Operation Caribe

26

THE HELICOPTER KNOWN as Bad Dawg One cut through the wind and spray of the rainstorm and began a shaky landing approach to the Dustboat.

It was midnight. Batman was flying the copter; Nolan and Ramon were with him, though of the two, only Nolan was awake. They’d spent most of the past eight hours looking for an island where Ramon claimed that, during his Odysseus-like journey a few days before, he’d spotted what he thought was a submarine washed up on shore.

But after searching through the late afternoon and most of the night, they’d found nothing even close to what he’d described. It was another wild goose chase, one that had nothing to do with suntan lotion and relaxing, and everything to do with wasting lots of aviation fuel.

They really should have known better by now. Just like when they were looking for the island of trees earlier, Ramon had been barely coherent during most of the search. He’d indulged in so much of Batman’s inspiration between refuelings and liftoffs, he’d wound up with an old Rand McNally map on his knees, either mumbling or sound asleep as they flew over island after island after island, until they all started to look the same. More than once, they wanted to just push the guy out the passenger door and let him swim home. That’s how frustrating it became.

But there were two reasons Whiskey had stuck with him. First, the intelligence he’d given them on the missing woodcutters and Big Hole Cay had panned out in a way. Technically, his long, rambling story had been “pirated-related,” so the team had followed through on it, just as their mission statement said they should. Of course, what, if anything, they’d uncovered related to real pirates, or the phantom pirates everyone was looking for, they didn’t know. They’d simply followed the specs to the letter, which they would write up in a report and present to The Three Kings—along with their bill.

But there was another, more mercenary reason they’d put their faith in Ramon again.

It had to do with the Russians.

Batman had laid it out for Nolan just before they took off on their long, crazy search mission.

“Forget all about the ONI and the phantom pirate stuff and the UFOs for a moment,” he’d said. “The Russians are missing a submarine. That’s a fact. It might be old, it might be small, it might be an irrelevant training boat, but they probably want to know what happened to it. They’re probably looking for it right now with their spy satellites, but they can’t search for it for real until they get their own S&R units out here—and knowing the Russians, that will take a while. So, look at all the hassle, the money, the manpower we’ll save them if we locate it first. I think there’s a good chance the Russians will pay us big time if we wind up finding it for them.”

Nolan knew exactly where Batman was coming from. It was always about the money with him, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. But he had wondered if it was wise to spend any more time out here, while so much else was going on. They had already frittered away almost an entire day before Ramon finally got inspired and led them to Big Hole Cay.

“But think about it,” Batman had continued. “If we find that sub, I’m convinced the Russians will not only pay us for the coordinates, I’ll bet we can get Bebe to drive our fee into the stratosphere. He’s got to have some pull with the Kremlin, right?”

Again, Nolan couldn’t disagree. In just three months of operation, using Batman’s financial philosophy, Whiskey had made more than $25 million, tax-free. It was hard to argue with that kind of success.

But it always came back to one problem: Ramon himself. His head was just too much in the clouds—pot clouds, that is. They flew around for miles with him. He kept spotting isolated islands and swearing that was the one where the sub was washed up, only to get there and find it either inhabited by a high-end fishing resort or empty of anything but coral, sand and a lot of sea birds. It was like flying a helicopter with a drunk driver as navigator—when he was awake, that is.

Finally, they’d agreed to make midnight their cut-off point, and just as they were reaching that time limit, the massive rainstorm moved into the area.

That was enough for them. They headed back to the Dustboat for good, willing to chalk it all up to a swing and a miss.

* * *

THEY LANDED SAFELY and stepped out onto the windy, rain-swept deck. Ramon was taken under care by the Senegals, looking seriously like he needed a group hug.

But just as Nolan and Batman were about to seal up the copter for the night, Twitch appeared on deck.

He said simply: “I think I’ve found the island we’ve been looking for.”

Under the glare of a flashlight, as the rain continued to fall, he showed them a map he’d printed off Google. On it he’d found the island where Ramon said the woodcutters were supposed to have been taken. Then he found Big Hole Cay, the place they were most likely taken, at least for a while. And for some reason, possibly related to all the Bermuda Triangle material he’d read, Twitch had drawn a straight line from the first island to the second, revealing a line that went almost perfectly north to south. And from there, he drew a line to the east and found an island that, along with the other two, formed a perfect triangle.

“I call it the ‘Bahamas Triangle,’ ” he told them. “And I’ll bet it’s just about the only island you haven’t flown over tonight.”

Nolan and Batman were stumped. They checked Twitch’s map coordinates and sure enough, they hadn’t flown anywhere near the cay he’d identified.

“Don’t ask me why,” Twitch added, “but I’ve got a real good feeling about this one.”

With that, he handed Batman the map coordinates, thanked them, then retreated back inside the boat, getting out of the rain.

“It’s just our luck that he’s right, you know,” Batman said. “If he’d just told me the aliens had led him to this conclusion, it would have been hard not to believe him. He operates on a completely different level than the rest of us.”

“Boy, do I know that,” Nolan replied.

They didn’t say another word.

They just jumped back into Bad Dawg One, took off, and headed for the island Twitch had identified.

* * *

IT WAS ONE of many cays on the far eastern edge of the outer Abacos that was too small to have a name.

Uninhabited, covered with stunted brush and low-hanging black mangrove trees, it was roughly an eighth of a mile long and only a couple hundred feet wide, with a small beach on its seaward side tucked under a craggy, shallow sand dune.

And maybe it was the darkness, the rain, the humidity, or the fact Nolan was exhausted and his special night scope was overheating, but at first, the huge, dark shape he spotted on this tiny beach looked like some kind of sea monster covered in storm debris. In the shadows, he thought he could see its head, its tail, its massive body.

But as they got closer, things came into better focus. The object was huge and black, and it had definitely washed up from the ocean.

But it was not a sea serpent.

It was a submarine.

* * *

WHEN THEY FIRST circled the island, Nolan and Batman thought the vessel was probably an old World War Two-era sub that had washed up here decades before and had been left to rust away.

But once they got down to wave-top level, they realized that while not state of the art, it was a much more modern boat. And when Batman brought the copter to a hover right over the debris-strewn hulk, they could see a large red star painted on the conning tower.

No doubt about it. It was the missing Russian submarine, Irktisk. The one that was supposedly lost in the mini-hurricane.

“Hey, we actually found the damn thing!” Batman exclaimed, high fiving Nolan with his hooked hand. “This has got to be worth a couple million anyway—and that’s before Bebe can work his magic.”

“We’ll have to cut Ramon in for a piece,” Nolan replied. “Or maybe a couple pounds of inspiration will do it.”

Even with so many P-3s and C-130s flying over continuously, it was easy to see why no one had previously spotted the submarine. In addition to its extremely isolated location, it was lying on the beach in such a way that debris from the storm and the tides had covered over one half of it, and blown-down or bent mangrove trees had just about covered the other half.

But even with all this flotsam in the way, they could see the sub had suffered very little damage to its hull. Certainly not enough to have caused the ship to be lost.

“I wonder what happened to it?” Nolan said zeroing in on the wreck. “It barely has a dent in it.”

“We’ve got to check it out,” Batman told him.

* * *

BATMAN PUT THE copter down on the beach next to the huge metallic hulk and they got out, carrying their M4s with them.

The sub seemed enormous up close. It stretched at least 120 feet from one end to the other. It was lying partially on its side with its conning tower tilting about 70 degrees from the ground.

Despite all the debris covering it, they could tell the sub hadn’t been there very long—a few days at the most. It was still steaming in some places, and the smell of diesel fuel permeated the beach, confirming that it was a conventionally driven sub.

They went around the bow and saw that while it was slightly bent, it was clear the sub hadn’t even partially sunk, nor had it been the victim of some structural problem. Other than being beached, it appeared to be in fairly good shape.

Yet there were no signs of human presence anywhere. No footprints. No evidence that anyone had gotten out or tried to signal for help.

“Did no one survive this?” Nolan asked.

“If they did,” Batman said, “they’re still inside.”

They walked the length of the sub and noticed something else. There were various hatches and release valves up and down the hull, especially up near the deck. But all of them had been welded shut. Even the torpedo tubes appeared to be sealed.

“Is this how it’s supposed to be?” Batman wondered.

“Maybe that’s the Russian way of preventing leaks,” Nolan said. “Just weld them up and hope for the best?”

They had no idea. But one thing was for certain: The welds looked fairly new, if crudely applied.

They clambered up the conning tower to the open bridge, with Batman saying: “We gotta get inside this thing.”

This proved easier that they thought. Once up on the bridge, they discovered the main hatch leading into the sub was wide open. And down inside, they could see the bare glow of what they assumed was emergency lighting.

“The Russians make great batteries,” Batman said. “Those things are probably meant to last for weeks.”

Nolan stuck his head down the hatchway.

“Do you hear … music?” he asked Batman.

“You mean the music that’s always playing in my head?” was the reply.

But then Batman listened for a moment and nodded emphatically.

“Yeah, I do hear something,” he said. “Where’s that coming from?”

There was only one answer. The music was coming from somewhere deep within the sub.

“You want to go down there first?” Batman asked Nolan, looking through the hatch and into the sub’s interior beyond. It was a little like looking into a real, dangerous fun house. Considering the circumstances, anything could be down there.

“I’ve got one eye … and you’re asking me to go first?” Nolan replied.

Batman held up his hooked hand.

Nolan didn’t say anything; he just climbed onto the ladder and started down the hatch.

The music got louder—and it was definitely Russian music. Sad, mournful and cold. And it was coming from somewhere very deep inside the sub.

Nolan went down two levels and stopped. The emergency lighting here was more of a red tinge. It gave his special night scope fits, but gradually he was able to make out most of his surroundings.

He was in the control room, but it was nowhere near as elaborate as those he’d seen in U.S. Navy subs. This place looked like something from a 1950s sci-fi movie: all hand cranks and spinning wheels and computers with reel-to-reel tapes.

“Anything interesting?” Batman yelled to him.

“Yeah, lots of dancing girls—come on down,” Nolan replied.

Batman arrived a few seconds later, and together they scanned the control deck for clues, but found nothing.

They began moving aft, heading toward the music. It was hard walking on a tilt. But after managing to squeeze through a dozen or so dense, chaotic compartments, they finally reached the crew’s mess.

It was dark inside and smelled of diesel oil, human sweat and urine. Typical on an old sub. But there was another smell, something vaguely familiar to the team.

And here, they found a large, ancient-looking reel-to-reel tape recorder playing a loop of an old Russian folk song. Batman slapped the recorder once and it stopped.

At that point, it became apparent that they were standing in some dark, thick liquid.

Hydraulic fluid, Nolan thought at first.

But on closer inspection, he realized it was blood. Lots of it.

And slowly, they began to make out the shapes of bodies, hidden in the shadows all around them. Crumpled against the bulkhead, facing inward.

Thirty-four of them in all, Russian sailors and officers.

Each with his throat slashed.

Each with his right ear cut off.