Contra File

Gulf of Honduras I n a shower of saltwater and a shimmering display of iridescent scales, the swordfish powered up out of his element and tail-danced trying to shake the hook. Desperate gyrations of his muscular body didn’t help. Slashing viciously at the humid air he pointed his long sharp bill at the blue water and dove, heading for the dark deeps and escape. “Ease up on the drag and let him run!” Mike Stokey rushed from the beer cooler toward the stern of the chartered fishing boat and watched line strip off his friend’s reel in a fine mist. “I got this…” Shake Davis thumbed the drag button on his deep-sea rig and reached for the cold beer tucked into the arm of his chair. He hit the beer, smiled, and waved for their charter captain to slow down. “Tomelo con calma…” Shake caught himself and switched to English. “Take it easy, Juan. Just keep a little way on it while I play this bad boy.” Nearly everyone in Belize spoke English of one variety or another, but he was having a hard time remembering that and always seemed to be slipping into Spanish phrases he’d learned working in other Central American countries. “I’d guess a hundred pounds—maybe a little more.” Stokey reached out to touch the taut line and felt the fish straining in the deep below the keel. He showed a thumbs-up to the grinning, mahogany-tanned skipper on the flying bridge above and behind them. “Morty P had it right about this guy. He knows how to find the big fish.” “He had it right about a lot of stuff.” Shake pulled back on the rod and reeled in some line, letting the big fish on the other end tire himself speeding back and forth near the reefs off the southern Belize coastline. “This little family vacation was just what we needed—all of us.” The fishing trip was a highlight and they were having a good time off on their own, but Shake would have been just as happy ashore soaking up Central American sun on the white sand that fronted the little resort cabins near Punta Gorda. That’s where Chan and Mike’s wife Linda were, mixing margaritas and re-hashing last year’s adventure in Lebanon. He’d promised Chan a lot of time and attention on this trip, but both women insisted the guys take advantage of the free fishing charter that had been arranged for them by parties as yet unknown. It had to be the general, Shake thought as he reeled in more line and set the drag a bit heavier. Someone with serious pull in Central America was ensuring they got whatever they wanted when they wanted it—with either no charge or just a nominal hit on the credit card. It had to be his old friend the general. Shake couldn’t think of anyone else in his list of pals or acquaintances with that kind of influence. Neither could Mike Stokey, Linda, or Chan who all urged him to stop looking a gift-horse in the mouth, go with the flow, or just shut up and enjoy it, depending on who was talking at the time. The swordfish was clearly tiring as he broached a second time much closer to the boat. A deckhand gave Shake a congratulatory slap on the shoulder as he maneuvered toward the transom with a gaff in hand. “You got this one, man. Nice fish.” Shake reeled in more line and muscled the rod, trying to bring the big fish into range of the gaff. Stokey leaned over the rail to stare at the dark shape darting back and forth from one side of the boat to the other. “He’s a beauty, Shake! That’s enough swordfish to feed us for a week.” “He won’t last long if we’re gonna do that beach party thing.” Shake felt the boat tremble as the fish bumped hard against the transom, trying to avoid the gaff. “There’s the four of us plus the locals the girls invited. Tracey is due in tomorrow and Morty P said he’s coming out of the field. He’ll bring along some of his Marines and Mr. Swordfish will be bare bones in a heartbeat.” Stokey struggled with the deckhand to lift the fish over the transom and then danced away as it slashed at everything in sight with a long, sharp snout. “That’s a hundred pounds easy, Shake. You do the cleaning and I’ll do the cooking. All anybody else has to do is eat.” When the deckhand had the fish suspended by its tail on a deck hoist, they posed for pictures and then helped wrestle it into the saltwater tank beside a couple of mackerel they’d caught earlier. Shake eyed the catch with satisfaction and then squinted up at the hot sun just passing zenith. It was the hottest part of a Central American day and the dark water looked inviting. “We’re gonna need more seafood, Mike, and the brochure says there’s lobsters around the reef. We’ve got the gear aboard. Let’s get wet and cool off.” Stokey eyed the SCUBA gear stacked in the shade of the deckhouse and ran fingers through the unruly crop of red hair he’d been cultivating since the CIA Clandestine Service unceremoniously placed him onto the retired list. “Two things,” he said. “One, it’s been a long time since we earned our Combat Diver bubbles, and Two, the brochure says there are bull sharks around the reef.” “Addressing your concerns in the order posed,” Shake began to examine a selection of masks, fins, and buoyancy-compensator vests. “One: We are both old recon bubbas who will immediately remember everything we need to once we get in the water. And Two: Juan, who knows these waters intimately, will take us to a place that has very few bull sharks and a s**t-load of Caribbean spiny lobsters.” Charter Captain Juan did, indeed, know such a place very near his homeport and would be happy to take his passengers there on the condition that the passengers share with him a portion of their swordfish which brings top Belize dollar at the local fish market. While Mike measured the fish in the tank and haggled over fair apportionment, Shake took a closer look at the diving gear. It was well-used, a couple of open-circuit U.S. Diver rigs, not much different from what they used in the military course at Key West that had been part of his Force Reconnaissance qualification. The gear looked serviceable, the BCs inflated as required, and the tanks were full. The key would be to find a dive site that did not involve descent below one atmosphere or about 33 feet. A Chicom grenade that detonated way too close to Shake’s head in Vietnam left him with a shattered eardrum and a great deal of painful difficulty in clearing his ears at depth. As the charter boat chugged toward the captain’s favorite lobster spot near the mouth of the Monkey River, Shake and Mike tested the gear and adjusted it for a shallow dive they hoped would yield a bunch of spiny lobsters for the beach party they had planned for Master Sergeant Morty Potashnick, a former Marine Security Guard from Beirut who played a significant role in rescuing Shake from the Hezbollah on a mission that nearly cost him his life. When Gunnery Sergeant Potashnick finished his tour in the Middle East, he was transferred to a special operations unit of the U.S. Southern Command and notified of his promotion. He sent Shake a special invitation to the ceremony and over a few celebratory drinks required to wet-down his new chevrons, Morty P announced he was heading up a Marine team destined for Central America. Marines from SOUTHCOM were working in Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize as Security Cooperation Teams to help the local militaries deal with drug and human trafficking that was rampant in the area. Shake swapped a few stories about his time in Central America in the mid-1980s on loan to the CIA, training anti-Sandinista forces in Honduras and Costa Rica that were aiming to overthrow Daniel Ortega’s pro-communist regime in Nicaragua. At that time, the British were running an excellent jungle warfare school in Belize, but Shake had never had the opportunity to attend. Morty P said the school was still up and running—mostly manned by Gurkha troops these days—and he might be able to arrange a visit if Shake was still interested. Shake wasn’t much interested in another jungle warfare ordeal, but he did start thinking about a trip to Belize. He’d always been a sucker for sandy beaches and waving palms. Chan had a long leave coming from the DIA and she was under pressure to take time off after the ordeal in Lebanon. Mike Stokey and his new bride were always up for an adventure, and Mike had a pilot buddy who flew into the Yucatan Peninsula regularly. It was all rattling around in Shake’s mind as he toured the SOUTHCOM headquarters near Miami looking for old friends. One of those old friends was the commanding general, a three-star Marine that once led a rifle company in Beirut during the time Shake served there. The general was an avid sport fisherman and raved about the opportunities when Shake mentioned Belize. He knew some people who knew some people and let him make a couple of calls. As Shake was boarding a flight in Miami for the return trip to Virginia, his phone lit up with a text message from a number he didn’t recognize. The text-chatty person sending was confirming an open-ended stay for Gunner Shake Davis (USMC, Retired) and party at a beach resort in Punta Gorda, Belize. No charge, please confirm estimated date of arrival and number in the Davis party…have a nice day. He forwarded the text to Chan and asked her to call and check it out if she wanted to spend a couple of weeks down in Central America. That kick-started what was turning out to be one of the best R&R jaunts of Shake’s eventful experience—and a nice tick-off on his bucket list. Charter Captain Juan hauled his boat around into a hard starboard turn and then throttled back to drop anchor on the inside of the reef that guarded the outlet where the Monkey River spilled into the Gulf of Honduras. The water was crystal clear and they could easily see the rocky bottom as Mike and Shake sat on the boat transom and pulled on their swim-fins. The captain’s deck-hand provided each of them with a stick that they could use to poke at holes in the rock formations around the coral where spiny lobsters sheltered. They were instructed to use the sticks because some of those likely lobster hides could contain moray eels. “I can deal with morays.” Mike took the mask being offered by a grinning deckhand and began to fiddle with the straps. “Tell me about sharks.” Shake grinned around his regulator mouthpiece and executed a back-flip into the water. Stokey was one of the most fearless men he’d ever known, but Mike did have a little thing about sharks—and spiders. “Mebbe one or two little ones…” The deck hand grinned as Stokey donned his mask and slid cautiously into the clear water. “You don’t bother Mister Shark, he don’t bother you.” The bottom was at about 20 feet and the water was relatively warm and still, with only a mild current running from shore toward a stretch of colorful reef that fairly glowed in the sunlight beaming down from above. Shake and Mike worked slowly down a line dropped from the surface to keep them oriented to the boat. Shake’s ear bothered him as usual but they kept the descent slow enough for him to blow and clear against the increasing pressure. He signaled OK as they hit the bottom and both divers began a slow-kick sweep around the rock formations. It was a beautiful little spot, alive with colorful reef fish and the occasional big grouper that eyed them curiously as they began to scour the bottom for lobsters. They had two lobsters apiece and only one close encounter with an angry moray when Mike rolled over on his back, nudged Shake and pointed upward where a six-foot bull shark was weaving in and out of the shadow cast by the boat’s hull. Shake took a look, shrugged, and went back to looking for lobsters. They had six each in the net bags attacked to their weight belts when Mike nudged Shake again and pointed toward the surface. Shake rolled over to look and nearly bit through his regulator mouthpiece. If the dark shape that was passing through shafts of sunlight just beneath the surface was a shark, it was the biggest and ugliest one he’d ever seen. Shifting to get a better look and keep his back to the reef, Shake saw a four-bladed propeller spinning at one end of the shape. As the surface light glinted on metallic skin, he could see it was a man-made vessel, clearly a submersible that reminded him of a Japanese mini-submarine he’d seen in some military museum. It was neither sleek nor sophisticated but it was a sub of some sort. He touched Stokey’s elbow and shrugged. Mike just shrugged back. Whatever it was, Stokey had never seen the like either. Shake checked his compass to determine the submersible was heading north and watched it motor on, holding a steady depth and speed. When it was out of sight, he gave Mike the surface signal and they finned up toward the boat. When they broke the surface and spit out their mouthpieces, Shake and Mike tossed their lobsters to the deckhand and clambered up onto the dive-step. Shake twisted to look at the charter captain who was leaning over the flying bridge rail calmly smoking a cigarette. “Juan, did you see that thing in the water?” “Big bull shark…” He tossed his smoke and cranked the engine. “No problem. We will head into Punta Gorda now.” “That was no goddamn shark, Juan!” Stokey shrugged out of his gear and stepped onto the deck. “There was a shark but then there was another thing—some kind of submarine. Didn’t you see that?” “In these waters, is sometimes things better not to see.” Juan climbed down to help his deckhand retrieve the anchor.