Steel Fear

by Brandon Webb

  “Why am I not surprised.”

  “Anyway,” Sloane’s voice suddenly dropped to nearly a whisper. “This rumor went around, dogged him through his whole last year, nearly got him kicked out. That he went out with a girl, a first-year cadet, and things got…preppy.”

  “Preppy?” Monica sat up.

  “You know,” said Sloane. “Tried to cash in on his nonexistent charm?” He paused. “She claimed he date-raped her, Mon.”

  Monica felt the blood drain from her face.

  “When it got out, he said the whole thing was BS, the girl was jealous and made the story up to cause trouble, rank character assassination, blah blah blah.”

  Oh, Jesus.

  “This was years ago. Different times. Nobody believed her. Besides, Papadakis was an obnoxious jerk, but basically a straight-arrow, pole-up-his-ass kind of jerk and way too ambitious to pull a bonehead move like that.”

  Silence.

  “Hey. Hope I didn’t ruin your day.”

  Monica realized she was gripping the phone so hard her knuckles hurt. “No. No, I’m fine. I’m…I’m not that surprised. I guess.”

  “Yeah,” said Sloane. Another brief silence, then: “Hey, this has gotta be costing you a fortune. Ha-ha. Anyway, I should go. Listen, you let me know the moment you get your HAC qual, ya hear? We’ll pop corks over the phone!”

  “I promise. ’Kay. Love ya, Chub.”

  “Love ya, Buffy.”

  The phone went dead.

  Monica didn’t move.

  52

  Ten days into its southeastern transit from the Gulf to Australia, at 0913 hours, the USS Abraham Lincoln crossed the zeroth circle of latitude, officially passing from northern to southern hemisphere and triggering the most sacred, time-honored initiation rite in the US Navy, an all-day bacchanal of festivities commemorating its new sailors’ first equatorial passage.

  The Crossing of the Line.

  Stepping through the open hatch out to the catwalk, Lew Stevens heard the chorus of catcalls and laughter from the flight deck, then a burst of applause and more raucous laughter. The island had been draped with a huge canvas poster, courtesy of PAO office printers, depicting King Neptune with his trident and the slogan Imperium Neptuni Regis, in front of which King Neptune himself and his first assistant, Davy Jones—Captain Eagleberg in seaweed wig and Disney-pirate regalia, accompanied by Gaines in an equally ridiculous getup—had taken their regal seats.

  Lew stepped out onto the deck and saw scores of young sailors, covered with raw egg and shaving cream and hot sauce and other assorted condiments of ritual abuse, laid out on the deck before the King and his Court.

  The time of judgment was nearly at hand.

  Lew understood the wisdom behind the silliness. In earlier times this was a full-fledged hazing ritual, a way for seasoned sailors to test their green shipmates and make sure they could handle the hardships of a long sea voyage. In these kinder, gentler days actual hazing had been all but abolished and the Crossing of the Line was mostly pure pageantry, a day of letting off steam, acting like idiots, and boosting morale.

  He settled into a spot near the edge of the flight deck to watch as a fresh batch of first-timers was forced to lie down across the deck for whatever indignity came next. As one gang of elder handlers dragged a long tunnel into place, another mob of tormentors started rolling out the fire hoses, ready to hose down the newbies when they emerged from their ritual birth canal.

  Lew glanced over and noticed the SEAL, Chief Finn, sitting on his haunches a few feet away, taking it all in with something like fascination. Lew leaned over. “Haven’t seen this before?”

  The SEAL shook his head. “My WestPac, back in the aughts, we never left the northern hemisphere.”

  Lew nodded at the unfolding scene. “Quite the spectacle.”

  The SEAL nodded, eyes on the scene some forty feet away.

  The elders began swatting the initiates with short lengths of tubing as they moved to the fore of the ragged line and one by one entered the tunnel to push their way through whatever collection of foul-smelling garbage had been piled in there. Lew had seen it before, but he still marveled. That was some weird kind of baptism.

  At that moment the group readying the fire hoses started chanting.

  The moment of truth.

  As part of the Line Crossing tradition, the term used to denote the more experienced sailors was “shellback,” while the initiates were called “pollywogs,” so up went the chant:

  Pol-ly-wog! Pol-ly-wog!

  POL-LY-WOG!! POL-LY-WOG!!

  POL-LY-WOG!! POL-LY-WOG!!

  Lew chuckled, then glanced over again to make another comment to the SEAL—and stopped.

  The man was frozen in place, eyes staring, mouth agape, his face gone white.

  Lew frowned. He was about to lean closer and say, “Hey, you okay?” but something held him back. The look on the SEAL’s face.

  It was pure, raw panic.

  Baffled, Lew faced forward again to scan the scene before them. A little raucous, but no more so than your average college dorm hijinks. Lew searched for anything bizarre or unusual that Chief Finn might have spotted, anything so far beyond the pale that it might have prompted such an extreme reaction. But there was nothing there to see. Just a bunch of sailors acting like idiots.

  “Pol-ly-wog! Pol-ly-wog! POL-LY-WOG!!”

  He turned back to look at the man again.

  The SEAL was gone.

  53

  Finn sat upright on his rack, back pressed to the bulkhead, rocking forward and back, trying to work his jaw. Took a few long, deep, juddering breaths.

  What the hell just happened to him up there?

  He tried to think it through, to replay the exact sequence, but his focus kept slipping away like feet on a greased log. The way his fingers had gone slipping off the handholds in that magazine.

  He tasted blood in his mouth. He was clenching so hard it felt like he was about to break off all his teeth.

  Right hand to jaw, left to chest, he focused on his breathing.

  Inhale, exhale.

  Slow breath in, slow breath out.

  He felt his jaws slowly crank apart. He gingerly opened his mouth, wide as he could, and shut it again, then repeated the movement, working out the soreness.

  His throat ached as if he had just screamed at top volume for an hour.

  He relaxed his neck. Closed his eyes.

  And was suddenly, ferociously gripped by a grotesque sensation.

  A billion wriggling tadpoles surged up from his gut into his throat and raced to explode out the top of his head—

  His eyes snapped open as he reeled back. Drenched in sweat.

  What the hell?

  He slowed his breathing again and tried once more to retrace his steps. He’d been up on the flight deck, watching the Line Crossing ceremony with its shellbacks and polly—

  His throat locked up.

  Finn lurched to his feet.

  Darkness poured into his field of vision, dotted with spots of luminescence that danced before his eyes and blinded him. He fought his way across the tiny compartment, out into the passageway, and over to the cramped little head across the way.

  Kicked open the door, dropped to his knees in front of the toilet, and vomited.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  IV

  Monster

  54

  The four sat on two small couches flanking the low coffee table in the forward area of Jackson’s inner sanctum, silent under the weight of their shared confidentiality. Jackson nodded at Scott and said, “Let’s start with the what.”

  Scott passed out copies of four stapled sheets to add to the sheaf of pages Jackson had already given them. “Here’s a minute-
to-minute timeline of the victims’ last known movements, best as we have at this point. Tomorrow I’ll start reviewing CCTV footage from the flight deck…”

  In times of trial some men sought solace in the arms of a woman, others by crawling into a bottle. Jackson found comfort in procedure.

  He had laid this thing out along classical investigative lines, with three prongs of attack. Define the what: what happened, where, when, and how. Compilation of all physical evidence and evaluation of its implications. That was Scott. Then, who: build a suspect list, which meant data collection, collation and interpretation, schedules and communications, demographics and psychographics of ship’s personnel. Indy. And finally why: develop a profile of their hypothetical killer to focus their suspect pool so they could identify the who who did the what. That was Lew’s domain.

  A solid plan. A crack investigative team.

  Or a gang of mutineers, depending on how you looked at it.

  “Both notes are on plain copier paper,” Scott was saying, “and could have been printed on any one of the dozens of printers around the ship, by just about anyone. Including Schofield and Shiflin, for that matter.

  “Those with access to the staterooms where the notes were found would’ve included admin, cleaning crew, anyone in supply. Plus the victims themselves, of course, and their roommates. Schofield and Shiflin would’ve kept their stateroom keycards on their persons, but since neither body was recovered there’s no way of knowing whether the keycards were still on them when they died. In other words, the perpetrator—if there was a perpetrator—could easily have taken their keycards and accessed the staterooms himself.”

  In other words, thought Jackson, the “suicide” notes were a dead end.

  “Speaking to the how,” Scott continued. “Me, I’d want this to be quick and quiet, and I’d want to avoid leaving any blood trail. That’s a challenge. Schofield was a big guy. Shiflin was small but tough. Neither one would’ve been a pushover.”

  “Which could explain the hypodermic cap,” interjected Indy.

  Scott nodded. “If you had the element of surprise you could dope your target right off, or kill him or her outright. Preemptive strike. Easier said than done, though. And you’d need something fast-acting, like fentanyl or propofol. We should run a list of available fast-acting sedatives, check it against inventory at sick bay.”

  “I’ll take that one,” said Jackson. He’d ask the general medical officer, whom he knew and trusted. “Anything on the hypo cap itself?”

  Scott shook his head. “One hundred percent generic. Could’ve been used with anything. And we don’t have the lab tools to sniff for spectroscopic residue.”

  Another dead end.

  “All right,” said Jackson. “On to the who.” He looked across the coffee table at Indy.

  “I’ve been sifting all incoming and outgoing email.” (Bean sifting.) “For Kristine Shiflin that is an empty set. She kept to herself, as far as email goes. Sam Schofield wrote quite a lot. He stayed in touch with a few friends, a sister, and two nieces. Tonight I’ll expand the search.

  “I’ve also been collating schedules for those known to be on duty at the time, so we can rule them out and narrow the suspect pool.”

  Here Indy consulted her notes.

  “On both nights, flight ops were already over by the time the subjects disappeared, so the entire air wing was mostly off-shift. The bridge is fully staffed at night. So are combat systems, CVIC, and comms. Engineering and maintenance run a good-sized overnight crew. The galley is staffed and running. Most of the rest are pretty much on skeleton. This is a preliminary number, but so far I have a total of four thousand, three hundred seventy.”

  “That’s everyone you’ve ruled out?” said Jackson.

  Indy looked up. “No,” she said. “That’s everyone we’ve still ruled in.”

  The group fell silent for a moment.

  Four thousand, three hundred seventy.

  Dead end number three.

  “I know,” she added quietly. “It’s a lot of who.”

  “Right,” said Jackson. “So we keep refining the funnel. Which brings us to the why. Lew?”

  Lew Stevens nodded and glanced around the coffee table. “At this point I’ve got three avenues of inquiry. Victims, methodology, timing.” He held up an index finger. One. “The victims.”

  Even from his position sitting on the little couch across from Jackson, Lew somehow conveyed the impression of a professor pacing before a lecture hall jammed with grad students.

  “Both officers, obviously. Both well liked and respected by their peers, which might suggest jealousy from another officer, someone who sees himself on the other side of the scale. Someone disliked, in other words, or not respected. Or it could suggest resentment, for example, from an enlisted person who feels unfairly treated by the upper class. These are broad categories, of course, but it’s a start.”

  He held up his index and middle fingers. Two.

  “Methodology. The subject took elaborate care to cover his tracks in establishing the suicide cover story. There’s nothing especially revealing about that—except the notes themselves, which exhibit a considerable level of intelligence and artifice.”

  He picked up the top sheet of the little stack in front of him. All four had identical paper stacks, including copies of the suicide notes, notes from Jackson’s interviews, the personnel files of both missing officers, and the brief timelines Scott had just handed out. Stevens read from one of the unstapled sheets.

  Another day, another dolor. Oh God, I’m so very weary of all of this. Weary to the bone.

  He placed the paper back down on the table and picked up a second sheet.

  Please tell everyone I am so so sorry to cause them more pain, but shit happens.

  “The two notes are strikingly different,” Lew continued. “There’s no hint of being from the same hand, and they both do a credible job of evoking the personality of the intended author.”

  “And slipping in and out of both staterooms undetected to plant the notes,” said Indy. “That would take a significant level of skill.”

  “And nerve,” added Lew. “All of which suggests not only skills and smarts but also a marked degree of premeditation.” He hesitated, then said, “That is, preparation.”

  Jackson look at him sharply. “Meaning?”

  “The execution seems too smooth for ad hoc improvisation. I’m guessing this is not our guy’s first rodeo.”

  There was another brief silence.

  “Oh, my,” said Indy softly.

  Jackson looked at Lew again. “Shiflin’s roommate said she’d been unduly stressed, possibly experiencing some harassment. ‘Stalking’ was the word she used. Did Shiflin come to you at any point for counseling?”

  “I wish,” said Lew. “But officers avoid coming to medical unless they’ve got an actively rupturing appendix, and least of all for counseling. It’s that zero-defect mentality—as if admitting to any kind of stress would be tantamount to saying they’d got a crack in their fuselage. They’d rather tough it out.”

  Jackson nodded. This was just as true of chiefs as it was of officers.

  “You mentioned timing,” said Indy.

  “Yes,” said Lew. He held up more fingers. Three. “Why now? We’ve been at sea for nearly eight months. What would have triggered these two events to happen now, and in such rapid succession?”

  “Couldn’t it just be a cumulative thing?” said Indy. “A burning resentment builds and builds, until it reaches the boiling point?”

  “Sure. Could be.” Lew shrugged. “I’ve got no conclusions there, it’s just one more factor to keep in mind.”

  Jackson looked around the table. “Questions? All right.” He got to his feet, the others following suit. “Let’s keep at it. Tomorrow evening, same time.” He glanced at
Scott, who was frowning. “Scott?” The JAG officer, he noted, had not spoken a word since concluding his own report.

  Scott hesitated, then looked at Jackson and said, “Robbie, you sure we’re not on a wild-goose chase here?”

  Jackson sighed.

  Of course he wasn’t sure. Not even close. And by running this unauthorized little operation he was risking four good careers. If he was wrong, and they acted, there could be courts-martial in it for all of them.

  And if he was right, and they didn’t?

  Chances were, more people would die.

  “Scottie, if it turns out there’s nothing there and we’re all chasing our tails? I’ll be the happiest damn squid in the whole damn bucket.”

  Indy chuckled softly. “Now, that is something I would pay money to see.”

  The three men turned to look at her.

  She gave another quiet laugh. “Master Chief Jackson—smiling.”

  55

  Color drained from the sky, painting the ocean in a palette of pewter and ash.

  Finn had found a tiny electronics access sponson, barely big enough for one person to squeeze in. From its tiny catwalk he had climbed out onto a small projection from the ship’s hull where he now sat, perched some ten feet above the water’s surface, straddling the jut with his legs and gazing out at the darkening ocean. Holding a white plastic bucket with one hand, he reached in with the other and withdrew a small slimy object.

  A chicken heart.

  He tossed it out into the sea churn.

  A huge shape leapt out of the water. There was a harsh clump of jaws closing and the thing crashed back into the water.

  A swirl of bubbles curled around it and vanished.

  Finn had been observing the tiger shark for hours, watching it trail alongside the Lincoln, trying to parse just why it was there. Yes, tiger sharks liked to hunt alone, at night, and they favored warm waters. But this far from the shallows? Out in the middle of the ocean? It shouldn’t have been there. Yet there it was.