by David Poyer
Lam nodded to the guys behind Teddy. Metal clanked. A series of clanks, as if something was being wound up. He leaned close. “You left something in the dunes. It didn’t hurt us, though. Just blew out a few circuits.
“But you never told us about it.”
Teddy didn’t answer. Real fear stirred in his gut now. The kind he hadn’t felt for a long time.
Lam reached behind him, and metal clinked again. In a lazy voice he murmured, “You are helpless, my friend. There is no way out. Do you realize that now?”
“Hey,” Teddy muttered. “Look, I’m cooperating. I’m your guy now.”
Lam’s eyebrows went up. “Yes? But now, you see, we do not care. It is too late. What Kuo did, those were the preliminaries. The major is a softhearted man.”
Lam leaned close, and whispered into his ear, holding his gaze, smiling. “Now we will start the real interrogation.”
24
USS Savo Island
THE exec’s stateroom was much smaller than Aisha’s. Made sense; hers was a suite, to host a commodore or an admiral. Still, she felt trapped when the door closed and Staurulakis gestured her to the only other chair, between the sink and a filing cabinet. Diminutive Chief Toan lurked like an uncertain shadow in the open doorway. Until Aisha murmured, “I’m sorry, I know it’s late, but … And maybe we’d better keep this private.”
Staurulakis blew lank greasy-looking hair out of her eyes. “Sheriff? You mind?”
The door clicked closed. Aisha took the wrapped package out of her carpet-purse and set it on the exec’s bed. Staurulakis eyed it. “What’s that?”
“Something he left behind.”
The commander folded small hands and glanced away. In the overhead light shadows were engraved under her eyes. “Tell me what happened. I got a partial report—”
“Probably not much more I can tell you. I was returning to my cabin from the wardroom. Where you and I were talking, over the chili.”
“I remember.” Glancing away again, at the file cabinet. What did the woman see in her face, that she kept evading her gaze? “Go ahead.”
“I opened the door. It was unlocked. I didn’t notice that at first, but when I hit the switch, the room stayed dark.”
“Same as in the hangar. And the fan room. Then what?”
“I ran to my desk, for my gun, but he came out of the dark and grabbed me. Tall. A grating voice. Short hair. With a knife. There was a struggle. I got in a couple of licks with my baton. He may be marked.”
“You told the chief corpsman? To watch for someone with wounds, bruises?”
“Seaman Ryan did. She came in. Just at the last minute. He was—” She took a breath, fighting not to show how she felt, what even then closed her throat as she remembered it. The stairwell. “He was on top of me, getting ready. She opened the door and he … tried for my neck, with the knife.”
“Tried to kill you?”
“Yes. And it was a serious try. You can see the marks on the floor tile.”
“Attempted murder as well as rape.” When Aisha nodded, the exec said, “All right … and what’s this?” She waved at the bunk.
Aisha undid the brown paper. She’d photographed it in place. Now it lay exposed, sealed in transparent plastic with evidence tape, marked for ID with her initials and the date. A worn-soft baby-blue blanket. Blue satin bindings banded the ends. So old patches were turning brown, although those might also be stains. She didn’t want to think from what.
Staurulakis extended a hand, but Aisha grabbed her wrist. “The lab’s going to want trace/touch DNA.”
“It looks soft.”
“There’s a tag. Pure lamb’s wool. Made in the U.S. Probably fifty years old, maybe older.”
“This is what he put on the deck, to rape the victim on?”
“A compulsion. Part of the script he has to reenact.”
Staurulakis trailed her fingers over the plastic covering, then turned brisk. “So who is it?”
Aisha grimaced. “On the basis of the voice, I’m going to eliminate one suspect. This guy was disguising his voice, but he’s American. I caught a glimpse of his hair, from behind, in silhouette. When the door opened. Almost brush-cut. Which eliminates another … whose hair is … cowlicked, wild.”
“Wenck,” the exec said. “I know, you can’t give me names. Which leaves who?”
Aisha tilted her head, not wanting to say it, then deciding she didn’t have to. “There are still three names on my list. One more than I want to go to an Article 32 hearing with.”
Staurulakis shook her head and sighed. A tap at the door. The exec flinched. “Who is it?”
From outside: “Me. For the trash.”
“C’mon in, Longley.”
The wardroom messman crept in, his ax-like costive face narrowly focused across the room. He grabbed the metal wastebasket, started back to the door, then glanced at the bunk. Turned back, picked up the blanket, and folded it over his arm.
“Longley,” Staurulakis sputtered, jumping up, as did Aisha too, horrified. “What the … what the fuck are you doing?”
He halted, frowning at them. Looked at it, in his hands, then back at them. Murmured, angrily, “What are you guys doing with Dr. Noblos’s blanket? Belongs at the foot of his bunk. What, did the laundry drop it here? Those assholes. Where’s the laundry chit?”
The two women stared at him, mouths open.
* * *
AN hour later, in the scientist’s stateroom. Toan was with them. The exec had confirmed with a call that Noblos was in CIC. Aisha had her SIG, loaded and with a round in the chamber, stuffed into the back of her cargo pants. Just in case he returned, and caught them here.
The whole way down she’d been cursing herself. Though understanding why she’d missed him.
The civilian wasn’t on the ship’s roster. He was a supernumerary, a rider, like her. So he’d never been given a questionnaire. Never popped in any of her investigations about who’d been on watch when. Because he didn’t stand watches.
The Invisible Man. And one with the skills to account for the lacunae on the camera tapes.
His cabin was so clean as to seem uninhabited, full of shining, polished surfaces. The air-conditioned chill was enhanced by the absence of any photos, the lack of any stamp of personality. Longley, who was with them too, said he wasn’t allowed to clean, only to pick up laundry and empty the wastebasket; Noblos did his own room. And the room was immaculate. The freshly waxed deck tiles reflected their faces. The clothing in the drawers was as neatly folded as if by a professional valet. Even the toilet articles were carefully arranged, with three toothbrushes, all with red handles, aligned in a rack to dry, as if employed in rotation.
Aisha told the master-at-arms and the steward to stand back, as chain-of-custody witnesses, while she tossed the place. Staurulakis was spinning the dial on the personal safe above the desk, peering at a slip of paper; the exec held the combinations to all the safes on the ship.
Hands sheathed in blue nitrile gloves, Aisha checked the usual hidey-holes: behind drawers, under the mattress, under the bunk frames. Inside the ventilator diffusers, which were easy to remove by unscrewing them. She’d seen some imaginative uses made of common fixtures, for hiding drugs, but came up empty. She unscrewed the cover plates on the electrical outlets. Opened each book and binder, held them over the bed, and shook them.
“Nothing much in here.” The exec closed the safe with a dull clank.
“He knows you have access. Does he have a computer? A notebook?”
“Carries it with him. Probably has it up in CIC right now.”
She grimaced. If he had files about his activities, a log, they’d most likely be on his machine. But in the end, it was the exec who said, fingering through a small, perfectly aligned row of plastic software and video boxes, “We looking for media?”
“Digital media? With this guy, could be. Sure.”
“Recordable DVDs. In boxes marked MDA—Missile Defense Agency?”
But there were no diaries. No letters. Most serial sexual offenders kept some sort of score sheet, or trophies, so they could reenact their fantasies. Unless the disks contained that. But then, wouldn’t they have names, or dates?
Maybe she was assuming too much. “Longley, where did you see the blanket? You said it was his. Are you absolutely sure of that?”
“Right there at the foot of his bed. I started to take it once, to get it cleaned. He shouted at me to leave it there.”
Aisha studied the foot of the bunk. She put her hands behind her back and bent closer, studying the seam where the frame abutted the bulkhead.
Then, with a yank, pulled it outward.
Metal clattered to the deck, and light spun from chromed steel. Staurulakis sucked air audibly. Toan murmured something under his breath in Vietnamese, and crossed himself.
The blade shone in the overhead glare. Aisha fitted the evidence bag around it, not touching it. “Chief, sign this form? Commander? This confirms you were present when I searched the room, and lists what we found. Four recordable DVDs. One Case-brand hunting knife, four-inch blade, chrome or nickel plated, with a bone handle.”
Staurulakis signed the form and handed it to Toan. “Okay. What now?”
“Run prints on the jewel boxes. Check out what’s on the DVDs.”
“Confront him? Get a confession?”
She glanced at the door. “Chief, keep an eye on that passageway, will you?… It might be better to wait for him to notice they’re missing. Then he has to find out if we have them, or if someone else does. I’ve done that before. Somebody this smart, he won’t be easy to intimidate.”
Staurulakis said, “I have to report this to the captain. He needs to know before we take any action.”
Aisha looked around the space one last time. Spotless, almost sterile, filled with reflecting, polished surfaces. Like the blade that had almost killed her.
She nodded. “Then we’d better see him as soon as we can.”
* * *
DAN lay exhausted in his sea cabin, listening to the mumble of voices from the next deck up. He longed to sleep, but worry kept hauling him back. He sat up, picked up the J-phone to ask the corpsman for something. Then hung up again without hitting the call buttons. He was groggy enough without meds. His chest felt tight. The cough was worse. Some of the crew had reported relapses. Legionellosis was notorious, Grissett had told him, for hanging on. Sometimes for months.
They were back off Miyako Jima, in nearly the same defensive positions as before the task group’s incursion into the Taiwan Strait. But with a smaller and less capable force posture.
Mitscher had been hit hard during the action, with seven dead and many more injured. One missile had punched through the side by the boat deck, and torn a great hole just aft of CIC. Another had impacted aft. The third had struck the water close aboard and bounced into the hull. She had fire damage, antenna damage, and casualties from blast, burns, and smoke inhalation. Stony Stonecipher had reported he was no longer combat ready. Dan had detached her, and she was limping back to Guam.
He’d inspected Savo’s own damage as they departed the strait. Looked over the forecastle by the shielded light of a flashlight, at twisted, smoking steel, peeled back like the skin of an orange.
The skimmer had come in from astern, most likely from the sub they hadn’t localized. Though Mills had pointed out it could also have been air-launched, programmed to loop the ship and approach from astern to maximize surprise.
At any rate, it had come in so fast—transonic, or even supersonic—and so low that they’d picked up on it only seconds before impact. Savo’s electronic countermeasures had managed to spoof it away from the centroid, the center of area most seekers calculated as their target. But not far enough to miss entirely.
Hitting at an angle, the warhead had penetrated to the paint locker before going off. The blast had blown off everything forward of the wildcat. Lifelines, bow bulwarks, bullnose, ground tackle, and both anchors. One entire anchor chain, which had run out with a grating rumble for several minutes after the hit. And the upper part of the stem, down to six feet above the waterline. When they’d gotten the fire under control, Dan had ordered them to cut away the damage. This left Savo with a gaping hole up forward, like a syphilitic’s missing nose. “We’ll have to call her Old Shovelnose from here on,” Pardees had remarked. The damage-control teams were busy welding and shoring interior bulkheads, but he’d have to avoid taking any heavy seas head-on.
Lying in his bunk, Dan wondered how many more surprises the enemy had.
On the way out, the Japanese had reported receiving new orders. “Mount Shiomi” and “Mount Yari” had been withdrawn from his task force. Losing Chokai and Kurama left a big hole in his defenses. He couldn’t help suspecting a lessening resolve on Tokyo’s part.
The Koreans had lost a frigate. But, in a truly heroic action, Admiral Jung had ordered his flagship to stop dead in the water where it had gone down. He’d rescued every man before heading north again.
From what little Dan had heard, they’d scored hits. Whether with Harpoon or torpedo, he wasn’t sure. Or so Fleet had said. Oh, not at first. The first message had dressed him down for leaving station and exceeding orders. An hour later, PaCom had congratulated him on a daring action. The next message from Seventh Fleet had grudgingly withdrawn its condemnation, citing losses among the invasion transports and escorts, but left a sense that he was still on the carpet for leaving station.
The J-phone trilled. He flinched; unsocketed it. “Captain.”
It was Singhe. “Sorry to wake you, sir—”
“Wasn’t asleep. Talk to me, Amy.”
“Uh, yessir. We’re seeing more transports crossing.”
“Reinforcements. More divisions.”
“Uh, yessir, looks like it.”
“What else?”
“They’re beefing up on the Senkakus. We’re also seeing increased air activity in the Wenzhou-Ningbo region. Across from Okinawa.”
This was new. “How much? What kind? Significant?”
“I’m not sure. Just … increased activity.”
“Set GQ early if you see a threat coming. Everybody’s tired. We’ll need more time to man up.”
“Uh, I don’t see any movement our way yet. But there seem to be a lot of aircraft transiting from south to north along the coast.”
His fatigued brain gnawed at this. “Keep an eye on it. Is Captain Fang there? Anything on the fighting ashore?”
“He’s here. Stand by, I’ll put him on.”
Fang said the fighting on the beach was fierce. The ROC had sent in tanks against the perimeter. The mainlanders had heavy air cover, and were proving more adept at close air support of the beachhead than anyone had anticipated. They were also landing airborne troops at the airfield. He finished, “What is your intent, Dan? Are you going to reattack?”
A tickle in his throat; he cleared it. “Uh, not possible, Chip. We’re down to the bottom of the shot locker on ordnance. The Japanese have pulled out. I’m standing by for orders, whether to hold on till the battle group gets here, or what.”
“Roosevelt is due soon, correct?”
“That was the plan. They should arrive tomorrow.”
“Their fighters will help us regain air superiority. Push the invaders back into the sea.”
The tickle grew. He cleared his throat again, then started to cough. Uncontrollably, curling in his bunk like a deep-fried shrimp. White flares shot through his brain. “Crap,” he whispered, unable to draw a full breath. His fucking trachea was closing up. Where had he put the fucking inhaler?
“You all right, Dan?”
“Bao Shan was lost, Dan. Torpedoed and sunk on the way back to Hualien. Did I not tell you that?”
“Oh—yeah, guess you did. Well, Roosevelt will have a combat-support ship. We’ll refuel from her. Offload you, maybe to the battle group commander’s staff? To be his liaison.”
“It is possible. I’ll check with my command. They may want me back to fight.”
“Then we’ll probably be heading to Guam. Rearm, and get our bow repaired.” He sighed, thinking, And maybe get some sleep, too.
“Just a minute, Captain. The TAO wants the phone back.” A rattle, then: “Captain?”
“Still here, Amy.”
“Just came in. Chinese special forces have occupied Socotra Rock. The Ieodo Ocean Research Station.”
“Socotra … where the hell’s that?”
“There’s another island by that name off Yemen, but this one’s north of us. Halfway between the Chinese coast and Cheju-do, off Korea.”
“All right … call me in an hour. Or if anything changes.”
“Yes sir. Please get some sleep. You sound terrible.”
He fumbled the handset into its socket, then lay back in the dark. But far from relaxing, his mind tumbled and whirled anew.
Zhang wasn’t limiting the war, but widening it. Grabbing another advanced position. This time from the Koreans.
To punish Seoul for Jung’s attack? Or just to strike at another U.S. ally?
To intimidate Congress, meeting to vote on the force authorization?
Or just to stake another claim for the Greater China this new president and generalissimo had sworn to his troops was in their grasp?
He lay staring at the overhead, sweating, fighting down the cough. And gradually began the long dark oiled slide down into sleep. He turned over, rearranged his pillow.