by Brandon Webb
It wasn’t just about having keen eyesight. It was about using the information from your eyes to isolate elements that didn’t quite fit into the larger picture.
Something he’d seen tonight didn’t quite fit. He was sure of it.
But what?
35
Kristine had planned to head straight for her quarters, but she was too wound up to lie down, let alone sleep. She paused at the doorway to their berthing area. It was freezing in here, and claustrophobic. She did an about-face just as Monica approached.
“Hey,” said Monica.
“Hey, yourself,” Kris replied.
“Helluva bronco ride.”
Kris gave an unconvincing grin. “Yes, ma’am, that it was.”
They both stood silent for a moment.
“You okay?” said Monica.
Kris nodded and heaved a breath. “Asshole.” They both knew who she meant.
Monica tilted her head in the direction of their stateroom. “Time to talk?”
Kris sighed. “In a bit. I need to get some air. Actual, real air.”
Monica nodded. “Company?”
Kris smiled again, this time a real one. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.”
“ ’Kay,” said Monica. “Later.” And she headed on into their stateroom. “Hey?”
Kris turned back.
“Don’t be long, okay?” said Monica. “I really do want to talk.”
Kris flashed a V with her fingers. “Peace out, baby.”
Monica smiled and flashed the peace sign back. “I’ll be up.”
Kris began snaking her way back out through the dimly lit passageways. Picking through the maze, she made for a small and rarely used sponson, an external access space with its own tiny catwalk, just enough room for one or two people to stand outside and grab some air.
She opened the big hatch and slipped outside. Alone.
She gripped the rail with both hands and closed her eyes, feeling the hot dry breeze caress her face. Gave a few shuddering breaths, then began replaying the recovery sequence in her head. If she didn’t do this now it would only replay itself later on when she was lying on her bunk, trying to sleep.
She heard a sound behind her and turned, her eyes snapping open. “Oh—!” Her hand flew to her chest. A startled hare, a runaway horse. “Sorry.” A nervous laugh escaped her.
Goggles and a green jersey looked back at her.
She relaxed back against the rail. “For a moment I thought—”
His arm shot out, punching his gloved fist hard into her solar plexus.
36
A sharp gasp escaped her as she doubled over.
Her assailant followed with a hard right uppercut to the jaw that left her staggering. He caught her before she fell, and for an instant she stood, bent over and dry heaving.
She felt a rag jammed into her mouth, then a sharp prick in her neck as she was lowered to the deck and propped in a sitting position, back against the rail. She struggled to catch her breath, felt her whole body twitch and tremble; when she tried to flex her fingers they responded like semi-hardened clay. Something was happening to her, taking control of her hands, her arms, her legs.
Drugged.
Some kind of muscle relaxant. Propofol? No, she wasn’t getting drowsy. She just couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.
The clay was hardening.
The goggles loomed close, inches from her face.
“We don’t have much time,” he rasped.
The goggles, helmet, and muffler obscured his face. She couldn’t see who it was. But she knew why he was there.
He was going to rape her.
A convulsion of horror flooded through her. He was going to rip off her flight suit and fuck her, right there on the catwalk. She focused with all her might on her mouth and tongue, summoning the force to spit in his face. She would not go down without a fight!
Nothing.
Her attacker reached into one of the green jersey’s pockets, extracted a water bottle and unscrewed the cap, which he then carefully placed back in the pocket.
She was confused. If he was going to rape her, he would want to do it fast before anyone stumbled upon them. Why was he stopping?
But he didn’t take a drink. Instead, he leaned over her, one hand holding her jaw steady, the other tipping the water bottle to her lips, eking out just a few drops.
She felt the tiny stream snake its way inward past her dead tongue, under her soft palate, into her throat. Her mind went rigid with panic. If it trickled down her trachea, even that tiny amount could drown her. She tried to will herself to cough—nothing. She wanted to scream with fury and frustration. The ghoul wasn’t going to rape her. He was going to kill her. And she couldn’t fight back.
The bottle left her lips.
Goggles in her face again.
“If you behave yourself, and everything goes well here, there’s a very good chance you’ll come through this alive.”
You’re lying! screamed the voice trapped in her head. You’re lying! You’re lying!
And then it struck her: that low rasp. It was a cheap Clint Eastwood impression. Dirty Harry. Which gave her a flicker of hope. The goggles, the voice. He was taking steps to prevent her from recognizing him. Which would be pointless if he planned to kill her.
Maybe there was a good chance she would come through this alive.
The jet pilot training kicked in, her mind a whir of calculations. Speed. Trajectory. How long before she passed out? Before the drug completely paralyzed her lungs? Could she fight through it, come out the other side?
The face was staring at her, peering into her eyes. Like it was watching her thoughts.
It looked like an insect.
Hungry.
A shiver ran through her nerves, though her body was still as stone.
The insect cocked its head. Drinking in her revulsion.
Feasting on her fear.
It reached out to touch her shoulder.
She recoiled in her mind.
“It’s okay,” Dirty Harry rasped. “It’s okay.”
IT’S OKAY? she wanted to scream. HOW IS IT FUCKING OKAY!
And then—
Oh God. Not again!
He tipped the bottle once more, releasing another trickle of water on its way.
Tickling her windpipe.
All her calculations and false hopes vanished as she felt herself plunge into an abyss of pure terror, the voice trapped in her head thrashing and screaming out of all control—Stop! Stop! Please no please no please no please no no no no…
The insect giggled.
“All right,” it rasped. “C’mon, up we go.”
He grabbed her with both arms, then pulled her upright and leaned her body against the railing, head flopped to the side like a rag doll. Steadying her against the railing with both knees and the press of his torso, he uncoiled the tie-down chain draped over his shoulders and wrapped it around her several times.
“Good for you. You’ve behaved yourself. This has all gone very, very well.”
Slowly, deliberately, he removed the goggles and stared directly at her.
Those eyes were the emptiest thing she’d ever seen.
You! the voice in her head screamed. YOU? Why are you doing this!
And then he spoke—softly, but in his normal voice:
“And there is no chance, no chance at all, that you will come through this alive.”
He peered into her face for another moment, the vacant eyes feeding on her panic—
Then swiveled her body around to face the open ocean and pushed her face forward and down so she was staring into the expanse below.
Not the ocean! Please God NOT THE OCEAN!
The last thing she registered before her mind completely snapped was
the black face of the Arabian Sea rushing toward her.
III
Crossing the Line
37
Finn blinked and looked around, trying to remember why he was standing in a passageway somewhere in the middle of the ship.
He’d been up all night combing the decks, anchor room to fantail. Hadn’t slept. Had not even stepped foot in his broom closet.
He looked down at himself.
No, that wasn’t right. He was wearing a fresh set of cammies. He must have gone back to change. Had he slept?
He rubbed the back of his neck and in the hollows under his ears, trying to shake the sense of dislocation.
Now he remembered.
He was hunting.
When he first arrived on the Lincoln, walking his circuits was mostly a matter of reflex. Standard operating procedure. The key to mission success in any new AO, or area of operations, was to master the terrain. Though on the face of it there seemed no strategic point to detailed reconnaissance while aboard an American aircraft carrier, even one as poorly run as the Lincoln. No, up till now his explorations had been driven more by habit than by purpose.
Not anymore. Now he had a reason to look.
He was hunting.
He didn’t know precisely what he was looking for, but he’d recognize it when he found it. A stray moving branch, an unnatural stillness in the breeze-blown grass. A behavior out of place. A contradiction.
He circled back through the passageway outside the Kestrels’ ready room where he’d observed that confrontation the night before between Biker and Movie Star, then on to trace the paths each participant had followed as they entered and exited that nexus point.
He didn’t know exactly what he’d find, but he knew what he was hunting. The wriggling creature with the massive head and no arms or legs.
He was hunting death.
He couldn’t say how he knew it, but death was still stalking the Lincoln.
And death always left traces.
A single tone from the bosun’s pipe split the air.
“All availab—hands to—eck—OD walkdown.”
Finn immediately made for the flight deck, moving purely on instinct. He needed to take a look up there now, before this morning’s FOD walk had a chance to pollute the scene. He didn’t know why, but that didn’t matter. His instincts were in charge.
His brain’s job right now was just to watch.
38
A single tone from the bosun’s pipe. “All availab—hands to—eck—OD walkdown.”
Terrific. After Jimmy Suzuki’s departure, the ship’s air-conditioning had malfunctioned. Now the 1MC was getting hinky. Only a matter of time before some system broke down completely.
Command Master Chief Robbie Jackson’s inquiry into Schofield’s suicide had fizzled out. The new chief engineer, Suzuki’s replacement, was an idiot. This morning’s coffee, inexplicably, was weak as old lady’s tea.
Yet none of that was really bothering him.
Jackson had been in a foul mood all morning, but he didn’t know why.
“Let’s see a little hustle there, shipmates!” At the sound of his voice a small knot of sailors scattered like pigeons at a backfire. “FOD walk waits for no one!” he added as they flew.
He supposed it was Sister Mae.
Jackson stopped at a steep ladder leading to the hangar deck and spirited his considerable bulk up the narrow steel rungs.
Robbie had dreamed about Sister Mae that morning, and it unnerved him. She was humming some primeval tune, punctuated with occasional muttered syllables no one but she could understand, a little cast-iron pot simmering with some evil-smelling brew by her side. His momma’s momma was a massive woman, a figurehead of their parish church who led come-to-Jesus Baptist services in the evenings and backroom faith healing sessions in the mornings. Robbie could never tell which she believed in more, the power of Jesus or the sly magic of Louisiana voodoo. Whatever the case, she always seemed to know when there was evil afoot.
Jackson hadn’t thought about Sister Mae in ages. Not that he was proud of that. He loved Sister Mae with all his substantial heart, owed his life to her. But what in the name of Damballah was she doing here, disturbing his sleep?
“Morning, Master Chief!”
Jackson nodded his greetings and rolled on.
Born Harlan Robichaux Jackson, Jr., Jackson was “Harlan Junior” till the day of his eleventh birthday, when Harlan Senior got nasty drunk and broke his son’s arm. From that day forward he went by plain “Robbie.” Six years later, when Robbie was a junior in high school, his daddy came home one afternoon spitting drunk, yelling for his wife, ready to lay into her with curses or fists, or both. But Robbie was there. Sister Mae had taken him aside that morning and told him to skip school that day. “Stay close to your momma,” she said. Robbie didn’t ask why.
Sister Mae always knew.
When Daddy came stumbling up the dirt-and-gravel drive that day with evil in his eyes, Robbie grabbed a stick of cordwood and told him to scat or he’d brain him. Robbie never forgot the look of fear and fury that flew across the man’s face. After Daddy slunk off, Sister Mae told him he had to ficher le camp—scoot, skedaddle, now—or he’d be dead by dawn.
And Sister Mae was right. That same night Harlan came looking for the boy. When he found his son gone he raged back to the bar he’d come from. Before the sun rose his switchblade was in another man’s liver and Harlan was on his way to Angola, where he was now serving fifteen to life for felony murder. If Robbie had stayed, it would have been his liver with the blade stuck into it.
He hadn’t been back to the bayou since, not once. Didn’t plan to, either. Cesspool of ignorance and superstition.
Arriving up at the flight deck catwalk, Jackson took a big inhale of the salt air.
Normally Jackson did not go above for the morning FOD walk. His regular crew of chiefs managed things up there just fine. This morning, he’d had the urge to come spot this one himself. Maybe he just wanted to breathe the open air for a moment. Get the stench of Sister Mae’s foul-smelling voodoo concoctions out of his head.
He stepped out onto the flight deck as lines of crew formed up at the bow.
Maybe that was what drew him up here this morning. FOD walk was the very embodiment of military procedure. And military procedure was the bedrock of all things rational.
Procedure was what kept the Terrible Man at bay.
Jackson closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let the subtropical sun swaddle his face, baking away the dark memories. Exhaled, opened his eyes.
And saw the SEAL, tracking along the blacktop like a bloodhound.
39
Finn began scouring the deck, moving as quickly as he could, still looking for anything that didn’t fit.
In a moment the crew’s vanguard line would catch up and pass him in their aftward sweep. Maybe they’d find whatever it was he was looking for, if it existed at all. Or miss it altogether. Or trample it.
He moved farther astern, looking, moving, looking, moving.
Something.
He bent down to peer close. A small bit of foreign object debris.
Could mean nothing.
He took out his Navy Cash card, then reached into another pocket and fished out a small plastic bag. Using the card, he coaxed the tiny object into the bag.
Straightened and looked across the deck.
The CMC was gazing directly at him.
Finn walked across until he stood face-to-face with the big man, then extended his hand and without a word placed the little bag and its contents in the master chief’s open palm.
The master chief looked down and frowned. A thin, nondescript bit of rigid plastic tube, maybe an inch and a half long. Closed on one end, open on the other.
Cap to a hypodermic needle.
&
nbsp; The big man glanced up at Finn, the question on his face mirroring Finn’s thoughts exactly. How the hell did that get up here?
The 1MC abruptly scratched to life with five urgent tones on the bosun’s pipe.
“Man overboard, man over——hands to mus—all hands to muster.”
40
Monica’s first reaction was irritation.
She had just stepped into hangar bay 3 when the passageway speakers erupted in five piercing whistle tones and the voice started blatting.
She didn’t buy it. Nineteen times out of twenty, “man overboard” meant that someone had dropped a chem light or a vest off the flight deck, or, even more likely, that someone hadn’t shown up to muster because they were still snoring in their rack. Or had snuck off with someone else to attempt a quick copulation in some deserted spot or other. She’d heard of people doing it in supply closets, maintenance spaces, ventilation junctions, even the anchor room, for God’s sake. Her mathematical mind couldn’t even fathom the odds of getting caught. But people apparently did it all the time.
Whatever. Schofield had been that one case in twenty of an actual man overboard, and they were due for at least nineteen more false alarms.
And now the day’s whole schedule was going to get upended. Six thousand people on hold while the truant was found, dragged out of the rack, and appropriately humiliated.
Shit fire and save the matches.
“The following personnel report to deckhouse 3 with their ID cards…”
Leaving her office behind, she began tromping up to her squadron’s ready room on the gallery deck for muster. She was halfway there when the droned list of names made her stop in her tracks.
“OS Courtney Jamieson, Operations. MM Michael Lubschitz, Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance. Lieutenant Kristine Shiflin, Air…”
Oh, no.
Kris had been gone when Monica woke up that morning. She hadn’t seen her at breakfast.
By the time she reached her ready room, Monica had started to panic.
“Time plus three…”