Steel Fear

by Brandon Webb

  Finn looked over at her for a moment, then went back to sketching. “Sounds like a job for NCIS.”

  “Nobody’s calling in NCIS, far as I can see.”

  “Talk to your chain of command.”

  “Not really an option.”

  “So why come to me?”

  “You’re a SEAL.”

  He slowly shook his head. “Not my fight.”

  This was true, technically speaking. Although not really. It had become his fight the day Schofield went missing. But he didn’t see how getting her involved would help the situation.

  She sat silent for a moment, watching him. “You have any brothers or sisters?”

  Finn’s hand paused for a long beat, then continued. “One brother. Ray.”

  “Is Ray a SEAL, too?”

  Finn shook his head. “He left that to me. Moved on to bigger and better things.”

  “Parents?”

  He shook his head again. “Dead.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  Finn glanced at her, then back at the ocean. “They died when I was a kid. I hardly remember them.”

  “Grandparents?”

  “Negative.”

  “So it’s just you and Ray.”

  “Just Ray and me.”

  She sat silent for another moment. Then turned to face him again. “I never had a sister. Brothers, but no sister. My friend Kris, who disappeared last week? She was my sister.” She kept looking at him. When he didn’t reply she spoke again in that same low fierce tone: “If someone killed Ray, what would you do?”

  Finn stopped. He set his pad and charcoal pencil down on the catwalk grating and turned to look her full in the face, eyeball to eyeball.

  Five seconds ticked by.

  He turned back to the horizon. “Not my fight.”

  She was silent, but he could feel her simmering fury. Finally she got up and walked back into the interior of the ship without another word. As she pulled the big hatch behind her Finn added one more comment.

  “It wasn’t your CO.”

  She froze for a moment. “How—?” Finn could practically hear the unvoiced question. How did he know she suspected her CO? But she stopped herself at the one word. After a moment, she shut the hatch.

  Finn picked up the pad and looked at what he’d drawn.

  Night scene, heat lightning. Shattered door.

  He stared at it for a moment.

  Lacunae.

  He tore off the sheet, crumpled it into a ball, tossed it overboard into the sea, and began again.

  67

  Jackson’s dinner, brought up to his office that evening, sat untouched on his coffee table, the master chief buried in his fourth reread of their interview notes.

  A little Adderall dealing, the occasional fistfight, people caught with their hands in each other’s pants; that stuff happened all the time. There was as much petty theft on board a naval warship as in any small city. Welcome to the human comedy. But homicide? Jesus. How were they supposed to deal with that?

  He rifled back through the pages, then tossed them on the coffee table and sank back. What they needed was hard, tangible evidence. Something that would take them logically from point A to point B to point C. Which was exactly what they did not have. No suspects, no witnesses, no weapons, no bodies. They were grasping at smoke.

  He glanced over at the God’s eyes gracing the office bulkheads.

  Divine surveillance.

  “If this were a city murder,” he said aloud, “it’d all be so damn easy.”

  Five’d get you ten the guy got robbed for money. CCTV footage’d show it all from ten different angles. Twenty-four hours max, and boom! you’ve got your man.

  But this wasn’t some American city. Shiflin and Schofield weren’t robbed, and the only CCTV they had was up on the flight deck. Which had revealed nothing.

  He looked again at the God’s eyes.

  “What I’d give,” he said, “to have a pair of especially observant eyes on board. Someone, say, who was trained to notice things.”

  He sighed.

  Commodities.

  Lew Stevens said he’d talked with a psychologist in Coronado who knew the SEAL from BUD/S days. Screened him, recommended he be flushed. Damaged goods, the guy said.

  Then again, how many top-tier SEALs had Jackson ever met who weren’t damaged goods?

  68

  The call for lights-out came at 2200, but there was still plenty going on around the ship. People peeling potatoes and soaking beans in the galley. Lots of mopping and cleaning everywhere. Up in the big hangars mechanics were taking planes apart and putting them back together. The ship that never sleeps, as Manny always said.

  And down here on deck 3, Luca Santiago was in the laundry, folding clothes.

  The other sailors hated working here. Working laundry was worse than peeling potatoes, they said, worse than swabbing decks.

  Not as far as Luca was concerned.

  He did his best not to let anyone know it, so they wouldn’t make fun of him. Secretly, though, Luca liked the laundry. He liked looking at all the clothes and thinking about who they might belong to.

  Who went with this pair of socks?

  Who put on this shirt?

  As he folded each item he would picture the person who wore it, sometimes even give them names and personalities, make up stories about them and where they came from.

  And Luca loved, absolutely loved, the smell of clean, pressed laundry.

  He picked up the stack of clean undershirts he was working on, pressed them to his face, and breathed in. Cielo! It made him think of summer in El Paso, of being in the woods all by himself, the clean pine-needle floor, no one there to pick on him or give him grief, just Luca, walking and smelling the grasses and the leaves and the moss.

  Being alone—that was another reason he liked it there in the laundry. There were other guys who worked there, of course, but they mostly left him to himself.

  Which meant he could talk to his friends.

  There was Manny, who was like an older brother to Luca.

  Little Boss, who was not too smart but very funny, and had a good heart.

  And there was Lulu, who liked Luca and was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

  Los amigos especiales. His special friends.

  He knew they weren’t real. Luca wasn’t stupid. But he’d never had any other friends. Ever since he was un niño pequeño he always had his special friends around. When they were there, he never felt lonely. Of course he knew they only lived in his head, but that was fine with Luca. That way he didn’t have to share them with anyone else.

  His Special Friend was different, though.

  His Special Friend really was real.

  Luca placed the last folded undershirt on top of the stack, then looked around to see that no one was watching. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out the note, and unfolded it carefully.

  He read it again, whispering the words out loud.

  Luca—I’ve got another secret assignment for you! Come to Sponson F, off the hangar deck, on the port side. I’ll be waiting for you tonight at 2400.

  Luca looked around once more, then carefully refolded the note and placed it back in his pocket.

  And smiled a secret smile.

  69

  Luca stepped through the hatch and out onto the tiny steel grate catwalk. His face lit up in a big smile when he saw his Special Friend.

  His Special Friend put his finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he said. “Close the hatch and come stand over here.”

  Luca closed the hatch, took a few steps, and stood over by the railing.

  “Now, we’re going to do something that will seem a little odd for a moment. But just go with it, okay?”

  Luca gave a sharp
nod. Of course.

  “Close your eyes. Just for a moment.”

  Luca closed his eyes.

  He felt his Special Friend put something around his mouth, some kind of strap, and fasten it behind his head. Then he instructed Luca to put his hands behind him, and he fastened them together with another strap around his wrists.

  Luca started to say, “What’s that for?” but of course it came out “Mwhh mwhh mwhh?” because of the strap tied over his mouth.

  He began to feel a little anxious.

  What kind of game was this, exactly?

  “It’s okay,” his Special Friend assured him. “Can you breathe okay through your nose?”

  Luca nodded.

  “Good,” said his Special Friend. “That’s good.”

  Luca felt a sharp sting in the neck, and then his Special Friend had him sit down on the catwalk and lean his back against the railing.

  “Now open your eyes.”

  Luca opened his eyes, though it took some effort. He was feeling strange all over.

  He tried to talk again, momentarily forgetting that he had that strap across his mouth—but strap or no strap, he couldn’t make any sound at all. Nothing. Not even a Mwhh mwhh mwhh.

  It was then that Luca Santiago understood.

  This was not a game.

  He was going to die.

  Manny! What’s going on? Why is this happening! he tried to scream—but there was only silence and the sounds of the water below and the strap around his mouth being unfastened.

  Now the strap loosened and came off, but he still couldn’t talk. He couldn’t do anything. He could feel everything, just like normal, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even blink.

  A sharp smell came to him. It was pee. His own pee. Oh, God—he had just peed right in his clean clothes, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was going to die right there in his own pee, and he would never smell clean pressed laundry, ever again.

  A great sadness welled up inside him.

  His Special Friend crouched down in front of him and looked into his eyes.

  “Luca, Luca,” the man said softly. “We need to turn that frown upside down!” He picked up Luca’s right hand, holding it up between them by the thumb. “Let’s play another game.”

  With his other hand he brought out a pair of metal snips.

  “This little piggy went to market,” he said in a soft singsong.

  He placed the snips’ two little arms on either side of Luca’s little finger, right where it connected to his hand.

  Luca knew what was going to happen next, yet somehow he did not feel afraid. There wasn’t room to feel any fear. The great sadness crowded out everything else. No more dancing, no more song. No more life.

  It was more than he could bear.

  There was a soft crunching sound.

  An explosion of pain crashed through him, blotting out all his thoughts. He was dimly aware of the man holding up Luca’s little finger and tossing it overboard. “Didn’t really need that one,” the man murmured, and he smiled at Luca, an empty smile that made Luca’s flesh crawl.

  “And this little piggy stayed home.” He held up the snips again.

  There was blood on them now.

  Crunch.

  Another explosion of pain, way worse than before, like his whole arm was on fire, all the way up to his neck. Not being able to scream made the pain even worse.

  The man tossed his ring finger overboard, too. Then something in the water must have caught his attention, because he looked down over the rail and said, “Well, hello.” He turned to Luca. “Looks like you have a new special friend!”

  Luca didn’t want a new special friend. All he wanted was to be back in the laundry room again—or alone in the woods at home in El Paso, where he could lie down on the moss by himself and weep openly.

  The snips. His middle finger.

  “This little piggy had roast beef.”

  Crunch!

  KAAAAAH! In his mind Luca screamed at the top of his lungs. In his body, he just sat there on the catwalk, sadder than the saddest song he ever heard.

  “And this little piggy…”

  Crunch!

  “That’s your pointer finger, Luca.” The man was crouching in front of him again now, holding the severed finger up to Luca’s face so he could see it. “And you know what? This one I actually need!”

  He dropped Luca’s index finger into a little plastic sandwich bag and put it in his pocket. Then he set down the snips and turned back to Luca.

  “And this big little piggy?”

  He grabbed Luca with both hands, under the arms, got him upright and turned around, leaning him over the rail so his eyes looked down.

  That was when Luca saw it, too.

  And now he was afraid—so terrified that all thoughts of El Paso and the laundry room and sadness and pain vanished with a POP! and in his mind he shrieked and shrieked and shrieked—

  Down there, down in the water, was an enormous fish, the biggest fish Luca had ever seen. With teeth.

  And stripes, like a tiger.

  “And this little piggy—” the man grunted with effort as he lifted Luca up and over the railing “—goes Wee! Wee! Weeeeeee!…”

  Luca was in the water.

  Luca was in the teeth.

  I’ll miss you, whispered Lulu.

  70

  “Morning,” said the big man as he set his tray down and slid into the seat next to Finn’s. Eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy. “Thought I might find you here.”

  Finn nodded. “Only place you can get a decent poached egg.” Two poached eggs, one sliced mango. Although he wasn’t there for the food.

  He was there for Jackson.

  The master chief put back a fist-sized bite of sausage. “Yesterday,” he said after a moment, “you asked, how goes the investigation. I’m curious what exactly you meant by that.”

  Man didn’t beat around the bush.

  “Someone’s got to chase down the clues,” said Finn. “But quietly, so you don’t spook the crew. Which means a small task force. Probably just you, Supercop, and one or two others.”

  “Supercop?”

  Finn took a spoon and tapped it twice against his leg. Tink, tink.

  Jackson let out a long sigh. “I don’t like you, Mister Finn.”

  There was nothing to say to that.

  “I don’t like you, and I sure as hell don’t trust you. So just so you understand, I’m throwing up in my mouth a little when I say this. I want your help.”

  Finn said nothing. Everyone wanted his help. Popular guy.

  “Specifically, as an intelligence asset.”

  Finn pointed his fork at himself. “Not exactly a homicide detective.”

  “Neither am I. But that’s what you do, right? Observe?”

  Finn cut off a slice of mango and ate it before replying. “Captain know you’re recruiting the spy?” He sensed the master chief stiffen. Finn put down his utensils and looked at the other man. “You’re doing this on your own?”

  Jackson kept eating.

  Finn picked up his fork and knife again and went back to his breakfast. After a moment he said, “Whoa.”

  They both cleared territory on their plates, the lull in conversation filled by the ambient sounds of clanking cutlery and three dozen chief petty officers talking.

  “I can help,” said Finn.

  Without looking at him, Jackson said, “Why do I feel like I’m about to hear the drop of another shoe?”

  Finn said, “There’s a file I need to see.” He took another bite and waited.

  Jackson took a long pull on his coffee, set it down, and grunted. Still staring straight ahead, he said, “Commodities.”

  “Commodities,” said Finn. “Call and respon
se. Like in church.”

  Jackson sighed. He pushed his plate away, leaned back in his seat, and said, “I’m all ears.”

  Finn pushed his plate back, too. “July twenty-nine. There was an incident in Yemen, little farm settlement on the outskirts of Mukalla. Somewhere at SOCOM there’s an incident file.”

  “And you’re in the file.”

  Finn took a slow sip of water. “And I’m in the file.”

  Jackson finally looked at him. “Are you in the file as a white hat, or black hat? Or some shade of gray?”

  “I guess we’ll know when we see the file.”

  “Ah,” said Jackson. “And you’re telling me this why?”

  “I’ve been locked out.”

  Jackson grunted.

  “You’ve got some sharp intel people on board,” said Finn. “Probably one right in your little task force.”

  Jackson grunted again. He seemed to Finn to be going through an internal debate, one he was in no rush to resolve. Finally the CMC said, “Official information notwithstanding, word on the street has it you’re out on some sort of medical leave. Any idea why that is?”

  Finn blinked once as he reorganized his data. Medical leave. Stan L. was right on the money. Not just a leper. An invisible leper. Not just exiled. Erased.

  Jackson squinted at him, as if to see him better. Then he leaned back in his seat. “Sonofabitch,” he murmured. “You didn’t know that, did you.”

  Finn didn’t reply.

  “But you’re not surprised.”

  Finn took a slow drink of water from his glass. “I’m never—”

  The bosun’s whistle erupted from the 1MC.

  “All personnel report——ster stations. All pers——muster stations.”

  Finn and Jackson looked at each other.

  A second announcement came over the speaker. “Master Chief Jacks——port to medical.”

  Jackson frowned and got to his feet.

  So did Finn. “Time to observe,” he said.

  71

  It was a finger. A fat, bloody index finger, sitting on a bed of gauze in a small stainless-steel container. Severed at the first joint, turned slightly bluish-gray and already puckering.