. “I’m feeling a bit meteorological today.”

  Boone looked back at the chalkboard. At the end of the list of divers, he found two familiar names: Sid Every and Sophie Levenstone. “Sid and Sophie are diving today,” he said. He turned to look at Emily and saw her suppressing a smile.

  “I know. Anika already told me. We’re besties now, haven’t you heard?” She looked up from the computer. “Anika, I’m counting on you to keep my Boone safe from sharks, barracuda… or any other kind of predator he might be swimming with.”

  Anika smiled and headed for the exit. “I’ll make sure he’s on his best behavior. We’re back on the main pier, Boone. Help Chad bring the tanks.”

  “I’ve got a couple more to fill,” Lucky said, and followed Chad to the fill room out back.

  Boone lingered, stepping behind the desk. Emily studiously ignored him, clicking through screens on the laptop and smiling impishly. He knelt and spun her in the chair to face him, stopping her rotation with his hands on her thighs.

  “Listen, Em… if you’d prefer—”

  Emily grabbed his wrists and leaned forward abruptly, stopping his words with a sudden kiss. After a moment, she slowly withdrew. “Sorry. For a second there I thought you were going to make some tediously gallant offer to stay behind.” She gave his cheek a playful slap. “You’re a big boy, Boone. We had this talk, yeah? I’m just winding you up.” She spun back to the laptop. “Now go show Sid and Sophie the wonders of the undersea world while I learn what a millibar is.”

  By nine o’clock the Shoal ’Nuff was motoring out of the enclosed bay, heading north to the leeward dive sites. As it turned out, the boat was not completely full after all.