Steel Fear

by Brandon Webb

  Which meant at least one of them would be coming after him. Because Finn himself was the most obvious suspect. There were a dozen airtight circumstantial reasons that said he was the one who did these things.

  Which forced the sobering question:

  Was he?

  He had no solid memories of his whereabouts those hours during which both Schofield and Shiflin went missing. Or Santiago. Or the two E-2s in recycling.

  So, yes, technically speaking, it was possible.

  The one they were looking for, the killer—it could be him.

  The notion made no sense to Finn. No sense at all. Why would he kill Schofield? Or Biker? Or any of them? Yes, Finn knew what it was to kill another human being. Had done so himself, more than once. But not like this. No, he didn’t for a moment think he would have done these killings.

  The problem was, he couldn’t remember.

  He needed to.

  Mukalla he would deal with later. First things first. He needed to clear himself on the boat before he faced what was waiting for him off the boat.

  Which meant he needed to ID their killer.

  Assuming it wasn’t himself.

  Focus.

  Remember.

  According to Stevens, he did remember, it was just that those particular memories were locked away in a cave and there was a bear in there. He needed to get past the bear. Stevens said you didn’t just charge in, but that’s exactly what Finn had done in his office. He made a run at the bear, and it whacked him.

  He needed to go back into that cave again, but as quiet as a shadow. To tread carefully, one memory fragment at a time.

  Not poke the bear.

  Stalk it.

  In the dark, Finn sat up, swiveled, and placed his bare feet square on the cold deck.

  Slowly, he breathed in through his nostrils.

  Let the breath hold itself for four, five, six, seven seconds.

  Slowly let it out, through his mouth.

  And in, through his nostrils.

  And let it pause.

  And out, through his lips.

  And in.

  Where did you grow up?

  104

  Midnight.

  Lew Stevens sat hunched over his desk, consulting the little notebook he’d been using to keep his Finn research notes. He’d hit a brick wall at age thirteen, when Finn first showed up in Southern California. When he’d seemed to appear out of nowhere.

  He knew, or could at least surmise based on the evidence thus far, that a thirteen-year-old boy named Finn Something had first appeared in Southern California without any evident family or family history, most likely from somewhere nearby. He decided to broaden his search radius to include western Arizona and western Nevada. He considered the northern tip of Mexico, from Tijuana to Ensenada, but he thought it more likely that they were dealing with an American boy from a contiguous American state.

  And with some sort of traumatic past.

  Car accident? Too enormous a data sector to search, and anyway, he had a hunch that what he was looking for involved trauma from some sort of violent crime. Home invasion. Shooting. Domestic violence.

  He began combing through news archives for stories of violent crime whose victims or witnesses included boys age ten to thirteen.

  After a fruitless half hour, he widened his search area to all of Arizona and all of Nevada. Nothing. He pushed the boundaries out to include western Oregon. Still nothing. Then all of Oregon.

  And, bang. He found something.

  105

  0045 hours.

  Where did you grow up? That was the question Stevens had asked, so that’s where Finn started.

  He was surprised how difficult it was. He tried to stay on one memory, to bring it more sharply into focus and see how far he could play it, but it would shift and crackle and blur and another completely unrelated memory would cut in. Like radio signals gone awry in an ocean of static.

  Running through the trees, the sun-dappled forest floor…Boyd, scrabbling to reorient himself, getting sucked into the maw of the destroyer’s ballast pump…following deer tracks with Ray…sitting against the interior wall of the brick-and-plaster dwelling, heat lightning searing his field of vision…black blood pooling, flies buzzing—

  His eyes jerked open as a wave of nausea slammed into him, knocking him breathless. The darkness of his cell felt terrifying.

  Breathe in, let it hold, four, five, six, seven, breathe out.

  Breathe in…

  During the pool competency phase in BUD/S, instructors would devise the most fiendish torments possible—tie your air hose in knots, rip your respirator out of your mouth, shackle your wrists to your feet, anything to push you to the point where you had to come up and gasp for air. But if you did, you flunked, and Finn had seen a dozen guys pass out underwater and pop unconscious to the surface like dead goldfish. Not Finn. He would just sink to the bottom and sit, waiting out the instructor.

  He needed to do that now, to sink to the bottom of this dark pool. And wait.

  He closed his eyes and sank.

  Sun-dappled forest floor…following deer tracks with Ray…Ray making grilled cheese sandwiches…the place by the millstream where you could lie down and watch the minnows and goldfish and frogs and the—

  His eyes jerked open as he gasped for air, the wave of nausea slamming into him again, nearly forcing him back onto the rack’s thin mattress.

  He fought it, rocking forward and back, slowing, stilling himself. Gripped the edge of the bunk with both hands. Drew a shuddering breath in, then heaved it out with a whoosh. Then another. And another, slower, more measured.

  And again, slipping down into the deep.

  Remembering.

  The cabin in the woods, canopy of broadleaf maples, scent of grand firs…

  * * *

  —

  It was almost an hour before he found it.

  He was deep in early memories (fat slice of chocolate cake on a plate, a dimly lit kitchen) when his eyes jerked open again—for the tenth time? eleventh? twentieth?—and he burst back up to the surface.

  His hands had gone numb, his cell filled with a buzzing sound.

  He shook his head.

  It was that ringing in his ears, the same one he’d experienced a few weeks earlier with Tom the Ordie. They’d been down in that flare magazine, talking about Biker the jet pilot and how she never drank coffee—

  And that was when he heard it.

  Somewhere in the depths of Finn’s brain there came a soft click—a neurochemical spark flying between temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex as one among thousands of innocuous memory fragments suddenly burst open, a single rocket against the night sky.

  Coffee.

  Finn sat straight.

  Closed his eyes again.

  Sorted through the stills and clips.

  Saw images of sailors getting coffee at Jittery Abe’s—dozens, hundreds, thousands of sailors, a forest of lattes, a landscape of grande double-shots.

  And one coffee order that didn’t fit.

  “Americano, tall,” he heard her say.

  A short, black-haired jet pilot.

  Biker.

  Who never drank coffee.

  He opened his eyes and called out to his jailer.

  “Hey, Frank,” he said. “I need to get a message out.”

  106

  0145 hours.

  “Well, look at you,” said Jackson. “Mouthed off to the teacher, got yourself sent to the principal’s office again. Some kids never learn.”

  “I have something,” said the voice behind the steel mesh–covered door.

  “It’s late, Chief Finn.” Jackson looked at his watch. “No, as a matter of fact it’s early. Too early for BS.”

  “A lead.”r />
  Jackson shook his head. “Time for a lead’s behind us. Suspect charged, sentenced, executed by propeller. Or hadn’t you heard.”

  The SEAL didn’t reply. He had to know that Jackson suspected him. What game he was playing at now, Jackson couldn’t begin to guess at.

  He sighed. “What’s the lead.”

  “The jet pilot who disappeared. Biker.”

  Jackson stiffened. Hearing the woman’s name spoken by the man who very possibly killed her…it gave him the creeps. “Lieutenant Shiflin,” he said.

  “She got coffee. Three times. August first, August fourth. August eighth.”

  August eighth. The day she disappeared.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She didn’t drink coffee.”

  Jackson rubbed his big hand over his head. Madone. “She bought a cup of coffee for a co-worker. Heck of a breakthrough, Columbo.”

  “Not a co-worker.”

  Jackson got to his feet.

  “Have your intel person look at her schedule on those days,” said the voice behind the grate.

  Jackson shook his head. “She’s already done that.”

  “Not with the squadron. With her day job.”

  “This is what I’m saying. She’s gone over all those schedules, from a week before each disappearance to a week after. Gone over them with an electron microscope. There’s nothing there.”

  “Have her look closer.”

  “If you say so.” Jackson stepped away from the solitary cell and toward the outer door. “Good talk.”

  “Jackson.”

  Jackson stopped. Had the man ever called him by his name before?

  “Have her look closer.”

  107

  0200 hours.

  Lew had been at it now for nearly two hours.

  He’d found a short piece in an eastern Oregon newspaper on a shooting incident in a rural unincorporated community along the Snake River, by the Oregon-Idaho border. Hunting accident? Robbery? The piece didn’t say, only that two young boys were found at the scene, ages eight and eleven; that the younger boy had been transported to an area hospital; and that the parents were still being located.

  It didn’t give either of the boys’ names, nor did it mention the fate of the older boy.

  Eight years old. Lew noted the date of the article and did the simple math. It fit. The younger boy could be Finn.

  Continuing his search, he’d found a second story from the following day, and then another—and then, silence. He scoured larger newspapers in the bigger cities to the west, looked up local network affiliate newscasts. Nothing.

  Whatever happened, it had generated buzz for something like twenty-four hours and then the lid had clamped down. Curious.

  He browsed some more, leaving behind the incident and following minor tributaries and feeder streams. About a month later he stumbled upon a “Letters to the Editor” entry that asked the question, whatever happened to the search for the boys’ parents? He found no trace of an answer.

  He went back to the original article and reread it. In the latter part of the piece, they ran a brief quote from the detective on the scene. Dalton Mosley.

  He looked at the name. Talk about a long shot: this was nearly thirty years ago. Was there any chance the man was still on the force?

  He looked up the number of the local police department there and placed the call. Not quite eight o’clock in the morning, their time, and he figured he’d still get the night desk. He was not expecting a geyser of information.

  “Crane Neck Police Department, Jerry Anderson speaking.”

  “Good morning, Officer Anderson. The name is Lewis Stevens, I’m a lieutenant with the navy, staff psychologist for the USS Abraham Lincoln. On board right now, somewhere in the Pacific.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m wondering if by any chance there’s still a Dalton Mosley on active duty with your department?”

  “Mosley?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for some background information on a case he worked on, that’d be nearly thirty years ago now. Eight-year-old boy, some kind of accident. First name Finn, don’t have a last name.”

  “Mosley?”

  Ah. Definitely not a geyser.

  “Yes,” Lew repeated. “Detective Dalton Mosley. He would have been active there in the early nineties.”

  “Early nineties?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hang on.” After an interminable wait, the voice came back on. “Retired.”

  “Yes, I was kind of expecting that. Would it be possible to get in touch with him?”

  “With Mosley?”

  So this is how major crimes are solved, thought Lew.

  “Yes, please. If that’s possible. It’s important,” he added. “Could be a matter of life and death.”

  “Hang on.” Good Lord. Another wait, as long as the morning line at Jittery Abe’s.

  The voice finally returned. “Moved to Montana.”

  “Ah,” said Lew. “Do we have any idea where in Montana? A phone number, maybe?” He expected another “Hang on” followed by a wait long enough to usher in the Rapture, but was surprised to get an immediate response.

  “Bozeman, somewhere. Don’t have a number.”

  “All right,” Lew said, feeling a combination of defeat and triumph. “Well, thank you very much.”

  The man had already hung up.

  Bozeman, period. No address, no phone number. Not much of a thread. But at least he knew where to start.

  Lew thought about the legend of Theseus threading his way through the labyrinth. Except that Theseus had followed the thread to find his way out after he’d slain the beast. Lew was finding his way in.

  Into the heart of the labyrinth.

  He wondered what sort of Minotaur he might find when he got there.

  108

  0208 hours.

  Captain Eagleberg had been asleep no more than forty-five minutes when he was awakened by a phone call from the bridge letting him know he was needed up top, right away. At the bridge he found an aerographer’s mate from the weather shop waiting for him, who informed him that there was a major tropical storm system ahead; that it had abruptly changed direction and was now on course to slam Hawaii over the next ten hours; and that they were saying it might make landfall as a Cat 5, their worst on record.

  The captain closed his eyes.

  “Balls,” he said.

  He opened his eyes again and saw his XO had joined them just in time to get the gist of things.

  “We’re going to have to skirt the whole damn island chain,” the captain said.

  Gaines nodded. “We are.”

  “Balls,” the captain muttered once more.

  “Sir,” said Gaines, “shall I get started moving all the aircraft below and getting everything secured?”

  Eagleberg nodded.

  “We should probably notify the family members in Hawaii,” added Gaines.

  Eagleberg closed his eyes again. Dear Christ. No port call. No Tiger Cruise. A thousand eager friends and family anticipating the experience of a lifetime, a week on a real aircraft carrier! Not going to happen.

  What a Christ Almighty cock-and-balls disaster.

  Christ to hell. Shit, piss, and corruption.

  Why was this happening to him? Eagleberg was starting to wonder if there wasn’t some truth to that goddamn rumor about that goddamn ghost shark. Schofield, damn him. Damn all of them. He was not going to let this take down his career.

  “We should also notify the crew,” Gaines was saying.

  Eagleberg opened his eyes, took a breath. “Later,” he said. “Not now.”

  “Aye, Skipper. Make the announcement at chow?”

  The captain leaned against the back of his big leather COMMANDI
NG OFFICER chair and rubbed his forehead. “No. Maybe. We’ll see.”

  109

  0533 hours.

  She couldn’t sleep. Lord knew she was beyond tired. In the last twenty hours she’d burned through enough adrenaline to call in a week of sleep. Yet sleep would not come.

  Monica could feel the distant swell and heave of the ocean. Somewhere out there, a storm was brewing.

  She left her stateroom and crept below to the hangar deck. Sat at her desk, looking at her silver Rubik’s cube and its scrambled array of black dots.

  The onyx eyes looked back.

  “Shit,” she said.

  She’d gone at these last few weeks all wrong. Monica worked out the solutions to impossible puzzles. She always knew to start with known quantities and find for X. Yet when her best friend went missing she’d done the opposite. She’d seized on a conclusion about the nature of X—Papa Doc’s guilt—and tried to work the equation backward from there. She’d let herself be completely swayed by her feelings.

  She’d been wrong about Papa Doc.

  What else had she been wrong about?

  She reached down and hauled out the big notebook.

  She’d spent weeks trying to understand how Diego could have so badly lost control. But what if it wasn’t “pilot error”? What if the investigating board had seized on a faulty conclusion?

  She leafed through the book’s pages, past the voice transmission transcripts, flipping forward to the final maintenance report, the one she’d conducted herself just hours before flight 204 lifted off. She remembered that inspection, every detail of it. That helo was in perfect condition when she sent it above on elevator 4.

  Fuel? Tested right there on the flight deck, moments before liftoff, as always. Right?

  “Let’s go to the videotape,” she murmured.