The Steel Shark

Chapter 10

Laila glanced over at Ambra, who was the Chief of the Watch. Ambra sat at her station near the diving officer, the helmsman, and the planesman. They looked at home working the rudder and diving plane controls. Hard to believe that a month ago they’d been living as humble wives and daughters and sisters.

“We’ve completed our regular sonar sweep,” said Ambra. “All clear.”

No one had followed them from New York yesterday. Laila had hoped they’d get out clean, even as she’d worried the survivors from the wrecked sub would alert the US military, which would start a wider search. Maybe there had been no survivors.

Ambra rose and took a few steps to where Laila stood looking down at maps on the plotting table. The blue lighting made her look drawn. “On course to intercept the Shining Pearl.”

“Show me.”

Ambra took the yellow pencil from behind her ear and used it to point out their position relative to the Pearl’s on the paper maps. The Siren had electronic maps, and the GPS took her position when she surfaced, then tracked her course relative to that point when she was submerged. The computerized system was supposed to be foolproof, but Ambra created backup plots on paper, too. A trained mathematician, she had a good head for such calculations. Ambra’s parents would be horrified to know how she was using her expensive degree.

Laila pretended to study the map unfurled across the plotting table, but she was really thinking about the Pearl. The Pearl belonged to her beloved Aunt Bibi. Her husband had died young and left his wife a sizable fortune. She’d used it to purchase a yacht and perpetually travel the world, out of sight and control of the rest of the family. All the women envied her.

Bibi kept a small, intensely loyal crew. She paid them well, and they said nothing about what took place out on the open sea. Bibi was free in a way none of them would ever be. Her husband was dead, and she’d borne him no children. No one had a claim upon her obedience.

Every summer, Laila and her mother and sisters had spent a few weeks with Aunt Bibi on her yacht. Freed from the strictures of everyday life, they swam and fished and watched forbidden television, played games, and ate whatever they wanted. Aunt Bibi’s carefree existence had inspired Laila and Nahal to dare the unthinkable and take the submarine.

Aunt Bibi had known about parts of their plan since the beginning, and she’d pledged to help them. She didn’t know why they were taking the submarine, or what they would do with the submarine now that they had it, and Laila would never tell her. She hoped Aunt Bibi thought they would use it as she used her yacht — for freedom and peace.

“Think of the food,” Ambra whispered.

“Chocolate and black tea,” Laila said. The Chinese had left only a few weeks’ worth of supplies and hadn’t included anything indulgent. The crew had eaten nothing but rice, fish, and canned cabbage since they stole the Siren. Their supplies of soy sauce and hot mustard had been exhausted the first week.

“And fresh figs,” said Ambra. “And baklawa.”

“And new oxygen generators, so we can finally dive and stay under for a long time, like a proper submarine.”

And gossip. She wanted to know what the family thought about the plane crash that had supposedly taken her life and the lives of the women in her crew. Had the plane gone down as planned, and was their secret safe, or had the pilot taken her money and betrayed them all?

Had the prince died in the wreck? She didn’t see how he could have survived it, but she had to be sure. Aunt Bibi would know. Bibi had remained in close contact with her sisters, never needing to care about the cost of satellite-phone calls as she crisscrossed the seas.

“How long?” Laila asked.

“In an hour,” Ambra said. “We’ll be eating figs.”

“Ex abundanti cautela.”

“An abundance of caution,” Ambra translated. “I took Latin, too. We’ll be careful.”

“We must become shadows in a pitch-dark night. No one can know we have come and gone.”

“The darker the better, I know.”

“If it’s too bright, we can’t surface.” If the man and woman in the tiny sub had made it to the surface, authorities might be searching for them.

Ambra tightened her lips. “So we stay down here eating pickled cabbage? You’re jumping at shadows. How could anyone know to look for us?”

“Even so.”

“Our risk assessment should be based on a consensus,” Ambra said. “Not fiat.”

“That wasn’t the agreement. A ship needs a captain.”

“Does it?” Ambra straightened her blue uniform. “Isn’t that the kind of hierarchy we’re trying to escape?”

Jenna looked over from her station as helmsman. Had the crew talked about this among themselves?

Laila drew herself up to her full height, several centimeters taller than Ambra, although Ambra weighed more than she did. “I am captain. We all signed the oath. You, too.” She was glad Nahal had thought to force each woman to sign a blood oath to serve Laila directly. Nahal thought like a chess master, several moves ahead.

Ambra, too, must have remembered the candlelit room where she’d so eagerly pledged herself, because she turned back to her charts, shoulders stiff with pride. Laila had promised to take them away from their lives, and she had. Once she was certain the prince was dead, they could vote about what to do next — travel the seas with the submarine, or go their separate ways.

She wondered if Ambra’s opinions were held by the rest of the crew, but she didn’t want to force the issue and have to face them down. It would be over soon enough. She stood quietly on the bridge as they sped toward the rendezvous point.

“Here, Captain,” said Ambra. “Dark enough?”

Laila strode over to the periscope, pulled down the handles, and looked through the eyepieces. They’d surfaced to periscope height, eighteen meters, a few minutes before, but she’d been restraining herself from looking until now.

The Shining Pearl rode proudly in the water. She was a long boat, more than sixty meters, with sleek lines and sides white as pearls. She’d been owned by an American real estate tycoon before Aunt Bibi, and no luxury had been spared. Laila’s heart jumped, as it always did when she saw the ship. Since she was a little girl, that familiar shape had meant freedom.

Lights gleamed from the yacht’s windows. Bibi had turned them down, but not off, as Nahal had told her. Per the instructions Nahal had sent out weeks before, Bibi’s yacht slowed. She was expecting them.

The sonar revealed no ships for miles around. They matched pace with the slowing yacht.

“May I see, Captain?” Ambra used the world Captain in a tone Laila could describe only as insolent, but she couldn’t chastise her without seeming petty.

Instead, she took one last glance and stepped back. Ambra had to maneuver around her to look, but they’d gotten used to the close quarters, so she barely noticed.

“It looks clear.”

“I see fifteen men lined up on the bottom deck,” Ambra said. “They’re backlit by the windows, so I can’t see if they’re armed.”

“Aunt Bibi wouldn’t put out armed men to greet us.” Laila was outraged.

“She’s not my aunt.” Ambra swiveled the periscope, taking in the entire length of the ship.

Not too long ago, Ambra had been advocating less caution, and now she was being paranoid. She just wanted an argument, but Laila wasn’t going to be baited.

“What’s the usual crew complement?” Ambra asked.

“Thirty. Each loyal to my aunt.”

“Doesn’t make them loyal to me.”

“Do you want your figs, or don’t you?” She tried to lighten the mood.

“They don’t look like soldiers,” Ambra conceded.

“It’s not like we have a choice. We need food. And news.”

Ambra didn’t step back from the periscope.

Laila checked her watch. Astronomical twilight was over. They’d reached the darkest part of the night. “Prepare to surface and come alongside the Pearl.”

Women scrambled to obey, even Ambra.

Laila looked back through the periscope. “Take us up.”

The figures on deck caught sight of them, and a round woman in a flowing green dress waved from the port side. Aunt Bibi.

The sub maneuvered next to the yacht. Laila was first up the sail. Being captain had its privileges, and she needed to start insisting on them. Once topside, she took a deep breath and let it out. It smelled fresh and clean, a relief after the close, cabbage-scented air inside the sub. It felt wonderful to be outside in the cool night air, with the sky above stretching out to the stars.

Many of Aunt Bibi’s crew were women. She often said that, since men controlled the Navy, women could control her boat. Her captain had a rigorous training program for new recruits, and they performed well. For the first time, she wondered how Aunt Bibi dealt with discipline problems.

The seas were relatively flat, but it was still tricky. Both vessels dipped up and down. Anyone who fell between the vessels could be crushed to death.

Aunt Bibi’s crew had tied fenders to the side to keep the sub from scraping the yacht. Her crew helped to tie the sub to the yacht, then lowered a gangplank between the two vessels. Rope railings ran along both sides.

Laila took hold of the wet ropes and walked across the bobbing surface to her aunt.

Bibi swept her into a hard embrace, enveloping Laila in her spicy signature scent. Her perfume was custom-designed in Egypt, and she smelled like safety. Laila leaned into her and felt herself relax.

“You look so beautiful,” Aunt Bibi said. “Hair like a pixie.”

“We can’t stay long.” Her voice caught.

“You could,” Aunt Bibi said. “Of course you could.”

They had to be gone long before the sun rose, in case they might be caught by satellite photos. Nahal had developed the protocol during their planning, and Laila believed in caution more than ever. “I wish we could.”

“My crew will start loading your supplies.” Aunt Bibi gestured to the row of retainers standing patiently behind her.

“My crew will do it. No one comes aboard my vessel but my own crew.”

Aunt Bibi raised an eyebrow theatrically. “You don’t trust my crew?”

“Ambra will come with me. Everyone else will load supplies.”

“I hope you let them off duty to eat.” Aunt Bibi put her arm through Laila’s. “We’ve prepared a feast.”

Laila’s stomach growled, and Aunt Bibi laughed.

“I think you will be pleased,” she said.

An hour later, Laila had eaten so much she could barely move. Ambra had come and gone. The other women were rotating through the polished wooden dining room in groups. Some women loaded supplies, others stowed them, and the remainder got to eat. If she hadn’t eaten so much herself, she never would have thought they could put away so much food.

Aunt Bibi had hidden treasures in with the food and diesel fuel she’d requested, and Laila knew they looked forward to seeing what gifts awaited.

But first she needed the Internet. Aunt Bibi had a satellite connection. She held Nahal’s laptop under her arm. Nahal herself was still on the sub, recovering from the gunshot wound she’d sustained when they first took the submarine. Nahal had forced Laila to memorize the procedure for activating layers of virtual private networks to cover her tracks before she logged on to the dark web. Nahal’s enthusiasm for the dark web and the hacker culture had always been a mystery to Laila. In college, she had always teased Nahal that her idols were shadowy hackers instead of film stars and musicians. But she couldn’t deny the usefulness of Nahal’s obsessions now.

Laila had brought her a giant plate of food, but there was little she could do for her.

“I would like a private space,” she told Aunt Bibi. “For computer use.”

“The library is best.” Aunt Bibi gestured in the direction of the library and returned to her conversation with the submarine’s doctor, Laila’s cousin Meri.

Laila rose and hurried out of the dining room. She knew the corridors of Aunt Bibi’s ship as well as she knew the Siren. A few minutes later, she turned on the light and closed the library door behind her. Aunt Bibi’s library was a thing of beauty. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered outboard walls curved to match the shape of the ship. Slender golden ropes strung across the middle of the shelves held the books in place during rough seas. One wall contained classics, another scientific and nautical books, another religion and philosophy, and the final wall held popular books augmented at every port. She hurried to the gleaming table, slipped into the chair, and opened the laptop.

The work of a few minutes showed that the prince was still alive.

Alive.

The man she’d killed had been his bodyguard. The entire trip had been for naught. The prince was still alive, so no one was safe.

She read more. The man in the other submarine had been Joe Tesla, a software CEO. Nahal had mentioned him in the past — she thought he was some kind of genius, but Laila hadn’t ever really listened when Nahal talked about him. She’d have to remedy that.

The websites didn’t mention the presence of the Siren at the crash. Tesla must have told someone, but the news hadn’t been published. Perhaps she could use that silence to deflect the prince’s suspicion from herself and the Siren. A long shot, but better than nothing.

She followed another set of protocols and entered the dark web. With Nahal’s recent instructions sounding in her ears, she was able to find the correct exchange, set up her deadly request with the right code words, and transfer bitcoins to an underground escrow account.

She had just paid for a hit on Joe Tesla. When Tesla turned up dead, Tesla himself might look like the target of the undersea attack, not the prince or his bodyguard. It was a desperate act, perhaps, but she could think of no better solution.

Then she ordered two oxygen generators for the Siren. She’d written down the information, but it took a while to find a source, even on the dark web where seemingly everything was for sale.

A quick rap on the library door caused her to jump.

“Come in,” she called.

Aunt Bibi entered. She looked tired and old, but her smile was still warm as ever.

“I know you must leave soon, but let’s stroll along the top deck before you go.” Aunt Bibi hooked her arm in Laila’s, and together they made their way to the topmost deck. The boat glowed in the soft golden light.

“It looks peaceful, does it not?” Aunt Bibi asked. “And safe.”

“You won’t sway me.”

For a moment, they walked together in silence, and she remembered the many times they had walked alone on the deck together, all the years of her childhood.

“Your mother was devastated by news of your death,” Aunt Bibi said quietly.

“I’m sorry.” Her mother had made her alliances clear long ago — to her husband, her sons, and then her daughters. Only when nothing else remained would it be her turn.

“I couldn’t ease her grief,” Aunt Bibi said. “Secrecy was my promise to you. But I wish you would tell her. She suffers.”

“Does she?” She didn’t think her mother could have let herself care about her worthless daughters.

“And.” Aunt Bibi chewed her lower lip as if to bite the words in half before she spoke them. “She has also lost your eldest brother.”

“Has she?” Laila tried to look surprised. Not a simple task, since she knew of her brother’s death because she’d shot him herself.

“A training incident,” Aunt Bibi said.

“Much for my mother to bear. But she has my father to hold her up.”

They both knew her father wouldn’t provide support to her grieving mother. He had other wives, other children.

Aunt Bibi squeezed her arm. “Someone tried to kill your future husband, Prince Timgad, but he was spared. It’s said a careless billionaire ran into his submarine while they vied for some worthless token in a submarine race.”

Suspicion had fallen on Tesla. Good. “He has nine lives, like a cat.”

Aunt Bibi stopped at the railing and looked across the starlit waves. “You could end it now. You could rejoin your family. You could send your crew home to theirs.”

“And marry Prince Timgad?” She looked down at the top of her submarine, where women in blue uniforms carried brown boxes across the deck and into the sail.

“It is said now he will be the next king, and you would become his queen.”

She’d known of Timgad’s favor with the current king. “I would become his slave, not his queen.”

“We all must serve a master.” Aunt Bibi shrugged. “We who were born to the House of Dakkar. This time shall pass, and we shall be rewarded ever after. It is our duty.”

“I serve a higher duty.” Laila had struggled against her duty all her life, but leaving it behind hadn’t made her happier.

“Is there a higher duty than the one we owe to our family? Our mothers? Our sisters? Our daughters? Our house?” Aunt Bibi took her hand. “I know it’s difficult to be a woman, but we can help each other to endure.”

“I don’t want to endure.” Anger rose in her, not only at Aunt Bibi, who had been spared a lifetime of servitude by her husband’s death, but at the world that had made her believe it was the fate of others to endure such things. “I don’t want those women down there to endure. They shouldn’t suffer because they were born women. Our house is built upon the suffering, the blood and bones of its women. I won’t let them endure it a moment longer.”

Aunt Bibi leaned away. “Then take them away. Abandon your family and your duty. But stop whatever it is you’re doing on this submarine.”

“If I run away and hide, take them away to hide, then I turn my back on the millions who are enduring unspeakable horrors in the name of the family. In my name. What of them?”

“You cannot change the ways of the world with only a submarine.” Aunt Bibi leaned closer, and the scent of her perfume mingled with the smell of the sea. “A single craft of steel and courage isn’t enough.”

“You’ve changed much with your single ship.” She smiled at her aunt. “You gave us a place of safety, a place of joy. A place where we could bloom in quiet and freedom, if only for a few weeks a year.”

“You can give the same to the women under your care, either on your submarine or with new identities on land,” Aunt Bibi said. “Your actions won’t change the world, but they will change the lives of all your crew. Such actions can be enough in a well-lived life.”

“Not for me.” She started back up the deck, ready to return to her tiny enclosed world and the women who would help her to carry out her mission. “Not anymore.”

Aunt Bibi said nothing for a long time.

“Where will the royal family vote on the succession?” Laila asked.

Aunt Bibi stared at the submarine bobbing behind her ship. “The celebration will be in New York City.”

That was where Prince Timgad had planned to take the submarine and the weapon he’d intended to mount on it. She’d hoped that stealing the submarine and killing the prince would stop him from starting a war. But he was still alive. He couldn’t use the submarine now, but he still had the weapon, and he would be looking for other ways to deliver it.

“Where will the vote take place?”

Aunt Bibi watched the stars.

“Aunt Bibi?”

Her aunt sighed, then spoke in a voice so quiet Laila could barely hear her. “On Prince Timgad’s yacht, the Roc.”

“The Roc?”

“It’s the largest superyacht in the world, one hundred and eighty meters long. Commissioned five years ago and launched on Tuesday.”

“The largest yacht named after the largest bird,” Laila said. “Not a subtle man, the prince.”

Aunt Bibi smiled.

“When do the men gather together for the vote?” Laila asked.

“I don’t know when they come together, or where they leave from.”

“When do they arrive in New York?”

“On March 22. Their arrival is timed to coincide with an Israeli vessel full of protesters against American policy.”

The yacht and the scapegoat would arrive at the same time.

That was her timeline, too. She had twelve days.