In twelve fathoms of water, they crept through the darkness. The navigators held big searchlights and demanded a course of first, two-seven-zero, then one-eight-zero, staying in the deepest water down the craggy shore of the lake. They moved by Trinidad Island in almost total silence, and then proceeded south, six more miles into lonely Trinidad Bay, a two-mile-wide dead end, still seven fathoms deep but uninhabited to the eastern side.
The pilots called the navigation orders expertly, conning the submarine from the bridge behind the tug, until she was moving east. A half mile later, they rounded the jutting headland of Pelican Island, and the Chinese pathfinders ran the
Barracuda right inshore, along a dead straight overgrown beach, through a dredged channel running beneath a dense overhang of rain forest.
With some alarm, Captain Badr called a depth warning, but it was too late. The bow of Barracuda 945 ground to a near halt in soft mud, right on a yellow marker left by the dredger the previous week. Her sail and casing was covered in tropical foliage, only fifteen feet from the shore. The tug now came alongside and edged the submarine into position, before casting off and vanishing north.
Almost immediately, a Chinese patrol boat pulled alongside, instantly pushing a gangway between the two vessels in the flat, calm, motionless water. Six engineers who were normally based in the Yellow Sea Submarine Base at Huladao now came aboard, and almost immediately, General Rashood ordered the first twenty of his own crew to gather their possessions and disembark the submarine.
Everyone else was told to prepare to evacuate in the next two hours. Ravi and Shakira, plus the Captain, would be the last to go, on the second trip, way up to the northeast corner of the lake, close to the airport at Colon.
The round-trip for the first half of the crew took almost two hours. The patrol boat returned just before midnight, and the remainder of the Hamas mariners began to disembark. Ben Badr had by now ordered open the vents to the main ballast tanks, which had the effect of pushing the ship down, and the Barracuda was slowly sinking lower into the soft mud, settling hard on the bottom. Water was already washing over her upper casing.
Ben had the hatches open for'ard and aft. Most of the machinery was already shut down, but the emergency diesel motor was running, and the pumps were still working, forcing water to the compensation tanks, neutralizing any suggestion of buoyancy. All seawater lines were open.
The process of reducing the great underwater warship into a silent hulk would take possibly four more days, and the Chinese engineers would be working in a damp and gruesomely uncomfortable environment. But their orders were stark: No one must ever know that submarine existed… Sink it into the mud, without trace.
By midnight, only the sail remained in view, and by the time Ben had flooded the Reactor Room, the Barracuda was inching even lower into the hole the Chinese dredger had dug for her. It was just a matter of time. Modern military camouflage, and a couple of danger signs with an 'explosive' motif, posted by the Chinese Navy, would keep the Barracuda, and her secrets, safe for decades.
Thus far, the plan was going forward without a hitch, until from out of the dark Shakira spotted a light, a bright searchlight flanked by a red and a green, an unmistakable motor launch, attracted by their own lights and coming directly toward them. Fast.
'Jesus Christ,' said Ravi. 'Who the hell's this?'
Instantly his old SAS take-charge right-now mentality kicked in. He called out to the helmsman of the Chinese patrol boat, 'Cast off and pull away, regular speed, no panic. Hang around for a half hour, then come back.'
As one boat left, the other came slowly forward, a light bow wave phosphorescent in the dark water as it pulled alongside. It was a thirty-one-foot Boston Whaler, and Ravi was astonished to hear an American voice.
'Hey, guys, Joe Morris from Delaware. Can you give us a hand here? We lost the goddamned chart. Been camping down the bay for two or three days… beautiful fishing. Are we headed up to the locks? Everything looks kinda the same around here… '
General Rashood answered in his best English officer's accent. 'Oh, good evening, Joe. We're British, actually, organizing a World Wildlife meet here for next week. But you are right, keep heading north and you'll come right up to the locks on your port side.'
He realized he and Ben must have looked absolutely ridiculous, standing on the bridge of a submerged Russian Navy submarine, jutting out of the water, but he hoped to God the American wouldn't notice, not in the pitch dark with only a flashlight.
But the American did notice. 'Hey, what the hell's that you're standing on? Looks like a goddamned submarine. You guys smugglers or something?'
'Certainly not,' said the Hamas General. 'This is the World Wildlife underwater vessel. We use it all over Central America, studying rare fish and stuff. Very useful little toy… '
'Sure as hell looks like a submarine to me,' said Joe. 'And I used to be in the U.S. Navy… Norfolk, Virginia. I seen a lot of submarines, believe me.'
'Not one quite like this,' replied Ravi. 'We've got a glass bottom. Pretty amazing some of the things we see under the water… '
'Jeez. Sounds good. Hey, wait a minute. I wanna get a photograph. Just lemme find the flash. Wanna show it to some Navy buddies back home. They'll be real interested.'
The flashlight, which belonged to Joe Morris of Delaware, popped dazzlingly in the jungle light.
'Would you like to come aboard and I'll show you the underwater lights? Some of those big crocodiles come right up close when we switch them on. Bring your camera.'
'Hey, that'd be great. Can my two buddies come over… just Skip and Ronnie? We're all from Wilmington.'
'Certainly. Come around to the rope ladder on the other side of the bridge. We just hung it out. And watch how you go — those crocodiles are mean little bastards. Don't want you to get eaten alive… '
Ravi had a very quick word with Shakira, who left and went below. Five minutes later, all three visitors were standing on the bridge of the Barracuda, and Ravi led the way down to the upper deck. He noticed Joe Morris had an automatic pistol jammed in his belt. The other two appeared to be unarmed.
The area below the steel stairway was, mercifully, still dry, and Joe Morris and his pals arrived cheerfully. When they were all gathered at the base of the stairwell, Ravi introduced himself for the first time. 'Welcome aboard, gentlemen. I'm Captain Mark Smyley, Irish Guards, working with the World Wildlife Commission, personal envoy of the Duke of Edinburgh… '
'Hey! How about that, guys? Stick with me, right? Never know who you're gonna meet!' He smiled cheerfully, and was actually still smiling when Ravi slammed the head of a twelve-inch screwdriver — bang — into the space between his eyebrows and then crashed the butt of his right hand with terrific force into the base of his nose, ramming the bone deep into the brain. Joe died instantly.
His companions never even reacted. Just stood there in amazement for about three seconds, the last three seconds of their lives, as it happened. Shakira Rashood, standing calmly below the periscope, blew them both away with four lethal bursts from an AK-47, obliterating both of their foreheads.
The Chinese engineers, now working one deck below, heard nothing, and now Shakira and Ravi moved fast, dragging the bodies into a corner of the empty control center. Then Ravi yelled for Ben Badr, and the two of them raced up the ladder to the bridge, climbed down into Joe Morris's boat, and ransacked the luggage, finding wallets and passports.
They took those, started the twin outboard motors, and chugged away from the shore, around to the lakeward side of the submarine's sail. They made the Whaler fast, moving the bow line to the stern, set the steering for dead ahead, west, and opened the throttles slightly.
By now Shakira was up on the bridge moving the rope ladder to fall right behind the Whaler. They both climbed back onto the sail, Ben first, then Ravi.
The Hamas General then cast the Boston Whaler off, and watched it surge forward. Simultaneously, up on the bridge, Shakira ripped the pin out of a hand grenade and tossed it into the departing launch. Six seconds later, now nearly fifty yards away, the little vessel blew to smithereens, the wreckage sinking to the bottom of the Gatun Lake.
Shakira Rashood took the passports and wallets, and carefully shoved them into the appropriate pockets of the deceased fishermen, thus posing a fascinating problem for investigators, in the unlikely event the submarine
